Their car rolled up to the valet station, and we agreed to talk more the next day, or rather, later that day. As soon as they had rounded the corner, I turned to scoop Clem into my arms just as she was launching herself at me.
“We did it,” she said, her breath warm against my neck.
“You did it,” I told her. “This was all you.”
I ducked my head for another celebratory kiss, lifting her clean off her feet. Our mouths collided, hers opening to me the moment my tongue swiped along her lower lip. With her arms wrapped tight around my neck, she pressed the full length of her body against mine.
Every soft, curvy inch of her burned through my clothes. Lowering her to the ground, I slid my hands up her sides, my thumbs brushing the undersides of those perfect tits I’d been struggling not to ogle for the last months. Her fingers tangled in my hair, a soft moan muffling against my lips.
Tugging on her hair, I dragged my kiss along her jaw, then back to her eager mouth. She rose on her toes, gasping when she felt my hard bulge pulsing against my pants. Groaning at the exquisite friction of her slowly lowering herself again, I tightened my grip on her hair. My other hand didn’t know where it wanted to go, roaming down her back to slide over her taut little ass, up her side again, everywhere it could reach.
Someone behind us cleared his throat loudly. Shaken, her eyes at half mast, her lips swollen, Clem stumbled out of my grasp. The beleaguered valet held my keys out to me, resolutely not making eye contact, but very clearly wanting his shift to be over.
On the way home, I turned to Clem before I had to take the exit to her new apartment. “Come home with me,” I said urgently. “You shouldn’t have to face unpacking when the sun’sonly a few hours from coming up. We’ll get some real rest at my house.”
Or not.
She was mine, her kiss had told me as much. But there was that flash of fear in her eyes again. “I’ll be fine. I won’t be able to sleep with everything hanging over me.”
That was the point.
She swore she just wanted to get it done, her words firm while her voice shook. I pulled up in front of her new apartment building, ready to make some calls to confirm my plans had been put in place. Maybe now I’d find out none of it was necessary. I reached for her hand before she got out.
“Clem,” I said. Was I going to push? Lay it on the line so soon?
“Oh, right,” she said, flustered. Sliding her rings off her finger, she pressed them into my palm. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Or later on, I guess.”
What the hell?
She was gone in a flash, pounding in the security code on the gate to her new place like her life depended on getting to the other side as fast as possible. I waited until my guard showed up, telling him not to interfere with anything that happened next, but to make sure she was never in any danger.
I had done all I could to keep her safe, and yet she was still afraid. Of me? Or something I knew nothing about? There wasn’t anything in her past that my sister-in-law’s software could find, and it was better than what most governments used.
Exhausted, exhilarated by one win and torn up by this most recent loss, I headed home as soon as I had everything inorder. Clem’s fears must boil down to being a single woman in a dangerous city. She was smart to keep her guard up.
I just had to be patient a little longer, and she’d see that she never had anything to fear again.
Chapter 13 - Clem
If I had been on the verge of freaking out about making out with Rurik with absolute abandon, it was quickly thrown to the wayside. The deal with the Koboyashis might have been a stroke of luck, but when I got to my new apartment, everything went wrong.
It made the unparalleled mistake of making my boss seem like next to nothing in the scale of things to worry about. None of my furniture or clothes had been delivered, and the key I’d been given for my new apartment didn’t work. When I got through to someone on the rental office’s emergency line, the bored-sounding person told me that the place wouldn’t be ready for another month.
“It’s beyond our control, and we only found out ourselves,” she said, briefly explaining some major damage from the previous tenants who moved out the day before. “You weren’t scheduled to arrive until this weekend…” she trailed off, as if it was all my fault.
When I looked at my phone, there were several missed calls and frantic messages from both the rental manager and the moving company. My stuff was in storage, and at least a bit of good news—the movers managed to get my car running, and it was parked down the road in a spot where it should have been safe from being towed.
It was cold comfort that I was getting my deposit back until my new move-in date, and they’d hold the apartment for me if I still wanted it then. Not looking forward to going back to my dingy little shoebox of a place, especially now that it’d be empty, I found my car and headed back anyway, nowhere else to go.
Actually, nowhere to go, period. The shoebox was already occupied, the lock changed, and the brand-new tenants were not at all happy to have someone rattling their door at that hour. I took off, not about to try to reason with an irate man who was twice my size and had more gang tattoos than skin.
It was four in the morning, close to dawn, but ages away in terms of being stuck in my rattletrap car on the curb in that shady neighborhood. Still pitch dark, it was a scary enough area when I was tucked indoors with a hammer on my bedside table for protection. Desperate, I reached for my phone.
My finger hovered over the number for a split second before I tossed it onto the passenger seat. What the hell was I doing, about to call Rurik and ask for help? I was supposed to have it together, not be huddling in my car that could break down again at any moment, sniveling about having no place to go.
There were plenty of places to go. Choosing to remain the confident, competent assistant who was on her way to bigger and better things, I checked into a cheap hotel and fell into the lumpy bed as if everything was fine. I was tired enough at that point to believe it.
The next morning, something like dread filled me that had nothing to do with my current circumstances and more to do with the main reason I didn’t call Rurik for help last night. How could I face him after that makeout session? No, I couldn’t think about it. I had to think about the possible aftermath. Losing my job in my current situation would be the end of me.