Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
But she’d stayed.
And now she was draped on him, he had his arm around her, he was on his back, and she felt great.
Best morning he’d had in years.
By far.
He reached to his phone, mostly to silence it, but took the call because that was what he always had to do.
“Lazarus,” he said quietly.
Lucinda stirred.
His body went tight, and his morning erection vanished when Jennifer snapped in his ear, “You’re on assignment?”
“Hey, just a sec,” he said, still talking quietly, now trying to extricate himself from Lucinda without waking her.
This failed.
Her head came up.
“Why are you talking like that?” Jenn demanded.
At this demand, Rus stilled.
Completely.
Because, first, she didn’t say hello.
Second, it was still dark, so it had to be early, even for her, where it was four hours later.
Third, it was no longer her business if he was on assignment. She made too much money to get alimony from him. He left her in the house they’d bought together. They’d saved for the kids’ college, a fund she managed at her decree.
So in all things that mattered, they were covered.
Outside incidental Acre and Sabrina things, there was no reason for them to speak anymore, and definitely no reason for her to be up in his shit first thing in the morning.
He looked into Lucinda’s shadowed face.
“I’m talking like this because I have someone with me, but don’t worry about it, she’s awake now.”
He heard Jenn gasp.
“I can—” Lucinda whispered, making a move, but he answered that by tightening his arm around her.
“Are you on assignment?” Jenn asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you working right now?”
“I was sleeping.”
It was high-pitched when she asked, “With someone else?”
He looked to the clock. “Jenn, it’s five thirty here. Why are you calling?”
Lucinda tensed against him at the name.
Yeah, they’d talked a lot last night. With stories that were accompanied with showing her numerous pictures of his kids, his brothers and sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews, she now knew a good deal more about Jenn.
“Why do you have someone with you on assignment?” Jenn returned.
“Are the kids okay?”
“Are you…are you…fucking someone?”
He pulled himself up in bed, and this time, Lucinda came with him, doing this herself, keeping a hand on his chest.
While he was on the phone with his ex, she was claiming him.
Very nice.
But sadly, with Jenn in his ear, not nice enough.
“Are. The kids. Okay?” he pushed.
“Yes, they’re okay. But you told Sabrina you’re on assignment and you know how she worries,” she snapped.
“This has been her life since she could cogitate. I know she worries. It comes with the territory of having an FBI agent for a dad.”
“I’ve told you I don’t like you telling her when you’re out doing that kind of thing.”
“And I’ve told you that’s between me and my grown-ass daughter. And she disagrees with you. She wants to know. ‘That kind of thing’ is my job, Jenn, and my girl is proud of what her father does.”
“It upsets her.”
“Since she’s an adult now, it’s her call.”
Lucinda leaned into him to reach across to turn on the light, and when it lit up the space, he squinted against it.
“She’s not grown, she’s only eighteen. It’s your job to protect her from these things.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re calling just to get on my ass. Is your husband away on business or something? Not there to ride his?”
He could see in the room now, and what he could see was Lucinda smiling.
His cunning queen was enjoying this.
Yeah.
He’d told her all about Jenn.
“Leave Royce out of it.”
“Royce is your husband. I’m not. How about leaving me out of it?”
“What’s gotten into you?” she clipped.
“Some sense,” he retorted. “Now, if there’s nothing pressing with the kids, I’m ending this. Later.”
He then hung up on her.
Lucinda went at it immediately.
“Does that happen often?”
“You know, she was such a part of my life, it didn’t filter in that she never really stopped being part of it. So yes, it does,” he replied. “And hello, gorgeous, good morning.”
She smiled, white teeth and all.
His phone buzzed in his hand.
He looked down at it.
Jennifer.
“Take it,” Lucinda urged.
He shook his head. “No. She can stew. Want coffee?”
“Rus, honey,” she purred, a light in her eyes that might make his morning erection recover even after an episode with his ex-wife. “Take it.”
Feeling his lips twitch, he took it.
“Jenn, this isn’t cool,” he said, but it sounded like he was smiling.
“Am I amusing you?”
It was close to a shout.
He took in Lucinda, her cloud of dark hair framing her face and falling down her chest. Her makeup seeming fresh, as if she’d just put it on.
There she was, in his bed, after keeping him company all night because he’d had a shit day…hell, a shit few days. Driving from work and making arrangements for her kid so she could be there.
And he hadn’t even kissed her.
She didn’t freak out at serial killers but threw a mild fit to demand to pay for the funeral of a girl who wasn’t blood.