Page 66 of The Love Destroyers

“Nicole sent me to chauffeur the rabbit. She asked you to meet her in one of the supply closets on the second floor. It’ll be the second one from the closest elevator.”

“Left or right?”

He shrugs.

“Wouldn’t it be easier for her to meet me down here…like she told me?”

“Sure,” he says with an easy grin. “But my wife lives for this cloak-and-dagger shit. She’ll be there.”

Sighing, I hand over the rabbit and then his cage. “He shouldn’t give Chuck a hard time.”

Damien grunts as he studies the rabbit. “No shit. I’ll run him by the apartment and talk to Chuck. Ellie say anything to you?”

“Nicole hasn’t kept you updated?”

“She told me she saw a man with an orange toupée and gray sideburns at Cracker Barrel and then asked me to meet you here to grab the rabbit. That’s what I’m working with right now.”

I quickly explain the breakup situation, and Damien swears under his breath before saying he’ll drive up to Charlotte to tail Jeffrey after dropping Carrot off. He takes off, and I find my way to the elevator to search for the supply closet, which is even more complicated than it sounded, because this place is stupidly large. I have a natural sense of direction—an internal compass, my father called it—but it needs something to work with. There are plenty of unlabeled doors here, and the first one I open, two to the right of the elevator, is a bust. So I turn and head in the other direction. I’m about to reach for a door when it creaks open. An arm reaches out and grabs me inside.

Emma’sarm.

She shuts the door, leaving us standing inches apart in the dim dark, the glow from the top and bottom of the door frame providing the only illumination in the crisp space, which smells of laundry detergent. The closet is a few footsteps deep, with clean towels stacked up on shelves bracketed to the sides and backs.

It's the best kind of shock to the system—to be expecting Nicole and to get Emma instead. She’s so close to me, and in a private space, shut out from the outside world. Ours but close enough totheirsto make it feel hotter. She’s wearing yoga pants and an oversized sweater. There are fuzzy little slippers on her feet, and she smells like an herbal cocktail. It’s a softer look for her. A very touchable look, like her fuzzy outfit from the other night.

I’d like to throw her over my shoulder and leave this place. But she’d have definite opinions about that, and besides, I’m here to help her. If I did that, I’d be the kind of man who helps only himself.

“Nicole told me to meet you two here,” she says in an undertone.

“How’s Shadow?” I ask, edging closer.

“Insane.”

“My mother gave her catnip and she jumped three feet into the air. It was impressive.”

“Tell that cat herdaddy’scoming home for her real soon.”

She gets the euphemism of course, and shakes her head and rolls her eyes to tell me what she thinks of my “charm.” I’ll be damned if that’s not all it takes for my dick to get hard for her. Then again, I’m working on two months of self-denial. I usually don’t go this long without touching a woman, but no one has appealed to me since I got a taste of Emma. I’d like to think the two things aren’t connected, but shut into this room with her, I can’t deny the truth.

“You smell good,” I tell her, leaning in a little more, because damn, does she ever.

Her brows knit together in the near dark. “You don’t.”

“I guess that’s inevitable when a rabbit shits on you.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yeah, but at least I had a change of clothes.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but did the rabbit also shit on your change of clothes? Because you still smell like it.”

“Rabbits work in mysterious ways.” I barely know what I’m saying. My mind is only slightly functional after the day I’ve had, and the small space is completely consumed by Emma, the same way my mind has been.

No, dammit, I’m not going there. I should have let Ellie kiss me earlier. Because maybe that would have ended this madness. Then again, maybe not, since even the thought feels wrong.

I clench my jaw and stop myself from saying something stupid.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks.

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