Page 20 of Arrogant Bastard

“No you haven’t,” he says in that calm but conclusive way that raises my hackles.

“And how would you know?”

“You’ve been good at hiding. Exceptional, even. But I’m close to being done retracing your steps. I should have a pattern of your movements by the end of the day. From what I can already see, you’ve been busy being far from nobody.”

Oh God. “What the hell are you doing that for?”

The look he sends me this time asks why I’m even bothering. I raise my eyebrows in return. He shrugs. “I’m curious as to what you’ve been up to. Who you’ve been seeing. You can save Betty a considerable amount of effort by telling me now.”

My gaze flicks to the server tower sitting silently in the corner of the room. “Betty? You’re still naming your computers?”

“They work better when I do.”

The urge to roll my eyes washes over me. I realize I’m softening toward him and take a sharp breath. “What I’ve been up to is none of your concern.”

He stares at me for a handful of seconds and then draws his hands down his face. I catch the strain of weariness on his face, and that softening threatens again. I kill it stone-cold. “You look exhausted. If you let me go, you could get some sleep.”

He laughs and shakes his head. “Don’t waste your breath trying to find a way out, baby. But it’ll do fucking wonders for my disposition if you came to bed with me. I’d love to finish what we started by the front door.”

“Not gonna happen.”

“Then I’ll have to rely on caffeine. Nala, can you organize some coffee?”

“Right away, Mr. Knight.” I jump at the robotic voice that filters in through invisible speakers. “Coffee, black, will be ready in five minutes and seventeen seconds.”

“Seriously, enough of this. I have a job, Killian. I haven’t missed a day’s work in four years.”

He returns to his desk and taps a few keys on the keyboard. Tension surrounds him like a damn aura. “You’re going to miss this one. And the next foreseeable ones.”

“Not showing up will only draw attention to my absence.”

He taps a few more keys. “I don’t give a flying fuck.”

“I could be a fucking brain surgeon with back-to-back surgeries to perform for all you know.” My teeth are clenched so tight I wonder how I can speak through them.

That earns me an amused twitch of his gorgeous lips. “You were too squeamish to apply a Band-Aid when I cut myself once, remember? You’d pass out before you went anywhere near anyone’s brain with a scalpel. Try again.”

“I’m seriously rethinking my decision not to shoot you. I need to go to work, Killian.”

He bats that response away. “Why? Money isn’t an issue for you. Hell, I would’ve found you much sooner if you’d gone on a wild spending spree. So you’re not working out of necessity.”

He’s right. The agency we worked for made sure we were well compensated. Not to mention the chunk of money I have that I don’t deserve sitting in the bank.

“No, it’s not the money.”

“Then tell me, what’s the great pull to this job?”

I don’t answer immediately because I can’t find the adequate words to describe the Punishment Club to him. He stops typing and turns to face me. Eyes riveted on my face, he slowly walks toward me. When he reaches me, he leans down and breathes in slowly. It’s a control-gathering mechanism I recognize from our past.

“Think carefully before you tell me the draw is another guy, baby.”

Chapter Seven

Black Widow

Fuck that noise. I’m not stupid enough to tug on that particular tiger’s tail. Even if my reluctance is partly my loyalty to Axel. I could toss out his name, but I don’t think he’d welcome the sort of attention Killian would send his way if I do. Killian once hacked and froze a guy’s bank account for a week because he grabbed my ass in a nightclub.

Not that Axel can’t handle himself. It’s just that he’s fully engulfed in a turbulent situation of his own that will earn me a black mark if I give him another to deal with. And as unlikely as I would’ve considered such a friendship a couple of months ago, in a few short weeks I’ve grown to like Axel’s girlfriend, Cleo. She won’t thank me either if I unleash Killian on them.

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