Jodi Redford - Lover Enraptured

Reinforcing himself with every ounce of willpower he possessed, he slid his mouth from hers and settled her onto the mattress. He smoothed his thumb over the delicate rise of her cheekbone, triggering her contented sigh.

“Why do you have this power over me, Jer?”

She had it completely wrong. She was the one holding all of the power. And that, more than anything, scared him to death.

He’d always considered himself relatively intelligent. But when it came to Avily, his brain was on a permanent vacation. He couldn’t afford to let her get under his skin. Hell, she couldn’t afford it either. Just being acquainted with him put her life in danger. Tonight was living proof of that. The men blackmailing him knew enough about his relationship with her to use it to their advantage. If they figured out the real magnitude of his feelings for her…

She’d never be safe.

His pulse unsteady, he watched her drift back into her dreams. The compulsion to crawl in next to her, hold her tight so no one could dare take her away, pounded in his chest.

He did this to her. Dragged her into the middle of gods knew what and made her a target. She needed as much protection from him as she did his blackmailers.

Tension eating at his gut, he left her to sleep off her drunken stupor and retraced his steps to the lower level. He opened the door to the supply closet and offered Lex a narrow look. “How did you end up the go-between for those fuckers?” A red stain crawled along Lex’s face, stirring Jerrick’s suspicions. “Spit it out, Tarker.”

“A woman approached me at a bar. We had a few drinks, and she promised to go out with me if I helped her employers set up the contract with you.”

“How have you survived all these years with zero sense?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

Jerrick grunted. So much for gleaning any relevant clues from Lex. If nothing else, he had to give those blackmailing bastards credit for targeting Lex for this scam. They couldn’t have found a bigger dupe if they’d tried. He stepped away from the door and gestured for Lex to vacate the closet.

When they reached the front entrance, the man gave a nervous cough. “So, uh, what now?”

Jerrick scraped a hand over his jaw. “I figure a way out of this fucking mess.”

“I can help.”

He squinted in Lex’s direction. “By going home? I agree.”

An uncharacteristic stubbornness furrowed Lex’s brow. “You need to track down that scientist, right? I know my way around a computer. I can help you.”

Pinpointing info on a dead science geek wasn’t the toughest task Jerrick had come up against. It’d be child’s play compared to the six months of surveillance he’d labored through during the Senecca diamond heist. “You’re way out of your league, Tarker. Go home.”

Lex’s face fell, and he made a nervous humming noise in the back of his throat.

Jerrick tweaked the bridge of his nose, his patience eroding fast. “What the hell is your problem now?”

“I’m scared of going home by myself. What if those men know where I live and come back for me?”

“They won’t.”

“But what if they do? Could you live with yourself if they smother me in my sleep?”

“Considering I’ve debated the same thing—yes.”

Lex adopted a whimpering expression that increased Jerrick’s headache.

What cosmic joke enlisted me as everyone’s damn protector tonight? Growling under his breath, he grabbed Lex by the elbow and hauled the man along during the five-block walk to Tul’dea’s lower-east quadrant and the cluster of studio units where Jerrick bunked.

The already cramped residence took on an even more claustrophobic quality as Lex’s bothersome presence infiltrated every square inch of Jerrick’s sacred space. Head pounding, Jerrick clamped a hand on Lex’s scrawny shoulder, halting him before he could weasel past the threshold of Jerrick’s office. Capturing Lex’s gaze, Jerrick pointed to the archway above their heads. “See that invisible sign up there? It says ‘Don’t even think about walking in here.’”

Lex screwed his eyes into a squint and stared at the spot Jerrick indicated. Taking advantage of the man’s preoccupation with the nonexistent object, Jerrick clicked the door shut and crossed to his desk. A moment later he booted up his compu-tablet.

For the next several hours he gathered every available piece of data about Casper Winston and Kiantu Laboratories. The pickings were frustratingly slim. The doc had kept a fairly low profile, and the laboratory Casper worked for didn’t cough up much in the way of beneficial clues. Jerrick tracked down their main compu-site and a dozen or so articles covering the various clinical research they were involved in. That was it. He took notes regardless, hoping the various puzzle pieces would eventually click together and shed light on what formula Casper had been working on prior to his death.

And that was another thing. Other than a brief obit written up in the Tul’dea Times, he found no real documentation regarding the scientist’s passing. If it’d indeed been a homicide like he suspected, those involved went to great lengths to cover all evidence of it.

Rubbing his forehead, Jerrick gazed blearily at the small pile of notes until their collected words began swimming into an indistinct blur. His head wobbling, he leaned toward the desk and closed his eyes.

A rattle of his shoulder jogged him awake. Snapping to with a grunt, he glared at Lex. “I told you to stay outside.”

“I think you’ll forgive me once you see the information I dug up on your network mainframe.”

“What the hell were you doing on my mainframe?”

“After I fixed breakfast, I got bored.”

Breakfast? Jerrick slashed his attention to the window. A sliver of intense sunlight beamed over Lex’s shoulder, shooting Jerrick dead center in the eye. Wincing, he turned his head and rubbed a hand down his face. “Shit. How long have I been out of it?”

“It’s okay. You had a rough night and needed the extra sleep.” Lex squeezed Jerrick’s shoulder, earning a slit-eyed stare in return.

“I know there’s no fucking way you’re mothering me right now, correct?”

“You’re not a morning person, are you?”

Ignoring Lex’s astute inquiry, Jerrick shoved up from his seat. “What did you find?”

“This.” Lex dropped a sheaf of papers on the tablet.

Jerrick grabbed the top printout. “What am I looking—?” The remainder of the question stalled on his tongue, the words rear-ending each other like a nasty multi-vehicle pileup. He shifted his index finger away from the image of a naked male being led around on a leash by a butch-looking female garbed in leather hot pants and a halter.

“I downloaded it off the network.”

“You’ve been surfing kinky porn? On my goddamn mainframe?” Motherfucker. No telling what kind of freaky shit he was going to get spammed with now.

“It’s an article from Dark Desires, a compu-zine specializing in the fetish underground.”

“Look, Tarker, I don’t give two shits what you do for kicks behind closed doors, but I’m in the middle of research here. I don’t have time for your weird jollies.” Jerrick reached for his tablet, intending to sweep the remaining papers to the floor.

“Wait, you thought I was…” A nervous laugh twittered from Lex. “Trust me, I’m definitely not interested in that lifestyle. Noooo way.” Lex sounded like he was attempting to dispute the possibility a tad too hard. “But there’s a familiar name quoted in the article you might find interesting. It’s on page three. Along with a photo.”

Motivated by the desire to shut Lex up more than anything else, Jerrick scooped up the papers and thumbed to the third page. The mattress springs squeaked, and he looked over to find Lex flopped on the edge of the bed, twiddling his thumbs. Chuffing an irritated growl, Jerrick returned to the paper and scanned its contents, prepared to find nothing of startling importance. Three quarters of the way down the page, a photo of an impeccably dressed middle-aged man caught his eye, but it was the name printed in bold relief beneath it that provoked his next words. “ Holy shit. ”