Page 101 of Wicked Heat
“If you’re planning on having a conversation, you need to know this position isn’t exactly conducive.”
“Good,” I say, then bend forward to brush a kiss over his lips. “It occurred to me that we never talked about what would happen when you got your three million back.”
“I might not,” he says.
“You will. Did you see your kitchen table? No blackmailer’s going to be a match for the power of that tech.”
He chuckles. “I hope you’re right.” His eyes narrow, and he cocks his head. “Or maybe I don’t.”
I laugh. “It occurs to me that it’s not just about the money. It’s about the timing as well. You can get repaid the cash, but I still owe you for pulling this all together quickly enough that my secrets don’t get splashed to the world.”
A grin tugs at the corner of his mouth. “I couldn’t have made a better argument myself.”
“Once the videos got out, they’d be in the world forever. It’s not like our bad guy can call them back.”
“My three million is the gift that keeps on giving.”
I nod. “And so…”
He puts his hands on my hips, and I rock against him, sliding down with each thrust until my very wet core is sliding over his very hard cock.
“So, I think that means I owe you a debt that can’t ever really be repaid.”
“And you know what that means, Ms. Bernstein?”
“Tell me.”
“You’re mine,” he whispers, cupping my head and pulling me down for a kiss. “You’re just going to have to stay mine forever.”
“Oh, hell yes,” Noah says around eleven-forty-five the next morning. “Finally, a bit of luck. Luck being a somewhat loose and amorphous term,” he adds, presumably so that I won’t squeal and get my hopes too high.
We’ve all been up since before dawn, trying to solve the riddle of who I’m about to pay before we have to actually make the payment.
So far, there’s been nothing, so Noah’s announcement—whatever it’s about—is definitely squeal-worthy.
I look between him and Ash, both of whom are sitting at the breakfast bar behind their open laptops. I’m standing in the kitchen sipping coffee. Kiki’s on a plane to Manhattan where she’s meeting with some Broadway producer about a part in a musical. I’ve apologized to Noah about eight thousand times, but he assured me that this is the way their life works, and if she gets the part, he’ll move up there for the duration. “Trust me,” he’d said earlier, “I don’t need to be there for the audition. And she doesn’t want me there right now anyway. Believe it or not, she still gets nervous about that stuff.”
“Really?” That little bit of insight into a woman who lives her life in the spotlight makes me feel better. If she can be nervous about singing—which is what she does for a living—then it’s perfectly rational for me to be a wreck today as we try to find the low-life scum-puppies who are blackmailing me.
“So how are we lucky?” I ask now. “Did we catch the bad guy?”
“Getting closer. Look.” Noah signals me to come stand behind him. Ash is already sitting next to him, and he stands now so that he can put his arms around my waist as we both look at Noah’s monitor.
“What am I seeing?” It’s a grainy, time-stamped video of a person—probably a man—crossing a street, then slipping into an alley and disappearing from view. He seems to be wearing a cap, so there’s no way to tell if his hair is light or dark.
Ash gives my hand a squeeze. “He could very well be the guy who put that QR code card in your gift basket.”
I twist around to look at him. “Wait. What? How?”
“The art gallery,” Noah says. “This footage is from one of their exterior cameras.”
The video is playing on a loop, and I watch more closely as the man—this time, I’m sure it’s a man—crosses, pauses, and disappears into the dark. “The alley he turns into is the one behind the bookstore,” Noah says.
The guy in the vid is wearing a white tee, and although it’s grainy and there’s no other person in the frame to compare him to, when I look at his shoulders in comparison to his hips, I have to think the shoulders are pretty broad.
“Agreed,” Ash says, when I tell them as much, and Noah nods as well.
“Is there a front view of him?”
