Chapter Twenty-Two

Jarrah ignored the incoming message flashing on his phone and inhaled the predawn breeze drifting through their hideaway. Two days left. Forty-eight hours. Two thousand eight hundred and eighty minutes before he had to return to his real life and try to forget the craziest month of his life.

“You getting that?”

Closing his eyes, he savored the contented sigh carrying the sleepy words into his ears and gave thanks to the universe. Olivia’s voice reminded him of so many things that he’d be hearing her in his dreams long after she’d boarded that freaking plane and disappeared over the horizon. “I’ll get back to them later.”

With each day, his clients grew even more cranky and in need of attention. Charlie could well and truly cope with their needs. Hell, the woman had the power to have even the most uptight executive dribbling on his oxfords, yet even his office manager’s superpowers could only buy him so much freedom. With each year and every new client, the price of freedom grew higher and higher.

“And here I was thinking you worked hard.” She wiggled her finger in front of his face and bit him before resting her head on his chest.

The older he got, the harder he seemed to work. And he only had himself to blame. If he’d listened to Charlie and hired the associates he knew they needed, he wouldn’t have to be available twenty-four hours a day. But with great power comes great responsibility. And if he wanted to retain clients willing to pay small ransoms for good old-fashioned personal service, he had to suck it up and smile despite the pain. The problem was he’d never had anything, or, more accurately, anyone else he’d rather be doing.

He pecked her forehead and squeezed her butt. “You’re killing me, woman.”

She patted his chest. “You’re right. I should probably sneak back into the Big House and let you get some rest.”

He growled and pulled the evil creature with the potential to destroy not only his sanity but the business he’d taken the last decade to build tighter against him and breathed her in. Honey, vanilla, and the faintest hint of sex lingered on her skin from the nighttime swag-tangling session that’d become as critical to his well-being as waking up with her curled around him.

She cursed and pretended to struggle before pinching his stomach and nuzzling back into him. The thin sliver of his brain that hadn’t been infected by her voodoo planned how to rebuild the bridges damaged by his radio silence while the rest of his mind scrambled to come up with something, anything to extend the insanity.

The fingers that’d been playing with his chest hair stilled as his phone illuminated their private, rustic escape from reality. The damned thing had been pinging, popping, and shivering so much he’d had to turn off the vibrate feature to prevent it skittering off the wooden crate serving as their bedside table. He steeled himself and glanced at the blinding screen only to see Charlie grinning back at him while flipping him the bird. No matter how many times he deleted her photo, the harpy always managed to update it with something even more obscene.

With a curse, he swiped right and brought it to his ear. “You better either be in jail or the emergency ward.”

“We got trouble.”