Page 8 of The Coffee Shop

“I was looking into it at the beginning of all this, before we knew her. It’s different now.” He adds quietly.

“Yeah, it is.” I agree, looking back down at her.

I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere along the line, we’ve fallen in love with her.

Chapter Five

LEENA

Slowly opening my eyes, I blink. Everything around me slowly comes into focus, I find Luke and Sebastian sitting across from me, in a loveseat.

“What happened? How long was I asleep?” I whisper.

“You stood up too fast and you passed out,” Luke explains. “You slept for about five hours, it’s almost ten pm.”

Five hours?I look towards the window, finding it dark.

“Lu caught you and carried you into the house.” Sebastian explains.

“Where are we?” I ask, glancing around. “It looks like my grandmother threw up in here.”

Both men chuckle and their low laughter almost makes me smile.

“It’s a safe house. The landlord said it camefurnished. She wasn’t kidding.” Luke waves a hand around, appearing a little horrified by the sight.

“A safe house?” I ask, then I remember.

The shooting, the phone call to my dad, finding out that I’m stuck with these guys.Fuck.

I sit up and, as I do, feel the rough fabric of the blanket brush across my nipples as it falls to my lap, feel the air across my bare skin.

Toomuch skin.

I look down quickly. I am completely naked aside from the blanket and my underwear, and there’s a new bandage that covers a portion of skin just below my ribcage.

“What the fuck! Where the hell are my clothes?” I shout, gathering up the blanket and covering myself. I’m not a shy person by any means, but these men are complete strangers. Veryattractivestrangers, which somehow seems worse. But when I notice their wide eyes are focused anywhere but on me, it makes me feel better.

At least they have the decency to be respectful about it.

I stare at them, waiting for an explanation. I give them a minute.

I also take a moment to lecture myself for not doing my laundry. If I had, then I would be wearing real underwear right now, not this scrap of black lace that I was forced to throw on this morning.

“Um…” Luke starts offpoorly.

“We uh…” Sebastian chimes in, his eyes wandering down my body.

I look down.

There are holes in this goddamn blanket.Bigones.

“Oh for fucks sake,” I say, crossing my arms. They both watch the action with increasing interest. “Should I just lose the blanket? Would that help you two concentrate on the question?”

“No!” they practically shout. Sebastian rubs a hand over his face and Luke stares up at the ceiling, both mentrying to pull themselves together.

“Obviously, you already saw me naked when youtook my clothes off.Now, where are they? Andwhyare they off?” I say, as I realize hownotmad I am about this. I should be furious that these men undressed me without my permission. But I’m not.What’s wrong with me?

“Oh, we didn’t see anything, baby doll. Not until just a second ago.” Sebastian says, his tone deep as he lets his eyes wander down my body again now that I’m covered up. Luke shoots him a dirty look.

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