Page 51 of Hunted

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VAN

TADGH DALY – WHAT IF

“What the fuck is this?!” she snarled—my infuriatingly clever little vixen—slamming a crinkled slip of paper against my chest.

I grasped it reflexively, trapping her hand beneath my own. I couldn’t help but notice the extreme differences between them—hers, pale and ice-cold; mine, golden and toasty. Maybe Beck’s Ice Queen nickname had more merit than I’d originally given credence to. But I still didn’t think it quite fit her. She was so much prettier and more layered than an animated princess.

Addie tried to snatch her hand back while I was yet again lost within my ever-moving mind. But I didn’t let her. I might not be as ripped as Beck or Deklan, but I was stubborn as either one.

And I happened to like her hand right where it was, pressed against my sternum, knowing she could feel the pounding of my heart against her skin.

Oh shit, she can feel the pounding of my heart against her skin. Is it racing? It must be racing.

“Release my hand or lose yours, Sir,” she growled through gritted teeth, unwittingly inciting a feverish kind of amusement beneath my skin.

My heart rate sped up. My lips twitched, their corners tugging upward, despite my best efforts not to show her how thoroughly she was undoing all my tightly laced seams.

Addie scowled, amusing me further. “And quit smirking at me.”

She got her wish—though not in the way she expected. My smirk slid, instead, into a full, charming grin.

Annoyed, she pulled her hand back again—this time, I let her.

Peering down at the slip of crumpled printer paper in a bid to stop staring at her beautiful fury, I realised my mistake in an instant. My smile dropped and I almost followed suit with the sheet of paper. Ice splintered out in razor-sharp needles from my seizing heart as I ran through the myriad ways she could have gotten hold of this particular—rather incriminating—printout.

“Where did you get this?” I asked softly, voice low and carefully devoid of inflection.

“Where you left it,” she snapped. “In your top right desk drawer, where anyone could have found it.”

“No one else seems to have been rifling through my things, Sinclair.” I looked up at her then; watched her fury shift into something infinitely more telling. “Adelaide,” I rumbled, drawing out the third syllable. “Spill.”

She bit down on her lips like she could prevent the truth from tumbling out, and—God help me—the urge to steal it with my own pressed down on me.

I froze, not trusting myself to move the slightest muscle. Well, except for the one feathering in my jaw as my teeth clenched so hard they audibly creaked.

She tracked the movement, her lips finally parting as she admitted, “Mercy found it, actually.”

Fuck.

“Mercy Lopez was snooping through her superior’s belongings in order to find… what, exactly?”

Addie looked away. She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “I don’t think she was looking for anything specific—except maybe more booze—but neither of us were expecting her to find that.”

Ah. That explained the faint malty aroma surrounding her.

“I see. I’m assuming that means she also found the bottle of vintage bourbon in the bottom drawer?”

Her eyes crashed back into mine like a breaking wave—sparkling with amusement. “She did. But you’re deflecting.”

I cleared my throat. I had, indeed, been deflecting. How was I supposed to explain to her what this was, what it meant, and why I had it?

“You’re right,” I admitted.

“I usually am.”

A snicker slipped out unbidden, prompting an equally unexpected grin from the woman who’d somehow passed an unpassable test. She was the smartest woman I’d ever met—certainly the only one who’d ever outsmarted me.