Chad straightened the laptop so it was aligned with the edge of the desk. “Tell Sandy I should be able to make it to Burlington by this afternoon. I still have to find Troy and tell him I’m leaving.”
Sam leaned forward, his face taking up nearly the entire tiny video chat screen. “You watch your back while you’re there, buddy, you hear? Tell Troy to watch his too.”
“Thanks. I will.” Yeah, Sam wasn’t behind this. Sam would have just locked him in a room at his private club. “You know for a while there I thought maybe you and Thalia were setting me up.”
“Shee-it, no.” The cigar disappeared, jammed back into Sam’s pocket with such force Chad was surprised the seams hadn’t ripped. “No, if I wanted to do that, I would have locked you up in a room at the club until you listened to me.”
Chad suppressed his smile. Did he know Sam or what?
“I would have staged a fuckin’ intervention or whatever the fuck they’re called,” Sam continued. “I fuckin’ well wouldn’t have locked you in with the ice queen and hope a little global warming set in.”
“You used to like her. She’s the one who…” Encouraged Sam to date Jill. Ah. Strange how time and distance sometimes made things so much clearer. “She and Jill had been good friends, Sam. She was upset when she said what she did. Losing Jill right after…”-Emily- “She was confused. Upset.”
“She was a self-centered bitch.” A feminine gasp from off-screen told him Rosie was listening.
He lined up the pen with the mouse pad. “She needed me and I wasn’t there for her. Not really. You were… collateral damage.”
“She wasn’t there when you needed her either, damn it. You need to get your head out of your ass and see she’s not good for you. Sure, she was a good fuck, but there are lots of women who would do you in a heartbeat.”
“Sam!” Rosie appeared on the screen. She hooked an arm around Sam’s neck and settled in his lap. The sappy look on Sam’s face should have been amusing, instead, he was jealous. “Chad, do you still love her?”
Behind her, Sam snorted and shook his head in disgust. “You see him dating anyone else lately, Rosebud? Nearly ten fuckin’ years he’s gone on a handful of dates with women I’ve set him up with. I doubt he’s gone through a box of condoms that whole fuckin’ time.”
Rosie placed a finger over Sam’s lips and ssshed him before facing the webcam again. “Chad? You need to get things straight with her. Talk to her. Listen to her.” She flattened her fingers over her heart. “Listen to what your heart is telling you. Because it sounds like you still care for her.”
Behind her, Sam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, fuck her and get her out of your system. Then dump her on her ass out the front gates.”
That pearl of wisdom earned Sam a slap on his hand. Damn, Sam was lucky to have convinced Rosie to come back to D.C., to agree to date him again. Just how much groveling Sam had done in New York, neither of them would say.
That’s how things should have happened with him and Lauren, yet it hadn’t. Which was his own damned fault. Lauren had probably expected him to fly after her and beg her to come back, the way Sam had flown after Rosie. Instead he’d let Lauren go.
“Thanks Sam. I’ll phone you when I get back into D.C.” Chad clicked the mouse on the “end chat” button and the chat session disappeared from the screen.
The conversation replayed in his mind as he closed up his computer. Fuck her and get her out of your system. Didn’t Sam realize Lauren was his drug of choice? That if he fucked her again, the way he’d came too damned close to doing last night, he’d never get her out of his system?
Talk to her, Rosie had said. Listen to her. Right. Well, Lauren sure had some talking to do. About who Weir was and who she worked for. He just had to decide whether she’d be talking to him or to Troy for that conversation.
A quick check of her room showed Lauren hadn’t returned. The closed circuit cameras revealed her location- she’d gone jogging and was a third the way out to the far end of the property. He could wait until she passed by the house and catch her then.
Ah, hell, he needed to jog this morning anyway. He lost seven minutes dashing back up to his room and changing into his sweats. By the time he met Troy halfway out, he’d warmed up nicely. Both his muscles and his irritation.
Troy slowed as he approached Chad. “If you’re looking for Lauren, she’s up the hill.”
Once again he debated turning around and waiting for her to return to the house but decided against it. If it ended up with her screaming at him again, he’d rather do it where no one could hear. He found her pounding hell bent for leather down the path.
“Lauren.”
She glanced over her shoulder but kept running. “Leave me alone right now, Chad. I’m not very good company.”
His step hesitated as he almost did turn around. No, if someone was trying to discredit Hauberk through her, he owed it to Sam-and Troy-to find out just what the hell was going on.
“Lauren, slow down, damn it.”
She didn’t.
He sprinted, thinking he was fresher and could take advantage of her exhaustion. Considering she’d probably run close to five kilometers already, it still took a concerted effort to catch up. “You’re worn out and if you keep this up, you’re going to trip over a root and twist your ankle.” Not to mention he needed to talk to her face-to-face instead of to her ass, as nice a view as that was.
With a huff of exasperation, most likely more at herself than at him, Lauren slowed down and a few hundred yards up stopped entirely. Breathing hard, she braced her hands on her knees.
“Just leave me alone for a while. Please.”
“That’s not what you were begging me to do last night. Or have you forgotten how you got on your knees and sucked my dick?” Fuck. That was a stupid-
Before he could finish the thought, Lauren did a neat sweep with her foot he wasn’t expecting and he found himself flat on his back, the breath driven from him. He rolled to a stand and watched her disappear down the trail.
So she wanted to play it that way, did she? Game on.
They ran half the trail dodging and evading each other’s attacks. At some point, he couldn’t figure out when, his anger morphed to arousal. He found himself admiring that she’d run more than twice as far as he had yet showed no signs of tiring; he also found himself admiring the swing of her hips as she ran in front of him, the bounce of her breasts when they wrestled. Until they reached the steep hill and she stumbled over a protruding root as he’d predicted would happen. Launching himself at her, Chad trapped her by using his full weight on top of her.
She fought him for a moment, attempting to buck him off, then relaxed. Chuckling, she reached up and skimmed a finger down his jaw. “You still get turned on by the chase, don’t you?”
Considering the erection jabbing into her belly he could hardly deny it.
“Never could understand guys who liked submissive women.” He ground his cock against her mound then, with a sigh, sat back on his heels but stayed straddling her. “You realize my guys are probably watching on the monitors.”
“They even have cameras out here?”
He tipped his head toward the gazebo further down the path. “There are a couple mounted down there. They’re motion activated and we’re within range.”
“Shit.” She shoved him off and scrambled to her feet. “What did you want that you had to chase me for this far?”
He opened his mouth to say “I’m leaving” but the words wouldn’t come. The sensual side she’d shown him yesterday, the I want you. I’ve only ever wanted you hunger in her eyes had returned.
“Yesterday you said we needed to talk. I told you we’d talk this morning.” Talk? He wanted to bend her over the trunk of that fallen tree and fuck her from behind. He took a deep breath and centered himself. “I told you not to leave your room without me, or are you incapable of following orders?”
She straightened, holding her chin high. “I brought my gun and one of your guards. It was only a matter of
