Page 57 of Ramshackle
Aiden lets him out through his door and then sits. “Now that we’re here, what are we looking for?”
Ha! Hard pass.
I can already imagine the flaying look he’d give me if he learns we’re here for ahair clip. He wouldn’t understand its importance to Portia, and therefore, to me.
“Something of Portia’s that I need to return to her,” I reply casually.
He watches me expectantly as if I’ll crack under the pressure of that stare and tell him more. When I do nothing of the sort, he tries again, “I can’t help you look for it if I don’t know what it is I’m looking for.”
“That’s okay. I’ll find it.” No one would look twice at a hair accessory, so I’m sure it’s still in my room somewhere. My only concern is that it’s intact from whatever destruction happened there. From how Kellan made it sound, it was like they let a bull loose inside the building.
His eyes narrow, but thankfully, Jackson has returned.
“No one’s in there. I’ll check the woods and surrounding area and then join you inside,” he tells us.
“I’ll be fast,” I promise him with a smile, hurrying to the door without waiting for Aiden. I freeze in the open doorway.
I mean, I knew what to expect from Kellan’s description. But imagining it andseeingit…
Wow.
This is more than just looking for the cuffs.
This is anger. Fury.
Because Dane left to save me?
“It’s only surface damage,” Aiden’s voice appears right behind me. I doubt this matters to him. As soon as GE is taken care of, he’ll be moving back to their fancy Loft in the Tower. This place didn’t mean anything to him. Maybe not to the others, either.
I bite my lip to break through the storm of emotions gathering in my chest. Rather than give him a response that might give away how this place has affected me, I move inside. Every step is a crunch beneath my feet, and I fight back a cringe.
Old Red is broken.
And just like that, it’s been abandoned again.
Fuck, stop it. It’s just a building.
“Speaking of Portia,” Aiden muses slowly. “I got a call from Elias the night before we brought you back. They found her.”
My footing slips on the next pile of debris in my rush to spin around, and I fall face-first into his chest in an ungracefuloof. His hands steady me at my elbows, but I push off him and grab the lapels of his jacket in each hand. “What?! That is thefirstpiece of information you should have shared when you saw me. Fuck eating! Where’s your phone? I need to call her.”
I start running my hands all over his jacket to hunt for his phone, moving them down lower to his pants to check his pockets next. I see him with the damn thing all the time, so where the hell does he keep it?
“Raegan. What are you—Wait!” He grabs my wrists and drags me up against him. “Stop.”
My heart pounds erratically as I gasp in his grip. I tell myself it’s out of excitement to hear from Portia again. I’m sure it’s that.
It’s not because of his firm grip tucking me into him.
It’s not because I inhaled the delicious combination of cinnamon and bourbon when I slid back up to his chest.
Or because he’s been holding me here without speaking for at least thirty seconds.
“Do I have your attention?” His voice is low and smooth, like warm chocolate.
My lips suddenly feel parched, and I lick them self-consciously. “Yes.”
“Good girl.” Oh, fuck me. My thighs clench at the responding ache between my legs at those words coming fromhim. “Elias said he found her, but they aren’t able to come back for a while still. It sounds like they’re dealing with something else.”
