Chapter 34
Kennedy
I wake up feeling like I’m floating on a cloud, a feeling I’ve become used to. Dae’s bed is the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept in, which is saying something considering some of the places I’ve had the luxury of staying in my lifetime.
It’s not the bed.
I roll over onto my back and groan at that thought. It’s true. It’s not the bed alone that has me feeling so damn comfortable and, yes, at home.
It’s his rich, spicy scent mixed with my sweet lavender scent. Our signature scents melded together.
It’s the damn silk pillowcases he uses for the pillows because he knows silk won’t dry out my curls.
And it’s the warmth I feel when I run my hand along the side of his bed. Yes, it’s empty, but I know he’s still here. The warmth from the sheets tells me he vacated the bed not too long ago.
My body hums in satiation and slight soreness as I roll over. The memories from the night before come back to mind. The possessive way he took me in his office and then again in the bathtub. Just thinking about them makes my nipples hard. I squeeze my thighs together.
I’ve never felt this damn sex crazed in my life.
Then again, I’ve never been with anyone like Dae before.
“You’re going to be my wife one day soon, Kennedy.”
His words from last night pierce the veil of lust that started to form. I immediately sit up in bed and look around. For what, I don’t know. I know he’s not in the room with me. I would feel him. And then there’s the fact that whenever we’re in a room together, he has to touch me somehow.
“His wife?” I mumble to myself. I can’t even figure out how I feel about those words. They should scare the hell out of me.
No, they do scare the hell out of me.
Yet, I’m not on my feet, heading for the nearest exit. Closing my eyes, I inhale deeply.
“I knew that snake was up to something.”
Blackmon’s words come barreling through my mind like a tornado.
“You’re helping him, aren’t you?” He accused me of being Dae’s right hand in trying to take him down. His words struck me when he first said them because I had no idea he and Dae were still working together in any capacity.
Dae had told me he and Blackmon severed their working relationship a while back.
I bite my bottom lip as I replay the conversation in my mind. I meant to ask Dae about it yesterday, but that was before I met with Nicole. Then I all but forgot about it when I arrived at the Black Opal, and he fucked my brains out on his desk.
Then again in his bathtub.
I shake those memories away. I have to focus on the questions at hand. If Dae told me he no longer has a working relationship with Blackmon, what is this deal with the Global Group Blackmon”s talking about?
Is what Blackmon suggested true? Is Dae somehow using me to take him down for his gain?
I rip the sheets and covers away from my body and toss on the first thing I can find. Naturally, it’s one of Dae’s shirts because the bastard has a habit of taking my clothes from the night before and putting them somewhere I can’t easily access them.
I button the shirt before heading down the stairs. The smell of freshly brewing coffee hits my nose as soon as I’m at the stairwell. I follow the scent past the massive living room and into the kitchen.
I’m hit with the sight of Dae with his back turned to me. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs. My eyes roam over his sculpted back, down to his narrow waist and tight ass.
I will myself to pull it together.
“Are you going to keep staring at me, or are you going to give me my morning kiss?” he asks, his back still to me.
“Neither,” I declare, folding my arms over my breasts.
He abruptly turns to me with an eyebrow raised. After placing the carton of eggs in his hand on the kitchen island, he takes a few steps toward me. He stops when I take a few steps back, keeping the distance between our bodies.
“Are you working with Blackmon?”
He cocks his head to the side and slowly blinks. When his eyelids open again, his gaze is closed off. I inhale a deep breath because I don’t like that look. A niggling feeling at the back of my neck tells me he’s trying to keep something from me.
His eyes narrow. “Did he tell you that?”
I shake my head and take another step back. “Don’t go back to answering my questions with questions, Dae.”
He narrows his eyes. “If Blackmon told you something about me, I should know, shouldn’t I?”
“Why? So you can figure out the perfect lie?”
“Is that what you fucking think of me?”
No, my heart screams.
“Just answer the question. Are you working with him? And if so, why did you lie and tell me your business with him ended years ago?”
“That wasn’t a lie,” he declares.
I want to believe him, but I refuse to let my heart run this show.
“Then why did he say you’re both part of some joint venture with the Global Group?”
His jaw hardens. “He said that when he came to see you at your office.” He’s put two and two together.
“Are you working with him?” I ask again.
“No,” he says firmly.
I start to release the breath I was holding when he adds, “Not intentionally.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I glare at him.
He turns his head away from me, and I see the muscles in his jaw working.
“Dae, you told me I could trust you. Are you lying to me? What do you mean not intentionally? Either you’re working with him, which means you lied to me, or you aren’t working with him, which means he lied to me. Which is it?” I demand.
“Neither one of us lied,” he claims. “He’s a part of the Global Group, and so is my company.”
“Making you two partners,” I finish for him. “Which means you did lie.” I take another step back.
Dae advances on me until my back hits the wall of the stairwell.
“It’s not like that,” he says.
I laugh derisively. “That’s what every motherfucker says when they’ve been caught in a lie.” I push him away from me, but he doesn’t budge an inch.
“Working with that piece of shit again was never my intention.”
“Then why are you?”
“It wasn’t by choice.”
I let out another laugh that doesn’t hold any humor. “Right. You were forced to work with him. How convenient.”
“No, I wasn’t forced to work with Blackmon. I could’ve backed out of the partnership with the Global Group. But I chose not to.”
“What are you talking about? Start from the beginning.”
He explains how his company worked with Global Group and how an opportunity to become permanent partners within the group came up. He’s been vying for the opportunity for over a year.
“When it came down to it, they chose both our company and Blackmon’s. The son of a bitch is good for PR.”
I mull over his words.
“This was never the deal I wanted. I know Blackmon’s a cheap bastard who doesn’t have the business skills to last at any high level. Which is why I investigated him and dug up that information about his restaurant.”
“Why didn’t you tell me first?” I ask. “You’ve known from the beginning that I’m investigating him and his company for the death of one of his employees.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “At first, I didn’t think the two were related. I still don’t know. His high-end restaurants are run out of a completely different division from his chain restaurants. Either way, once I found out the truth, I confronted him and told him to resign from the Group or I’d tell them myself.”
“But you still haven’t gone to them.”
“Because I gave the thumb drive to you instead,” he confesses. “I’ve known all along that Blackmon isn’t worth two fucking pennies. That’s why, after my uncle died and I took over the company, I severed business ties with him almost immediately.”
“He’s still a club member, though,” I remind him.
“He was,” Dae counters. “That was part of the deal to end our business relationship. He’d stay on as a member, paying only half the typical annual fee while relinquishing his twenty percent ownership. But since I learned about the bribery, I used it to cancel his membership.”
“When?” I demand to know.
“A week ago.”
I nod as the pieces start to come together. “And you demanded he go to the Global Group to resign.”
“Yes,” he answers immediately.
“That must’ve pissed him off enough that he came to see me,” I surmise.
Dae’s face hardens in a way I’ve never seen before. In his eyes, I see storm clouds brewing.
“He shouldn’t have done that.” His voice is so low I almost don’t hear him. The coldness in it causes the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up.
“Why?” I push. “Because you’re pissed that he exposed the fact that you lied to me?”
“I just explained that what I told you when you first came to me wasn’t a lie. As far as I’m concerned, Blackmon and I still don’t have a working relationship.
“He’s as good as gone from the Global Group. He was trying to buy his time by going to you. He tried to rattle me, but he just signed his own grave, which is all he did.”
Dae starts to head toward the stairs, but my hands on his chest stop him.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“To make some phone calls.”
I shake my head. “No.”
“No?” Those clouds in his eyes only grow more tumultuous. “I should’ve done this last night when you told me he came to your office. Now he’s going to pay for getting you involved.”
“Dae, stop,” I protest. “First of all, I was already involved. Are you forgetting that we even got to know one another because I came to you seeking information about him?”
Some emotion I can’t readily identify peeks through the storm clouds, but it’s gone in the blink of an eye.
“If he believes you’re on to whatever other shit he’s involved with, you could be in danger. Especially since the bastard was bold enough to come to your job.”
“It also tells me he’s not smart,” I retort. “He’s prone to act on emotion rather than intellect. He came to visit me because he wanted to see what I knew. He tried to steer me in a different direction.
“He told on himself, and I know if I keep investigating, he’ll do it even more.”
“Which is still putting you in danger.” Dae shakes his head and tries to take a step around me. I know he’ll make that phone call to whomever he was going to in the first place.
“No,” I insist, my hands on his chest again. “So far, there’s no reason to believe he’ll act out violently. He’ll work to cover his tracks, and because he’s sloppy, the more he does, the more he’ll reveal. I’m this close to uncovering the dark, underhanded network he’s involved in. Just …”
I push out a breath. “You asked me to trust you, and now I’m asking you to do the same for me.”
A muscle in his jaw ticks. An internal fight rages in his eyes.
“I believe you, Dae,” I add. “You say you ended business with him years ago, and I believe the Global Group brought him around your company again. Now, you need to trust me to do my job as a reporter and get to the bottom of this story. Without your interference.”
He balls his hands at his side before moving them to my waist. He yanks me into his body.
“It’s not you I don’t trust.” He presses his forehead against mine, his breathing heavy.
I stroke his jaw. “I know. But trust me enough to handle this. This is my job. He’s not the first asshole I’ve done a case on, and he won’t be the last.”
His jaw flexes again, but when I reach on my tiptoes to kiss the side of his jaw, it relaxes. I press another kiss and then another. Each kiss releases the tension coiled in his body a little more.
My breath catches when he suddenly cups my thighs, picking me up and forcing me to wrap my legs around his waist. In an instant, we’re heading back up the stairs.
“Where are we going?” I ask as if I don’t already know.
“Back to bed,” he answers before slamming his lips against mine.
For the next few hours, thoughts about Blackmon, my investigation, and anything else are entirely forgotten.