Returning to Serena, I held the bottle out to her. “Sit up.”
A single, delicate brow arched. “I can drink all by myself.”
My eyes narrowed.
Hers rolled. “Fine.”
It was rather amazing that she allowed me to place the bottle to those beautiful lips.
When she drank her fill, I placed the bottle aside. Scanning her over, I checked out her energy levels. There were faint browns mixed into the swirling red, a signal of exhaustion.
I wanted more though—I wanted to get her out of that bra and those jeans. I wanted to sink deep inside her.
Heading over to where I’d left my shirt, I picked it up from the floor and placed it on the bed beside her. Without saying a word, I reached around her and unclasped the bra. The straps slid down her arms and those heavy, full breasts were free.
I bent my head, taking one rosy peak into my mouth. She gasped and her back arched as I drew it deep. I did the same to the other, nipping at the pebbled bead as I lifted my head. Then I turned my attention to her jeans. Unbuttoning them, I slid the jeans down her legs, revealing the scrap of black lace between her thighs.
Once the jeans were gone, I picked up the shirt. “Lift your arms.”
She blinked, as if coming out of a daze. “Huh?”
“You’re tired,” I said, surprised by my own need to take care of her. “Lift your arms, Serena.”
A heartbeat passed before she did as I requested. I slipped my shirt over her head.
Slipping my hands around her neck, I pulled her hair free, tossing the strands over her shoulders.
I sat back, admiring my work, and decided I liked her in my shirt.
Serena glanced at the door. “I guess I should head to my room.”
Man, she was like a wet dream. Knew when to skedaddle, but I found myself saying something totally unexpected. “Stay.”
Her eyes popped wide. “Stay here, in the bed with you?”
What in the hell was I thinking? Normally the idea of sharing my bed with anyone made me want to chew my arm off, but I wanted her lying side by side with me. I wasn’t sure why. I’d never had the urge before. Tugging the covers down, I held them up for her to slide those curvy legs under them.
She glanced at me. “Are you sure about this?”
No. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Serena shot me a look, but then settled against the pillow. Several moments passed and then I stretched out on my side, resting my head on my hand.
Her lashes fluttered shut and then she said, “You’re staring at me again.”
I picked up a few strands of her hair. “I like staring at beautiful things.” Spinning the hair around my finger, I let go and the hair slipped through my fingers. “And you’re beautiful.”
She rolled onto her side, facing me. Her eyes opened into thin slits. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For saying that I was beautiful,” she said. Another sleepy smile appeared. “You’re sort of beautiful yourself, you know?”
I laughed; the sound surprising me. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been called beautiful before.”
“Hmm, does sexy sound more up your alley?”
“Something like that,” I said, watching her. I had a sudden urge to keep her in a pretty, gilded cage.
Reaching out, she ran her fingers over the hand between us, tracing the bones of my fingers. “Your hands are beautiful,” she said. “You’re remarkably talented with them.”
I should’ve never told her about the gazebo. “That’s what all the women say.”
She laughed softly. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
Her lashes lifted and she met my stare. “You have a nice smile. You should do it more often.”
The immediate response was that I wanted to smile more and that was wrong.
Sliding my hand free, I said, “You should go to sleep, Serena.”
Serena laughed again. “Your brother was right.”
“How?”
Her eyes drifted shut. “You are a prickly bastard.”
I smiled then—a big, toothy idiotic smile—and Serena didn’t see it. Her eyes were closed, which was good, because I was turning into one big vagina.
“I remembered something before your brother showed up,” she said, and the smile slipped off my face. “Mel wrote everything down—everything she heard. She told me that.”
Oh fuck, this could be big.
Another small smile graced her lips. “Mel was really absentminded, like really bad.
The kind of person who puts remote controls in the fridge and underwear on backward. She told me where she left it.”
“Where?”
“In her PO box,” she said sleepily. “I don’t know if it’s still there, but I have an extra key on my key ring. Whenever she went out of town, I’d get her mail for her.”
Which was in her purse, I knew, because I had rifled through her stuff when I first brought her here. Holy shit, there was a chance that whatever her friend wrote down was what the Luxen wanted to keep quiet and what the officers wanted to know.
“Do you think it could help?” she asked.
Help Mel? No, probably not. Would it even help Serena? I wasn’t sure. “It might.”
“We need to get to that PO box.”
I didn’t say anything to that. Getting to the PO box wouldn’t be hard for me or the officers to do, but Serena? Practically impossible, but she had said we. As in she and I. Why I had to clarify that to myself was beyond me.
It didn’t take any real amount of time for sleep to claim Serena after that. Lips parted slightly, the soft puff of air warmed my chest.
I scooted down so that my head lined with hers. Atop the sheet, I moved my legs up until my knees pressed into her sheet-covered ones.
It would only be a matter of time before the senator realized the assassin he had sent was now dead. And I thought about what it meant for Serena. If someone within the DOD had told the senator where she was, that meant the senator would send another to silence her. The only way to stop this was to take out the senator, and I doubted the DOD would support that idea. And this letter? Even if it contained a shit ton of information, would it set Serena free of all of this? I didn’t think so. So what did that mean?
Things weren’t looking good for her.
A strange unacquainted pressure settled in my chest like a large stone. I wasn’t sure what to think about all of this, but as I lay there, I didn’t close my eyes. I did what I always did.
I watched her.
Chapter 17
I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep until something stirred me awake. I opened my eyes, my senses quickly spiraling to full alert. When I inhaled, it was Serena’s scent that invaded me. Peaches. It made me crave sweets…and her.
At some point in the night, Serena had flipped onto her other side and her body was curved against mine. Namely that lovely, curvy ass of hers was pressed against my groin.
I was hard.
No surprise there, but what was shocking was the arm that was draped over Serena’s waist, holding her securely against me. That was my arm and unless she grabbed it in the middle of the night and forced it around her that was all my doing.
Well, shit.
Even more outrageous was the fact that I actually liked this—whatever this was.
Cuddling? Oh hell, this was cuddling. Spooning to be exact.
I was fucking cuddling.
Slowly removing my arm, I sat up, running a hand through my hair. My gaze crawled over the dark bedroom as I leaned forward, rubbing at the skin under my anklet. Then I heard it—the ring of my cell phone, all the way downstairs.
Cursing under my breath, I eased off the bed. Careful not to wake Serena, I bent and slipped on my jeans. Doubting it was Dex, unless something crazy had gone down, it only left two options.