Chapter Twenty-Five #2
You could have knocked me over with a gentle breeze at that. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she reached below the desk and pulled out a piece of slightly golden paper and a brass-colored pen and effortlessly started jotting down a list.
“Do you want a list of guys I have just dated at all, no sex, too?”
Quite frankly, I was so used to clients and women in my personal life who still felt a sort of unfounded embarrassment or shame when it came to discussing sexual partners that it was almost shocking to find someone so open about it.
Refreshing.
It was refreshing.
“What?” Her brow was raised as she watched me, likely picking up on some sort of confused vibe.
“You’re very open,” I said, shrugging.
“Well, I am, what’s the word they use? ‘Progressive,’ I guess, because I don’t buy into that asinine, antiquated virgin/whore mindset that society likes to shove down our throats.
Everyone likes sex. And as long as you do it safely, no one should be ashamed of some absurd ‘number’ that supposedly makes you either a prude or a slut.
I’ve slept with who I have slept with, and I see no reason to try to hide that. So, back to my question…”
My lips twitched before I let the smile spread, teeth and all, liking her no-nonsense mindset more than I knew I should. “Every guy would be good.”
“Great. I will just put an X beside the ones who were just dates.”
The pen flew over the paper quickly and efficiently, her writing smooth and neat, all curving script.
Finished, she turned the page and pushed it toward me.
I reached for it and pulled it up, finding that her ‘number’ was actually only nine and that she knew all their phone numbers offhand which was impressive in and of itself.
The guys she had just dated list, though, was long.
Thirty at least, but she still had all their first and last names.
“Need anything else?”
“Um… if you can remember which ones of these guys you maybe dated or slept with around the time that all this shit started happening, that might help.”
Her brows furrowed at that, her hand absentmindedly tapping the pen against her bottom lip, which was missing the lipstick that had been covering it that morning.
“I think I went on a date with these two guys,” she said, reading the page upside down and swiping a mark next to their names, “around that time. Easton was an awful first and only date, but I gave Drake a second date where he spent most of it on his phone. I don’t think either of them would do this.
I wasn’t sleeping with anyone before this happened, and he,” she said, stabbing her pen on a name without an X, “was the most recent. We had a sort of… no-strings arrangement for about a year since neither of us had time for a relationship, being workaholics. No hard feelings there at all. He actually moved on with someone else and is happy. I really don’t see it being any of these guys. ”
“Alright. I mean, you can never know what might make a guy snap. Lots of whack jobs out there. I will look into all of them and see what they’ve been up to, if there are any red flags. I am going to need your partner’s list too. What?” I asked when her brow rose and she bit into her lip.
“I’m not sure Cassie’s list will be quite so, ah, comprehensive. She’s a great girl and has been stable with her man for a while now, but she’s had a past. And she doesn’t exactly remember all of it.”
Great.
“Well, that’s what you’re paying me for.” Most cases weren’t as easy as Kenz was trying to make them for me. There was usually an obnoxious amount of digging around in everyone’s dirt to find any leads.
“I will talk to her tonight and get her thinking on it. I can email you a list sometime tomorrow.”
“You about done around here?”
“Ah,” she started, looking around at the space that was all cleaned up, most of the shelves empty thanks to the destroyed inventory. “Yeah, I guess there’s really nothing else I can do here tonight. You walking me to my car?”
“Yeah. Grab your shit.”
“So charming,” she teased, standing and stretching out the kinks, an action that made her shirt slide up and a bigger sliver of skin flash between the short crop top and the high-waisted jeans, a bit of skin that was really just directly under her breasts, making an uncomfortable, and wholly unwelcome given the situation, surge of desire course through my system.
“Hold on, let me go grab my rose petals for you,” I drawled, making her turn back to me, a smile spreading wide enough to make the skin next to her eyes crinkle slightly.
“Cute.” She grabbed her purse and keys and moved out from behind the desk, still in those ankle-breaking heels from the morning.
“Thought so,” I agreed, falling into step behind her, trying and failing to not watch her perfect fucking ass as she walked toward the door like her feet didn’t hurt at all , leaving me to wonder if that was the case or she just hid it well.
I could give a mean foot rub, man.
But I wasn’t going to be giving her any, I reminded myself as I reached around her to pull open the door, making her turn over her shoulder, the back of her head brushing my chest in the process, giving me a look that seemed to say somehow—‘I can open my own door, but thank you.’ I swear to fuck, the woman communicated that all with a look.
Client.
She was a client.
I needed to get a fucking grip.
She moved out onto the sidewalk, the rain almost immediately drenching her, making her shake her head. “There goes my blowout.”
She didn’t sound remorseful about it at all, though, even though I knew that shit took forever to get done and women usually liked to milk it for a few days if they could.
No, instead, she tilted her head up toward the sky, letting the drops cascade down her face and completely soak her hair through.
Like she figured if she was screwed anyway, she might as well enjoy it.
No bitching.
No running for the car.
Again—refreshing.
I reached back inside, flicking the light off. When I turned back, she handed me the key, and I locked up for her before falling into step as she took me toward the side of the building.
“You’re serious?” I asked, stopping her in her tracks.
“About?”
“You’re taking the goddamn alley to the lot?”
For a smart woman, she made some stupid fucking moves when it came to her safety.
I guess, maybe to an extent, having two older brothers involved in street shit gave her a sort of insulation from real dangers; everyone in the area knew that if they put a hand on her or her sister, they would likely pay with their lives.
It made her perhaps more reckless than she even realized.
A false sense of security.
“It’s faster.” She rolled her eyes up at me. “And I have a giant for a bodyguard. I figured it was safe to take the shortcut tonight. Will you even fit down this alley?” she asked, stepping into it, facing me and walking backward.
“Think I can manage,” I said, following her, maybe a little impressed that she kept walking backward without a stumble even in those ankle-breakers. “Promise you’ll start parking out front.”
She must have picked up on something in my voice because it made her stop suddenly at the mouth of the alley, head cocked to the side, brow quirked.
There was a prolonged silence before she eventually nodded, bleeping the locks for her car.
“I will park out front from now on,” she agreed, walking toward it.
“And leave when Cassie leaves.” She opened her mouth, and knowing her, it was to object, so I cut her off. “It’s fine to be a workaholic, honey. But come in earlier then. You shouldn’t be here alone after dark until we get this handled.”
Knowing there was no valid argument she could make, she gave me another tight nod as she reached for her door handle. “Fine, but you better figure this out fast then. I don’t like having to dictate my life around someone else.”
That right there perhaps summed up Kenzi fucking perfectly as she flicked her hair, opened the door, turned the car over, and pulled away.
She dictated her own life.
And that was the fucking sexiest thing I could imagine.