Page 26 of Devious Secrets

“You have what you wanted, now go. I have to clean up this mess.” She tries ushering me out of the room, while my phone vibrates several times as text messages come through.

“You’re not at all concerned about who did this?” I ask, grabbing my phone.

“I’m more concerned about getting you the hell out of my life.” She kicks clothing into a pile in front of her closet door.

I swipe my screen to life and read Ivan’s text messages.

“Well, that’s not going to happen anytime soon.” I look up from my phone.

“What? Why not?” She puts her hands on her hips, staring at me with exasperation.

“Because Dexter Thompson is dead.”

“He’s dead?” My stomach twists. It can’t be a coincidence, can it?

“He is.” Alexander types on his phone. “Get some things together, we need to go.”

I lean against my closet door, taking in a slow breath.

“How did he… how did he die?” My question comes out shaky.

If something horrible happened to him, maybe something horrible is going to happen to me? Maybe something horrible has happened to Mira.

That would explain the radio silence.

My stomach rolls. Sending her away was to keep her safe. Everything is going off the rails.

“I don’t know. He collapsed at an event he was at this evening. I will find out more later.” He pans the room. “Do you have a suitcase?”

“For what?” Traveling isn’t exactly in the budget these days. “You have enough to deal with. I’ll just stay here.”

“Let me make this clear, Megan, so we can stop the cat and mouse game you think is happening.” He steps over a pile of dirty clothes and comes nose to nose with me. “You have been caught. I’m not chasing.”

“I’m not… no.” I shake my head with a little laugh. “I can’t go with you. I have a life. A real life. A job, friends… uh, a boyfriend!” I blurt that last part out.

The right side of his mouth kicks up to the side. I’ve amused him.

“You’re lying. Again.” He runs the back of his knuckles across my jawline up to my ear. “You get flushed right here when you lie, do you know that?”

I’m new to it, so no, I didn’t know that. And how can I keep my body from betraying me like mine did earlier?

“If you were telling the truth, if you had a boyfriend, and he let you put yourself in danger the way you have this weekend, I wouldn’t let you keep him.”

“Let me keep him? You think you have some power there?” Why does this man have the ability to make my heart skip all over my chest and stomp on my last nerve at the exact same time? How am I supposed to be able to think clearly when that’s happening?

“I have all the power here,” he says.

There’s so much force behind his words, in the way he stares at me while he says it, that I completely miss him leaning into me.

His mouth crashes over mine. My body stiffens but melts a microsecond later as his hand wraps around the back of my neck. His lips are warm against mine, sending heated arousal through the rest of my body.

I put my hands against his chest to shove him away, but the tip of his tongue touches my mouth. All protest is gone as I open to him. He deepens the kiss, pressing me against the closet door. The hard length of his cock presses against my hip.

When he breaks away, my lips have to be swollen. There might even be a bruise. I’m too lost to his dark eyes to think about much else other than wanting his touch back.

“I’m in control here, Megan. Everything that happens to you from here on out is up to me.”

“What?” I blink a few times, forcing my brain back into action. “What does that mean? And who the hell said that was okay?”

---