She let them in to the lobby and hit the button for the elevator. Normally she just took the stairs, but the idea of him following behind her, a few steps down, while she was wearing a flirty skirt and had just spent the entire evening flirting with him, didn’t seem wise. The doors slid shut closing them in together, and she began to doubt the wisdom of this decision.
“Are you going to focus?” she said. “Or do you need another nap on the couch?”
“No, I don’t need to sleep right now.”
They made it to her apartment and she went to the fridge for a bottle of wine. She turned around to find he was standing right behind her. Her heart was suddenly hammering in her chest.
He took the bottle from her. “Where are the glasses?”
She pointed to a cupboard.
“I got this. You find what you wanted to show me.” He poured the wine and joined her in the living room where she had papers strewn across the coffee table.
“This one,” she said, pointing.
He sat down to read over the paper. “Yeah. Yeah, okay, this could work. I can’t believe I didn’t see this. Gia you’re …”
She wasn’t listening. She was leaned in beside him, reading the paper over his shoulder, or at least she was supposed to be reading. She could smell his cologne, feel the heat of his body, and it was distracting her.
He turned to look up at her, still talking, and she cut him off with a kiss. It was stupid, she knew that, and she expected him to pull back, to scold her and remind her that they had agreed to stay professional, but he didn’t. He grabbed the back of her neck and pressed his lips against hers. She moved around the chair, still kissing him, and he pulled her in close.
It was a big chair, but not big enough for them to both sit in it, which is how she ended up straddling his lap, her skirt riding up her thighs and her hair falling over his face.
They didn’t stop at eager but raced headlong into passionate. He nipped her lower lip, tugging on it with his teeth, and she purred with pleasure. She kissed along his jaw and down his neck. He ran his hands up and down her back, over her legs, and then cupped her ass before grabbing her hips and pulling her down against him.
Her body was on fire with need, and she was breathing hard between kisses. He kissed her jaw and she arched her back, offering him her throat. He kissed her there too, and worked his way lower, following the collar of her dress.
The kissing was good, but she wanted to feel him again, and she brought her body down on his lap once more. He was hard—she could feel it through the jeans and the thin fabric of her panties. The denim was rough, but she rubbed up against him anyway. He pushed his hands along her thighs, pushing her dress up higher and higher.
There was a knock at the door and she swore.
“Someone has keys?” he whispered in her ear. His voice was strained with desire and panic.
“My dad,” she hissed and called, “hold on.” She scrambled off his lap. “Do I look mussed?”
“Run your hand through your hair, you’ll be fine.”
She hurried to the door and opened it with a smile. “Dad! I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Am I interrupting?”
“Business meeting,” she said. “I think you already know Brock.”
Brock had grabbed a stack of papers and had them on his lap as though he were reading them. She breathed a sigh of relief.
“Only by reputation. We’ve never actually met. I’m not staying. I would have just called, but I was driving by so I thought I’d tell you in person. Your mother must cancel for tomorrow. Is next weekend okay?”
“Should be fine.”
“Great. I’ll let her know.” He waved and Brock raised a hand in return. Then he was gone.
Gia leaned against the door, the strength going out of her knees. When she heard the familiar ding of the elevator down the hall, she said, “Well shit, that was close.”
Brock was coming toward her.
If he kisses me I’m done for.
“I should go. We’ll finish this at the office on Monday.”
“This?” she squeaked.
“The paperwork.”
“Right.” She exhaled heavily. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Gia, when Marsha comes back, you’re mine. So, don’t even think about running.”
She just nodded and stepped away from the door. When he was gone, she said to no one in particular, “That was so stupid.”
Chapter 11
When Brock arrived at work Monday morning, he found the paperwork from Gia’s apartment spread over his desk. Gia wasn’t in her office, but the paperwork—and the fact that her coffee perk was going—told him she was in the building somewhere. He settled in to review the papers she had left him. When she bustled back in she started into business without even pausing for a hello.
“I just got back from roads.” They were both still learning the names of everyone they worked with and which job they did so they often referred to people by their jobs instead of by their names. “They can bump back the follow-up meeting until next week, which means I just filled that open afternoon next Thursday.”
“Good morning,” he said. “Why are we moving the roads follow-up?”
“Officer Jameson called this morning. We both have to go down to the station to answer some more questions.”
“Why?”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t you watch the news?”
“I stopped around the time I started making headlines. Why? What did I miss?”
“The Human Order is getting bolder and has appeared in three or four cities already. There were two other attacks that they suspect are linked, but The Human Order hasn’t taken responsibility for them yet.”
“Attacks? There aren’t a lot of shifters who came out to the public. Who did they attack?”
“Shifters. They aren’t out to the public, but that doesn’t mean that no one knows who they are.”
Stephanie. She was quick to out me to the media. How many ex-spouses are going public? Or going to their local Human Order chat room?
“When do we meet Officer Jameson?”
“In an hour. And I wrote this for you.” She tapped a few buttons and handed him the tablet.
Press Release – Mayor Brock Tandell of New Orleans
Shifters have peacefully co-existed with humans for centuries. The Human Order are terrorists—they have proved that with their recent attacks. The shifters they are attacking are legal citizens of the United States of America and deserve to have their basic rights respected, including rights of privacy and security. The fact that humans have been injured in these attacks further proves that The Human Order doesn’t care about the humans they claim to be protecting. I do not want to see any more of these attacks on the news and do not want to witness any more firsthand. I do not want to see anyone injured or worse—not shifters and not humans.
Brock read the release twice and then whistled. “Wow, you don’t pull any punches. This is strong. Send it out, and then we’ll get down to the station.”
“I didn’t think they’d need to speak to us again.”
“I did. Print off any emails you’ve received that sound like The Human Order. We’ll want to bring those with us. We did promise to cooperate.”
Officer Jameson met them at the door and escorted them into an interrogation room. “I hope we’re not under investigation for something,” Brock said, looking around.
“No, you’re not, but I don’t have an office and the conference rooms were booked, so unless you want to have this conversation at my desk with ten other desks right there in the open …”
“This is fine,” Brock said. “Just wanted to know where we stood.”
“Six attacks nationwide. Plus, the attack here. And that’s in less than a week. We don’t think they’ll slow down.”
“If anything, they’ll pick up momentum. The shifter community is almost completely incapable of defending itself against this k
ind of attack. We are bound by our own laws to do no harm to humans on penalty of death. Our safety is in the hands of humans in this case.”
“You can’t even defend yourself?”
“Only if I stay in human form. I’ll talk to the clans, but I doubt they’ll lift the order, not even for cases of self-defense. You saw Jules as a bear. How many unarmed men would make a fair fight for that? How many men with side arms would be needed to take him down? And how quickly do you think photos of that attack would get circulated with misleading captions? Who would believe the beast was the victim? How many would flock to the Human Order’s banner with that sort of “proof” of our bestial nature?”
Jameson turned his attention to Gia. “The file folder you have there, emails?”
Gia nodded.
“Is this all of them?”
“As of thirty minutes ago,”
“I’ll pass them along to the team. I will need you to forward the originals to the tech team. Actually, it would be more helpful if we had access to the account.”
“There’s nothing we need to hide on that account,” Brock said. “So far, my private account hasn’t had any threatening activity.”
“That’s good to hear, but don’t expect your good fortune to last.”
“Was there anything else?”
“How many shifters do you personally know or whose existence you know of?”
Brock leaned back and let the names and faces drift through his mind so he could tally them. “Five in my clan. Three of the local pack, but I know they have twelve or thirteen members total. One former member of my clan who moved away. That famous actor. The clan leader from Houston, the clan leader from Baton Rouge, and the pack alpha from Houston. I have an uncle who’s a shifter in New York. That’s what? Fifteen?”
“And you know for a fact that there are eighteen or nineteen shifters in New Orleans?”
“Adult shifters, yes. The shifting doesn’t kick in until kids are ten or so. A few of the pack members have young kids who may or may not turn out to be shifters, or who may be shifters but whom I haven’t met or heard of yet.”
“Do you recognize these names?” Jameson pulled out a sheet of paper and read off six names.
With each name that was strange Brock relaxed a little more. “Sorry, they are all strange to me. I can tell you that there are multiple small clans and packs in each state, and each clan or pack has at least five or six members. I believe there’s a wolf pack of over thirty members somewhere in the mountains, and the largest bear clan is in Colorado with twenty members.”
“So, there’s two-hundred, maybe three-hundred, shifters in the whole country.”
“Certainly, no more than five hundred, by my best guess,” Brock agreed. “Another five hundred in Canada, per one of my clanmates who moved from up there. Another thousand, maybe thousand and a half, across much of Europe—and another thousand in Russia. I don’t know about Asia. The numbers are significantly lower in Africa but about the same in Australia as they are here.”
“So, we’re talking a global population of under ten thousand people.”
“Yes.”
“Fuck. You do know you qualify as an endangered species, right?”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that. Could we take these numbers to a conservation board and make the actions of the Human Order twice as illegal?”
“If you did that, the United Nations might take away your human rights. Are you humans with a genetic disorder or are you a separate species?”
“Good point. We have a rare genetic condition that affects one in every seven-hundred thousand people worldwide. Hunting us is like hunting autistic people.”
“That’s a better angle for you to take, and for us too. If you’re not human, it changes which laws apply to you, as victims, as citizens, and as perps.”
“I don’t want to make your life complicated. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“I just have a few questions for Miss Carosa.”
“Me? I’m afraid I know almost nothing about the shifters. You probably know more than I do.”
“How’s your arm?”
“A little tender. I can’t take the bandages off for a few more weeks yet, except to clean it.”
“I’m glad you weren’t more seriously hurt. Are you related to Giancarlo Carosa?”
“Yes, he’s my father.”
Jameson nodded and made a note in the file in front of him. “You used to work for him?”
“Yes, I was his administrative assistant for years.”
“Why did you leave Carosa Holdings?”
“To gain more work experience. I plan to return after a few years with other companies.”
“How did you end up working for Brock here?”
“My father heard about the job and talked to someone at City Hall on my behalf. He seemed to think that working in politics would teach me some important business skills.”
“Thank you. I think that’s everything for now. We are running a lot of information between stations right now, and we are trying to get ahead of these guys, but I have to stress how important it is that you both be very careful for the next little while.”
“We will be,” Brock said. “Come on, Gia. We have a full day of meetings ahead of us.”
She nodded and followed him back out to his car. He pulled out onto the street and headed back to City Hall.
“Why are they asking about me and my dad?” she said.
“I don’t know. How often do you talk to your dad?”
“We had lunch or supper together twice last week. He called and asked me to have lunch with him tomorrow, and we’re having a family dinner on Sunday. Why?”
He shrugged. “I think it would be best if you didn’t tell him the police were asking about him, at least until we know why. It may have nothing to do with Human Order.”
“You want me to lie to my dad?”
“Do you tell your dad everything?” Out of the corner of his eye he could see her blushing.
“No,” she mumbled. “I don’t.”
“Don’t lie—just don’t tell him yet. The police will talk to him as soon as they’re ready to. They’re probably just getting all their facts and names in order so nothing catches them by surprise.”
“Okay. I hope you’re right about this.”
Gia was chewing on her lower lip as she rode up in the elevator. It was Tuesday and she was on her way up to lunch with her dad. For a change, he was waiting for her, leaning in the open doorway of his office. When he saw, her coming toward him he pointed and bellowed, “You! You told him about the yellowtail cru!” Everyone turned to look at him. “How did he get them to box it up to go?”
“I don’t know. He wasn’t even sure they’d do it. I take it you had a nice lunch yesterday?”
Giancarlo laughed. “Best damn fish I ever ate. Food tastes best when a rich man buys it for you.”
“That must be why I enjoy lunch with you so much.”
Kenny (Shifter Football League Book 2) Page 28
