He moved quickly through his living room and found her purse right where she had dropped it. He remembered he hadn’t given her time last night to get inside the door before he was all over her. The memories of taking her against the door sent ripples of pleasure through him.
He opened the front door and peeped out. The parking lot of his condo appeared almost empty, with most people away at work. The only cars were his, Stonewall’s and Jules’s.
Stonewall. Of all the times he wished he didn’t have a bodyguard, today was it. Stonewall’s windows were up, and since they were tinted, he had no idea whether the man was awake or napping. Hopefully, Stonewall wouldn’t notice him. Tightening his bathrobe against the biting cold, he walked past Stonewall’s vehicle, opened Jules’s trunk and grabbed the overnight bag.
He thought he had made it without being noticed when Stonewall rolled the window down, looked over at him and smiled. “Morning, Dalton. Sleep well?” Dalton ignored the man and kept walking until he was back inside his condo and then slammed the door shut.
“Dalton, I need my stuff,” Jules called from the bathroom. “We have less than three hours to make that meeting, and I have to go home, change clothes and grab something to eat.”
He walked back to his bedroom and knocked on the bathroom door. He barely heard her above the shower as she called, “Just leave the bag on the vanity.”
He opened the door and was about to do just that when he saw her in the shower through the glass door. They had showered together in Miami. So why was seeing her in his shower, using his water and his soap causing such a possessive reaction from him? Why was he thinking that everything in this place was his...including her?
He placed the bag on top of the vanity and slid out of his robe. Surprise shone on Jules’s face when he snatched open the shower door and stepped in. She backed up. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“About to take you in my shower,” he said directly, reaching out and pulling her to him.
She placed her wet hands on his chest. “We don’t have time.”
He pushed her back against the shower wall and lifted her hips as she wrapped her legs around his waist, the water spraying down on them. “We’re going to make time.”
Thirty-Two
They were late. Not much, but late, nonetheless. And when they walked in together, all eyes turned their way. “Sorry I’m late,” Jules said, sliding into one of the first empty seats she saw.
Leaving me to fend for myself, Dalton thought. “Sorry I’m late, as well.” And because he figured there was speculation circling around the room because he and Jules had walked into the conference room together, he said, “I bumped into Jules downstairs and helped her get through security.”
He figured that lie had gone over well with Carson, but with Shana and his brothers, he wasn’t sure. In a way, it hadn’t exactly been a lie. He’d been bumping into Jules for most of the past twelve hours.
“No problem. We haven’t started discussing anything. Just chitchatting,” Carson said, smiling. She then turned her attention to Jules. “I understand you’ve been busy.”
Jules nodded. “Yes, I have. Has anyone filled you in?”
Carson shook her head. “No. I’d prefer that you do it. As an attorney, I prefer not to hear important information secondhand.”
Jules nodded and began talking. Dalton noticed how attentive Carson was to what Jules was saying, only interrupting to clarify a few points. He watched as she jotted information down on a notepad, but otherwise her gaze stayed glued to Jules.
When Jules had finished covering everything, Carson pushed her notepad aside. “Although Ivan Greene and his parents, until they are fully ruled out, should be considered persons of interest, we can’t place all our attention on them. I would love to know what Imerson had in that report, as well, but we can’t waste time going backward. We have to build our own report, and hopefully in that process we will find out some of the same things he did.”