“All research and reporting on the MM murders is to stop at once.”
Conversation filled the room once again in a barreling wave. Questions flew from all corners and at varying decibels.
“Why?”
“Why now?”
“We got so much uncovered, sir!”
“Working on the MM story now constitutes a firing offence.”
Basil’s announcement fueled more conversation but at a much softer volume.
“Questions?” he asked, eyeing the crowd speculatively.
No raised hands emerged.
“Very well.”
Conversation returned to its deafening volume once Basil exited the room. Everyone was on their feet, except for Avra.
Chapter 3
Avra checked her wristwatch. James Purdy was always ready and waiting with her car door open and engine idling when she called down to let him know she was on her way out. Unless the man was sick, which didn’t happen often, he was at his post.
That day, however, her car door wasn’t open and the engine wasn’t idling. In fact, the Lexus coupe wasn’t there at all. James Purdy stood just outside the entrance to the parking staff office. He appeared to be in fine health and spirits as he talked, laughed and shared a bag of potato chips with Sam Melendez. When James caught sight of Avra, though, he straightened from his leaning stance along the brick wall leading into the parking deck.
“Afternoon, Miss A.” James tipped the brim of his navy blue cap.
“James.” She cast a pointed look across her shoulder. “This is a first. Should I pick my car up someplace else?”
“Oh, uh…” Uncertainty crept into the man’s kind dark eyes as though he were slowly realizing something was amiss. “Well, Mr. M. …” He glanced back at Samson. “He said you wouldn’t be needing it tonight.”
“Oh, did he?” The expression Avra turned on Sam was nowhere near as polite as the one she’d given James.
Sam brushed crumbs from his hands while bracing off the wall. “Thanks for the chips, Jay.” He pressed the nearly empty bag to James’s chest as he walked past to take Avra’s upper arm.
“Ah, ah, ah…” he urged when she stiffened in response to his thumb brushing the bare flesh beneath the cap sleeve of her blouse. “Don’t make a scene now.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” Avra’s voice was as tight as the phony smile she wore for James’s benefit while Sam escorted her from the parking deck to the smaller lot, which sat catty-corner from the
Review’s main entrance.
He gave her a slight tug when she tried to quicken her steps. “I’m taking you to my sister’s party.”
“Told you I have my own ride.”
“And I told you that I’m tryin’ to turn over a new leaf.” He gave her a wink when she glared at him. “Leavin’ a little thing like you to make your way out to my ranch all by your lonesome just didn’t seem like the gentlemanly thing to do.”
“Only you could make the gentlemanly thing to do sound self-serving and suspicious.” Her voice was still tight as their steps carried them into the lot.
Sam pressed a hand to the center of his broad chest and turned her to him when they approached his truck.
“Will you ever think better of me, Avra Ross?”
“Highly unlikely.”
Soon after voicing the statement, Avra felt the unyielding metal of the passenger-side door behind her back. Crowded against the truck and Samson’s equally unyielding frame, she was kissed—and thoroughly. Soft moans gathered instantly at the back of her throat and Avra didn’t care how loudly they sounded. She moved to her toes, positioning herself more comfortably against him, and thrust her tongue hungrily against his.
Sam had released his hold on her arms the second he crushed her mouth beneath his. He kept his hands sprawled on either side of her along the door of the F-150. Somehow, and he couldn’t fathom a guess as to how, he managed not to touch her except to kiss her.
Avra tunneled her hands into his hair, shivering as the soft mass brushed her fingers. She scraped her nails along the onyx whiskers that darkened his copper-toned face and toyed with the buttons along the short-sleeved shirt hanging outside his dark denims. When he at last showed mercy and broke the kiss in midstroke of his tongue, she let her head fall to his shoulder. Desperately she worked to slow her breathing and shivered anew when he nuzzled his nose against her ear.
“Guess I’ll have to keep trying, huh?” He looked down into her face, frowning slightly as he studied her ever more intently.
Avra could only press her lips together in response to his query. Sam appeared satisfied and eventually stepped back to open the passenger door and wave her inside.
* * *
“What are you doing?” she asked when they arrived at her building and he shut down the truck’s smooth engine.
“I’m going in.”
“Why?”
“Are you packed?”
“Yes, and I only have to grab my bag and I’ll be right out.”
A smile tugged the shamefully sensual curve of his wide mouth. “You’re lying,” he said after studying her for a beat.
Avra rolled her eyes past the windshield. “So what’d you ask me for, then?”
“To see what kind of lie you’d come up with.”
Avra opened the door and left the truck cab in a huff.
Sam chuckled and left the vehicle with ease.
Of course the guards knew Sam. Almost everyone in Houston worked for or knew someone who worked for Machine Melendez.
“Evenin’, Miss Avra,” Claude Bevins greeted and tipped his cap before grinning broadly at Sam and extending his hand for a shake.
“Need us to have your truck parked, man?” Joel Henries asked after he’d shaken hands with Sam, as well.
Grinning, Sam waited for Avra’s coffee-brown eyes to come to his dark ones. “Thanks, guys, but we won’t be long. Ms. Ross is spending the night at my place.”
The look she sent his way should have reduced Sam to a pool of waste on the lobby floor. It had had a similar effect on others. Sam’s grin merely broadened when she left him standing with the guards.
“Better head on up before she changes her mind, boys.” He clapped Joel’s shoulder and slanted a wink toward Claude and sprinted off.
Avra didn’t bother holding open the elevator door. She was only intent on closing out the sound of Sam’s laughter with the guards. The cherrywood doors were almost sealed when a hand slid between them. Sam eased inside the car a few seconds later. Avra slapped him as soon as the doors closed at his back.
“High school was never my favorite game to play, Sam.”
“What?” He raised both hands in an innocent move that mocked the grin on his face. He sidestepped her in the small confines of the car, when she moved to hit him again.
“You are spending the night at my place, right?”
“Oh, please.”
“What?”
“You jackass, you know that’s not what you wanted them to think.”
Taking