Leather & Lark (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #2) (72)

“Do you see anyone you recognize?” Lachlan asks. I can feel him watching me as I scan the crowd. I spot a few familiar faces from the music scene, but not the kind of acquaintance he’s referring to.

I shake my head. “No.”

“Anyone you’ve seen around lately?” Lachlan edges behind my shoulder as though he can watch the club through my eyes. His breath warms my neck. Gooseflesh rises on my arms. “Anyone whose gaze lingers on you a little too long?”

When I turn my head to the side to meet his eyes, Lachlan’s attention fuses to my lips. They curl in a smile. “Only you.”

His lips twitch. There’s that fire again—the flame inside him that if coaxed just right, becomes a beacon in the night.

My teasing smile might fade, but the flame between us doesn’t. If anything, it brightens.

Maybe I’m torturing him. Or maybe myself. I don’t know anymore. So I drag my focus back to the room before I can start something I don’t know how to finish.

“There’s nothing unusual,” I say with a shake of my head. “But it’s fucking packed, so it’s hard to tell. Maybe we should get this over with now while everyone is more likely to be occupied.”

His heat radiates through my back. I fight the urge to lean into him. I nearly lose it when his hand grazes my hip. “Follow me,” Lachlan says, his voice low and rich, and then his warmth is gone.

I trail after Lachlan as we head toward the offices. He had me memorize the layout so I know exactly where to go. Lachlan slides his phone from his pocket, unaware that the crowd parts for him like a school of fish around a shark that swims through night waters. He texts someone, likely Conor. His eyes stay locked to the screen until it lights up with a reply. When it does, he pockets the phone, then reaches his hand back for mine. I take it and follow in his wake, and a moment later we pass through the staff door, music and voices dampening when it shuts behind us.

“Conor’s got the cameras under control,” he whispers as we stride down the hall. “Hopefully this will only take a few minutes.”

My heart thunders with excitement and fear. When we reach the office door, Lachlan keeps his hand poised over the gun hidden at his back. He grips the curved door handle with his other hand and presses his ear to the wood. A moment later he pushes it open, and when he seems satisfied, he motions for me to follow.

We don’t turn on the lights, using the flashlights on our phones instead. Lachlan goes for the laptop on the desk and plugs in a flash drive, while I look through papers for anything that might be useful. Notes, open mail, anything with a dollar amount—I take photos of everything I can, barely digesting the information I flip through. My hands shake as I turn the pages and try to hold my phone steady. The moments that pass feel stretched too long.

And then I land on an invoice.

“Lachlan,” I hiss, holding up the piece of paper. He looks up from the laptop just as he pulls the flash drive free. “Fifty thousand, paid in cash. A contracting company.”

Lachlan’s eyes flash as a smirk claims his lips. Maybe I’m imagining it, but I think he looks a little bit proud, and my cheeks heat at the thought. “Get a photo and let’s get out of here. Conor can follow up on it.”

I snap the picture. I’m just stepping around the desk to Lachlan’s side when a voice closes in on us from the corridor. There’s someone talking on a phone. My body stiffens with panic but Lachlan is already in motion, his arm wrapped around my waist as he drags me with him to a storage closet.

He shuts the door, closing us in cramped darkness.

“Lachlan—”

His hand slides across my mouth and I try not to whimper as blood rushes in my head. “Shh,” he whispers, his lips grazing my ear, his voice so quiet that even I can barely hear him. “I’ve got you, duchess.”

And he does.

Lachlan holds me to his chest. His grip tightens when the office door opens and someone enters the room. He holds me tighter still as my body shakes with shocks of adrenaline. The man in the office talks about liquor orders and a drawer slides open in the desk. He can’t hear Lachlan whisper to me, a steady current of solace, a pillar in the dark. We’re okay. Just close your eyes, if you want to. I won’t let go, I promise.

My panic surges when the man walks around the desk and heads to a filing cabinet.

“You’re doing good. So fucking brave.” Lachlan’s voice deepens with a deadly vow when he says, “I’ll kill him before he lays a finger on you, I promise you that. Understand?”

I nod, Lachlan’s hand still clamped across my mouth.

“That’s my girl.”

My blood turns volcanic when his lips press to my temple and linger there.

Fear and desire. They war in my veins.

I wrap my trembling fingers around Lachlan’s wrist and pull his hand down just enough that my lips are free. He leans back, his eyes following the contours of my face behind his glasses. Maybe he expects I’ll put distance between us, that I’ll let his hand go, but I don’t. I drag his fingers to my neck where my pulse hammers a pounding rhythm, down to my collarbones, and finally to the sliver of exposed skin on my chest. I press his palm there. I want you to stay, that simple touch says.

A moment later, we hear the man’s heavy footsteps cross the room. The office door closes, leaving us in silence.