by Lexi Blake
Was she ready? She probably wasn’t ready for any of this. She wasn’t ready to make a decision about anything.
“Baby?” Jake stared down at her. “You okay?”
She shook her head. He was asking if she was ready to go to the signing, and she was sitting here asking enormous life questions. Questions she still didn’t have a damn answer for, but Grace Taggart was making her think. She’d been obsessed with this signing for months and now all she could think was that it would be nice to get it over with because she had a lot of thinking to do.
“I’m ready.” She stood, her focus caught on the books. Was she just fiction? Or were those books her training wheels, her way of getting ready to do what it took to be truly strong, to take the risk to really love again? Her voice was steadier this time. “I’m ready.”
Jake took her hand and led her to the car.
* * * *
Jake really wasn’t ready. He looked around the small store and realized he wasn’t ready to put her in harm’s way, and he damn sure wasn’t ready to let her go.
“So, this is where our illustrious author chooses to sign her books?” Detective Hernandez held up a vibrator in a box. “Well, we know what the books are about, at least.”
Jake had had just about enough of the detective. He turned to Detective Chitwood. “Maybe we don’t need Dallas PD here. This asshole obviously has a real problem with my client’s work.”
Chitwood motioned Jake over and kept his voice low. “Please, Mr. Dean, give him a little leeway. I’ll talk to him. He’s going through a bit of a rough patch at home. His wife seems to have found herself, so to speak. She started a new career, and she’s leaving him behind. And she loved romance novels. Not like Amber Rose’s, but Mike is lumping them all in together. I’m afraid he thinks his wife got unrealistic expectations of what to expect from books like that.”
“I don’t care about his marriage,” Jake said frankly. Yeah, he would give Hernandez another look. They hadn’t found anything, but Adam would have to look deeper. “I only care whether or not he does his job. And I got the feeling you didn’t approve of Serena’s career, either.”
Chitwood shook his head. “I don’t get it, but I don’t particularly care one way or the other. It doesn’t matter what she does for a living. She deserves to be able to make that living without fearing for her life. I took an oath, and I intend to honor it. My home life is hard right now, too, but I won’t let it affect my ability to protect her. Speaking of, I got the profile you sent over. Excellent work. Your profiler seems very capable.”
Eve had been the best the FBI had to offer until a case had taken a terrible turn. “So, you agree that this is someone she knows?”
“I’m not sure. I certainly think the perpetrator believes she’s committed a great wrong that touches the stalker’s life.” Chitwood frowned and stared at his feet for a moment. “I know what you think.”
Jake simply waited for Chitwood to prove he wasn’t as dumb as he’d first looked.
“You think it’s me or Mike. Given that the violent threats occurred after the police were called in, and given our response, I would logically put us both on a list of suspects. I think, after today, that we should recuse ourselves and let this whole case start over.”
Chitwood was saying all the right things. But that wouldn’t make Jake back off. “I think that would be a good idea.”
A little smile played on the detective’s lips. “Of course, it would be exactly the right play if I wanted to throw you off the scent. Feel free to have us followed, Mr. Dean. We are exactly what we come off as, a detective looking forward to retirement and…dear god, Mike, put that down.” He shook his head back toward the racks where Hernandez was studying an enormous anal plug. “A detective looking toward retirement and his idiot partner. That’s all you’ll find.”
Jake wasn’t so sure about that, but Adam hadn’t found anything on either man just yet. He’d already known Hernandez was separated and living at the Y, which could make any man cranky, and Chitwood’s wife was fighting cancer. Still, Chitwood was described as deeply religious, his church’s website posting some strong warnings against what they called the pornography of the world.
He would keep an eye on both. He felt much better about the plainclothes officer they had brought with them. She was a young woman with a bright smile who didn’t seem at all offended that she was working in a toy store. She’d laughed with Grace about something before she’d started doing perimeter sweeps.
“Where’s the agent?” Adam asked, coming in from outside. There was a line of readers, almost all women with stacks of books. It was a bit of a madhouse outside. Ian himself was handling the security, and surreptitiously taking pictures of everyone for later research. If the stalker was here, they would at least have a picture to go from.
“She’s in the back.” Jake pointed to the door that led to the owner’s office and the large room which she used for storage. Jake had walked through the room, making sure the one door to the outside was locked up tight. There was a DPD officer standing guard outside. The officer had been very helpful, opening the door for Lara and Brian as they carted in books and boxes. Lara was in the quiet back room, unpacking books and merchandise. “I saw Chris helping her out, though he stated he was doing it under protest and that Lara was still on probation. And the other guy was down there, too, though he mostly seems to just be frowning at his wife.”
“Brian Anderson?” Adam frowned. “I was told he ran the mainstream arm of the business and didn’t particularly like having to deal with the lower-end clients.”
Chris stopped in front of them, a large stack of Their Sweetheart Slave in his arms. “Are you talking about Brian? He kind of hates us. Oh, he tries to hide it, but I overheard him saying that Lara ruined their reputation as an agency when she brought us in as clients. You know we erotic romance authors are responsible for the fall of Western civilization.”
“Then why’s he here?” Jake asked. “He wasn’t on the list, but Serena cleared him.”
“Well, even a snob likes cash. I think Brian finally realized that genre fiction pays the bills, Jake. Can I call you Jake now that you’re back in our girl’s good graces? By the way, I meant the whole ‘cutting your balls off’ thing if you hurt her again. I’ll just be mentioning that right up to your not wholly legal wedding day, which I assume is coming soon or I’ll have to do the whole ‘cutting your balls off’ thing and I really don’t like that. It’s messy.”
Jake rather liked the man Serena called her gay husband. “You’re preaching to the choir, man. We’ve told her how we feel.”
Chris’s eyes narrowed. “All right then. It’s just a matter of time.” He sighed. “Back to the salt mines for me. I have to drop these books off and then help him in the back room. When is the champagne coming out?”
It seemed to be a rhetorical question because Chris walked toward the signing table.
Jake didn’t like last minute changes. Not one bit. “Keep an eye on both the Andersons.”
She’d burned Serena once. Jake intended to make sure she didn’t get a second chance.
“Okay,” Adam agreed. “And we haven’t, you know.”
“Haven’t what?”
Adam looked toward Serena, his eyes softening. “We haven’t told her how we feel. We’ve told her we want her. We’ve spanked her ass red and made her come, but we haven’t said those three little words.”
I love you.
God, he hadn’t told her he loved her.
“But we do,” Jake said solemnly, looking to Adam.
A bright smile crossed Adam’s face. “Fuck yeah, we do.”
Jake looked across the room where Serena sat at her little table. The table was for the signing that would begin after the cocktail reception. She looked so damn pretty. Despite the fact that he would prefer those lovely breasts of hers weren’t on display in this type of a gathering, he had to admit that Adam had done a spectacular job of dressing her. “So, what do
we do? Take her out to dinner after this thing and explain something she should have figured out awhile back?”
Adam leaned against the wall and watched her. “She’s not deeply self-aware. And she’s completely gun shy. I think we’ll have to tell her more than once before it sinks in. We just have to make sure she doesn’t run once this case is over.”
“Well, I have some ideas on that front.” Jake was good with handcuffs. He would just lock Serena up.
He knew one thing. He wasn’t going to let her go. He would try everything he had to if it meant keeping her close.
Jake looked out the front windows. There was a crowd waiting. Mostly women, although a few seemed to have dragged husbands along. And there were a few men who seemed to be alone. Yeah, he wanted to check those men out.
“Not long now,” Adam said, checking his watch.
Not long at all. Jake was going to count down the minutes until he could get Serena home and safe and they could start telling her exactly how they felt.
Chapter Twenty-One
“So, you’re just sleeping with them now?” Bridget asked, pulling out pens and laying them on the table.
Serena could smell the hors d’oeuvres as the caterer began sending out staff to make the rounds. Any minute now the doors would open, and she would see if anyone had shown up. But all Bridget seemed to be able to think about was Serena’s sex life.
Love life. It was a damn love life because she was in love.
“I don’t know. I think I’m falling for them,” she admitted, playing with her water bottle. She wasn’t about to tell her best friend the full truth. That would mean admitting she’d already fallen for them both and wasn’t sure how to handle it.
“Think? Really? You have to think about it?” Chris put down a big stack of the new book on the table. “There’s more where this came from. Lara brought three cases. And a box of the last book, just in case. I’m going to go and get that and then I’m done being their errand boy. Don’t they know I’m here as the eye candy for many lonely women? I thought it was in my job description. Gay best friend, also does male modeling and writes books. Nowhere in there are the words ‘pack mule.’ Nope. Uh uh. And Serena, you need to think about this. Those men give a damn, otherwise they wouldn’t put up with the two of us.”
Serena watched as Jake and Adam talked. “What do you mean?”
Bridget smiled. “We’ve been putting them through the besties test. Adam was dumb enough to give me his phone number and then he was annoyed enough to give me Jake’s.”
“We’ve been calling every day demanding updates and making a general nuisance of ourselves. It’s just a little test. Men like those two will put up with very little crap from people, and yet they’ve been perfectly pleasant with the two of us,” Chris confided.
“Jake did hang up on me when I asked him if he could help give my cat an enema.” Bridget shrugged. “I might have overplayed my hand. But before that, he came over and installed a new security system. And he was nice enough to take his shirt off. Well, I was smart enough to turn off the air conditioning and get the place to like a hundred degrees before he came over. Damn girl, that man is fine.”
They hadn’t said a word to her. Neither man had said anything about helping out her friends. “Maybe they’re just really nice.”
Jake turned, his face in a deep scowl. Nope. He didn’t look nice in the least. And she realized she was being stupidly stubborn. They did care. She just wasn’t sure it would last. Jake’s fists clenched, and he started talking through his earpiece. The doors had opened, and a flood of people came through.
“Maybe you’re just dumb,” Bridget said with a frown. “I say that because of the hot ménage men who seem to really care about you and also because I’ve listened for weeks about how no one will show up. Look, it’s a mob, Little Miss Pessimism.”
“Wow.” She sat down and put on her author face as the first fan showed up.
Chris winked her way. “I’ll be back in a bit, darling. Come on, Bridge, help me haul the books up. Our girl looks like she’s going to need them.”
Bridget and Chris walked off, and Serena began talking to her readers, sinking into one of the most rewarding parts of her job. Grace Taggart took the chair beside her and started making sure the books she signed had all the promo materials in them. Her handsome husband hovered close. Serena was pretty sure she’d caught a glimpse of a gun under his suit coat. She’d heard he was an aspiring chef now, but once he’d been Jake and Adam’s CO in the Green Berets, so that made him a badass who could cook. Yeah. There was a hero in there somewhere.
But first she would have to write a story about Jake and Adam. She just prayed it had a happy ending.
* * * *
The party went on all around Adam. Soft music played, and Serena laughed and talked to a crowd of women who obviously adored her. She was oddly in her element, smiling and laughing, her shy nature fading away.
His girl was going places, and he meant to be by her side when she did. There was an optimism inside Adam that hadn’t been there before. He and Jake were finally, completely on the same page at the same time. Now they just had to bring Serena along. But they would do it. They had been a great team for a really long time.
There was a little buzzing in his ear as Ian relayed a message that had Adam fuming. Adam touched the device in his right ear. “Are you fucking kidding me? I’ll be right there. Guess who’s standing outside, waiting to get in? Master Storm.”
And the hits just kept coming. Any minute now, Serena’s ex would show up and then the whole gang would be here.
“Are you kidding me?” Jake asked, his face becoming a stony mask.
“I’ll handle it. You keep watch on our girl.” Adam looked over where Serena was laughing at something a reader had said. Sean was across the room watching her as well.
“If you kill him, you better call me out to help,” Jake said as Adam stepped outside. Ian was right by the door, vetting anyone who walked in.
Adam looked at Master Storm standing outside the building and felt a cold rage nearly split him in two. “You want to explain why you’re here?”
The man gave him a slight smile. “It’s a public signing, Mr. Miles. Yes, I can do research, too. I know all about you and…your partner. Tell me, does Serena have the whole story on you? Does she know how you were thrown out of the Army? Bad business, that. I thought she should have all the information before she made a decision.”
Adam had zero intention of allowing the man anywhere near Serena. “Serena made her decision. She chose to stop seeing you. You need to leave. You won’t be allowed inside.”
“Then I’ll wait until after the event, but understand this, Mr. Miles, I will see Serena. I made a mistake in walking away the other day. Poor Serena doesn’t know what she wants. She needs a guiding hand, and I won’t allow you to come between us. I have decided one thing, if it makes you feel better. Serena should be allowed to write whatever she likes. I realize now it fills a void in her.”
He’d studied up on this asshole. Oh, he’d had a file on him a mile wide about twenty-four hours after first meeting him. “I think what you need is an influx of cash. The martial arts business ain’t paying the way it used to, is it?”
His face went pink. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Your business is in trouble, and you just figured out how much money Serena makes off those books of hers.” Adam really wanted to shoot the fucker in the gut, but Ian was watching. Ian would get upset if he had to hide a body. Even though, apparently, he was really good at it. “She’s not going to sign over her checks. Go away.”
“I’m not going away, you motherfucker. I worked that girl for months, and I’m going to see my goddamn payoff.”
Storm reached for the lapels of Adam’s jacket, but Adam was way faster. He had the barrel of his gun securely between the motherfucker’s eyes before he could grab Adam. Adam held onto the front of Storm’s shirt, balancing the man who
suddenly seemed like he wanted to get away.
“Adam, is there a problem?” Ian asked. As usual, his boss was cool, calm, and collected. He merely watched as though waiting to see if Adam would really pull the trigger.
“Did she tell you about the stalker?” Adam asked.
It occurred to Adam that if Storm really wanted Serena under his thumb, a good way to do it would be to scare her senseless. It would have sent her straight into his arms, his house, that fucking contract he’d wanted her to sign. How far would this man have gone?
“No. She didn’t say a word. I swear I didn’t know about it until that day at her house.” The deep Dom voice was gone, and he looked at the gun, his eyes nearly crossing. “I didn’t know anything.”
“Adam, I don’t think he did this.” Ian shook his head shortly, disdain dripping from his every word. “I believe you’ll find the man has peed himself. Not exactly the tough type. I think he’ll probably leave Serena alone from now on. Besides, according to Liam’s report, he was out working the night of the snake attack and out of town when her house burned down.”
“Her house is gone?” Storm’s eyes went wide. “Someone’s really trying to kill her? I thought it was a little joke.”
Adam groaned. The idiot really had peed himself. He let his grip go, and Storm fell on his ass, scrambling back. “Get out of here. If I see you around her again, I’ll use this.”
Storm scrambled away.
Ian sighed. “Damn, I was hoping it was him. He’s an asshole. My heart kind of lit up when I realized he was in line. No one ever lets me kill people anymore. I miss it.”
Adam looked out at the parking lot, a man catching his eye. He stood very close to Jake’s SUV. Too close. The man was average height and looked rather fit, but he was wearing a dark hoodie, and it was warm outside. The hood was pulled over his head.
Adam watched as he stopped and seemed to say something into his cell phone. There were four stores in the small shopping center. The Velvet Room was the largest, but there was also a convenience store, a Laundromat, and a used book store. Twilight was rapidly approaching. He’d wanted this to be done before dark, but the crowd that had entered the store looking to talk to Serena had been larger than expected.
