Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 157308 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157308 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
I rushed him. “No!”
“No need to cut up her delicates,” Rafael smoothly broke in. “I’ll have them checked out, x-rayed, the whole thing.”
“Fine.” My pulse restarted as he dropped my sixteenth birthday present from Winter on the pile. “Hold out your arms.”
“Why—”
Wilder lifted them for me, commencing the pat-down.
“I’m starting to rethink this.”
Rafael laughed. “You didn’t think living with rogues was like a summer in Barbie’s Malibu playhouse, did you?”
Wilder’s hands slid down my leg, firm and gentle. Molding to my calf, he ran down my body like a steamy, sudsy shower—warm, clinging, and laying my goose bumps down flat.
I felt the callouses on his fingers and palm, promising a life of work and toil, so unlike the soft, pampered hands I shook at my engagement party.
What gave you those callouses, Wilder O’Rourke? And do other women get to feel them skating their bodies?
Starting, I caught the stray thought and shoved it deep into my subconscious. I was not going there. Us five had a job to do and nothing was more important. Winter would not go unavenged because I got into a messy relationship that grief was destined to kill. Bitter exes tend to rethink their stance on risking prison for you.
Also, I had a fiancé. Couldn’t forget that asshole.
Wilder stepped back and a stupid part of me missed the loss. Sidestepping me, he walked out. I thought that was the end of my pre-move-in check, until he came back with a metal detector wand.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Hold still. The tracker would be at the base of your skull.”
“What tracker?” I cried as he spun me around.
“A covert division of the government has been implanting trackers in unsuspecting citizens for decades. You’d have no idea it happened. Their MO is to pump knockout gas through the vents and operate while the household is sleeping.” He waved the thing all around my head without a beep. “You’re clean.”
“Of course, I’m clean. No one is breaking into anyone’s house and—”
Looking me dead in the eye, Wilder moved the wand over his head, positioning it behind—
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Jaw working, I croaked, “You made it do that.”
“I’m afraid not. Don’t worry.” He held out my arms again. “Mine is dead. Hit it with an electromagnetic pulse.”
Wilder waved it down.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Then back up, stopping the noisy machine over my chest. “Is there underwire in your bra? Remove it.”
“Get out.”
The wand bobbed up and down. “Unless your nipples are pierced. Remove your bra to confirm.”
“I said out. Now.”
Shaking his head like I was the problem, Wilder tromped out, Lucien, Cato, and a sniggering Rafael following behind.
I made to slam my door and my hand closed on air. Eyes bugging, I patted the wall where my door should be leaning.
“There’s no door,” I said. “Why isn’t there a door?”
Wilder looked the hinges up and down, and then me. “I took the door off last night.”
“Why?”
“Because you were moving in.”
The first straight answer he gave me, and it made no damn sense.
“What the hell does that mean? Why would you take off my door?”
The calm, cool, collected façade shattered all over the hardwood. “Because you’re not going to be in there plotting, planning, and getting up to who knows what kinds of shit behind closed doors,” he growled. “You may be Winter’s little sister, but who says we can trust you? Who knows who you’re working for? The Russians, the Chinese—”
“I’m not working for anyone!”
“—the North Koreans! That’s a real nice American accent, by the way. How long you been working on it? Or should I say, gosaenghaesseoyo!”
Huge eyes beheld that reddening, handsome face. “What is happening?”
“Winter said you were away at boarding school, but everyone knows foreign governments pay headmasters to float them a few kids for covert training while giving false reports to their parents overseas. We don’t know where you really were.”
“France,” I said slowly. “I was in France. St. Thomas’s Academy.”
“That’s what they told you to say.”
“Who is they?!”
Wilder leaned in, overwhelming my senses with citrus, mint gum, and psycho. “I’ll find out. Until then, I see you and what you’re doing at all times. You’ve got a problem with that, then I’ll know you have something to hide.”
Steaming, I scrambled for a reply.
“You can’t watch me all the time,” I blurted. “I could lock myself in the bathroom, run the water, and do all my plotting and planning in there. How would you know?”
Wilder froze.
Behind him, Rafael slapped a hand over his face. “Oh, darling. How did that make sense to say out loud?”
“What—?
Whipping around, Wilder stormed down the hall. He returned with a power drill.
An hour later, I was wide awake, rumpled, and sitting on my bed glaring at the doorless bathroom across the hall.
Round One: Two points to Wilder.
THAT NIGHT, I WENT into the kitchen, my wanderings ending in there. Regalia University was filled with opulent offices, decked-out cafeterias, and the fancy dorm rooms that million-dollar endowments could buy, but I was certain there wasn’t a building that matched the Rogues’ Gallery.