Chapter 14 Axel
FOURTEEN
AXEL
I woke up with the worst case of morning wood I’d had in a long time.
The woman responsible for that was in the shower on the other side of the wall to my right.
Picturing her naked and wet in that shower only made my dick impossibly harder.
It hadn’t helped that last night after we got back to my place, she’d wrapped her arms around my waist, kissed me, and tried to move things beyond kissing.
Normally, I wouldn’t have hesitated, but prior to that kiss, she had spent a few minutes crying in my arms. As much as I’d wanted to take her to bed and enjoy her body from top to bottom, I wouldn’t do that to someone who was struggling to keep it together.
On the drive back to my place last night, she’d listened to a voicemail that Terrence had left her, and I had watched the happiness she had gained at her Family Day party fade away.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
“Terrence said they can’t finish until next Sunday, so we won’t be able to open until Tuesday of next week.” She sighed as the realization hit her, and I felt my anger increase at the person who was responsible for taking the life and spirit out of her that I had come to enjoy.
“I need to schedule a meeting with my staff to tell them what’s going on,” she said, typing into her phone.
“You can still be there Tuesday morning if you want, to greet customers and let them know you had some water damage and a company is making some fixes but you will open as normal the next week,” I told her, trying to reassure her.
“Okay. Yeah. I could do that.”
She made her phone calls and set everything up for the next day, but as we walked into my building, the energy had visibly drained out of her.
Trying to bring her some comfort, I pulled her into my arms and hugged her while rubbing my hand up and down her back.
“I…I don’t want to be a damsel in distress,” she whispered to me, her breath hitching as she tried to hide her tears.
“The kind who needs some man to protect her all the time from everything. But I also know my limits. I just hate that you have to go with me to my parents’ house and let me stay with you all because we don’t know how far Braden will take this. ”
“Stella,” I said, pulling her face back so I could look at her when I spoke.
“I don’t do anything I don’t want to. If I didn’t want you here, I would have helped you get set up at Luna’s or in a hotel room or somewhere else safe.
I enjoyed going to your parents’ house. I also want you here. I enjoy having you here with me.”
I used my thumb to swipe away the tear from her cheek as I waited for her reply.
She didn’t respond for a few moments. Instead, she just looked up at me as if trying to read my thoughts.
She leaned up and kissed me softly, as though waiting to see how I would react. I kissed her in return, sliding my fingers into her silky soft hair. Her body melded into mine, and I could feel all her curves pressed against me.
She pulled back, biting her lip as she stared at my mouth. “So, umm…about that faster pace…” She paused, letting that comment hang in the air, clearly hoping I’d take the hint.
Damn, I wanted to. When I’d asked her out after we went curling, it had been my intention to get her into my bed not long after—and keep her there.
But she had just had tears on her face and had gotten bad news from her contractor.
She was the definition of emotional right now, and I couldn’t do that, no matter how much my dick wanted to.
“Let’s revisit that idea tomorrow or the next day.
” My words caused her to deflate a little, but it needed to be this way.
“You’ve had a rough day, and we both need to be up early if we’re going to meet the crew and insurance agent at your bakery tomorrow morning.
You need sleep, and if I take you into my room like I want to, you’ll be up all night while I make love to you over and over again. ”
Her eyes flared, filled with passion and need. I needed to back away before I let her talk me into this.
“Let’s get some sleep, okay?”
“Okay,” she begrudgingly accepted as her shoulders slumped.
Now, here I was, lying in bed with a hard dick, listening to the water run in the room next to mine, knowing her delicious naked body was in there, only a few feet away.
I was ready to go at that faster pace she asked for, but she’d had two back-to-back days of intense stress.
I needed to give her a few more days before I let us go there.
To make sure she wasn’t leading with her emotions too much.
I didn’t want her to regret anything later, especially since I knew this wasn’t a fling.
I wanted her to be mine in every sense of the word.
A buzz on my phone startled me back to the here and now. I pulled it up to see a message from Tex on the group thread with the two of us and Kitty.
Tex: Not much of an update, other than to say I’ve scoped all the cameras in the general area and don’t see anything. Whoever this was had clearly scouted the area well and knew where all the cameras were.
Me: Doucet has visited the bakery many times. It would have been easy for him to check out the cameras both inside and outside the building.
Kitty: Due respect, but you made this guy seem like kind of an idiot. Are we sure he was smart enough to pull this off?
Tex: I’m with Kitty.
Kitty: That’s because you know I’m always right. ;)
Tex: It is possible it was Doucet? Yes. He certainly had the motivation.
Tex: BUT…the business across the street and both on either side of her also have cameras, and he avoided all of them.
There is only a small portion of the side of the bakery—where he threw the cocktail through the window—and the back corner of her building that are uncovered—which is likely where he fled.
Kitty: I know anger and rejection can be big motivators, and the idea behind the fire seems personal, but the execution part seems professional to me.
I would be lying if I said the same idea hadn’t crossed my mind, but Doucet was easier to deal with, so I had hoped that was who the suspect was. However, you couldn’t make decisions based on hope, which was why I had Tex and Kitty on board in addition to the Ranger Shield crew.
The police had informed us that he’d claimed he had an alibi with another woman, but they hadn’t yet spoken to her. People lied about alibis all the time, though, so I wasn’t ready to give up on him yet.
Me: So what are you both thinking?
Kitty: Do you think you could have made any enemies overseas during your time in the Army?
Me: It isn’t like the US Army, with boots on the ground in war-torn countries with conflict. I never left Sweden.
Kitty: But you worked with that intelligence and secret security service group, right? What was it called?
Me: Milit?ra underr?ttelse- och s?kerhetstj?nsten, or MUST. In English, that’s Military Intelligence and Security Service.
And, yes, I worked with them. It was where I developed all my military intelligence and hacking skills.
But my role was all behind the scenes with that task force.
My identity would not have been exposed.
Kitty: I still think it’s worth reaching out to any contacts you may have and getting their thoughts. Because if you made an enemy there, not only would they have motive, but they would certainly be more highly trained than Doucet.
Me: Tex, you are quiet. What are you thinking?
Tex: I’m not discounting Kitty’s theory, especially since I agree with her angle on motive and training. But it could also be an enemy you made while working at your current security firm, which would be more likely for a local attack.
Me: You think this has to do with my job at Ranger Shield Security?
Tex: Look. Doucet is a weirdo for sure, but there’s nothing violent in his past, no history of violence or anything.
By all accounts, it genuinely looks like he backed off once you and Vince talked to him.
So, the only other element that has changed in her life recently to cause this to escalate is you.
Damn. Could it really be someone from a case I had worked?
Me: Most of what I do for both Ranger Shield and MUST is intel. I don’t arrest them or fire them. These people have no idea I am the one who looks into them.
Tex: Usually you are right, but all it takes is one person with half a brain to retaliate. Plus, your current job is local, which is easier for someone to retaliate from than someone overseas.
Kitty: Talk to your people and get us some names. We’ll help you look into it.
I got out of bed and shot Archer, Vince, Wade, and Jack a text to see if we could meet up to go over any possible cases that might have a motive.
I was planning to drop Stella off at work, and I wanted to be there with her at least through her time with the insurance agent in case he was a dick.
She was going to grab her laptop and some files from her office and bring them over to Ranger Shield’s office for the afternoon.
She would have preferred to work from her house or the bakery, but they told her that for the first few days, she wouldn’t be able to since they would have to shut off her electricity and water for a period of time while they worked.
My plan was to give her my office or have her work from the small conference room next to Ruthie and Cat while I talked a few things over with the guys about my suspicions—and now Tex’s and Kitty’s suspicions.
It wasn’t that I was keeping things from her, but she had enough to deal with already, and I didn’t want to add more worry, especially if it was just a hunch or suspicion rather than fact.
I also shot a quick email over to two former team members from my time at MUST. I wasn’t confident they would be able to assist, but I needed to start somewhere. I wanted to get this cleared up and solved as soon as possible.
This way, there would be no guilt or other priorities on my mind when I finally got Stella in my bed. I needed all my focus for that task since I intended to make her mine…for good.