Free Shattered Trust (Shattered #2) by Magda Alexander Page B

One of the guards at the front desk.
    After drinking two bottles of wine and falling headfirst into bed, I look like shit and stink worse, but I can’t leave her hanging downstairs while I clean up. “Send her up, will you, Tommy?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    I meet her by the elevator. Her eyes look crushed. As soon as the door opens, she walks forward and embraces me. “I’m sorry you’re no longer at Gardiner.”
    Her kindness touches something deep within me. I’ve had so little of it in my life. Dropping my chin on top of her head, I say, “How did you know?”
    “I dialed your cell. When you didn’t answer, I called Joss. She told me what happened.”
    In the state I’d been in I had no wish to talk to anybody. “I turned it off.” A thought occurs to me. “You didn’t come by yourself?”
    “No. One of the Stone Security guards drove me here. I sent him home after he dropped me off.”
    Which means she intends to stay. A slow fire starts in my belly. “You’re spending the night,” I rasp out.
    “Yes. Have you had dinner?”
    “No.”
    “You need to eat. Should we order in?”
    I love how concerned for me she is. “No. I’ll make something. Have to shower first. I reek.” She, on the other hand, smells of lavender and rose.
    “Okay.”
    After emerging from the bathroom a lot fresher than before, I head for the kitchen, where I find her perched on one of the stools. Before I fix dinner, I decant a bottle of wine and allow it to breathe. In less than thirty minutes I have chicken roasting in the oven and pasta bubbling on the stove. I scoop up a portion with a wooden spoon and offer it to her. “You want some?”
    “I already ate.”
    “So that whole order-in suggestion . . . ?” Rather than toss the morsel back in the pan, I gobble it. Predictably, my stomach rumbles with gratitude.
    The corners of her lips turn up. “I wanted you to eat. I know how much you value food.”
    She’s picked up on that, has she? And here I thought I’d hidden my food obsession so well. “Where’s Madison?”
    “At home. There are two guards there—Hunter Stone and another operative. She’s well protected. Right now, you need me more than she does.”
    I do need her. She just doesn’t know the extent of it.
    “So Joss didn’t explain much. She only mentioned you left the firm.” Propping her elbows on the counter, she drops her chin on her hands. “What happened?”
    “Dick Slayton sandbagged me. He called me into a management committee meeting this morning and gave me an ultimatum—either I drop Mitch as a client or my services are no longer needed at Gardiner, Ashburn & Strickland.”
    “And you chose Mitch.”
    “Of course. If it hadn’t been for him, I would probably have been killed in the mean streets of DC, the victim of gang violence.”
    After the chicken browns nicely, I fold it into the drained pasta, pour two glasses from the bottle I’d decanted, and pull up a stool next to her. As I do, she climbs down from hers. Soon she’s washing the pans and cleaning up the kitchen. “You don’t have to do that,” I say.
    “I want to.” She points to my plate. “Eat. You need it.”
    Used to eating fast, it takes me no time at all to devour the meal.
    I toss the dish and the cutlery into the dishwasher, grab her hand and the bottle of wine, and head for the living room. “It’s too warm to get a cozy fire going.”
    “I don’t need a cozy fire,” she says, dropping next to me.
    “What do you need, bella ?” The low fire in my belly has become a roaring furnace. I ache for her more than my next breath.
    She rests her hand on my chest. “You.”
    I wrap my hand around her nape and pull her toward me, but soon kissing her is not enough. I lift her off the couch and drop her into my lap, and then I push my cock into her belly so she can feel every inch of me. With open mouths we devour each other, stealing each other’s breath, tasting one another.
    “Take off your shirt,” she