Free Tempt Me by Tamara Hogan

her boots on the move. “Bye.”
    The door closed behind her. Jack reached into the refrigerator, snagging a can of Coke. Lukas threw his shoulders back and his chest out, like he was about to enter the sparring cage in Sebastiani Security’s basement. Rafe looked...vaguely guilty.
    What the hell...
    “Wyatt Cooper,” Jack stated as he opened the can.
    She blinked at his unexpected conversational detour. She should have realized that their thoughts would run along the same track. “Likely.”
    “Outsourced.”
    “Probably.” Wyatt always kept his own hands clean. His specialty was exploiting gullibility, and convincing someone else to take the fall.
    As she very well knew.
    Rafe sat up straight on the barstool—some feat, given how badly the thing tilted. “Who,” he asked, “is Wyatt Cooper?”
    She stared, mesmerized by the controlled violence in his soft tone. His glorious cheekbones stood out in taut relief. His fingers twitched, like he wanted to hit something.
    A sudden wave of lust about buckled her knees.
    “How much time do you have?” Jack responded.
    “Not tonight,” Lukas said around a jaw-cracking yawn. “Let’s get some sleep and regroup tomorrow morning.” He looked at Jack, then Bailey. “Eight o’clock?”
    Jack thought a moment. “Yeah, I’m open.”
    “Me too,” she sighed. She knew her schedule was clear because she’d specifically blocked out the morning to work on some projects that were woefully behind schedule. She sighed again, jamming her hands into her overly-long hair. Personal errands like haircuts and—she flicked Lukas a guilty side-eye—doctor appointments had completely fallen off her radar. Hopefully the doctor appointment would fall off his.
    “We don’t think you should stay here tonight,” Lukas said.
    So that’s what their low-volume pow-wow had been about. “I hadn’t planned on it. I’ll stay at The Bunker. My futon’s there, there’s a shower in the locker room downstairs...”
    “I’d like you to bunk in with Sasha and Antonia until we figure out exactly what’s going on here.”
    Stay with Lukas’s sisters? They lived in one of the two penthouse units topping the Sebastiani Building, home of Underbelly, Crack House Coffee, and God knew what else on the floors between. Antonia had recently moved across the foyer from her father’s unit to her sister’s. She chattered incessantly about how much she enjoyed her new living arrangements. 
    She opened her mouth to decline, but then reconsidered. With three Underworld Council members living on the top floor, it was an understatement to say the building had formidable security. Sebastiani Security was just down the street, so her commute to work would be negligible. She’d have access to a 24-hour coffee shop she could walk to in her slippers. In the deep freeze of a Minnesota winter, it was a considerable perk.
    Perk. She snorted with laughter at the weak pun. Yeah, it was time to get some sleep.
    “Bailey?” Rafe’s voice was soft as a feather bed. “Are you okay?”
    “Just tired.” She couldn’t stop from weaving toward him like he was a magnet and her body was composed of iron filings. “Too tired to argue with all three of you at the same time. I’ll go to Sasha’s.” Right now, she didn’t really care where she slept, as long as sleep was on the agenda.
    What was she going to do to—um, about —Rafe? Did she have it in her to simply enjoy him, to wallow in the pleasure he would bring her, without getting emotionally involved?
    She needed to think.
    “Need anything else?” Lukas gestured to the duffle and computer bag he’d carried. “I’ll drop you off, get you upstairs for the night. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to update the security systems to recognize you.”
    “I’ll drive myself. What’s already in the bag is fine.” Anything else she needed could be picked up tomorrow, once she got to work.
    “Didn’t you say that Scarlett wasn’t feeling well?”