Part 14 (1/2)
”I'm going to warm the food while the two of you sort this out,” she said briskly. ”You're welcome to join us, Seth.”
”If you're sure I'm not interrupting anything...”
The color blossomed in her cheeks. ”Not anymore.”
Seth grimaced. ”Sorry about that.”
”Me too.” She smiled. ”Play nicely with your friend Jonas,” she mocked.
Jonas waited only as long as it took for Lily to move through to the kitchen area before turning to the other man. ”Who told you about this?”
Seth arched dark eyebrows. ”You don't think I have enough intelligence to find out what's going on by myself?”
”Did you?”
”Of course I f.u.c.king well did.” The other man scowled. ”Jerry and Liam have been missing the past couple of days. I have several people in the research office tracking down the source of some letters, under your instructions, with Lily Knight's name on the envelopes. Sick letters, I might add,” he said in disgust. ”Lily Knight is obviously the sister of the Knight brothers. She's also starring in a play at the theater where two men were bludgeoned to death in the past forty-eight hours. Gabriel has been to Grayson Security twice in the past three days ago. You owe him a favor. Add two and two together, and we have you working on something for him you aren't sharing.”
”It's personal.” Jonas glanced across to where Lily was putting the Chinese food into the oven to warm.
”I gathered that.” Seth had lowered his voice. ”She's beautiful.”
”Not that sort of personal.” Even as he said it, Jonas knew he was lying, to himself as much as anyone else. Protecting Lily had become very personal. More personal, more important, than anything else in his life had ever been. She was more important to him than anyone or anything else had ever been.
Because he had committed the ultimate sin of falling for someone he was supposed to be protecting.
”If you say so.” Seth's tone obviously said he wasn't buying it but wasn't about to push the subject. ”So where are we on this case?”
”Seth-”
”I'm here to stay until this is over, so live with it.”
Jonas recognized that tone. He should, he had one just like it. Seth was here for the duration.
Which was probably as well. There would be less opportunity for Jonas to be alone with Lily if the other man and Grayson Security were involved. That had to be a good thing, when his own judgment was off. Anyone could have walked in on him and Lily a few minutes ago, the stalker included, and Jonas would have been too engrossed in pleasuring Lily to even notice until it was too late. He hadn't even been aware of Seth's presence until he looked up and saw him standing in the doorway. G.o.d knows how long he'd been there.
Long enough to see Jonas spanking and pleasuring Lily?
G.o.d, he hoped not. He wasn't exactly her favorite person right now, without adding to her displeasure.
”You owed Gabriel a favor?”
While Jonas had been berating himself for becoming involved with someone he was protecting, Lily had finished what she was doing and now eyed him questioningly across the breakfast bar.
He sighed. ”It was nothing-”
”Gabriel saved his life in Afghanistan. Well, he did,” Seth insisted as Jonas scowled.
”Ever heard of a little thing called national security?”
”Oh, to h.e.l.l with that.” Seth waved a dismissive hand. ”Your big brother was quite the hero,” he told Lily.
She nodded. ”I must remember to thank him next time I see him.”
”I can do without the sarcasm-”
”That wasn't sarcasm, Jonas.” Lily's eyes flashed her irritation. ”Jesus, why is it so difficult for you to accept that people care about you? That they actually like you?”
”Yes, why is that, Jonas?” Seth eyed him mockingly. ”Probably something to do with his uptight English grandparents and their stick-up-the-a.s.s t.i.tle and att.i.tude,” he confided to Lily. ”Their loss, if you ask me.”
”No one did.” Jonas gave him a look that would have cowed a lesser man. Seth remained impervious. ”Have you been taking truth pills, or has three weeks of marriage completely addled your brain?” he added irritably as he saw the way Lily's eyes had widened at Seth's candor.
The other man shrugged. ”Diana thinks I should talk about my feelings more.”
”Your feelings, not mine.”
Seth grinned. ”But I'm sure Lily finds your life so much more interesting than mine.”
He was right, Lily did. She had learned more about Jonas in the past few minutes than she had in the past few days of spending almost every moment with him.
Gabriel had saved his life, and that was the reason Jonas had agreed to protect her. The only reason.
Jonas's mother's parents weren't only English, they were also t.i.tled. Which probably explained their shock when their daughter had married an Apache Indian. Seth was right, that must have really rattled that stick-up-their-a.s.s att.i.tude. He was also correct in it being their loss. Jonas was a grandson to be proud of, a man of strength, principles, and unshakable loyalty.
And Jonas had dismissed her to Seth, and what was between the two of them...
That hurt. A lot.
It also made her behavior before Seth arrived intensely embarra.s.sing. She had almost begged Jonas to spank her. Almost? She had begged him, not just to spank her but to pleasure her too. Twice.
She turned away. ”I think I'll go and freshen up before dinner-”
”Don't go into the bedroom.” Jonas strode across the room to grasp her arm and prevent her from going down the hallway. ”You don't want to go in there,” he repeated quietly. ”I was going to get you away from here without you having to see that, but we- I-” He shook his head. ”I allowed myself to become distracted.”
Lily remembered that distraction only too well. She glanced at her slightly ajar bedroom door before turning back to look searchingly at Jonas. His expression was grim, eyes dark. ”Let me go, Jonas.”
”No.”
”Let me go.” She held his gaze until his fingers slowly released her. ”Thank you.” She straightened her shoulders and walked down the hallway, pausing to take a deep breath before pus.h.i.+ng open her bedroom door and switching on the light.
The room was as she'd left it, apart from the bed. Her lovely four-poster bed that she knew she would never be able to sleep in again.
The curtains surrounding it had been shredded, probably with a knife. The same with the pillows, resulting in feathers being scattered over the dark carpet like snow. One pillow remained untouched, but there was something sticking out of it- Oh G.o.d.
Lily drew back her hand as she recognized what it was.
It was- It was- Lily turned quickly to brush past Jonas as she hurried down the hallway to the bathroom, bending over the porcelain just in time as she was violently sick.
The person who had broken into her apartment-her stalker?-had thrust a knife into the pillow to the hilt, exactly where her head would be when she was lying down.