Lock You Down (Rivers Brothers 2)

"Shit. Yeah. I tripped over Harvey's stupid fucking cord."

"Which she wouldn't have done if she wasn't in my space, annoying me," Harvey called back.

Reagan flattened her hair, swiped at her lower lip, grabbed the earring off her desk, slammed her feet into her shoes, and made her way toward the doorway. "Why don't you two call it a day? You've been here long enough. Go enjoy the rest of your night," she invited, finally getting the earring in the hole. "No reason for you guys to be here while I'm gone," she added.

She was good at pretending to act unaffected. But there was a roughness to her voice and her chest and cheeks were flushed. She'd been every bit as affected as I had been.

But there would be time to think about that later.

Right now, we had to get going.

I took a steadying breath, moving out into the common space with her.

"Ready?" I asked, placing a hand at her lower back purely out of curiosity. She let it rest for a second before moving away, making it seem casual, not deliberate.

"Yep. Let's get going. I'll see you two tomorrow. We have some new ideas to discuss," she added, giving them one of those tight smiles. "Let's go," she declared, moving off before I could say anything.

We needed to hash this shit out at some point. But right then, we had other problems to deal with.

And they went by the name of the Mallick family.SEVENReaganHe'd looked like he wanted to throttle me when I had insisted on taking my own car. Whether that was because he thought our 'date' would be more convincing if we showed up together, or because he wanted to corner me and talk about what happened in my office was beyond me.

As for me, well, the reason I chose my car was because I needed time and space to think, to get my head straight.

I wasn't, almost as a rule, a slave to the impulses of my body. Much to Krissy's complete confusion, my body rarely ever ran the show. I figured that was how I was wired. I didn't even get a tingling of physical attraction until I thought I had a pretty good idea of who a person was. I was turned on by traits of the mental kind instead of physical.

There was no denying, though, that there was a tingling. There was more than a tingling. There was a bomb that ignited in my system just by feeling his knuckle graze my spine. I had been so unprepared that I couldn't have talked sense into my overwrought system if I tried. I got too far too fast.

One second, I was fretting about running late. The next, every inch of my body felt overly sensitive, felt desperate for touch.

I hadn't gotten nearly enough.

Even after a ten-minute drive, I could feel a pulsing sensation in a very personal place, could feel the adrenaline skittering over my nerves, could feel a warmth across my skin, and this oppressive, borderline painful pressure on my lower belly.

But at least I got a chance to take a couple deep breaths, get some blood back into my brain where I desperately needed it.

Because, really, what the hell was that?

I didn't let men practically maul me at work.

Hell, I wasn't sure I'd ever properly been mauled at all if that overwhelming surge of need was what came along with it.

I was pretty sure I left scratch-marks on his neck for goodness sakes. From a kiss.

I needed to get it together. Things were complicated enough with Nixon and me. We didn't need to throw sex into the mix. I mean he was the private security to the guy I had been stalking. I was his date to a family event. My coworkers thought he was going to be working with us in advertising.

It was a spider's web of lies.

I couldn't help but wonder if I was going to be the one stuck in it in the end, trapped, devoured by an impossible situation.

The rap at my window had me jolting, turning to see Nixon's abdomen standing there, waiting for me.

I'd parked on the street instead of the massive driveway, giving myself an easy escape should I need it.

Remembering myself and the plan, and my need to appear a normal girl to his family, I cranked down the volume, making Ja Rule nothing but a grumble in the speakers, then cut the engine, waiting for Nixon to move out of the way so the doors could do their fold-upward thing.

As a whole, I wasn't awestruck by things that money could afford you. I had been raised in a well-off family who were friends with even more wealthy individuals. I had seen it all. But, yeah, those doors still always got to me a bit.

"Hold on," I said, moving around to the trunk. "I got a hostess gift."