A Harmless Little Game (Harmless #1)

 

I’m in his arms. We’re wrapped intimately in a bed cover, but his body is tight with tension. This is not the same caring Drew from last night. Not even from this morning. Some part of him changed after he received that phone call.

 

“Spill it.”

 

“Spill what?” he asks through gritted teeth.

 

“Why are you acting like I’m suspicious? Like you’re watching me.”

 

“It’s my job to watch you.”

 

“No. It’s your job to protect me. Not to give me covert glances like you think I’m about to steal all the cookies in the cookie jar.”

 

He’s a steel drum.

 

“This has to with that phone call you got.”

 

He holds his breath.

 

“Say it, or get away from me. I can’t play this game, Drew.” Especially when you smell like all the relief in the world.

 

“Not playing games, Lindsay.”

 

“Then get your hot, strong, incredibly enticing arms off of me and leave.”

 

He doesn’t budge.

 

“Enticing?” His voice morphs into sensual territory.

 

“Leave.”

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

I want to cry when he actually listens to me and walks away. What am I doing?

 

“Wait!”

 

He stops in the doorway, the light from the hallway illuminating his body. Broad shoulders, thick with rolling muscles, taper down to a narrow waist, strong thighs in his sweat pants and his ass— “Yes?”

 

“We’re not getting anywhere without talking.”

 

“Then talk.”

 

“I meant you, Drew, and you know it.”

 

“I have nothing to say.”

 

“How’s the investigation going?”

 

His jaw clenches.

 

“Damn it. Someone’s trying to kill me. We think it’s those bastards.”

 

Silence.

 

“It’s John, Stellan and Blaine.”

 

Saying their names makes him reach up and grab the doorway with both hands, his arms up high, his lats pulsing.

 

“Do you have any idea who they’ve become, Lindsay?”

 

“They’ve becomes soulless—”

 

“I don’t mean that. I mean who they are.”

 

“We know who they are.”

 

He whips around and gives me a look so hard it could crack open a walnut.

 

“John Gainsborough is now a major league baseball player. Stellen Asgarth is a television celebrity. And Blaine Maisri—fuck, Lindsay. Blaine is running for your father’s old seat.”

 

I blink slowly, like an owl.

 

“Don’t you see? They’re not just a bunch of frat boys I need to tail.”

 

“How?” I gasp.

 

“How.” He barks out the word, walking back into the room, rubbing his neck in frustration, his jaw grinding. “I’ve asked myself that question since I came back from deployment. How. How the hell did those little pricks find their way to so much success?”

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

“And why, Lindsay, would they risk it all to text you a simple taunt?”

 

“What?”

 

He moves his head, pursing his mouth, his actions adding up to a pile of nonverbal anger that finally becomes words. “I got the trace report on the phone that texted that message to you, Lindsay. And the fingerprints came back on your brake line.”

 

I sit up, heart racing.

 

“And?”

 

“The phone was traced back to one you bought with your credit card yesterday morning.”

 

“What?”

 

“And your fingerprints are the only ones on the cut brake lines on your car.”

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 39

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve never had someone look at me like Drew is looking at me.

 

“What? What are you saying?” I cry out. “It wasn’t me! You were with me all day!”

 

“I know.” He looks back at my bedroom door and slowly closes it.

 

Then he locks it.

 

“We’ve swept the rest of your house. It’s clean.” He sits on my bed, his body pulsating with heat. I can feel his questions, his anxious need for me to give him whatever information he requires to solve this problem.

 

“You don’t actually think I would cut my own brake lines and then text myself a fake text to make it look like—Drew!” Hysteria rises up. His eyes pierce the clawing, desperate need for him to believe me.

 

“I know you didn’t do it.”

 

I’m in his arms, throwing myself at him, bandages and bruises be damned. He’s hugging me and caressing my back, making small sounds of comfort. I sob with relief.

 

My mind races. Not only did they try to kill me, they taunted me. Worse—they set it up to look like I’m utterly unhinged, and sabotaging myself for attention.

 

What’s their end game? Where does this all lead? And how will my parents ever believe me in the face of this madness that John, Stellan and Blaine have unleashed?

 

A politician.

 

A major league baseball player.

 

A television personality.

 

No one will believe me. Ever. Their word against mine?

 

I am so screwed.

 

“I know you didn’t, Lindsay. I’ve had someone tailing you the entire time. That means this is some kind of inside job.”

 

“Inside job?”

 

“Someone who works for your father is setting you up. Probably has been all along.”