Page 20 of React
“I’m really sorry for…” I mimicked my earlier flailing hands and stopped the second I noticed Fitz flinch again and take a cautious step away from me. Clearly my hands were now considered deadly weapons. “All that.”
“As if it never happened,” he said gruffly. “I need updates. Fitz, you got this?”
It took a moment for me to realize my shoulders had fallen at his words. I was a “this” that someone needed to get? Refusing to show even an ounce of dejection in front of this man, I squared my shoulders and stood as confidently as I could. There must have been a silent response because by the time my eyes had risen from their focus on the floor, Decker was already closing the door to the room they’d set aside for a command center.
What the fuck had just happened? I’d been avoiding Decker Mullins for so long that it hadn’t even occurred to me that he might be avoiding me too. But how had the man who’d just left been the same that had been holding me and whispering that it would be okay while rocking me? My body almost ached at the loss of contact, wanting his hand spread across my thigh all over again. Less comfort in his touch and more exploration.
“Let’s get you changed, so it's not so cold,” Fitz said with a warm smile.
“I’m not cold,” I said, frowning at the door that had been shut so quietly but with such finality.
“Sure about that?”
I turned to look at him and noticed his gaze pointedly staying above my shoulders. Looking down, I let out a frustrated growl at my hard nipples pressing against the thin fabric of my bikini top. Treacherous little bitches. “Damn it,” I mumbled, pulling the blanket over my shoulders again and stomping back up the stairs.
It wasn’t until I was back in my room that the text was back in my mind, swimming around my brain as I leaned back against the door. Someone had been watching me, taunting me with that information. I was far too aware of my state of undress and felt the need to put on every article of clothing in my drawers. Hurrying to change, I settled on some leggings and my largest sweater, ignoring the fact that the evenings weren’t all the chilly this type of year. A deep chill had settled into my bones and even the warmth of my sunburn couldn’t stop the slight shivers wracking my body.
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DECKER
Ipaced in front of the monitors lining the wall and took in as much detail as possible with each pass. There had to be something out of place. If someone had made it onto the property, it should have been caught somewhere. There was nothing caught on camera, and not even a footprint unaccounted for when the property had been combed by my men.
Kasey was already on a video call typing furiously as he cursed under his breath. He wasn’t alone in the frustrated curses that had been muttered by Cabot as well as he oversaw the search of the property.
“I don’t fucking get it. There is no trace of even a car passing by in the last 24 hours. And we swept the estate for cameras or mics before we set up there ourselves.” Kasey was talking to himself as he scanned the computer on his end. His words did nothing to comfort the storm building in me. I could feel tension rising higher within me as I was forced to face the fact that someone had been close enough to Lake to watch her and taunt her. To touch her, which they would when this game became boring. Fitz had said as much as he’d studied the text message like it was some ancient scroll.
“We’re going to have to sweep again,” I bit out in a tone that had the entire room halting to look at me. Even Kasey had turned his attention to the screen with our room displayed. I knew that I sounded almost inhuman in my growl, but I was beyond caring at this point. Lake was being toyed with and she was my responsibility. I felt the soul's deep need to destroy anything that brought that look back to her face. Turning away from the group and focusing on the feeds, my eyes slid to the black screen indicating Lake’s room. I couldn’t help the onslaught of images coming back to me from only a few minutes before; my body demanding I relive every second, if only to pretend I was still wrapped around her.
I had heard the pounding footsteps above us as she’d run, and I’d been out the kitchen door before I’d even heard the voice of Kasey calling out to me urgently. I could hear the panic in her very footfalls. I’d made it to the stairs just in time to see Lake sliding off the third step from the bottom and pitch forward before I’d grabbed her protectively and set her back down on the floor. She’d been whiter than I’d expected of a woman who’d just been sleeping in the sun, body trembling as she finally looked up at me. The absolute terror in her eyes froze my heart.
She’d been waving her phone in my face, oblivious to its locked status and my inability to actually see the screen, so I’d had Kasey forward it to my phone. My blood had gone from pumping through me frantically to halting completely as the icy knife of fear carved down my spine. The words were taunting, clearly intending to let them know she wasn’t safe despite the amount of armed guards.
Hope you got enough sun. Next time, try to keep the top on. You never know who is watching.
“Mother fucker,” I’d hissed as Cabot barked out orders through the earpiece they all wore. My gaze met Lake’s and whatever she saw in my face had her taking a shaking step back before almost collapsing. I barely made it to her to wrap my arms around her and settle us both to the ground.
This hadn’t been how Fitz had helped her when she was breaking down earlier and a small voice niggled at me to get this woman off my lap and let the professional of our team handle it, but the sensation of Lake in my arms felt too fucking perfect for me to even contemplate moving. Her head was pressed against my chest and her body curled up against me as I let my hand wander up the back of her neck, soothing the tension with my fingers. I hadn’t meant to say a word, but they’d come flowing out of me in whispers of comfort. I was still all reaction and no thought when it came to her, but as I felt her body relax into me as I’d rocked her slightly, I began to feel the edge wearing off my hard battle-ready exterior. Fuck, my body longed to keep holding her, my fingers on her bare thigh flexing as she shivered against me.
The feel of her matching her breathing to mine and her ass in my lap wiggling as she burrowed closer, had an inconvenient stirring within me that immediately halted when Fitz entered the hall and Lake had smacked the shit out of my dick in an attempt to scramble up. Talk about aversion therapy right there. I’d been silently kicking myself for completely leaving all duties to the men around me while I’d just held onto Lake, so much so that I couldn’t even make eye contact with Fitz as I’d left him with her so I could escape.
Fitz had come back ten minutes later informing the room that Lake had changed and would be in the library, and then stood in a corner, pouring over the text. I’d had a hard time keeping my gaze from falling back to the library feed, studying the woman almost accusingly.
“There’s no sign that anyone has been on the property or even near it. We even spoke with the neighbor’s son, and he let our men check every vantage point from his house to the estate here and there isn’t a clear line of sight to the poolandhe told us no one else had been there except him the entirety of the three weeks he’s already been here.” Cabot seemed to be the only one keeping a professionally detached tone in all of this and I was grateful. I’d need to draw on my friend’s calm through this, even if the answers given only managed to piss me off even more. My eyes flicked to the screen displaying the feed for the library where Lake was now dressed in sweats that looked two sizes too big for her, curled into the velvet wing back chair farthest from any doors or windows. Immediately my body ached to wrap her up again, but I shook off the desire, instead focusing on the fallout from this fucked up power play by whoever was targeting her.
“Run that neighbor through every database we have. If he so much as cheated on a fucking test in high school, I want to know about it.”
“I’ve already put him through the system, Deck.” Kasey sounded like he was talking to someone slightly out of touch with reality.
“Then do it again,” I hissed through a tightly clenched jaw. Kasey didn’t object, just jerked his head in a nod and disconnected. The phone I’d been gripping like a lifeline began to vibrate and ring in my hand, and once I’d seen the number, I couldn’t hide the grunt of irritation before answering.
“Mr. Harrington.”
“I was under the impression that when I hired the owners of a security company to look after my daughter, I would be getting the best; however, I have been assigned your more junior employees and have had no issues. That would all be well and good if not for the appalling fact that three men running this company have now lost a car following them and now a pervert watching my daughter.” The former senator sounded more worked up than I’d ever heard the man get for Lake. Maybe he did actually care. “I put a lot of money into this and it's a publicity nightmare waiting to happen if the wrong people get a hold of this mess.”
Ah, yes there it was. The concern hadn’t been for his daughter. His image as a man in control would be tarnished if we couldn’t stop him from having to live behind a wall of security. If something happened to Lake, he’d have to stop his own schedule to do something completely inconvenient, like be there for his own kid. Fucking prick.
“I’m sure your daughter would be very touched by your concern,” I said with a practiced indifferent tone. I could keep his emotions in check around men like Robert Harrington. “Ms. Harrington has been untouched and unharmed in both incidents, so I think that speaks for itself in regard to keeping her protected.”