Stalked

by Lisa Hughey

  It was only a matter of time. Better to not get too attached in the first place.

  She rubbed her wrist. Forget that she’d bared far more than her body to this temporary lover.

  She’d told him about her mother.

  What the hell had she been thinking?

  She flushed again.

  “They’re bringing over our bags.”

  “Good. Great. Well…” Ugh. She had no idea what to say to him. He wouldn’t meet her gaze, so she guessed he was as clueless and uncomfortable about how to proceed as she was. There weren’t any rules to follow regarding what had just happened. So she would have to make up her own.

  For a moment, she wanted that closeness back. Wanted to shelter in his embrace and hope for that connection to grow.

  A hollow pit opened in her stomach, expanding in an ever-growing blob and threatening to swallow her whole. Of course he was backing away. People let you down. If her own mother couldn’t stand her, why would she think anyone else would stick by her?

  “Yeah.” Alex opened the bedroom door. “I’ll make breakfast.”

  With a quiet click, he shut the door.

  And that was that. She should have known better than to carry around that hope even for a few minutes. Her focus needed to stay on keeping the judge safe so she could make sure Hannah and her nieces were taken care of. She wasn’t going to let Hannah Smith down.

  She couldn’t believe that for a few minutes, she’d lost sight of her true goal. Saving Hannah Smith, protecting the judge, were what mattered. Not some tenuous and ephemeral thread between her and Alex. A thread she’d likely imagined.

  Kita shrugged off her unease. She didn’t have time to deal with unruly emotions and unexpected attractions. She picked up her cell and went into the bathroom.

  Furtively she dialed Hannah’s number.

  No answer. Kita’s gut twisted. Even though Hannah had said she was fine, Kita was pretty sure she’d been lying. She didn’t like Frank Donner’s escalation of violence. Jill had to come through with help soon.

  Alex shuffled through the house to the next bedroom. He scrabbled through the drawers and found an unopened disposable razor and a small can of shaving cream. He laid out the razor, shaving cream and hand towel in a neat row, following his daily shaving ritual.

  When he looked in the mirror, he felt as if something was out of focus, like a fuzzy filter on his phone he couldn’t quite get into clarity. His scruff had gone from minimal to full-on scraggly. A stranger stared back at him. He was changing, had already changed. And he didn’t like it.

  Deliberately, Alex followed his shaving routine, scraping away the excess hair. He just wished he could cut away the sensation that everything was changing and that he wasn’t going to be able to stop it.

  After his shower, he pulled on a pair of sweats from the Target bag.

  Pulling the fleece over his skin reminded him of Kita taking off the scrubs last night.

  She’d seared him with her sexual exploration. But the true heat had come when she’d told him about her mother.

  Her shame was apparent in the way she avoided his gaze and the bitter laughter she’d used to disguise her hurt.

  He’d like a few minutes with her mom to talk about the proper way to treat your children.

  His mother had smothered him with love, trying to drown out the remorse and guilt he’d lived with since the accident. His brother’s outlook on life had shifted that day, and not for the better. Alex was filled with guilt every time his brother pulled some new crazy stunt.

  But now was not the time or the place to lament his inability to control his surroundings.

  So he headed to the kitchen to start breakfast, and considered the next steps in how to track down the person threatening the judge.

  An hour later, Alex got a call on his cell.

  Shep, Dwayne, and the judge were about five minutes out.

  Kita was in the living room, on the raggedy shag carpeting that looked like it dated back to the seventies, curled up like a pretzel with her eyes closed and her palms resting on her knees. Bare in patches and folded in wrinkles, the carpet was a trip wire waiting to happen.

  She was so still, only her chest moving in and out indicated she was breathing, but he didn’t think she was aware of her surroundings. He stepped into the doorway between the kitchen and living area.

  Her face had settled into a serene expression, but there was a little crinkle between her brows. Alex took the moment to study her. The sleek muscled arms and the delicate collarbones peeked from the deep V of the too-big T-shirt that nearly obscured her small breasts—except for the buds of her nipples, which stood out clearly against the simple cotton.

  His mouth watered as he remembered sucking her into his mouth. Her sweet moans and her obvious pleasure when he inflicted the sensual pain.

  He remembered her arching up into his thrusts, meeting him with pleasure and abandon. Equal partners in their sensual exploration. Her uninhibited responses to sex caused his cock to rise. Shit. Not the time to get an erection.

  “You want something or are you just going to stare at me all day.” She’d gone on the offensive, not afraid to address the attraction that boomeranged between them. But she still hadn’t opened her piercing black eyes.

  “Shep and Dwayne are bringing the judge in,” Alex said. “I need you to watch the back of the house while I keep an eye on the front.”

  Kita lifted her lids. Her mouth pursed, but she didn’t say a word.

  Alex tried not to remember those puckered lips wrapped around his cock. And still his semi sported into full-on wood.

  Shit.

  Her gaze dropped to the tent in his sweats. “Okay.” She unfolded gracefully from the lotus position and headed toward the back of the house.

  Within a few minutes, Shep and Dwayne had hustled the judge through the back door.

  Kita returned from her lookout. She nodded to everyone but stayed silent.

  They all moved into the dining room. A scarred wood table had likely been picked up at Goodwill and four mismatched folding chairs were the only furniture in the bare room.

  “You weren’t followed?” After the two “sort of” attempts on the judge’s life, which had backlashed on Kita, Alex wanted to make sure she was protected.

  Shep gave a long suffering sigh. “No. We took the standard precautions.”

  Kita stood by the doorway, keeping herself slightly apart from everyone else. Alex’s attention split between the table and the doorway.

  “There’s been no more activity or attempt to make contact.” Dwayne rumbled from the head of the table.

  Good, then they needed to get down to business and figure out who the hell was after the judge.

  “I still think this is unnecessary.” The judge blustered.

  The four security consultants surrounded Judge Adams.

  They needed answers. So far the attempts to harm the judge had been innocuous but the increased frequency indicated an escalation. The attacks could turn violent at any time. The judge needed to fess up.

  Kita, who had been silent, turned to Dwayne. “You bring the laptop?”

  Dwayne reached into an overly large messenger bag. “Here you go.”

  Alex’s stomach grinded as Dwayne winked at Kita.

  Her smile was radiant, and far too friendly. Alex wanted to beat his fucking chest and howl like a gorilla making his displeasure known and staking his claim.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ll start working to trace the online threats.”

  “We’ve got someone working on that,” Alex pointed out.

  “Don’t care if you have an entire division on the judge’s letters.” Kita had been attacked two days in a row and she wanted some damn answers.

  “They aren’t Kita,” Dwayne said. His obvious praise soothed her, evening out her unsteady emotions. Sleeping with Alex Saunders had not been on her radar, and the feelings he’d evoked made her uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable.

 
She hated feeling vulnerable because she’d let him in.

  She never shared the story about her mother. It was a defining moment in her life, changing the trajectory of her future. Far too personal to reveal to a lover. She needed to get her outer mask, her armor back in place before Alex thought she was weak, and prime for taking advantage of.

  Kita shook off the unwanted vulnerability and rubbed her hands together.

  “What exactly do you do for Adams-Larsen?”

  “I seed social media for maximum positive coverage.” Among other things.

  “Social media?” Alex didn’t disguise his scorn.

  “Facebook, Twitter, SnapChat, Instagram, whatever.” She used random accounts to create a false trail to cover the true movements of their clients. She also took over their accounts to post updates on foursquare and other location platforms to hide their true location.

  ALIAS also used her skills when they had an actual public relations client who needed some positive posts to counteract previous negative engagement, realigning search engine results to show positive and move the negative to page two or even further down in the results.

  “That isn’t really what we need.” The derision in Shep’s comment struck a nerve.

  “I’ve got other skills.” She hated the defensiveness that rose within. “You guys get started with the questions while I see what I can find out.”

  Kita ignored the look Alex shot at her and relaxed into her comfort zone. The feel of the keys beneath her fingers settled her. Here she was the queen. She knew what she was doing, how to finesse information from high-tech connections, pulling intel through the tentacles of the information highway. But as she logged online, she was acutely attuned to everyone else in the room.

  The keys clacked loudly as she set up the tracking software on her laptop to trace the email origins of the threatening notes. But of course, finding the original transmission point wasn’t going to be that easy. It appeared that the emails had bounced around, being fed through several servers before being delivered to the judge.

  “Do you have the list of women you’ve been involved with in the past year?” Alex asked.

  “Is this really necessary?” The judge’s surprisingly stark black eyebrows scrunched into a V over his vibrant blue eyes.

  Weirdly, Kita thought he spent an extra second staring at her.

  Alex must have picked up on it too because he shot her a questioning look.

  She shrugged. She had no idea why the judge would look at her funny.

  “Twice in the last two days someone has gotten close enough to hurt you if they wanted to. We need to get a handle on everyone you have been…involved with.”

  The judge sighed, long and loud. “If you insist.” He drummed his big-boned fingers on the scratched up tabletop. “Grab some paper, this may take a bit.”

  Everyone paused. The level of anticipation had ramped up as they looked at her expectantly.

  “Am I your fucking secretary?” Kita huffed out a breath.

  “Can you input the names into the people search program you use?” Dwayne smiled. “My handwriting is terrible.”

  They wanted her to record the names. Fine.

  She opened a new tab and prepared to take notes on the judge’s life. “Give me name, spelling, how you’re associated with them, and what they do.”

  First the judge rattled off his assistant’s name, Vanessa. That settled why she was pissed that Kita went the fundraiser with the judge. “She’s my assistant, and ah, she handles the office correspondence and puts out any fires while I’m in court.”

  “Relationship?” Alex bulleted out.

  “Our relationship is…also sexual in nature.”

  “Judge, just give us the details. Pussyfooting around the topic is just going to make for awkward questions.” Kita cut to the chase, annoyed at the way he hesitated.

  “Fine. Yes.” He rubbed at a particularly deep scar in the wood table. “She has been my mistress for the past six months.”

  Kita nodded. “Next.”

  He reluctantly mentioned the bailiff and their sexual relationship. Also in the past six months. “Concurrently?” Alex asked what she hadn’t had a chance to wrap her mind around.

  “Yes.”

  He continued on, naming his masseuse and his tennis pro. Jesus, four women. And he was having sex with all of them. “Are they aware that your…liaisons were not exclusive?”

  The judge stiffened as if Kita had impugned his honor. “Of course.”

  “Is that everyone?” Alex asked the question everyone wondered about.

  “Ah, not quite.” The judge cleared his throat. “Darla Nichols.”

  “The congresswoman?” Kita blurted out.

  “Yes, dear.”

  Huh. That could make for some difficult and uncomfortable encounters. The silence went on. “Anyone else?”

  Now the judge appeared discomfited. He didn’t speak.

  “Judge?” Alex prodded.

  “Colleen Adams.”

  Wait, what? He’d had sex with Marsh’s mother? Her somewhat adoptive mother? The one he was divorced from and had been since Marsh was little? Of course the reason for the divorce was completely obvious after the past fifteen minutes.

  Kita waited.

  “We have sexual relations once a month.”

  Kita was trying to come to grips with that information. He’d practically blown her mind. She thought Colleen Adams hated her ex-husband’s guts just like her son did. Maybe it was some sort of love/hate relationship. Or…she couldn’t even fathom. She had nothing.

  “Anyone else?” There was nothing in Alex’s words or face that betrayed his agitation but Kita sensed the underlying disgust that permeated his opinion of the judge.

  “Ah, there is one last person.”

  More?

  The silence bore down on them while the judge looked at Kita. Something in his face gave away his discomfort and the fact that he thought it would matter to her. She wasn’t going to like whoever he named next. But she literally had no idea who it might be.

  “Joyce Nguyen.”

  Kita sat frozen. She hadn’t typed the name in her spreadsheet. She hadn’t moved, hadn’t breathed.

  Everyone in the room stilled. Alex was staring at the judge with a puzzled look on his face. “And is the relationship sexual in nature?”

  Kita held her breath. Her heart beat with frenzy in her throat, so hard she could barely breathe.

  “Yes.”

  The judge was having sex with her mother?

  Holy shit.

  Chapter 14

  The mood in the room had shifted wildly but Alex had no idea why.

  Kita’s expressive eyes had widened and she hadn’t blinked. The judge on the other hand had shifted his gaze as if he was trying to look anywhere but at Alex’s tough partner.

  And when had he started thinking of Kita as his? Because that thought was beyond possessive.

  What was he missing?

  The judge finally said, “I figured out why you look familiar.” Was there a tinge of red on his face?

  Now that Alex thought about it, his attitude toward Kita had been more reserved this morning. The slightly leering looks were gone. So Joyce Nguyen must be related to Kita.

  “Your mother?” Shep wondered.

  Alex wanted to cuff him upside the head. Dwayne gave Kita a sympathetic look.

  “Moving on.” Kita’s deer-in-the-headlights expression had hardened. “We need to run checks on all these women.”

  “All of them?” the judge blustered.

  “Someone, a woman, is making threats against your person,” Kita clipped out. “Not only that, they have managed to get extremely close to you while you were under protection. By all appearances they seem to be extremely pissed off.”

  Jesus, no wonder. He was practically fucking half of Washington.

  Kita tapped away at her computer, entering the details they had into some sort of search database.

  She
hesitated for a second, and he figured she was about to enter her mother’s info.

  Kita’s face was completely blank, but he could sense her distress, as if he was attuned to her in a way that transcended mere physical connection. He wanted to take care of her. To comfort her. But she’d like that about as much as she liked the judge sleeping with her mother. He shifted the conversation, giving her time to get her shit together. “Any defendants who were unhappy with rulings in your court?”

  “Son, for every case in my court there’s always one party unhappy with the outcome.”

  Except that in most of his cases, one of the parties was the US government. Alex doubted the government was threatening the judge.

  “Anyone particularly disgruntled or a contentious case recently?” While the judge contemplated his options, Alex headed for the kitchen counter and poured himself a cup of coffee. The small kitchen was stocked with paper plates, plastic forks and knives, and Styrofoam cups. He pulled down another Styrofoam cup from the kitchen cabinet, pressed the hot water dispenser, and dropped in a teabag for his partner.

  Courtesy. That’s all it was.

  But because he tried to be honest with himself, he acknowledged the need to take care of her. Even in a little way. He added one sweetener and one creamer and stirred, then set it in front of Kita. He wanted to put his hand on her shoulder, give her a squeeze for support, but that would go over as well as the judge’s confession.

  Judge Adams tapped a long finger against his mouth. “There are several cases that come to mind, but all the defendants are in federal prison right now.”

  Dwayne pressed the judge. “What about family members? Or business partners?”

  Good thoughts. Because clearly their perpetrator wasn’t in prison. Just like poor Mr. Gauss from yesterday.

  “Gauss was the only family member who threatened me.”

  But Alex’s attention was fractured. He was listening to the judge and wondering how Kita was handling the revelation about her mother. Except maybe beyond the surprise factor she didn’t care. He couldn’t get a read on her and that bugged him.