“Can’t have that…” He arched a brow, a subtle teasing about last night.
“Stop. Go lie down. I have to shower.” They walked arm in arm toward the bathroom. Kade kissed her head, yawned again, and left her there. Their confrontation hadn’t been as bad as she’d thought. He’d given in pretty quickly this time. She started for the bathroom when she heard the faint sounds of a chirp coming from her phone. That had to be Reed with her details for today. Abruptly, her thoughts switched from Kade to the dress she needed for tonight. Panic set in. She was way outside her element. She had a lot to learn really if she wanted them to have any longevity.
Quickly, Lara checked her text messages. She had an appointment scheduled less than thirty minutes from now in the spa at Neimans. After the fastest shower in recorded history, she dressed in blue jeans and a pullover and headed out the door. She took a cab, making it through the front doors of the salon pretty close to on time. Halfway through her appointment, she did remember to call Kade who was back to his normal self, teasing her about her day of pampering. Five hours later, she was on her way back home. Makeup, hair, and nails done. All she had left was to squeeze herself into the dress. Why did everything she had to wear fit like a glove?
Chapter 20
“You’re a little bit of a crybaby,” Reed said, entering the code to his apartment with Lara’s overnight bag slung over his shoulder and his arm wrapped tightly around her. She held the jacket to his tuxedo along with the black silk necktie he’d abandoned within seconds of getting inside the car after the final curtain call.
“It was so beautiful. Her voice is incredible. I felt her in my soul,” Lara declared. For Reed, it was all about the enchanting beauty in his arms. Every time he took her into his environment, he came away a little more convinced she’d been sent straight from the heavens to stand by his side. She was the perfect date: Smart, funny, caring, and able to rise above the crass, cut-throat world he lived in. She was his cream, always rising to the top. He felt cleaner when she was around.
“When I first started attending, I wanted to class myself up, but I get lost in the language barrier. I know it should have special meaning. I just can’t connect the dots,” Reed spoke honestly, not guarding any of his words. She moved from his hold to walk inside before him. He watched her automatically head toward his bedroom, shaking the jacket out with her hands. Her quickly-developed comfort in his home made him smile.
“What foreign languages do you speak?” she asked.
“Some Spanish. I’ve never been too good at picking up languages,” he said, trailing along behind her, appreciating the sway of her hips with each high-heeled step she took.
“I could teach you. It’s easy once you learn the rules and some techniques. You’d be surprised.” Lara went for his closet, opening the door to hang up his jacket. His heart connected with the casual move that somehow seemed intimate. She was sexy as hell, but so much more. He fell in step behind her.
“Dear Lord, this is a huge closet. Everything you own’s over-the-top. My God, how many suits do you need?” she said from inside the small room. He chuckled and began to undress, choosing to ignore that outburst. She’d get used to things like that. Wait until she saw his home in New York. She might not survive.
“I’m not sure I’d be a good student at learning languages. You’re above average intelligence, right? What’s your IQ?” he diverted. He began the process of undressing. He pulled out the tails to his dress shirt, carefully working the buttons undone. He waited for her to answer. When she didn’t, he moved to the closet door and watched her. Most intellectuals put their brainpower in your face within seconds of meeting them. She masked hers. “It’s not a bad thing.”
“No, it’s not unless you’re raised in my family.” Lara seemed unsure where to hang his jacket. He relieved her of the garment, randomly placing it on the hook. His housekeepers kept him organized. They would see to that in the morning. Lara moved in front of him, giving him her back where the long zipper was located. “I’ve worried about this all night. I want to take this back to the store. It’s too expensive to wear just once.”
He let the comment about her family go. He had her background report coming, hopefully to help make more sense of cryptic sentences like that. He moved her hair aside and unzipped the dress, following her curves all the way down. Tonight she had a strapless pushup bra underneath this sleeveless dress. The lower the zipper got, the more skin he exposed. Ahh, no panties. He’d suspected as much when there wasn’t the slightest line in the back of her dress. “I’m not returning the dress or the jewelry, Lara. The diamonds reminds me of you and there’ll be many other times you’ll need something like that to wear.”
“Oh my, that was a good response.” She dropped her shoulders forward, gathering the dress before she stepped out. Her laugh caressed his already sensitive heart as her little striptease hardened his aching cock. He guessed she was truly comfortable now. At least enough to undress so casually in front of him.
“What? It’s the truth. Simple, elegant, stunning. And so is the necklace.” He waggled his brow, taking the dress, hanging it next to his jacket. He liked her things there beside his. Only then did he notice her still wearing thigh highs and strappy high heels. The pushup bra shoved her breasts up so enticingly.
“I lectured myself on giving you a break tonight. I told myself I’d be content just to hold you, and I will be, but this is a hot little look.” Her amber eyes sparkled like the jewels they were as she reached behind her and unclasped the hooks of her bra. The seductive smile she gave when the thin strip of material fell away shook his resolve to its very core, but he resisted the overwhelming urge to touch that patch of curly hair between her legs, and instead, laid his hands on her hips. She shifted, spreading her legs slightly wider as she unclasped the necklace.
“A break on what?”
He swallowed, moving closer to her. Lara handed him the necklace, and he casually tossed it on a built-in shelf. His hands slid over the curves of her hips. “No sex. I couldn’t leave you alone last night. You have to be sore.” His voice was husky, and his eyes drank in her flawless form.
She lifted her hands, working his belt buckle free and then the button of his slacks. Reaching her hand inside, she stroked his hard, thick length. Reed sucked in his breath, stopping her with a hand over hers. He didn’t remove the hand, just stilled its progression. The inner battle raging throughout his entire body took a minute to process. That good side of his brain seemed to speak the loudest. He cupped her hand, finally lifting it off him, moving her palm close to his heart. “It’s here that’s trying to talk louder tonight. Let it. It’s a first.”
He bent slightly to kiss her. His eyes staying on hers the entire way. She was magic to him. She did things no one else on the planet was able to do—draw his conscience out. With effort, he kept the moment light before moving to the drawers along a back wall. He pulled out a T-shirt and handed it back to her. “Wear this if you didn’t bring anything. Are you hungry?”
Monitoring his gaze, making sure his eyes didn’t slip lower than her chin, he kissed her nose this time, grinning at the confusion staring back at him. Reed stepped out of the closet and headed to the bathroom to finish undressing. He could do without sex for one night. For him, he wanted to move this relationship into something more than sexual. For her, he needed to show her the value she added to his life. They weren’t just about the sex.
Chapter 21
Disoriented, Reed’s eyes blinked open. He yawned before moving his head toward the alarm clock. He’d slept his normal few hours but he sensed something else woke him. He looked around the room the best he could with Lara sprawled out across him. Nothing looked out of place or drew his attention. After a minute, he closed his eyes again, hoping for sleep.
A vibration from his nightstand caught his attention before he could drift off again. He turned his head to see the cellphone light up. He reached out, but couldn’t quite touch the phone. Gently, he unt
angled himself from Lara’s hold, scooting up against the headboard. She stayed close. Lara was so lovely. Even in sleep, she reached for him, wrapping an arm around his legs. He liked that move. Somewhat distracted, he rubbed a hand over her head as he picked up his phone. There were two text messages from his security firm, both alerting him of the background report available in his private email.
He weighed his options. Lara was sound asleep. He didn’t want to disturb her and he wasn’t ready to leave this bed, but he wanted to read the report. He watched Lara for several minutes, making sure she really slept before he used his cell to retrieve private email. The report was the first in the file. He opened the attachment and decided to suffer through the small screen in order to keep her right there with him. He enlarged the report and moved his finger along as he read.
Like normal, the top started out with name, age, and current address. There were photos of her and Kade. Actually more than one. He’d have to look at those later. Then a series of addresses were given for each until they combined. Kade’s military address showed Lara’s childhood home. The internal dialogue in his head had already started to form questions.
He swiped the screen, scanned the page, looking at Lara’s information. Her mother had died, he knew that. Her grades were straight A’s, and she was class valedictorian. He could have figured that information out on his own. Once in Wake Forest, her grades were the highest marks possible, and she graduated quickly, staying on for her upper-level grad work. Again, he knew all that. He used his finger to navigate the page until he came to information on her father. Enlarging the screen more, he counted off six driving while under the influence charges. He did the quick math; Lara would have been two when he got his first one, seventeen when he got his last one and went to prison for five years. Wait, he flipped back a page. She lived in the same house until she graduated. Another round of inner questions emerged.
The report covered Kade next. He looked like he was a bright child. He tracked the same as Lara until about the age of eleven. From there, he barely passed his courses and dropped out by age seventeen. He’d enlisted at that point. Reed flipped back to her father’s information. Kade left about a month or so after Lara’s father went to prison.
Frustrated with the phone as a reading device, Reed slowly moved out from under Lara. He wasn’t as successful as before. She sleepily woke, looking up at him. “Is everything all right?”
“I need to go to my office. You sleep. I’ll be back real soon.”
“Should I wake up?” He smiled at the question. She was so tired. He cupped her cheek and leaned down to kiss her forehead and then laid her head down, covering her up.
“Sleep. I won’t be gone long.” She did almost instantly. He heard her soft snores before he managed to dress in shorts and a T-shirt. He padded barefooted to his office and opened up email there. He started over from the beginning. Nothing indicated anyone helping Lara make ends meet during her last year of high school.
He moved along in the report until he found an incident by way of police report. He figured that might be the time in their lives Kade referenced. There was a lot there. He tried to read the handwritten notes on the report and couldn’t make out seventy percent of the words, so he went on to the medical records. This was where his security team shined. He didn’t want to know how they were able to put their hands on this report.
Lara’s showed what looked like a badly bruised body. She had broken ribs, a broken arm, and spent approximately five days in the hospital after an assault. Kade’s injuries, on the other hand, were much more extensive. He stayed in the hospital almost five weeks. There was a laundry list of trauma. As Reed read down the list, his heart broke for the little boy treated so badly. He scanned across the words forcible penetration. His heart slammed in his chest as he slowed down and read the medical terms indicating Kade had been anally raped. It appeared violently.
He sat back in his chair and stared at the words. His heart sank. The eleven-year-old boy had been violently abused in the worst possible way. He went back to Lara’s report to see if he’d missed that in her descriptions. Nothing indicated she had been sexually abused. Both his elbows landed on the desk and he rubbed a hand down over his face. Dear Lord, what those children experienced.
Reed moved on, bypassing the rest of the medical history; he felt like he was violating Kade’s privacy, so he headed straight to the attached court documents. He scanned those until he got to the part where their attackers were identified. Two older boys, fifteen and sixteen, and they were given six months’ probation at a high-end rehabilitation center in California. His stomach churned.
Oh God, what Lara and Kade had gone through. Half-heartedly Reed ran through the few scrapes Kade had had with the law over his teenage years until enlisting. He opened up a slide show of photos. It was challenging to see the sweetness of the children, knowing what would happen to them. Lara was awkward and looked poor based on the house behind her in many of the pictures. Kade was a puny little thing until about the age of fifteen. He grew dramatically that year. Reed sighed deeply and contemplated all this new information.
Lara’s father had been in prison for five years, not that he showed much employment history before that. She had been beaten badly and her best friend in the world had been brutally raped. Man, that was a lot for anyone to deal with, much less dealing with it so young. And he thought he had a fucked up childhood. No wonder Kade’s protective streak ran so deep.
Reed leaned back in his chair and bit at his thumbnail. No question, he wanted Lara in his life. He wanted her there every single day, and he left that thought right there when the fear of those words trickled up his spine. Bottom line, he and Lara were meant to be together. He was meant to take care of her, which meant he had to make things right with Kade as soon as possible.
On instinct more than any gut plan, he moved back to the first page and used the phone number on the report to text Kade.
“It’s Reed Prescott. Can you text me back when you get this?”
“Where’s Lara. Is she okay?” Kade immediately responded. For some reason, that made his heart hurt. Kade spent his whole life looking out for her. He sighed; he should have started his message differently.
“She’s fine. Sleeping right now. I want to start over. When can we talk?”
“Why? Get the information you were looking for?” Reed read those typed words with all the attitude he figured Kade used, but decided on honesty. He could ignore a little animosity in order to get things on a better course with Lara’s best friend.
“I did. We need to start over. Can you meet?”
“Now?” Looked like Kade was taking the olive branch. Relief was strong.
“Now is as good a time as any. There’s a twenty-four hour restaurant on the first floor of my building.” He waited to see if Kade could come up with anyplace better.
“Is Lara coming?”
“No, I’d like to leave her sleeping.” He’d confess this invasion of privacy soon, but first, he needed a one-on-one with Kade.
“I’ll be there in fifteen.”
Reed went back to his apartment. He quietly grabbed his sandals and left the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. He left a note on the bar and found himself setting the alarm to the apartment before he left. It was a silly move. He could just lock the door. At this time of night, no one could get this high in the building without a passcode, but he couldn’t risk it. Not after what he’d just read. The information was too new, and all his protective juices were flowing at full strength.
In the elevator, he dropped his sandals, worked them on his feet, then finger-combed his hair, trying to measure his success in the etched mirror on the doors.
The building was quiet without the continual ebb and flow of daytime employees. He made it to the restaurant pretty quickly, but Kade was already there, sitting at a table. He wore athletic shorts and a tank top. Reed had seen him before on several occasions, but somehow he’d missed the sheer volume
of muscle the guy packed. He’d put that off to being one of those bulletproof vests, but obviously Kade worked out quite a bit.
“Hey, Reed, what can I get you to drink?” The waitress came right in front of him seconds before he made it to the table.
“Water’s fine.” He looked over to see a glass of water placed in front of Kade. He must be as uncertain as Reed about this whole deal. Water was easy to allow for a dramatic exit of throwing a tip on the table and leaving at any given moment.
“Thanks for coming,” Reed said, taking a seat across the table. Kade crossed those bulked-up arms over his chest and didn’t say a word. “I’m not sure where to start.”
“How about just asking the questions that weren’t answered in the background report. Isn’t that what caused this about-face?” he asked, directly.
He nodded. He liked direct, except technically this was none of his business. This was Kade’s and Lara’s personal history. “I need to be honest. It was hard for me to read what happened to you two. I’ll ask the questions, but anything you’re uncomfortable with doesn’t require an explanation.”
“So you got the medical reports too?” he asked that question defensively as hell. Reed stayed calm.
“I did. It was unexpected.” The tic in Kade’s jaw became more pronounced. Reed redirected the questions, starting with Lara’s family. “What happened with her father? Based on the dates, he went to prison during her last year of high school.”
“First, I have one for you that’s gonna determine how the rest of this meeting goes. Why’s this important? Does it make her damaged goods? Time to move on?” He was full of piss and vinegar. Reed didn’t take offense to Kade’s attack on his character. He just wasn’t certain how much to say. He took a drink of his water to coat his now dry throat and again reminded himself to be honest. The stakes were too high.
Chasing Happy (Texas Desires #1) Page 26