Run (Lakefield Book 1)

by Jennifer Vester

  I tried not to get distracted by his smell or the heat coming from the contact of our bodies.

  “No, maybe a little tender but honestly it doesn’t hurt.”

  He nodded while staring down at me like he wanted to kiss me again.

  “Aiden, I think I left my phone in your car with my satchel.”

  He nodded again. “Yeah, I think it’s in the living room. I need to go in to work here in a little while. Shouldn’t take long but there are some things I need to wrap up since it’s Friday.”

  It hadn’t registered to me until then, that he had been with me nearly all day yesterday. The number of things he probably did in a day had gotten moved to the side so that he was able to take care of me. It was sweet but it made me feel guilty, because this man obviously had better things to do then babysit a slightly scratched up woman like me.

  I stepped back from him, gave him a sincere smile, and grabbed my cup. “I’m so sorry. I know you must be a very busy guy and here you are trying to take care of me. Truly, I’m okay. I mean, I want to run over my ex right now if you can spare a car, but otherwise I’m fit as a fiddle.”

  He chuckled. “What’s the use of being the boss if you can’t take some time off? Believe me babe, I want to be here. No apologies for that. And if you need a car to run over your ex please have Holden, Dylan or Jake with you.”

  I laughed and went to the living room as he followed. I found my satchel and phone by the door. “Was that Jake outside?”

  Aiden was leaning against the doorway to the kitchen. “Yeah. I’d prefer you stick with Holden but any of the three of them I would trust with my life.”

  I headed toward the hallway to the bedroom and heard Aiden stalking behind me. When I reached the room, I went over to the couch in front of the bay window and dug out my phone.

  It was still turned off from the previous day. I turned it on and let it cycle up as I watched Aiden take a seat beside me. His arm went up over the back of the couch as he stared outside. He didn’t say anything but looked like he was simply content to look through the window at the scenery.

  “Why do you work at Stacks?” He asked randomly.

  I thought for a moment. “A year ago, I moved here with the intent of putting my degree to good use. But, after submitting endless applications and only getting a handful of interviews I was about to be in a tight spot if I didn’t find something. The job market was rough and the next logical step for me, if I wanted to keep a roof over my head, had been working at Stacks. It’s given me some time to figure out what to do next. It wasn’t what I had expected to do but in some ways, it fits well.”

  He smiled, “You have plenty of time to figure out what you might like to do. You’re still young.”

  I frowned at him. “Uhm, how old are you?”

  He didn’t answer right away. Then he leaned into me, nibbled my earlobe, and whispered in my ear, “Older than you are.”

  I pushed back at him playfully and narrowed my eyes.

  He looked at me seriously and opened his mouth to say something, but my phone interrupted with several beeps, whistles, and dings like it was possessed.

  I frowned and punched in my code.

  Three missed calls from Julia, one missed call from mom and four text messages. No doubt all the texts were also from Julia and mom. I ignored the messages and tossed the phone on the top of my bag as I stood up.

  I would call them back later. That thought came to me as I turned back to Aiden and stared down into those gorgeous blue eyes.

  It felt strange not to want to talk to either of them. They were two of the most important people in my life, and yet, all I really wanted to do right now was look at Aiden.

  I looked over his entire face slowly. The stubble on his chin had been tickling my face earlier when he had kissed me. It needed a trim, so did his dark hair. I reached up and gently ran my hand through the top of it. He had a small scar I hadn’t noticed that peaked out from the hair at his temple and I ran my finger down to it.

  I licked my bottom lip as I looked back in his eyes. I wanted to blame it on my small, tiny, little injury, that my brain wasn’t functioning right around him. But the truth was, I had enjoyed the last twenty-four hours with him. It was a shitty twenty-four hours but it wasn’t so shitty, I realized, because he was there.

  He was looking at me like he wanted to grab me but was watching or waiting, maybe both, to see what I would do. His hands flexed against pants and his jaw tightened the more I stared at him.

  He was an incredibly sexy, highly intelligent man that made me feel something. Something that felt like the beginning of a spark, or an awakening of an awareness deep inside, that made me feel like I could enjoy being with him.

  I wanted to tell him that very thing but I chickened out at the last second, and instead said, “I’m going to take a shower and get dressed.” Then I walked off, grabbed some clothes, and headed toward the bathroom, leaving a frustrated looking Aiden on the couch.

  * * *

  When I came out of the bathroom dressed and finally looking decent for the day, Aiden was gone. As in gone, gone. Nowhere in the house.

  I grabbed my phone and coffee cup as I wandered back to the kitchen after looking for him. I peeked outside on the back porch but didn’t see anyone. I grabbed some fruit and filled a plate with some eggs that were left over from his breakfast with the guys. He had a stool at the kitchen island that I sat down at and started to eat.

  Shoving a big bite of eggs in my mouth, I punched in my security code, and looked at my messages. All four were from Julia.

  Julia: Hey girl!

  Julia: OMG! Doc Matthews just filled me in. He called Stacks for you. CALL ME

  Julia: …if you don’t call me…

  Julia: Hope you like the books. Well hope Aiden likes them! LOL! Call me.

  Geez, fucking Julia. Well, that was confirmation that the hussy had planted the clothes and books on purpose. There was a fifth message that had come in while I was in the shower.

  Julia: Girls night. Operation Drink Night Out. Will be there at 8. Out.

  I nearly spit the food in my mouth out and choked slightly. Grabbing the coffee, I took a huge gulp, and coughed. What the hell was she planning? And why the hell was she talking like that?

  I dialed her number.

  “What’s up,” she greeted me.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Oh, well nice to hear from you, I’m doing well. How are you?”

  “I couldn’t call you. I left my phone in my satchel and didn’t think about it until this morning. There was a lot going on yesterday.”

  “Uh huh. I’m all ears. How big is he and how many positions did you explore?”

  I coughed. “JULIA! No. Not—none of that happened.”

  “Damn! I was hoping to live vicariously through your sexual exploits and love life.”

  I rolled my eyes. Even though Julia had no filter for her mouth sometimes, and might encourage me to date like crazy, she had been having a dry spell in that department for over a year. Even prior to that she hadn’t dated much and the few times she had, they had been groupies at the same music festivals she liked to go to. In other words, they left when the concerts left.

  “Jules I’ll let you know, if and when, my cold, dead heart starts beating again. It’ll probably be from harvesting it after I’m dead and putting it into a donor. But you’re more than welcome to talk to the new owner when that happens.”

  “Okay, so is it just maybe a little bit beating? C’mon Liv! Spill.”

  I ignored her. “What the hell is Operation Drink Night Out?”

  “Yeah. So be ready at eight tomorrow. We’re going to the bar and we’re getting drunk! Like ten shots of happiness and a round of stinking drunk. Aiden assigned Jake to me today. I might have bribed him with donuts to let me know where Aiden was. I told him we have some function to go to. Just put on the dress. He’s driving.”

  I laughed. Jake probably wasn’t thi
nking about the donuts at all when Julia had bribed him. She was drop dead gorgeous. Her bribery didn’t take much more than a smile. The look he had given my legs this morning while he was on the porch was enough to know that he was a flirt.

  “Aiden isn’t going to let me out of here in that dress.”

  “He’s apparently very busy today and tomorrow. He had to fly to New York or something. No worries. Trust me. Be ready at eight. Out.”

  She hung up.

  She was insane. I smacked one hand over my forehead. Then immediately regretted it.

  “Ouch.” I rubbed my temple.

  This sounded like the Julia from college. The one that got us arrested nude in an animal clinic. The one that broke into her ex-boyfriend’s house just to put mint ointment on the toilet seat and hemorrhoid ointment in his toothpaste. The one that was crazy.

  I needed more coffee for this.

  My phone rang. Sexy Beast Calling.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey beautiful.”

  “Oh hey, how are you? Work going okay? I just ate some of your eggs. Where do I need to put this food?”

  I sounded guilty. I was rambling. Like I had just gotten off the phone with Julia and was planning on sneaking out of the house. Damnit!

  “Um, Holden was supposed to put that away. He should be there somewhere. He might be out back. Don’t worry about it. If you want to put it up there are bowls around.”

  “Okay, sounds good,” I said cheerily.

  “Yeah. Are you okay?”

  “Uh huh. Just talked to Julia.”

  “Oh yeah. She told Jake you had some function with the Literacy Council you had to go to tomorrow night. That’s really phenomenal that you two volunteer there.”

  I nearly choked and sputtered out something that sounded like a response. What the hell!

  “Uh, well. I don’t think—”

  Aiden was quiet for a moment. “Sure you’re okay? Earlier you looked—I don’t know.”

  “I’m good. I was having a moment I guess. It’s been a wild week. About tomorrow night—”

  “Well, when you’d like it to get wilder let me know.”

  I laughed hard. “That was so cheesy.”

  Aiden chuckled. “Have to go gorgeous. I’m just now boarding the plane for several meetings that couldn’t be put off until next week.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. We just bought a property and there are some sticky politics involved. I won’t be able to contact you much today but I’ll call you tonight possibly. I’ll be back the day after tomorrow. Behave and do what Holden tells you to do. He’s assigned to you. Logan may be by too. Don’t flirt with him because I’ll kill him. Fuck—just be good.”

  I could imagine him scowling as he mentioned Logan.

  Not having control over the day or the events that could happen was probably driving him insane. I tried to tell him twice that our night out tomorrow wasn’t what he was thinking.

  Fuck it.

  “Okay Aiden. I’ll do my best.” Technically that wasn’t a lie.

  He growled, “Bye babe.” Then he hung up.

  I was in so much trouble.

  The rest of my day was spent inside or out on the back patio reading, sleeping and trying not to think of Aiden. It didn’t help that I was in his house.

  He texted that he missed me late in the evening but didn’t call.

  Not that I cared. Not one little bit.

  I fell asleep with a frown.

  Chapter Eleven

  My Saturday had been uncharacteristically exciting for once. In a good way, without involving car wrecks or psycho ex-boyfriends.

  After waking up, I had made a fresh omelet and some bacon. I had just put the leftovers in the fridge, when Holden had come in from doing whatever it was that he had been doing.

  He had been wearing black camo pants, a black shirt, and looked like he had been an extra in a stunt double competition involving mud. He had left tracks of dirt across the floor. He had gotten out all the bowls from the previous day and had eaten all of the leftovers.

  The house was like a free for all for any of Aiden’s guys to walk through. Most of them didn’t, but Dylan and Holden took advantage of the full fridge like it was their own house.

  I had given Holden a sound verbal thrashing about tracking mud into the kitchen and onto the counter. He had just given me a puzzled look and a smile.

  I had gone back to the bedroom, after threatening to remove Holden’s appendages over the kitchen mess, and had read for a few hours. I had taken a small nap but had been woken up by Holden when one of Logan’s associates arrived to give me a checkup.

  His name was Bob. Bob was a nice guy and he made me laugh a few times. Meanwhile, Holden scowled at Bob from the other side of the room and when Bob said he needed to check my temple and got too close, Holden had withdrawn his gun and told Bob to back off. Bob promptly left on two wobbly legs, stuttering his farewell. Holden had gotten another verbal thrashing from me about being a tad bit overbearing just like his boss.

  Logan had come to the house next and wasn’t happy. Which ended in a backyard yelling contest between he and Holden.

  I had locked them both out of the house and had gone back to the couch to finish my nap. When I woke up the second time, Holden and Logan were in a better mood and had politely asked not to be locked out again.

  Aiden had called Holden, and I had heard a lot of yelling. Then Logan got on the phone to defend Holden and there was a lot of yelling again.

  Apparently, between the two of them, and six other men on the grounds, no one had any clue where to locate the spare set of keys to the house. Holden had to break in, which had set off a silent alarm to Brock, who immediately called Aiden, and sent twelve other men in Aiden’s security group to the house.

  Men!

  Logan had cleared me for early release from bed rest. Most likely just to piss off Aiden, who had been looking forward to the week with me but that was just a guess. Logan had done a lot of stomping on his way out of the house. Holden hadn’t felt the need to stay for that exam and had been using Aiden’s study to clean his weapons when the doctor decided to unceremoniously leave our company.

  I had eaten a bit around noon and then was, once again, starving around the naptime drama. Then I had been hungry again, a couple of hours later. There was too much junk food in the house and not the right kind of junk for me. Holden had refused to take me to get a Danish. My guess, was that he had still been sore about that whole key thing. When I had asked, he had done a lot of scowling.

  I had called Julia and told her I felt like I was on a pastry intervention diet from hell.

  I was doing my makeup when Julia and Jake showed up at the house a little earlier than I expected. Julia came breezing into the bathroom bearing pastry gifts in a small bag. She was wearing a tight blue mini dress with spaghetti straps.

  I nibbled on one of the pastries and it literally melted in my mouth. I looked at her in the mirror. “Wow, is that the silk dress you bought on vacation?”

  Julia twirled around in from of the mirror, making it look so much more graceful than I could have. Her platinum blonde hair looked messy and wild. “Yes, I love it. Shows off just enough, right? Plus, I love the black lace down the sides. The lace totally sold it for me.”

  “I love it. Oh, good news I think, Logan gave me a clean bill of health and said I could go back to work rather than wait another four days. I think he might be mad at Aiden though, so I’m not sure I’ll go back just yet.”

  Julia was applying her champagne colored lipstick. “Hmm, have you told Aiden?”

  “No.”

  She looked at me and her head tilted to the side as if considering something then went back to her lipstick. “Hmm.”

  I put on some darker makeup to match the dress I was wearing. When I finished, I brushed out my hair, put on my heels and gave myself a good look in the mirror.

  The design of the front had a cowl and it dipped low into my bre
asts. They weren’t hanging out and giving a greeting but the design highlighted the mounds that were clearly visible.

  The material of the dress hugged my curvy figure in the waist and hips and came to a stop about mid-thigh. The sheer panels on my hips just added to the overall look. Even if they hadn’t been there, it would still be a hot dress.

  Yeah, this dress was totally sexy on me.

  Julia, the awesome best friend that she was, had remembered to bring two jackets for us. She handed me a red one and she took a black one. Thankfully they covered most of what we were wearing.

  She winked “You should send Aiden a pic.”

  “You need to shut your mouth.”

  She laughed.

  My cell beeped just as we were about to head toward the living room.

  I glanced at it and grabbed Julia’s arm. Text from Brandon.

  Brandon: You really need to think about what you’re doing Livvie. I know where you’re at and what you’re doing. I’ll kill him.

  I shivered.

  Julia grabbed my phone and threw it on the bed. “Forget about it. He doesn’t know shit.”

  “He knows I’m with Aiden, Jules. He has to, right?”

  Julia thought about it for a minute. “Look he’s doing the same crap he used to do back in college. Admittedly, he’s taken it a step or two farther than his normal weirdness but he’s doing this shit to scare you. We’re going to have a good time tonight. I’m not worried about it. He’s a weasel.”

  “A step farther? Trying to shoot out a window and causing a car wreck?”

  My phone beeped again and I picked it up. Text from Brandon.

  Brandon: You can run but you can’t hide.

  Julia grabbed my phone again and turned it off. “Fuck him. He’s messing with your head.”

  I bit my lip. Maybe tonight wasn’t such a good idea.

  Julia shook me until I looked at her. “Live your life. He can’t possibly know everything. I doubt he even knows who Aiden is. He just saw you get in a car with Holden Thursday and flipped out. We’re going to have a good time tonight.”