Everywhere It's You

by C. B. Salem

  “It’s okay." She shifted, suddenly feeling like she was on stage. It was time to get the conversation moving again. “What’s so bad about controlling people’s desires? It sounds a lot better than blowing them up.”

  He shook his head slowly, still with an eye on her. She licked her lips anxiously.

  “Not at this extreme,” he said. “These pharms turn people to animals. Those affected could have their brains force them to tear each other limb from limb. The bloodlust is unbelievable. You should have seen the studies that were done on rats.” His eyes found hers again. “Or you shouldn’t. It was awful. The drug could also be programmed to cause mass suicide. Et cetera. You can’t do that to people and still have a civilized world.”

  A shiver emanated around her skin at the image of a very bloody rat cage. “How long does it last?”

  “Long enough.” He sat up straighter and leaned toward her. “When you work with pharms, you realize how delicate the balance of what ‘normal’ human behavior really is. The spectrum of our desires can make us essentially feral very easily. Worse than feral, with our intelligence.”

  “But we’re essentially animals at our core, right?”

  He froze, then pulled his lips back in a small smile. “In a way, yes. That’s why the pharm works.”

  She returned his smile, hoping to lighten the mood and get the images of the rats out of her mind. “It sounds kind of like Agent Smith. The desire-control, I mean.”

  His smile faded. “Been reading the news?”

  Kristina bit her lip. She’d already gotten so used to being around the real Landon, she’d nearly forgotten that every man she saw looked pretty much like that.

  “No,” she said. “Well, kind of. I actually think I was drugged with it last night. At The Velvet.”

  His head jerked back in surprise. “Last night at The Velvet? When were you there?”

  Her cheeks burned. Somehow she’d thought he recognized her. She looked down, trying to think of how to explain.

  Recognition dawned on his face before she could open her mouth. “The drink girl,” he said simply. “But you were a red-head!”

  She shrugged. Her face had to be as red as her wig the previous night had been she was blushing so hard. “Wigs can be pretty convincing. I had a lot of makeup on too.”

  He shook his head and laughed shortly. Her stomach dropped. One day she might see the humor in this, but not at the moment. For now it was all kinds of awkward.

  “Sorry,” he said, gathering himself quickly. “I had just been thinking it felt like we’d met before.”

  “Well, I guess we had. Kind of.”

  He wiped the smile from his face. “Why do you think you were drugged?”

  She was glad he at least moved on quickly. “I’ve been hallucinating. My brother does blood work for the CPD. He took a sample and said that’s what’s in my blood.”

  Landon pressed his thin lips into a line, brows knit. “And who is the object of your hallucinations?”

  Her jaw worked, her teeth grinding together before she could stop herself, and her cheeks felt like they were under an island sun. “You can probably guess.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Landon looked up at the ceiling and sat back. A rare feeling rose up in his chest. So they had gotten to her last night, when he wasn’t even expecting her to be there.

  His plan had been foiled. For now, he had failed.

  “Damn it,” he said under his breath. He ran a hand through his hair. How could they have gotten to her? It seemed impossible. He had been very careful. Careful to the point of paranoia. There was a leak somewhere vital and he needed to find where it was fast.

  They were both silent for several minutes. He looked up at Kristina as she sat on the couch. She seemed to be studying him, her pale blue eyes watchful and active. Her blonde hair fell casually down her shoulders and chest. She was still wearing the same jacket she’d worn earlier—apparently she either hadn’t seen or didn’t care for the clothes he’d laid out in her room.

  “Can you fix it?” she asked, breaking the silence. “Some kind of antidote, maybe?”

  He shook his head, happy to be in the realm of certainty again. “That stuff is military grade. We’ve been working on counter-acting its active agent, but so far we have nothing reliable.”

  She nodded, seemingly expecting that. Another silence followed.

  “Why did you choose me?” she asked, finally. “And why all the hoops with the protocol and stuff? It seems complicated.”

  He breathed in as deeply as he could. “It was supposed to be a smoke screen,” he said. “I set up a security system on my penthouse so it would notify me when you went into my office. The plan was to make your search short but seem long and gradually leak out to see who is after me.”

  He smiled as her mouth dropped open. “The comm on your desk!”

  “So you did hear it,” he said. “Why didn’t you pick up?”

  She bit her lip. “I got a call from my brother. He said my name was out there on the dark net. Worried I was going to get kidnapped at your apartment. Like maybe they were waiting for me.”

  His brows furrowed. “What do you mean, your name is out there?”

  “Chatter, my brother said. I don’t know exactly how it works but I think it means some of the people who are after you found out about me and wanted me kidnapped. I think they think I knew something I didn’t.”

  “Which is where I was?”

  “I think so.”

  “I thought it would take them longer to get onto that,” he said.

  She nodded. “How did you end up finding me?”

  He swallowed hard. “After you didn’t pick up, I started tracking your comm to find another way to meet you in person.”

  She nodded, seemingly unfazed by his admission of basically stalking her. After he saw nothing else forthcoming from her on the subject, he switched gears to thinking about the problem at hand.

  Where could the leak be? Either the firm or a leak from her side. Or someone guessed from somewhere else. Maybe The Velvet. He was still coming to terms with that.

  “You didn’t answer the second part of my earlier question,” she said, her long body curled up into a flexible ball. “Why me?”

  He licked his lips and locked eyes with her. He’d spent a long time researching her to see if she would be a good fit for this. Longer and more thoroughly than she would want to know. “Because you’re trustworthy, and there was almost no way you would be traced back to me.”

  “Almost.” She narrowed her eyes. “I was traced.”

  “I know,” he said with a nod. “And that leaves very few options for who could have leaked that information and gotten people after you so fast.”

  “What’s your plan to deal with whoever it was?”

  “I’m working on that,” he said. “Whatever it is, it will start tomorrow.”

  She studied him for a while with those clever blue eyes and then nodded wordlessly. A silence hung between them, and he knew what he wanted next but not if the time was right. Not yet. He would know soon from her, he knew it. The way she looked at him spoke of something hidden just beneath the surface, bubbling up like lava under a volcano. She’d told him not to play games, but even now he didn’t think this would be playing.

  “You’re up to your neck in this,” she said, stirring him from his fantasies. “And I’m not totally convinced you know what you’re doing.”

  His eyes flashed open. He swallowed hard. No, this wasn’t playing at all.

  ***

  Kristina pressed her lips together until her teeth dug in and waited to see how Landon would react to being called out. His attitude toward how poorly things were going to this point seriously pissed her off. She hated arrogance when it wasn’t earned.

  “I’ve had a setback,” he said evenly. “That’s all. We’ll figure this out.”

  “You sound confident for someone who just learned his entire plan is in shambles. This isn’t a
science lab.”

  He smiled easily. “I’ve made a habit in my life of bouncing back from short-term difficulties.”

  She scoffed. “It’s made you cocky.”

  He laughed a rich, throaty laugh. “It’s also made me very wealthy. Don’t count me out just yet.”

  She took a quick breath and decided to switch gears. “Why don’t you have a security team, anyway?” she asked. She sat up straight. “Speaking of wealth, I mean. Not to sell myself short, but this seems a little above my pay grade.”

  “I have security at my home and for my business, but not for myself, no. The idea is oppressive.”

  “Seems like it wouldn’t be a bad idea around now.”

  His dark, mischievous eyes locked with hers. “I have faith in you, Kristina.”

  He stood up from the couch with glass in hand, turned, and slid past her, his gray wool slacks maybe a foot from her face. A ripple of warmth echoed through her chest, his mere proximity unsettling her. He held out his hand for her glass.

  “Refill?” he asked.

  She shook her head, her skin warm. Even as he was pissing her off, her body had other ideas. It wasn’t fair to have her defenses lowered against a man like this, even when he was only being mildly provocative.

  He came back a moment later with a notebook to go along with his glass. “So what’s Agent Smith been like?” he asked, taking a seat next to her. He set the notebook down on the coffee table. “I’m guessing you’re not too much into street pharms normally.”

  She pressed herself up against the arm rest, away from his pull. “Distracting,” she said honestly. “Especially when I was supposed to be looking for you.”

  “I imagine. Did you do a Recall from last night? You said your brother did work for the CPD.”

  “I did.”

  Memories of that ridiculous little dress rushed back. Her flirting with him. She didn’t want to relive it a third time.

  “Did you get anything from our conversation?” he asked. He was close enough now that she could feel warmth from his leg next to hers.

  She realized she was biting her lip. “No. Just what an ass I made of myself.”

  “I thought it was rather attractive,” he said, his voice low. “Couldn’t you tell?”

  “I—” She tried to swallow, but found her mouth bone-dry. Where had all her attitude gone? She felt herself being played and yet couldn’t resist.

  Another deep breath. She licked her lips and tried again. “What’s with the notebook?”

  He opened it and dug a pen out of his pocket, leaning into her briefly as they did so that their arms brushed together. Her breath caught in her chest, and she began to pull away. She couldn’t let this happen, knew it was a bad idea for her to entertain anything romantic with a man she needed to work with. A man who set her on fire like this.

  Then she left herself there, in the space of his touch, because she wanted it in that moment and that was as far as her mind could go.

  “I think we should make a list,” he said, seemingly ignoring the contact between their bodies. “Write down everyone who could even potentially be a leak. I prefer to write down my thoughts on problems I’m working on before bed. Sound good?”

  She nodded wordlessly.

  “Good.” He picked up the pen. “I’ll start.”

  He wrote three names: Brantley, Dunn, Bruman. She nodded when he looked up at her. His writing was small and precise, like he was more used to writing on graph paper than regular lines.

  He turned to her, brows arched. “Any from your end?”

  She pressed her lips together and took the pen from him, her face hot. Their fingers brushed in the exchange and sent a fresh charge every nerve in her body. She added three more names in her bubbly, girlish writing. Anna, Kevin, Tom.

  “Anna’s your friend at work, correct?”

  She took a deep breath. Of course he would know about Anna if he had done any research at all. “You did your homework,” she said. “I doubt she is a leak of any kind, though. No way she knew about it before today.”

  He nodded his agreement. “It’s not looking good for the partners at Dunn-Brantley then, is it?”

  She shook her head. “It’s not, no.” Something flashed across her mind. “There is one other name, though I have no idea how she works into it.”

  She picked up the pen again and leaned forward to write. Landon watched over her shoulder. Agent Rachel Carter.

  She leaned back. “She came to visit me,” she said, ignoring the heat rising to her skin as she turned to face him so closely. “I don’t know what she knows. You might have seen her at the party last night. Very tall brunette. Like model tall.”

  He nodded and looked at her curiously, his eyes studying her. “I doubt it.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  A silence fell between them. His gaze locked with hers. “My eyes were elsewhere,” he breathed.

  Then his hand was on her arm. He leaned in close, and a kiss hung there, in the inches between their lips. Her face hot with desire, she put her hand squarely on his hard chest to push him away. Except she didn’t push. Maybe it was a fatigue, or maybe she had just lost her mind, but she leaned in.

  His soft lips met hers and coaxed the kiss along gently, taking it deeper with each beat of her pounding heart. He dipped his tongue into her mouth and soon they were exploring each other instinctively, first with tongues, then more. Her hands plunged through his hair and his teased at her hips. His skillful fingers slid just under her tucked in shirt so that skin was on electric skin. The sensation sent a delicious warm buzz through her torso and toward her core.

  A comm rang out in the distance. No, on the table. A vision of her worried brother peeked through the haze of her desire.

  She broke the kiss and turned away in a rush. “I have to get that,” she said suddenly, his breath on her neck. The realization of the only person with that ID was like cold water in the face.

  She stood up before he could protest and walked over to her comm. Yup, it was Kevin. “Hello?” she answered.

  “Some muscle just came by and roughed up my office. Company’s going underground.”

  Her back went rigid. “What? What muscle?”

  “Men. Four of them, with guns. I don’t know but my guess is it’s the same guys who came for that stripper.”

  A shiver rippled through her body like countless little pinpricks just under her skin. There was silence.

  “Kris,” Kevin said, his voice cracking. “I can’t contact Tom. Since this afternoon. I’m worried they went after him too.”

  Her face felt numb. This couldn’t be happening. “Can’t contact?” she asked.

  “I think they’re trying to get to you through us, Kris. This thing is huge. Are you with Tatum?”

  “I...yes. Yes. We were just working out our next steps for smoking out who’s after him.”

  “Got it. Well keep this comm handy. I’m going under after this call. We’ll need to arrange another way to be in touch. You may have to ditch the one you have before too long.”

  She looked over at Landon, who was watching her with interest, his rumpled hair in contrast to his serious face. “I understand. What are we going to do about Tom?”

  “I’m doing my best to handle it. You need to get on top of this thing, Kris. It’s blowing up and there’s going to be more collateral damage soon.”

  She closed her eyes tight, trying to steady herself. “I will.”

  “Hang in there. I’ll be in touch when I can.”

  The line went dead. Tatum stood up from the couch and came toward her, arms open. She bit her lip and took a deep breath, trying to steady herself and refusing to fall into his arms. This wasn’t a time for hysterics, especially with a man she’d just met.

  She looked up into his questioning eyes. “Oh my god,” she said quietly.

  LIKE WHAT YOU READ?

  First off, thank you for reading!

  Until It’s You, the thrilling conclusion to
this story, is out now on Amazon!

  If you want to keep up with all my latest books, you can sign up at www.cbsalem.com.

  Please, please, please, if you like the book, leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads! It’s the most helpful thing you can do to support me and my work.

  Also check out my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/cbsalem.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  C.B. Salem lives, writes, and dreams in Chicago. When not reading or plotting the next scene in her book, C.B. enjoys cooking and having quality cuddles with two dogs: Murphy and Oliver.

  C.B. has a website! Check it out at www.cbsalem.com.