Page 29 of Keeping Kasey
I take her bottom lip between my teeth and bite down as she releases my hair. Her nails rake down my neck, stopping to dig into my shoulders. I trail my hand from her hair down her body, and in one swift move, I lift her into my arms. Kasey’s legs wrap around my waist like ivy as I turn us so she’s pinned between me and the door.
Searing Kasey’s lips to mine, I decide it’s been too long since I got laid, and it’s messing with my head. It’s not Kasey’s fault she’s the only woman around here, but I’ll be taking advantage of having her around these next three months.
There’s a lot I can do in that time.
I tighten my hold as I carry her to my desk. I pull my head back just enough to be sure I won’t run into something, and Kasey’s lips trail down my jaw and throat.
I’m about to shove everything on my desk to the floor like some cheesy movie, but a soft knock acts as a bucket of ice-cold water being poured over my head.
“Logan, are you in there?” my sister calls through the thin metal door.
I drop Kasey, and she barely gets her feet beneath her before she falls on her ass. Her glare communicates every violent thought she’s harboring, and I wonder if having her is worth it after all. I suppose as long as her mouth is occupied, I won’t be tempted to strangle her…
“Come in,” I call as I round my desk.
I’ve just schooled my features into their usual stoicism when Elise opens the door. If she suspects anything about Kasey’s messier-than-normal hair, swollen lips, or my hesitation to invite her in, she doesn’t show it.
“Ready for the tour?” Elise asks, her attention solely on Kasey, who masked her emotions just as I did.
“Anything to get away fromhim,” Kasey mutters as she follows my sister out the door.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Kasey
The Consoli siblings are… interesting.
A recovering alcoholic, an egomaniac, a hopeless romantic engaged to her former captor… and then there’s James.
After a brief history from Elise that filled in the gaps my research didn’t, I decide that James is the one shred of sanity holding them together. Their dynamic is equal parts fascinating and dysfunctional.
It’s a miracle any of them get along.
My tour with Elise ends in Damon’s office, which looks more like a lounge than a functioning place of business, and I get the impression he isn’t given much paperwork. The desk is shoved against the far wall with a layer of dust on its surface, and Elise settles into one of the two chairs that sit opposite a couch with a low coffee table in the center of the room. I sit in the other chair and accept the bottle of water she passes me from the mini fridge that she can just barely reach from her seat.
“I’d offer you a beer, but, you know,” she says with a shrug, then takes a sip.
“Where is Damon?”
She looks at her phone. “He should be coming here soon. He’s been in Los Angeles with Joshua and me for the pastmonth, so James is briefing him on what he’ll be doing now that he’s back. I offered to help him settle in once he had his work.”
As if she conjured him herself, the door flies open, and Damon strides in, holding a box full of ancient-looking files.
Maybe I was wrong about the paperwork.
“Hey, Elli.” He tips his head to her before giving me a once-over with a half-hearted smile. “Kasey, what’d you think of the base?”
“It’s big,” I answer.
And it is.
For how grungy and drab the warehouses look on the outside, the inside is impressive. The entire facility has the same red brick and black steel interior, and the buildings are connected so intricately that an outsider would have an incredibly difficult time navigating the base, let alone attacking it. There’s not a blueprint on the planet that could capture the complexities, not that the Consolis would allow blueprints of their base to exist in the first place.
Damon nods and sets the box on his desk before looking at his sister again. “Where’s Logan?”
The mere mention of his name makes me cringe.
Nope. I won’t let myself think about it.
