Free Tempt Me by Tamara Hogan Page A

Rafe asked Lukas. “Why don’t I get Bailey upstairs? I’ll swing next door and say hi to Dad and Claudette.”
    Lukas considered. “Okay, thanks.”
    Jackets rustled, boots were donned, and lights turned off. Following the guys out of her condo, she locked the door behind them, for what it was worth. When she reached the parking lot, she saw Lukas had put her bags in the back seat of Rafe’s already-running Jeep. Its bright headlights sliced through the lightly falling snow.
    “Ready?” Rafe called from his open window. “Take it slow; these roads are pretty slick.”
    She nodded and got into her car. The drive downtown would give her time to shore up her shaky boundaries, to get her brain back in gear. If nothing else, having Wyatt ooze back into her life was a great reminder that, when it came to men, her judgment could be very seriously flawed.
    ***
    T he pale winter sun barely peeked over the horizon when Rafe opened Sebastiani Security’s heavy front door the next morning. Between dropping Bailey off last night, visiting with his father and Claudette, and unpacking the Jeep when he’d finally gotten home, he felt like he’d barely rolled into bed before he’d had to roll right back out again.
    His brother’s text, requesting that he attend this 8:00 a.m. meeting too, had been his alarm clock.
    Lukas poked his head into the empty reception area from the inner security door. “Hey, come on back. We’re just getting started.”
    Grunting a response, he followed. Lukas looked pale, and he reeked of worry. “What’s wrong?”
    Lukas’s glaze flicked upward. “Scarlett’s not feeling well this morning.” After her sister had been killed, Scarlett had moved from the penthouse unit she’d shared with Sasha into Lukas’s loft so he could better protect her. She’d never moved back out.
    “Did she pick up a bug somewhere?”
    Lukas nodded, rubbing his neck. “Christ, I hate winter. Hang on a sec.” Detouring into the break room, Lukas opened the refrigerator, grabbed an orange and an apple, and then closed the refrigerator door with a tap of the heel of his work boot. “There’s coffee in the conference room.”
    “Good.”
    He followed his brother down the exposed brick hallway, passing Lukas’s cluttered office, Jack’s neat one, and several small conference rooms. In one of the rooms, a woman scribbled on a white board, wielding a dry-erase marker with rapier speed. Someone was making a phone call in another. When they reached the large conference room in the corner, Jack rose from his seat at the big oval table to connect his sleek laptop to the projector. Sebastiani Security operative Chico Perez leaned against the back wall. Antonia, wearing a sweatshirt that had mysteriously disappeared from his closet last year, sat next to Jack, sipping Diet Coke and nibbling on popcorn, flicking at a screen as she read. And there was Bailey, leaning over the credenza, pumping coffee from a stainless steel air pot with a soft vacuum hiss. She wore a black turtleneck sweater tucked into a pair of black skinny jeans that made the most of her subtle curves.
    Bailey’s head whipped to the door. The pleasure, the desire she couldn’t disguise, flickered over her face momentarily, then quickly disappeared.
    The display of mental discipline was...oddly hot.
    “What are you doing here?” she asked when he joined her. She wore a pair of those clever fingerless gloves, with a foot of knit fabric bunched at her wrists but leaving her fingertips free for typing. Her breathing was fast and shallow, her pupils were dilated, and she clutched her coffee cup like a lifeline.
    Relief bloomed. I’m not alone in this. “I don’t know yet,” he admitted, reaching for a coffee cup. “Lukas asked me to come.” When he filled the cup, the glorious scent of Crack House Blend filled his sinuses. “How’s your wrist this morning?”
    “Fine.” A pause. “Okay, it’s a little sore.”
    The tips of her fingers weren’t