Free Carter: The Sinner Saints #1 by Adrienne Bell Page B

have stared at her for a second too long, because the next thing, Mason was saying his name. “You still there?”
    “Yeah, I’m here.”
    “I was just wondering what the plan was,” Mason said.
    “Yeah, of course,” Carter said, shaking his head to clear it. “Basic recon on Fuller’s office. We need to know what Addams is up to next, and that means we need eyes and ears on the place.”
    Carter turned back toward the window as he laid the rest of the plan out for Mason.

 
    Chapter Seven
     
     
    Ally was used to the harsh beep of an alarm clock shocking her out of sleep, so the experience of slowly rising out of the depths of slumber felt almost decadent.
    She rolled her shoulders as her eyelids flickered open. She licked at her lips and wiggled her toes. They brushed against the satiny softness of the comforter beneath her.
    Someone had slipped her shoes off while she was asleep.
    Not someone.
    Carter.
    Ally reached her arms above her head as she sat up, stretching out her back. There was still daylight pouring in from the large window that ran across the front of the room, but she was incredibly well rested. She must have had one heck of a power nap.
    She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and glanced around the room for Carter. She found him just where she’d left him, right by the window.
    He was sitting in a chair, reading a newspaper. There was a tray in front of him with what looked like a carafe of coffee. A tower of covered plates was on the table.
    The bedclothes rustled as she kicked off the blanket, and he turned his head her way.
    “Hey there, sleepyhead,” he said, with a devastatingly handsome smile. Ally turned her head before he could see her blush.
    She knew nothing had happened between them, but still, there was something so intimate about waking up in the same room. Under any other circumstances, she would have been upset that he’d only taken off her shoes.
    “Hey,” she said, pulling her feet in to sit cross-legged on the mattress. She combed her fingers through her hair. At this point, she was scared to look in the mirror. “How long was I out?”
    Carter looked down at his wrist. “About fifteen hours.”
    “What?” Ally’s spine straightened instantly. She twisted around to look at the clock on the side table.
    Sure enough, it read 9:03 a.m.
    She hadn’t taken a nap. She’d slept clear through to the next morning.
    And Carter had let her.
    She threw her feet down on the floor. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
    “Because you needed to sleep.” He shrugged as he turned the newspaper page.
    The newspaper .
    Dear God. She had to make a phone call. Her editor had to be wondering what had happened to her.
    After that she needed to call her parents. Ally would bet a thousand dollars that her mother had already heard the story of her house being involved in a shootout from half the neighbors on the street.
    She might have forgotten about all her responsibilities in the blur of yesterday’s chaos, but this morning, she was going to have to take care of business.
    Ally ran over to her purse and dug inside. When she didn’t feel the familiar shape of her phone, she upended the bag on the entryway table and the contents poured out. Her phone wasn’t one of them.
    “My phone is gone,” she called out.
    “I know.”
    Ally spun around.
    “How do you know?” she asked slowly.
    “Because I took it.”
    What the hell was it about this man? One second he had her blushing over his devilish smiles, and in the next instant, she wanted to kick him in the kneecaps. Maybe if he didn’t take such perverse pleasure in making her pry every last answer out of him, she would be able to keep her blood pressure under control. But as it was, she was quickly reaching her boiling point.
    Still, she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of another screaming fit—he always ended up laughing at her anyway—so she tiptoed behind his chair and pantomimed wrapping her hands around his neck and