Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 70524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
I take the note from him. “This one is a C, and I think the second one is an A. And this could be a capital T. Cat?”
He rubs his chin. “Maybe there’s a statue of a cat at Monument Park or something. Maybe that hint would have given it away too easily, so the writer decided to not include it.”
“Perhaps.” I get to my feet. “Well, shall we?”
“Alissa, it’s late. It’s not safe for you to be going into the middle of some park in the dead of night.”
“Of course it isn’t.” I hold out my hand. “That’s why I want you to come with me.”
30
MADDOX
I shoot my eyebrows up. “What? Right now?”
“One of the staffers of Aces Underground wouldn’t have planted this note on you if it weren’t urgent, Maddox.”
“But we really should wait until morning.” I gesture to the window in Alissa’s living room. “I need you to be safe. It’ll be safer when it’s light out.”
“Obviously that would be safer, but that’s why you’ll come with me,” she says. “Besides, there will be fewer people milling about in the evening.” She points at the picture of the Monument Park waterfalls on her phone. “Besides, we’ll be right across from the airport. I bet plenty of light will be coming from there.”
“Then I’ll go alone. You stay here. I need you safe, Alissa.”
She grabs my hands. “Maddox. All my life, I’ve taken the easy path, the risk-averse path, the way forward that offered the least resistance. But you awoke something in me, a small flame that was dormant in me for years, the small flame that only ever grew when I performed an ornate flute sonata for a crowd of hundreds. The flame that I thought I extinguished when I decided to forsake my musical training for a more stable job as a nurse.” She places my hand over her heart. “But you brought it back, Maddox. Taking me to the club, telling me about your passions, kissing me”—her cheeks flush—“fucking me.”
My own cheeks warm at her words. “But Alissa—”
She holds up a hand. “No. No but Alissa, Maddox. I want to go there, and I want to go there tonight. And not just because there will be fewer people around, and not just because the lights of the airport should keep us well lit, but also because…” A wicked grin crawls across her face. “Because it is scary. Because it’s risky. And there’s no man I’d rather share an adventure with than you, Maddox Hathaway.”
Her words make my dick harden.
“Fuck, Alissa.” I brush a finger over her cheek.
“And if you come with me on this errand, I will let you do anything—and I mean anything—to my body when we get back.”
I swallow. I know I’m thinking with the wrong head. This is a fool’s errand. Some patron at the club probably put this note in my jacket and is pulling a prank on me.
But I don’t care.
I’m in.
Mad Maddox is in, too.
I crush my lips to Alissa’s.
The kiss is raw, feral, perfect.
I’m ready to forget this expedition of hers and fuck her senseless—
But she breaks the kiss.
“Damn, Alissa,” I growl.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I intend to deliver on my promise to you, Maddox.” She leans into my ear. “Like I said, anything.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I love this woman. This woman who turns me on like no other, who can nearly make me jizz my pants from a few whispered words.
And I think she loves me, too.
But it’s too soon to express those feelings. I’ve known her for all of three days.
I grab my car keys out of my pocket. “Let’s go.”
She looks at my keys and frowns. “Your Rolls-Royce might be a little conspicuous. We’ll take my car.”
“You have a car?”
She nods. “Of course I do. My father bought it for me when I moved to the States. Took me a long time to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road, but I’m a decent driver.”
“Then how come you’re always taking the train downtown?” I ask.
She raises an eyebrow. “The hospital doesn’t pay for my parking. Only the doctors get that privilege. And I’m sure as hell not tanking a third of my paycheck for a spot in a garage when a round trip on the L only costs five dollars.”
“Right, of course.”
Sometimes I forget that, unlike me, most people didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in their mouth. Luckily, my membership at the club entitles me to a spot in a nearby garage. Rouge takes care of her members.
Alissa puts on a puffy coat and leads me out her back door and down a few flights of exterior stairs. She points to a beat-up blue Nissan Sentra parked in a tiny spot behind her building. “That’s Molly,” she says.
“Molly?”
“Named for Gustav Mahler, of course. My second-favorite composer.”