Page 20 of Target Me
I shrugged, stretching my hands overhead and arching my spine. No worries here, I was just enjoying the day, naked as a blue jay. Or was it jaybird?
With a smirk, he squeezed more sunblock into his hands and carefully rubbed it over my face before moving down over my neck and clavicles. His eyes caught and held mine as he slicked his hands over my breasts, circling around the mounds before taking each nipple between thumb and forefinger and twisting viciously.
I gasped, pushing up into the sensation as moisture gushed out of me, leaving a damp patch on the lounger cushion. Christ, the bite of pleasure and pain together was almost enough to make me come without any other stimulation.
He grunted, leaving me unsure if I’d passed some kind of test or failed miserably. Continuing his mission to make me sun-safe, he rubbed the cream into my stomach and over my hips. When he started on my thighs, I saw the moment he spotted the wet cushion. His eyes shot to mine, a deep frown pulling at his brow.
“No more games, little girl,” he growled, hurriedly finishing each of my legs before straightening and taking a deliberate step back.
“I promise, you wouldn’t be able to handle me.” He turned, heading toward the house, but I refused to let him have the last word this time.
“I think you’re scaredyoucan’t handleme. Don’t make me responsible for your failings, Captain Tanner.”
He didn’t stop, or acknowledge me in any way, just strode into the house, slamming the door behind him. I sunk back into the lounger, scowling. Any good vibes I’d had were a memory, and as I looked around the yard, I shivered, feeling exposed. Retrieving my robe, I headed back toward the house at a much slower pace, ready to wash the last few minutes from my skin.
8
LOGAN
“The red motorcycle. How often has that been in the neighborhood?” Damon asked, the clacking of his keyboard drilling into my ear as his crazy smart brain worked to solve the mystery I’d found myself working through.
“I don’t know. It took off around the same time as Avery this morning, but that could be a coincidence.”
Damon made a rude noise. “You believe in coincidences now, do you? Shit, it’s lucky you got out, or you’d get us all killed.”
Smartass. It was good to hear Damon felt up to hanging shit on me. It gave me hope that we didn’t bury him when we lost Adrien, but that didn’t mean I was going to take it.
“Hilarious. I just don’t think we should be jumping to conclusions here.”
Damon hummed, the dubious noise as cutting as any reprimand. “I’m going to run the plates and do a background check on the guy, so you don’t wake up dead. What other security measures are you adding? Do you need me to set something up for you?”
An image of Avery naked out by the pool flashed through my mind. Fuck. There was no way in hell I’d risk letting Damon see her like that.
My palms burned with the memory of her smooth skin. She knew exactly what she was doing. The brat was trying to push me into losing control, and I’d be damned if it wasn’t working. The way she’d writhed under my hands… seeing her arousal on the cushion had been the last straw. If I’d stuck around, I would have spanked her until she couldn’t sit down or fucked her raw. Probably both. I couldn’t afford the distraction she provided.
“Logan?”
“Nah, man. I got it. Hit me up if you get anything on the bike, okay?”
“Will do, bud. Keep safe, yeah? Don’t want to see you end up pussy whipped.”
“Fuck you, Smith.”
“Fuck you too, Tanner. For real, though. Keep safe. We’ve lost enough good people.”
I shifted, uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had gone in. If anyone should be giving the stay safe message, it should be me.
Damon ended the call a minute later, citing the need to puke at all the feels I was giving him. Asshole. I grinned, stretching my arms overhead and reveling in the burn of my muscles from my workout earlier in the day.
Wandering into the kitchen, I wondered what Avery was up to. After the incident by the pool the day before, she’d disappeared upstairs, declining to come down for dinner. Perhaps I had embarrassed her when I left her naked and alone outside, but I told myself it was for the best. Nothing good would come from starting something with the boss’s daughter. And the General was my boss at the moment. I couldn’t forget that even thinking about Avery sexually was disrespecting someone who had done a lot for me.
When I’d gone for my run-slash-perimeter check at two-thirty that morning, the light had been on in the attic, so I knew Avery had been up late, but it was past midday now, and she hadn’t made her daily trip to the coffeepot yet.
It was time for an olive branch.
Pulling her favorite mug out of the cupboard, I fixed her coffee the way she liked it, grimacing as I half-and-half-ed the coffee and creamer in the cup. With a generous squeeze of caramel syrup on top to finish off the sugary nightmare, I wandered upstairs with mug in hand to search out my charge. Her bedroom was empty, sheets a messy pile on top of her mattress. No rush of water came from her bathroom, so I continued up the next flight of stairs to the attic.
The silence as I ascended to the top floor of the house made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Avery seemed to prefer different genres of music, depending on what project she was working on. Blues, country, classical; I’d heard all of them at different times of the day. But there was always something playing up here. Pushing open the door, I stepped into the empty workroom.
