Free Ultimate Passage: New Beginnings: Box Set ( Books 1-4) by Elle Thorne

itself was too confusing to deal with. So what else was there to do but go in?
    No, he’d wait and see if she came out. But first he had to make sure that there were no other exits. The building was two-story, whitewashed brick, with a metal staircase that led to the second floor on the outside. It had concrete steps and an ornate metal handrail.
    A quick trip around the building assured him there were no windows. Odd, a building without windows. It used to have windows, but they’d been sealed with bricks.
    Finn picked a spot across the street at a café and kept an eye on the green door. For more than an hour, no one came out, but four more laughing couples went in, along with a couple of unaccompanied women and one man.
    Finn stretched in the chair, the human epidermis uncomfortable over his own skin in this heat. The sun was lowering, but not going down, not yet.
    Maybe he should make an entrance, just to verify she was okay. For the mission , he told himself, knowing he wouldn’t believe his own lie.
    He crossed over and approached the door. Not even a peephole for security reasons. He tugged on the handle, and the door yielded without hesitation. Dimness greeted his eyes and took some adjusting to.
    A bar.
    This place was a bar. Jazz music drifted throughout the space, which was furnished with a collection of sofas and love seats. Candles and large, overstuffed chairs added to the ambience.
    But no Marissa.
    He made his way upstairs. More sofas. No bar. Couples were sitting on the sofas, but no one who was unaccompanied. Had he missed those? Where were they?
    He skimmed down the steps, two at a time. Around the corner. There she was. Her back was to him, but she was in front of the bar’s mirror with a drink in her hand.
    He stepped back quickly, but not quickly enough. She frowned at his image in the mirror, as if to be sure she wasn’t seeing things, and turned around.
    She scratched her head, almost childlike in her action. He knew what that meant, though he hoped it didn’t mean what he thought it did.
    “Finn.”
    Her slurred word confirmed it. She was drunk.
    “You’re following. You. Are. Following.” She took a drink. “Me.”
    He didn’t know what to say. If he confirmed it, would she accuse him of being a stalker? Would the bartender call the cops? That would be ugly. If he denied it, she’d know the truth.
    “I was concerned.” Might as well go with the truth.
    “About me? Little ol’ me?” She set the drink down, and it splashed up, clearly a hard landing. “You’re a scout. For one of those developers.” A sneer marred her features.
    He was confused. What developers? Did he want to let her know he didn’t know what she was talking about? Might as well, since her thinking he was a scout for a developer wasn’t working out too well for him. “I don’t know what you mean. What developers?”
    She drew back, exaggeratedly so, almost theatrical. The stunned expression that replaced the sneer would have been funny, if the circumstances weren’t the same, if she didn’t hate him without a reason. “What do you mean, what developers? You don’t know? You didn’t—Belle didn’t—you—”
    Evidently she wasn’t going to assemble a sentence that made sense, so he would have to take the lead. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I left right after you did. You didn’t seem to be okay.”
    “And you were worried about me.”
    “We’ve already established that.” He pushed her drink away. She’d had enough and was too difficult to communicate with.
    She brought it closer, took the straw between her teeth. The fluid rose through the opaque straw. She closed her eyes as she drank. If she weren’t getting on his nerves with her incomprehension, he’d have been—
    —cancel that thought. Too late—
    —he was aroused. Very much so.
    Cursed woman. Her cheeks hollowed as she sucked on the straw, and damn if his body didn’t have a surge of electricity flowing through it.