Page 44 of Sizzling

I glanced back at the apartment. I needed to talk to Dovie. Explain things and make sure she didn’t open the door or leave tonight. The pizza. Crap. I couldn’t order her pizza.

Chewing on my bottom lip, I tried to figure out what I was going to tell Storm. Sure, I needed a ride, but before work came Dovie.

I’d not told Pepper who Dovie was or even given her a name. I just said it was someone who needed saving and I couldn’t say more. She’d trusted me and agreed to help me with the new identity. I owed her a lot. Which meant I couldn’t not show up tonight.

“I have to run up to my apartment real quick. I won’t be long,” I told him.

“I’ll go with you.”

“No,” I blurted.

He raised an eyebrow at me. I swallowed, thinking through this. I had to come up with a reason why he couldn’t.

“I’ll just be a second, and I’d rather you not know my apartment number.” Which wasn’t a lie.

“Two twenty-nine,” he replied without pause.

Shit. Did they know everything? No, they didn’t. They had no idea about Dovie. Just my location at all times, it seemed.

“Stalker,” I muttered.

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

With a roll of my eyes, I decided I’d have to just text Dovie. There were eggs in the fridge. She could make an egg sandwich or a grilled cheese and heat up the can of tomato soup to go with it. It wasn’t the best dinner, but it would have to do.

“I’m running out of time,” I said. “Let’s just go.”

He studied me for a moment, as if he was going to insist we go to my apartment, but finally, he turned and headed toward a matte-black Jeep. It was new and expensive. The kind of Jeep I would never be able to afford.

When the locks on the doors clicked, he headed for the driver’s side, and I went to climb in the passenger seat. Once we were inside, I glared straight ahead.

“This doesn’t change the fact that I hate you. I just need to get to work,” I clarified.

He backed out of the parking space. “I don’t particularly like you either.”

I’d done nothing to this man! Nothing. “Glad we can agree on something.”

He didn’t say anything more, and I remained silent. No need to talk and pretend like we were anything more than enemies. Even if his scent had saturated this Jeep, and it was hard not to think about how his fingers inside of me had felt. When his body had been pressed against mine.

UGH! No, no, no, no. I was not that weak. He had humiliated me.

My hands fisted in my lap, and I tried to think of anything other than him. If the damn vehicle didn’t smell so freaking good, I could.

Drive faster, asshole.

• Eighteen •

“The lot think they’re in love with her.”

Storm

“Back again. They must not have decent bars in Georgia,” Pepper Abe said as she stood on the back side of the bar with two bottles of whiskey in her hands.

“Just in town. Thought I’d drop in.”

The corner of her lips curled up, and then she turned to put the bottles on the shelf behind her.

When I had brought Briar in earlier, I hadn’t gotten out of the Jeep. I waited until she was outside, and then I went back to her apartment and did a closer inspection on her car. I’d spent very little time near it earlier, just enough to get done what I needed to, but I noticed something that I wanted to check more closely without her around to see me do it. The tracking device was still in place, but another one had been added, along with a wiretap inside the vehicle. The devices weren’t ours. They were cheaper and easier to spot if you knew what you were looking for.

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