Page 95 of Defiant Beta

Her cheeks dimple, and her breasts press against my back, briefly distracting me. “Ooh, mysterious and free-spirited.”

The guy puffs up his chest. “I guess you could say I am.”

I can’t believe this guy is buying this.

“About that room…” I prompt, nudging Della back.

The motel clerk glares at me. “Dude, the room ain’t going nowhere. And a little courtesy never hurt no one.”

Says the guy who was getting ready to blow a hole through me. “Of course.”

He twists around to grab a key attached to a nasty, yellowed keyring. “It’s twenty bucks an hour. Toss your condom in the trash. The next customers don’t want to be finding that shit in the bed.”

I put two twenty-dollar bills on the counter.Notthat I intend to be here for that long. But it won’t hurt to have extra time if we need it. “Don’t you clean the rooms after?”

The man’s eyes narrow as Della squeezes my arm in a subtle sign to shut the fuck up. “Isn’t he hilarious? So funny. My daddy absolutely hates him. Please, can we get that key?”

We get the key and walk down a hallway with ugly green-brown carpets.

“Areyou an Aries?” I speak out of the side of my mouth.

She shrugs. “How the fuck should I know? It got us what we wanted, didn’t it?”

I peer down at her and I’m not sure whether to laugh, drag her close and kiss her, or get her the fuck out of this nasty place to somewhere safe, so no one will hurt her.

I’m supposed to be leading this investigation, yet she just ran circles around the guy back there—and me—and I still don’t know how she made it look so easy.

She scrunches her nose. “What?”

“You sure are something, Della Jackson.” I struggle to believe that days ago she was nearly dead, and here she is breathing life into me and this investigation.

Her eyes narrow with suspicion. “Something strange?”

“Something incredible.”

She blinks, surprised. “Oh.”

Peering over my shoulder to check we’re still alone, I speak quietly. “We don’t know what room he’s in.”

There’s another hallway behind us, so we might be in the wrong part of the motel. Della moves left and presses her ear to each door we pass. “You do the ones on the right.”

Which is how I find myself eavesdropping on nasty shit I didn’t want to know in a filthy motel.

We’re halfway down the hallway when Della sucks in a breath.

I turn to her. “What?”

She grips the door she just had her ear against and shoves it open before I can stop her.

I get a good look into the room and regret taking one step into this place.

“What a terrible day to have eyes,” Della whispers.

I scrub a hand over my face. “Yeah.”

Chapter 30

Della

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