Page 62 of Master of Lies

“I wish,” he said. “I didn’t know the chase would take us here, so I don’t have anything ready in this area. I just picked the best I could find.”

I eyed the ramshackle, decaying, 1970s era building doubtfully. “Ah, okay. What criteria did you use for choosing it?”

“I’ll go get the key,” he said brusquely. “Stay put. Keep down. Keep the hat on.”

His voice had a warning tone. As if I were his kidnapped victim, and he was threatening me into good behavior. Asshole.

Well, hell. If he couldn’t afford feelings now, neither could I. But I envied his ability to shut them off like a faucet. I wonder how he did it. What it cost him.

Maybe nothing. Maybe he was empty. Maybe it had been just sex.

But damn, that soul-fusing, overwhelming emotion I’d felt …could it all just be me projecting my adolescent nitwit fantasies onto him? Really?

He was back soon, not meeting my eyes as he got into the car. He held an old-fashioned key hanging from a placard. No keycards or key fobs for this shabby place.

To my surprise, he directed the Jeep out past the motel building, and drove for a surprisingly long time through a thick forest of young pines and firs. There were periodic spots for RVs carved out of the woods, only a few of which were inhabited, then a loop of cabins. The place was largely deserted for the off season.

At the end of the second big loop, Jed pulled up in front of a two-room cabin in a small clearing, right off the narrow road. It had a barbecue firepit, and a trestle picnic table next to it. When I got out, I couldn’t see any other cabins from where I stood.

Jed got to work with his usual routine, hauling in the boxes of computer and security equipment and setting up his security system; the motion detectors, the cameras, his grim, purposeful ritual. Then he pulled out a power drill, and swiftly installed two new and much larger, more powerful locks onto the front door of the cabin. He tested the hinges with a grunt of disgust. “Piece of shit,” he muttered. “I might as well not have bothered.” He proceeded to get to work on the windows.

“You can drill holes in a hotel?” I said. “Won’t the management be pissed?”

“I’ll give them money,” he said brusquely. “They’ll be fine.”

Fair enough. Money did smooth over a lot of rough places. Since Ethan started making serious money in his mid-twenties, back when I was still a teenager, our lives had gotten a whole lot easier. Then Shane followed suit after he retired from the military, with Ready Line Security. Both my brothers had done very well for themselves financially, and both of them had expected to support me. Insisted on it, even.

But I had other plans. Other people’s money had too many strings attached. No matter how generous my brothers were, I needed my own fonts of income. Which is why I got the engineering degrees, and developed all my many side hustles.

Jed put his tools away, and tore open the sack of food which I had left on the table in the kitchen. He pulled out the two paper-wrapped sandwiches and tossed one at me. “Eat,” he said brusquely. “You need to keep your strength up.”

I caught the thing, looking down at it with hostile eyes. The unchosen, un-asked-for turkey sandwich from the coffee shop. I was tempted to tell him to stick it up his ass, but that would be childish, emotional Freya talking.

Tough, calculating, grown-up Freya thought about staying strong, keeping her wits about her. That required food, so I bit back the diatribe and unwrapped it.

It pissed me off how freaking delicious it was. Right-out-of-the-oven sourdough bread, soft Havarti cheese, herbed mayonnaise, thick-sliced, fresh-baked turkey, slabs of juicy, tangy red tomato, and leaves of frilly, crunchy lettuce. I was betraying myself by enjoying it as much as I did. I ate every bite and licked my fingers. But I kept my back turned, since I’d die before giving him the satisfaction of seeing me like it.

Jed ignored me, anyway, so it hardly mattered. He ate his sandwich quickly, then ended up in the bathroom. He set the shower running. There had been no time for a shower at the crack of dawn, not with Jed hurrying me to get going.

I got an eyeful of his gorgeous naked body as he came out, running the towel over his broad, damp chest, lifting thickly muscled arms to dry thick tufts of hair under his pits. When he saw me look, he got half-hard instantly, and the usual alchemy ignited the air between us. But goddamnit, I didn’t want it to.

It made me so angry. At my own body, principally. Just looking at him made me instantly wet, which of course made him go completely hard. Because he sensed it. I don’t know how, but he did. He got right inside my mind. The bastard.

Then he picked up the phone, dialed. “Could you put me in touch with housekeeping? Yeah, thanks. I’m Jay Warren, staying in Cabin 34. I want to request someone come and service the cabin tomorrow morning early, at seven AM.”

That was weird. I turned around to gape, and got an eyeful of his stunning, muscular ass. His broad, powerful back. Always a fresh shock to my overloaded system.

“…yes, I know…but no, we’re not leaving early. I need someone there no later than seven. I need the room serviced at that hour…yeah, I know, but I’ll leave a hundred-dollar tip under the lamp on the dresser for whoever gets there by that time. If no one comes by seven, no tip…yeah, exactly. So can I expect someone?…excellent. I appreciate your collaboration. So, I’ll be seeing one of your staff tomorrow morning, then? Great…thank you very much. Have a great day.”

“Jed?” I asked. “What the hell? Why on earth would we need maid service at that hour?”

He wouldn’t look at me. “I like a clean room,” he said vaguely.

“Bullshit,” I said. “What are you up to? What’s the point?”

He just gave me that glassy, impenetrable look, and shook his head. “Let it go.”

“Fuck you, Jed Clearwater,” I said.

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