The Private Serials Box Set (12 page)

 I paid the cab driver, walked up the driveway, and then heard the unmistakable sound of Preston’s Lotus coming around the corner. I watched as he passed his normal spot down the street and instead pulled right into the driveway as if he belonged there. That was a problem. He opened the door and got out, walking toward me as he pressed a button on his key fob, making the car’s lights flash and its horn beep two short, quick blasts.

 He stalked toward me in that ridiculously attractive tuxedo, his eyes locked on mine and giving no indication he planned to move them. In fact, his eyes stayed on mine until he was right in front of me, only breaking the contact when he gently placed his hand around my elbow, turning me, and leading me toward the house. He came to the electronic keypad and with precision, keyed in the passcode.

 My mouth gaped open as he hauled me into the foyer.

 “How do you know the passcode to my house?” Without stopping, he pulled me up the stairs toward my bedroom, but spoke to me as we walked.

 “Again, Lena, knowing things, especially secrets, is my job.”

 We entered the bedroom and his hand released from my elbow, but he continued to the closet, flipping on the light from the inside.

 “Have you been in my house without me here?”

 “Pack your bag,” was his only response as a duffle bag came flying out of the semi-open door, landing in the middle of the bed.

 “Preston,” I said firmly, “have you been in my house while I wasn’t here?” I watched as he came into view, stepping out from the closet and walked to me. He stopped when there were just inches between us, but made no move to touch me. He looked me right in the eyes.

 “A few days ago, I was tailing Derrek and he came here. He went in the house with a briefcase, but came back to his car without it. I thought, perhaps, there was something of importance in there, something I could use against him. So, yes, I came in the house. But I didn’t look at anything or anywhere besides his office.”

 For a reason I hadn’t yet fully formed in my mind, it bothered me that there was a level of distrust between Preston and me. I’d, for all intents and purposes, hired him to be sneaky and shifty, but I didn’t like feeling as if he was hiding something from me. Admitting this, though, would also be like accepting things were changing between us. It would be like admitting he was no longer just someone I’d hired to end my marriage; he had become someone involved in the actual demise of it.

 “Lena,” he whispered, stepping closer to me, his hands wrapping gently around my neck, urging me to look up at him. “Don’t let your mind run away with you.” His thumbs moved over my cheekbones, the soft friction nearly soothing me. “Don’t get caught up in the whys and the hows.” He bent down and pressed his lips to mine in, easily, the most sensuous kiss I’d ever experienced. I felt that kiss everywhere: my chest, my mind, my heart, and most definitely my core. It wasn’t an exceptionally sexual kiss; his tongue just barely grazed the seam of my lips, not wanting in, just tasting. I took a deep breath in through my nose as the kiss continued, and was gifted with the musky scent of his cologne. It was spicy and dry, and it added one more dimension of sexy I would have to try to ignore.

 When his hands travelled into my hair and started removing pins as he kissed me, my resolve crumbled slightly. He was trying to take care of me, all the while kissing me. The pins were hidden in the twist of my hair, but he gently took one out, then two, then ran his fingers lightly through the hair that had come undone. He twisted a tendril around his finger and the rest of my resolve collapsed entirely.

 My hands reached up and gripped the lapels of his tux jacket, pulling him to me, deepening the kiss. He followed me into it, following me to the depths, his hands leaving my hair but wrapping tightly around my waist, pulling me into him. I gasped when his lips left mine, traveling along my jawline, back toward my ear.

 “Not here, sweetheart,” he whispered. Then my body ached as he pulled away from me, his eyes finding mine. “I want nothing more than to bury myself in you, show you how badly I’ve wanted you, how much I want to worship you, but not here.”

 I nodded and he kissed me chastely on the lips. A quick, poignant kiss.

 “Change. Pack. Meet me downstairs.” He turned from me and walked toward the door.

 “Preston?” I said, my voice stronger than I thought I could manage. He turned and looked back to me. “How long will I be gone?”

 “I want to keep you forever, Lena, believe me. But I’ll have you back tomorrow.” His voice was low and tortured, defeated, as if he would rather do anything than bring me back here. He turned and left the room and I heard his footsteps disappear down the stairs.

 I took a deep breath in and then let it out slowly, trying to wrap my mind around my situation without letting it ruin the sensations still coursing through my body. Shaking my head, I moved to the bed and opened the duffle bag, making a mental list of what to pack.

 Ten minutes later, I came down the stairs wearing comfortable drawstring lounge pants, a fitted t-shirt, and flip flops. I’d been in a formal dress with killer heels all night and wasn’t exactly eager to try and impress Preston with my nightwear.

 When I entered the foyer, he turned to me and his smile let me know he didn’t care in the slightest what I was wearing. I had finished unpinning my hair and now my raven locks hung loose around my shoulders, and when I stepped up to Preston he wasted no time fingering the tresses.

 “You ready to go?” he asked, his finger lost in another tendril of hair. I smiled and nodded, my eyes swimming in his dark ones.

 He kissed me, too briefly, then pulled away, saying, “Let’s go.” He grabbed the duffle bag from me, then clasped my hand in his and walked me out of the house, stopping to turn the alarm on as we left. As we approached the Lotus, I found myself smiling just at the thought of Preston behind the wheel of such a sexy machine. I’d been tamping down my attraction to him since we’d met, but tonight, seeing him in front of his car was overwhelmingly arousing. He opened the door for me and I climbed inside, inhaling the scent of the leather that still lingered, mixed with the distinct smell of Preston.

 We pulled out and headed away from the house and it occurred to me I had no idea where we were going. Furthermore, I knew very little about the man in the seat next to me. The only thing I knew for sure was I wanted uninhibited access to him for the night and I would give him the same unfettered access to me. I wanted him in me, on me, around me—I wanted to be claimed by him. But I also hoped in the time we spent together, I’d get an opportunity to know him in more than just a physical way.

 “Where are you taking me?”

 “To my place,” he answered without hesitation.

 “And where is that?”

 “The West Hills.” I knew the area he was talking about. It was a part of Portland known to be affluent: large houses, nice cars, big bank accounts. It wasn’t different from the area I lived in, but The West Hills had a reputation. “Don’t worry. It’s not as stuffy as it sounds. Besides, I’m new to the area.” We kept driving and I started to love the way Preston drove the Lotus. It hugged curves and growled in a way that had parts of me dampening. Cars were sexy; I’d always thought so. But cars were exponentially sexier when men like Preston drove them.

 His grip on the wheel was relaxed but firm and it allowed his biceps to flex under the fabric of his jacket. When he shifted gears, I could admire his big hands with long, agile fingers. If our encounter in the utility closet hadn’t been foreplay enough, watching him handle this car would have done the job beautifully all on its own.

 “Have you always lived in Portland?” I ventured a question, hoping to learn something,
anything
, about him.

 “I’ve almost always lived nearby. I grew up in Lake Oswego, moved away for college, but found myself back here after a few years of living in different cities, trying them on. It never really felt right anywhere else, so I’m back for good, it seems.” He turned his head to mine and gifted me with a smile I hadn’t seen before from him. It was big, bright and beautiful. It caught me off guard a little, but I adjusted as my insides melted from it.

 “Where did you go to school?” The question came from me without thought, seeming to be the next logical step in our conversation.

 “Stanford. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, but quickly realized I enjoyed enforcing the law a lot more than defending it. I started in the law school, but eventually got my degree in computer forensics, hoping that would help me in the future.”

 “California is like another universe,” I said thoughtfully. “I’ve been there a few times, never for any real length of time, but it always felt strange to me, like I was out of place.”

 “I was out of place there, too. After college, I tried a few different places; Chicago and New York, I even went south to Texas for a bit. But nothing felt like Portland.” He smiled at me and I grinned back because I agreed. Then his smile was gone as his eyes flashed into the rearview mirror. His lips moved into a line and a few wrinkles appeared on his forehead. “It appears,” he said as he took a sharp right turn I wasn’t expecting, which forced me into his side, “we’re being followed.”

 “What?” I nearly shrieked. I turned around, trying to see out the back windshield, but all I saw were headlights. Regular, run-of-the-mill headlights one would normally see if someone were in the lane behind them. “How can you tell they’re following us?”

 “Because he’s made the same last five turns as we have.”

 “How can you tell it’s a man?” I looked in the side view mirror, still trying to see something that would clue me in to what was happening. I heard him chuckle and my head snapped to look at him.

 “I’ve never been tailed by a girl.”

 I narrowed my eyes at him, not liking the insinuation that a girl couldn’t properly follow him. I opened my mouth to give him a snarky remark, but was thrust up against the door as he took another turn with too much speed for my liking. I gripped the handle on the door, my heart jumping into my throat. “He’s persistent,” Preston said, still taking frequent glances in the mirrors. “Hold on.”

 I didn’t have a chance to ask him what exactly I should hold on to in his tiny sports car before he gunned the gas pedal and tore off down the street in the middle of downtown Portland. It was Friday night in the city and people and cars were everywhere. My feet planted firmly on the floor of the car. One hand pressed against the door and the other hand had found its way to Preston’s bicep.

 He wove in and out of traffic, breaking a few laws, I was sure, and managed to avoid hitting any of the pedestrians I alerted him to with my screams. Either he was used to driving with a woman yelling at him in the passenger seat, or he was doing a bang-up job ignoring me. Regardless, my heart rate was through the roof and I was getting tired of being thrust from side to side as he flung his Lotus around corners and through parking lots, all in an effort to lose the person who was following him. Eventually, he managed to get the car turned so it was heading north and I started to relax as we made our way from the area of town full of bars and nightlife, entering the part that was more industrial.

 I turned and saw the car was still behind us, even after all that fancy driving, and I looked to Preston.

 “He’s still there. What are you going to do?” I‘d never been in a car chase before. In all the movies I’d seen, the car being followed either lost the other car, or it crashed. We hadn’t achieved the former and I hoped to avoid the latter.

 “Just hang on tight,” he said again, making my eyes roll. I resumed my hold on the door and his arm.

 He pulled into an empty warehouse parking lot, luring the other car into it behind him, then he gunned it, aiming his car for a small alley that ran along the back of the building. Even for such a small car as the Lotus, it was a tight squeeze, and I found myself closing my eyes in fear, my fingers gripping Preston’s arm. Surely, the car following us couldn’t make it through the same alley. I felt the car leave the ground, causing the same feeling in my stomach as when you hit the summit of a roller coaster and then quickly fall. Weightlessness. We were airborne. I let out a strangled cry, but was thrust back into silence when the car jolted back onto the pavement.

 My eyes popped open, and I was relieved to see we were, indeed, on the ground and in one piece. I looked to Preston and his eyes were focused as he was driving. I turned quickly to look behind us, but didn’t see the car any longer.

 “I think you lost him,” I whispered, the car silent aside from our heavy breaths.

Preston didn’t respond immediately, but when he did, all he said was, “Hold on.” Suddenly, I flew forward and to the side, only to feel Preston’s arm swing out and press me back into my seat. Then we were still for just a second. His hand flew to the gear shift, putting the car in reverse. Preston placed his arm over the back of my seat and looked out the back windshield of the car, lurching backward down yet another alley. I closed my eyes tightly again, fearing we would crash.

 Then we were still. The car was off, as were the headlights.

 I opened my eyes and felt Preston’s hands on my face, turning it toward him.

 “Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes roaming over my face, inspecting me.

 “Preston,” I breathed. My voice was gone and his name was just air.

 “Lena, baby,” he said, pulling me into him, guiding my face into his neck, his arms wrapping around my shoulders. “It’s okay. I’m sorry,” he whispered. I breathed into him, trying really hard not to cry, the adrenaline making my heart race and eyes well with tears.

 “I’m o-okay,” I stammered. Then the car lit up and he pulled away from me. Two headlights were beaming right into the car and I was frozen, aside from the trembling, not knowing what was going on. Preston grabbed my face again and looked at me, speaking clearly and quickly.

 “I’ll handle this, Lena. Don’t get out of the car, okay?”

 I nodded, his hands still on my cheeks. Then he pressed a very quick kiss to my lips and went to open his door. He was halfway out when I heard a man’s voice.