Cristie canted her head slightly and looked at him, realizing finally what he was doing. “Thank you,” she said, taking the items from him.
“You’re welcome.” He stood there, looking down at her, his entire being focused on her, feeling her, scenting her, just sharing the same air she was breathing, and it was the single most spiritual thing he’d ever experienced.
“Don’t you have to go to work?” she asked.
“Hmm? No. I mean, yes,” he said, catching himself in his own lie. “I have some things I need to do.”
“Okay.” She lifted the scone and the coffee a little to show him. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, reaching out to lay his hand on her shoulder. The spark that ran up his arm and into his body left no doubt remaining. They both knew.
“I’ll see you later,” she said.
“Yeah, later.”
She watched as he got back in his car and looked over at her.
He put the car in drive and looked her way once more, as though he was having trouble leaving her.
“Remi?” she asked.
“Yeah?” he asked, staring into her eyes.
“I’ll only be here for a little while. After that, it’ll be too late.”
His heart lurched at the idea of not seeing her anymore at all; at the idea of waiting too long and losing any chance. But then he was overwhelmed with guilt because he was feeling what he was about Cristie, and he’d just been trying to convince Bailey that there was nothing between them. “I know.”
Cristie flashed him a quick smile then turned and went up the stairs and into Kaid’s house. She quietly closed the door behind herself and started toward the kitchen.
“Is that Remi outside?” Riley asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“How’s he doing this morning?” Riley asked.
“I’m not sure. He just lied to me, but he gave me coffee and a scone,” she answered as she walked past him and left him sitting alone in the living room.
Riley got up and went over to look out of the window, immediately seeing Remi sitting in his car, his gaze almost catatonic as he looked off down the driveway toward the highway.
Remi never even looked toward the house long enough to realize he was being watched. Instead, he eventually lifted hisfoot from the brake pedal, and allowed his car to ease down the drive. “The hell am I going to do?” he whispered, as he instinctively moved toward the only place he knew that might give him a bit of relief at the moment — his own house. Maybe if he could hide away in his own house for long enough, he could make heads or tails of the chaos swirling in his head.
Chapter 5
Hellen rolled over and stretched her body this way and that before she even fully woke. Her nose began to twitch and she managed to pry one eye open as her brain and her stomach enticed her to consciousness. She lay in her bed, trying to figure out why someone was cooking in her house, and couldn’t make the least bit of sense out of it.
Very, very quietly she slipped out of bed, pausing beside her closed bedroom door to take hold of a baseball bat she’d been jokingly gifted by Havoc. Inscribed on the bat was the name ‘Hell’s Hell Tamer’. She grasped the bat and crept stealthily up the hallway toward her kitchen, bat held at the ready just over her right shoulder.
The sight that greeted her almost took her breath away. Long, luxurious black hair caressing his muscular, tanned back, jeans riding so low on his hips that she all but could see the dimples just above his ass cheeks. She almost lost her breath, but not quite. Her irritation at finding him still in her kitchen, cooking her food, and acting like he had every right to be there, kind of pissed her off again.
“You gonna use that, cher, or you just gonna carry it around just in case the feeling strikes you?”
“Why are you still here cooking my food and acting like you belong here? I thought we decided last night there was no reason for you to be here.”
“I decided no such thing. And I’m crushed. Here I was thinking we’d formed a truce of sorts,” Lucien said, turning around to smile that devil’s wicked smile at her.
Her eyes swept up and down his body, unable to help noticing that even his feet were sexy. The scars his body bore didnothing to detract from his beauty — they just made him look more dangerous. She closed her eyes for a moment to get her suddenly jumbled thoughts organized again, then opened her eyes only to find him smirking at her as he patiently waited.
“You alright?”
