Page 110 of Crazy Thing

Darius lifts my chin with his knuckles. “You’re anactualangel. D’you know that?”

My lips curve smugly. “I don’t think an angel would do the things I did with you last night.”

I sense the hitch in his chest, the way his breathing pattern changes. “She wouldn’t?” he asks with playful, heated eyes.

I shake my head. “Nope.”

“I can’t decide. I think I’ll need you to repeat your performance so I can make up my mind,” he rumbles.

We kiss and we kiss and we kiss, losing track of time. The firm softness of his touch and the heavenly plushness of his lips only intensify the floaty feeling coursing through my body. I forget all about the world outside until I feel the slight jostle of the helicopter touching down on a helipad over looking Chicago.

I ease out of Darius’s arms, blinking around at the city surrounding us, sunlight winking at us through the peaks of the towering skyscrapers.

Moments later, we step off the aircraft and a uniformed driver is right there, waiting to help us with our bags. We say goodbye to Cal and within minutes, we’re in the back of a black SUV with tinted windows, whisking through the city. I pull Darius’s arm around my shoulders and snuggle up against him as I take it all in.

But then his phone dings and I glance his way only to find him frowning and scrolling through whatever message just popped up.

“Stop!” he says to the driver, a note of urgency in his voice. “We’re going to have to turn back.”

“What is it?” I ask, immediately alarmed by his change in mood.

Then my own phone begins to ding with notifications from the new office receptionist. A barrage of text messages—in all caps—floods my phone. My brain struggles to keep up with what I’m reading.

Darius meets my eyes and he growls. “We have a problem back in Starlight Falls. Inspectors just showed up at the office.”

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DARIUS

“Idon’t feel good about this.” I frown at the helicopter. Then back at Ziggy. “I’m not sure it’s safe.”

She laughs softly. “Isn’t this the same helicopter that was perfectly safe an hour ago when we got on it?”

“Yes, but…but…that was different,” I grouse.

“Different how?” she challenges.

“It was different because I was there to protect you.” I brush her windblown hair from her eyes. “I could cancel my meetings and travel back with you.”

“You’d cancel those high-profile meetings just to follow me back to Starlight Falls to deal with bureaucracy?”

Itotallywould.

She rolls her eyes. “You can’t cancel your meetings, Darius.”

“Why?”

“Because all of your business partners are here for dinner tonight. It would be ridiculous to turn around and go back home to search the filing cabinets for missing paperwork.”

The town’s inspectors showed up on my businesspremises, threatening to shut my operations down at once unless I can produce copies of my documentation. My new office staff are freaking out because they don’t know where to find anything. It’s bullshit bureaucracy. We all know it.

Even still, it’s urgent that I handle this matter immediately because the assholes from town hall aren’t willing to compromise. They seem to have a personal vendetta against me.

“I’ll reschedule whatever needs to be rescheduled here in Chicago,” I declare conclusively. “You and I will come back to the city some other time.”

Ziggy plants a hand on her hip. “So basically, you’re saying you don’t trust me to do my job…The job that you pay me to do.”

“That’s not what this is about,” I argue. But then I struggle to explain myself.

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