Free The Men With the Golden Cuffs by Lexi Blake Page A

about the fact that Doyle never let me buy anything but a crappy sedan. We only had the one car. I had to take the bus to work. I had to take the bus everywhere.”
    He didn’t like the sound of that. The bus could be dangerous. He would never let his sub take a bus if he wasn’t there to make sure she was all right. And his wife? God, he couldn’t imagine driving off in a car when his wife was forced to take a bus. What the hell kind of man did that?
    The elevator finally dinged, and she started to walk in. Adam’s eyes widened in a way that told Jake he wasn’t doing something right. He leaned in.
    “Escort her. Treat her like a lady.” Adam’s words were low, meant only for Jake’s ears.
    Jake wasn’t exactly sure how he was supposed to escort her to the elevator. But he could make more of an effort. He’d sat up for what had felt like forever looking through her house. He’d found a stack of trade paperbacks she’d written. He’d picked up the first Texas Sweethearts book. He hadn’t put it back down.
    Serena wrote ménage, and not some crazy sex book where the woman simply slept with a bunch of men. She wrote about love. She wrote about love between one woman and two men who couldn’t seem to live without each other. For the first time in his life, he’d read a book and seen a piece of himself.
    He was dying to ask her if she’d been in the center of a ménage before. He just couldn’t figure out a way to ask the question without seeming like a freak. Or a pervert. He’d already scared the crap out of her. He’d been a little surprised when she’d put a cup of coffee in front of him with a smile on her face.
    “Uhm, what floor do you want?” That was polite, right?
    Adam snorted but Serena smiled, a wide grin on her face. “I think it’s the fifteenth floor. But you’re the one who works here, so you might know better than me.”
    God, he was a dumbass. He was so much better when he was just killing something. He jabbed the button for his floor. “Sorry.”
    She pushed her glasses up. They made her look like a supercute librarian. “It’s okay. I forget stuff all the time. And I’m sorry I made such a big deal about the car. I know it can be fixed. And that car has gotten me in trouble before. It’s kind of why Doyle decided to sue my ass.”
    The elevator started to rise. He could smell her shampoo. Citrus. He loved that smell. He hadn’t realized how much he loved the smell of citrus. “How did it get you in trouble?”
    Adam beamed his way as though Jake was a toddler who’d just learned to say please. Jake was going to kick his ass later.
    Her nose wrinkled as she confessed. “Bridget and I might have driven the car off the lot and gone straight to Doyle’s place. We might have stopped in front of his mailbox where he was standing talking to some of his stuffy friends from the college. I might have shot him the finger and yelled that he made a huge mistake.”
    Jake couldn’t help but smile. He totally understood the impulse. There were plenty of assholes he would love to shoot the bird at.
    “He probably wouldn’t have figured out I was making so much money if I had just left well enough alone. I kind of told him he was a dumbass for walking away from a slot machine just before it paid out.”
    “Yes, you probably should have left well enough alone,” Adam said with a frown on his face.
    But some things were worth doing. Jake understood that. “I bet it felt good.”
    The smile on her face heated his blood. She was getting under his skin. “Yes. It felt good. I would do it again. No matter what it cost.”
    “The cost could be half your income,” Adam grumbled.
    She seemed to shrink a bit. “It won’t. My lawyer says it’s just a ploy. He’s being irritating on the off chance that I’ll pay him to go away. My lawyer doesn’t think he has a leg to stand on in court.”
    Jake thought about slapping Adam upside the head. She’d had a smile on her face, and now she’d