Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 135382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
“It doesn’t matter, Brody. I’m focused on the now not the past. So you got nothing at all out of him about why a crazy Dutch dude is trying to murder me?”
He grinned and pointed her way. “I did find something out. Dutch was the language he was speaking. Alfi knew that.”
“My brain did, too,” she shot back, frustrated as hell. “I spent all day staring at a candle with a shrink tromping through my head and Alfi knew all along. He’s a giver.”
“I do try, luv,” he said solemnly. “But they weren’t Dutch, you know. I was with ’em while you were working on the patient and I heard them talking about going home to Antwerp. That ain’t in the Netherlands. Those boys were from Belgium.”
She sort of growled his way. “Thanks for that because I’ve been working on the theory that we’re looking for Dutch dudes.”
Alfi didn’t seem at all deterred by her show of rage. “Not a problem. Anything for a pretty lady.”
Brody ignored him, his big hands coming out, cupping her shoulders. “Was Kai hard on you? Come here. I bet it was rough to have to go through all of that again. I wish I could have stayed there with you.”
There it was. She sighed as she let him pull her close. His big arms wrapped around her and she felt safe and warm for the first time in hours and hours. He’d started it. She hadn’t promised him anything. It was perfectly all right to revel in it. She let her arms drift up and around him. He was incredibly big, but she could clutch him and hold on. She felt him kiss her hair.
“Kai wasn’t bad,” she admitted. “He’s just a normal pushy shrink. They kind of have to be. At least I figured out a few things. We know the patient was a journalist. They called him that in Dutch. We have someone from the London office calling around the big European news agencies trying to see if they had any male reporters working on a story in Sierra Leone. We don’t know if the journalist was Belgian or from the Netherlands, so we’ll look all over Europe.”
Brody tilted her head up. “That’ll be Penny you’ll be working with. She speaks all the languages. She’s a good one.”
“Is she part of his fancy-schmancy London team?” Alfi asked.
Brody groaned and rested his head against hers. “He doesn’t like my new career. Apparently I was supposed to join him in dashing about the globe doing odd jobs, some of which I’m fairly certain involve criminal activities.”
“Do not…mostly,” Alfi shot back. “My point is, you ran off to England and became a pommy git who can’t even be bothered to call his friends. Or the woman he knocked up. He ain’t ever going to traipse around Africa with you saving babies and stuff. He’s too posh for that.”
“Shut up, Alfi,” Brody growled. “She’s not marrying you. Leave her be.”
Steph pulled away, not wanting to, but they’d introduced a word she simply couldn’t handle right now. That word needed to be avoided at all costs. “Could we get back to the actual job at hand? And where’s Nate?”
“He’s over at the big house with Serena and Adam and Jake.” Brody looked like he wanted to push her, but he seemed to back down. “We’ll go over and get him in a bit, and then I want to talk to you about going to the club tonight.”
Kai had mentioned that she was welcome at the club. Sanctum. She’d heard a ton about it, but she’d never been inside. Avery was fairly open about the lifestyle and how she and Liam played, but everything Steph knew came from books. The night they’d made Nate had been quick and passionate, but there hadn’t been a lot of D/s. Only the night before had given her a hint of what the lifestyle could offer her.
She shook her head. “I need to be with Nate.”
“He’ll be in the daycare with the other kids,” Brody promised. “Wade doesn’t want to split the guards up tonight. If you don’t want to play, we’ll take a couple of movies with us and sit in the conference room, but there’s a big party going on. Don’t you want to have some fun?”
That kind of fun was dangerous. That kind of fun led to getting naked and giving her body over to her Master. Oh, there it was. She was thinking of Brody that way and she shouldn’t. Though it was only for play. Only for a night.
She clung to the only reason she could think of to tell him no. “I don’t have the right clothes.”
“Serena’s going to find something for you. It’s a costume party. It should be loads of fun,” Brody promised.
“What are you going as? James Bond? Got your martini all ready?” Alfi asked, his voice harsh. “I mean you probably own a tuxedo now.”