Page 42 of The Love Bandits

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

LAINEY

I can still feel his dick through his pants. See the way his eyes burned into me as I peered up into them, the breeze playing with his mussed hair. His muscular arms lifted overheard.

I can’t like Jake, but I do want him—in a purely carnal, animal lust sort of way that I’ve never let myself experience before. In the past, lust has been a studied thing for me—what to wear to make him beg or drop to his knees. What sounds to make and when. Which angles complement me best.

This feelsnothinglike that. He makes me want to squirm. To makehimsquirm and beg.

Which is exactly how I don’t want to feel about a man who’s a man who embodies every one of my worst impulses.

Now, after a tense drive back to the cabin, Jake and I are sitting in the living room with Nicole and Damien. My bare feet are covered in the worst dirt and who-knows-what-else Marshall, NC has to offer, and I’m anxious to take a shower, but I have a feeling we’ll be in here for a while.

Claire and Declan are still out on their date, and Rosie hasn’t gotten back from Smith House, although she’s texted, and she insists she wants a full and thorough update theinstantshe getshome. Honestly, I’m glad they’re not here yet. This is the sort of situation that’s best kept small.

Damien, Nicole, and I are sitting on the couch, and Jake’s in the hot seat in front of us. The hot seat being a dining room chair, because Nicole insisted we shouldn’t let him get too comfortable. Professor X, damn her, is curled up in Jake’s lap.

I’ve just finished telling my friends everything that happened tonight, from finding Jake in front of that empty display case to deciding to help him.

Nicole glances at me. “And I hope you searched him?”

“Thoroughly,” Jake says with plenty of insinuation. His hand smooths over Professor X’s back, and I have the obscene thought that I’d like it to glide over my thighs like that and dip between them.

My brain has been poisoned by this man.

Nicole bursts out laughing, which Jake clearly wasn’t expecting, and gives him a once-over. “I’ll bet she did.”

“Who’s threatening your brother?” Damien asks, one of the first things he’s said all night. He’s like that sometimes—a sponge, soaking everything in—before he makes a pronouncement. He has a bit of a threatening glower going on right now, but Jake hasn’t shown any tells of being nervous. Then again, he’s an actor. A cipher. Who knows if anything he does is real. I’ve always had the curiosity of a cat with nine lives, and I can’t deny that I want to know more about him. But the more I know, the more human he’ll be—the more relatable. It’s safer to see him as other. As the enemy.

We’re only working together right now because the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

“I’d rather not say,” Jake tells him.

“We’re private investigators,” Damien tells him, and for a second Jake’s reaction is genuine: surprise. Alarm. “We’re goingto find out, but you might as well save us some tedious legwork and be straightforward.”

“Not my strong suit.”

“Suit yourself,” Damien says, leaning back.

Jake eyes him as he pets Professor X’s fur again. “You won’t get far without my last name.”

“Don’t need it,” Damien says with a lazy smile. “We know Jake Jeffries is fake, and somewhere along the way of making him, I’m sure you made a mistake. Everyone always does, no matter how careful they think they are. We’ll find you, and then we’ll find your brother, and given he’s a hostage to some sort of gangster, I’m guessing he’s not as careful as you are. What’s his name, anyway?”

Jake rolls his eyes. “You think I’d tell you my brother’s name if I wouldn’t tell you who has him?”

“He said his name is Ryan,” I tell them. I’m lucky looks can’t kill, because Jake not-Jeffries would have just sliced my head clean off. There’s betrayal in his gaze, and I understand why. He told me something vulnerable in a moment of desperation, and he thinks I just stabbed him in the back with it. I know Nicole and Damien, though. They have their own version of right and wrong, and they’re not particularly worried about anyone else’s. They’ll care more about helping Ryan escape this kidnapper than nailing him for past thefts.

“I lied,” Jake insists, his eyes boring into me.

“He didn’t.”

His mouth closes in a firm, displeased line, then he regroups and says, “Look, you’re all focusing on the wrong thing. I don’t have the necklace, but someone else does. I’m gonna guess it’s Anthony and Nina. Hell, maybe it was even Mrs. Rosings.”

“You think Mrs. Rosings stole her own necklace?” I say with interest.

“She could have,” he says, his jaw flexing. “Or Anthony and Nina, like I said. I’ll set up that tea with Anthony. We can get everyone into one place. That should help me narrow it down.”

“Oh-ho,” Nicole says, leaning forward, her elbows propped on her knees, “you’re not doing anything on your own, Flynn Rider, not until this situation is resolved. ”

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