Page 21 of Brick

When they got to Alli’s apartment, he and the fallen angel talked while Jade got ready for their date. Brick had dressed in slacks and a dress shirt, casual but a little upscale.

Alli was a protective and strong female who looked out for her friends.

“Do you think you’ll bring her back here tonight?” Alli asked. “I want to give her a key to my place since I was going to head to Lykos.”

“I’ll hold onto it,” he said.

Alli handed the key to him, and he hooked the carabiner on his own keys.

“Thanks, Brick. Hey, take good care of my new friend. She’s nervous about putting her trust in anyone because she just found out a few days ago that her alpha was going to force her to mate with some dangerous asshole.”

“I promise to be careful with her,” he said.

“I hear your sweetie, lemme leave you two to things. Have fun!”

As Alli disappeared down the hall, Jade walked into the kitchen wearing a short black skirt and a white gauzy tank top with soft gray florals. Her hair was long and loose around her shoulders and her eyes were bright with excitement.

“You look amazing,” he said. He captured her hand and kissed the top of it.

“Thank you,” she said. “Alli took me shopping when I got here since I only had one change of clothes with me.”

“You look like a dream,” he said.My dream come true.

He offered her his arm as she blushed sweetly and smiled at him, and escorted her to his truck. In no time they were at the little restaurant having the best lasagna he’d ever had in his life. Conversation flowed easily between them as they ate. By the time they shared a white chocolate crème brûlée with fresh berries, he was half in love with her.

He hoped she felt the same.

They stepped out of the restaurant into the humid night. The whole evening he’d felt like things were moving forward between them, and she was starting to genuinely feel safe. She stared up at him, and the air became charged. It was as if he could see the electricity flowing between them, the early bloom of their relationship as mates starting to form.

He wanted to tell her how beautiful she was and how much he liked her already, but when he opened his mouth to say something, she went onto her toes and kissed him.

He was so surprised that he didn’t move for a heartbeat, and then his instincts kicked in and he pulled her close and let himself go into the kiss. She was soft against him, her curves fitting against the hard planes of his body perfectly.

As the kiss deepened, he was aware that they were in public and he should be paying attention to their surroundings. But he couldn’t stop kissing her.

Just a second longer.

Or a few minutes perhaps.

But then something prickled in awareness for him and he broke from the drugging kiss. He looked around the small parking lot and the few vehicles there, including the one Solan was driving. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but the strange feeling that they were being watched lingered so he took Jade’s hand and led her to his truck. As they approached, he caught sight of a dark sedan parked a few spaces away. The engine was idling nearly silent, and the windows were tinted too dark to see inside. Something about the way the vehicle was sitting there, idling, made his wolf stir with unease.

He guided Jade to the passenger side and opened the door. When she was seated, he shut the door and stared at the sedan.

His instincts were screaming at him that something about the sedan wasn’t right.

Climbing behind the wheel, he texted Solan to keep an eye out for the sedan and see if it followed them. He hoped he was just seeing things because he was on alert with his mate, but he wasn’t so sure.

As he headed to Alli’s apartment, the unease stayed with him. Jade was talking animatedly about the lasagna and how she’d like to learn how to make it like that, but his attention was divided.

A text alert from Solan showed up on the GPS screen.

Sedan just passed us. We can’t see inside with the window tint. Suspicious.

“What’s suspicious?” Jade asked. “What sedan?”

He quickly told her about what he’d seen and the strange feeling he had while they were kissing.

“Oh gosh,” she said. She turned in her seat and looked behind them. “What are you going to do?”

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