Page 23 of A Very Rossi Christmas
Ten steps got me to the opening of the driveway, and I peeked around the enormous stone pillars that marked the spot, my eyes straining in the dark to figure out what I was dealing with. Luckily, I didn't have to strain for long.
About one hundred yards up, I saw the end of this particular road, though another driveway branched off of it before it ended.
Right, so her house was indeed the only one on this street. Good thing I hadn't pulled in right after her. I set my sights on that next driveway, crouched down, and started creeping up the steep incline.
It didn't take me as long as I expected to get to the next driveway—evidently my adrenaline was pushing me to move more quickly than I realized—and I stopped again and peered through the bars of the gate that now blocked my path.
Gates. I snorted. Like that was going to keep out anyone who truly wanted to get in.
First of all, the gate was surrounded by a wall that was not only made out of brick—so easy to climb—but also peppered with trees and boulders.
I took back what I'd said about Irish bankrolling this place. There was no way he'd ever set his little girl up in a house with so many security risks.
I decided against picking the lock on the gate, figuring that if Irishhaddesigned the place— or if Sloane was more careful than I was seeing—there'd be some sort of security on the gate itself that would tell someone in some security office somewhere if it was opened without the correct device.
Climbing the wall it was.
I found the most steady-looking tree I could and jumped up into it, pulling myself up onto one branch, then another, until I was even with the top of the wall. Another quick jump and I was on top of the wall itself, and then, with a prayer and a breath, I was falling the roughly ten feet back to the ground.
I landed in a crouch, thanked the universe for my habit of working out every day and therefore having a body that could take activity like that, and started creeping toward the house in the distance.
The place was fucking gorgeous, I'd say that much. Done in the faux Mediterranean style that seemed to be so popular in this part of the country, but very small in scale. Beautiful, but almost tiny.
Just the right size for a girl who either lived by herself or only had one other person in the house.
Brooks, I thought immediately. Of course Brooks lived with her. Though if I knew Brooks, 'lived' with her was a stretch of the imagination. The girl partied harder than anyone else I'd ever met, and if she slept here three nights of the week I would have been surprised. Granted, things might have changed, but I doubted it. When we were in high school, Brooks had been the girl who dated the quarterback during the week—even though she was three times as smart as he was—and went out with the captain of the water polo team on the weekend.
I wasn't saying she was easy. She was every bit as intimidating as Sloane herself. But Brooks believed in having a good time rather than staying home and reading at night.
And I was guessing that Christmas Eve didn't change that.
Which meant, I assumed, watching Sloane getting something out of her car and making for the front door of her house, that Sloane was going to be here alone tonight.
Alone and vulnerable, because she wouldn't listen to reason about the guy following her, and was too fucking stubborn to have any quality security around her house.
I reminded myself again that she wasn't supposed to be my problem. And I reminded myself again that she was a Brennan, and I was a Rossi, and that every Rossi east of the Mississippi would have my head if they knew I was going out of my way to protect her.
Hell, my father himself would put a hit out on me if he knew what I was doing right now.
But seeing her again had brought something dark and possessive up out of the depths of my soul, and I couldn't for the life of me shut it down again. I couldn't even bring myself to resent it.
It was a roaring wolf, a dark and passionate and very, very dangerous animal... and I wanted to embrace it.
If Sloane needed security, I wanted to be the one who provided it.
I was in the midst of shaking my head at myself and wondering where that thought had even come from when I saw him. The same guy from the restaurant—and the bar, and the rec building, and the beach. He'd managed to get onto her property, probably the same way I had, and was now staring up at the window where she was taking off her coat... and then her shirt.
Her jeans.
Stripping down to her underwear.
God. I felt my cock go hard at the view, blood rushing right to the nether regions of my body. The girl was fucking gorgeous. More gorgeous than I ever could have expected. Creamy skin, curves built to drive a man wild, and ultimately forbidden—
I heard a hoarse groan, and remembered abruptly where I was.
I wasn't here to stare at my one-time best friend as she undressed.
I was here because someone else—someone I didn't trust, and who I thought was probably connected with the mafia—was doing the same thing. Only looking at him now, his face illuminated by the lights in her driveway and his hand already roving toward his own groin, I thought he was here to do a whole lot more than just watch.
