Chapter 26: Lucas

I’m just getting back to my meeting after a short break when my phone goes. Looking at the ID I notice it’s Taylor. Odd, he knows I’m in a meeting all afternoon.

‘Taylor?’ I answer, wondering what could possibly be so important. I hear a voice behind me calling me back into the meeting.

‘One minute please, I need to take this call,’ I tell them and turn my attention back to Taylor.

‘Lucas, Alaina has received a threatening email at the office. The police are on their way,’ he says. His voice is strained which is unlike him.

‘Is Alaina OK?’

‘She says she is, but honestly it was hard to tell over the phone, I’m heading up to your office now,’ he tells me and I’m grateful that she won’t be alone.

‘Ok, I’ll be right there.’ I tell him.

‘Lucas, if you leave this meeting with Gordon, you may miss your shot at his company,’ Taylor warns.

‘I know that Taylor, but she comes first,’ I tell him, then hang up the phone.

I make my excuses to Gordon and his team who look less than impressed but I couldn’t give a fuck. Then without a backward glance I race to my car.

I drive like a man possessed through the busy city traffic and I’m back in the office in twenty minutes. By the time I make it up to my office, I have Alaina, Taylor, James, my head of IT Security, and Detective Edwards all sitting around the large glass meeting table in my office.

I head straight over to Alaina. She stands as I approach, and I pull her straight into my arms. Her face is pinched and pale, and I want to do serious damage to the asshole putting her through this.

‘Sweetheart, are you ok?’ I ask her gently and she nods against my chest. I hug her to me tightly and turn to face the others.

‘Good afternoon, Detective,’ I greet him.

‘Mr Frost,’ he replies, then turns his attention back to Alaina.

‘As I was saying Miss Winters, we looked at the footage from your apartment block but, unfortunately, we didn’t get a clear shot of the person vandalising your door. They clearly knew there were cameras and were able to steer clear of getting their faces on them,’ he informs us unhappily.

He pulls a few pieces of paper from a brown folder and puts a few pictures on the table. They appear to be stills from the camera footage, but unfortunately he’s right; the person is wearing a hood and is turned away from the camera, so you can’t see them. Damn.

‘Miss Winters, is there anywhere else that you’ve come into regular contact with people apart from here?’ the detective asks her, and Alaina pauses to think for a moment.

‘Well, there is my local gym. I do classes there from time to time. My friend Carley and I go to our favourite cocktail bar, Barely There, but I wouldn’t say regularly. I use a Starbucks a couple of blocks down from my home pretty regularly,’ she says thoughtfully, as the detective writes it all down.

‘Anywhere else?’ he asks.

‘Oh, God, the club!’ she gasps.

‘The what?’ the detective asks, looking confused.

‘Before I got this job, I danced at a club to pay my way through school. I worked there for almost three years.

‘What’s the name of the club?’ he asks scribbling frantically on his note pad as she tells him the name, address and tells them the owner is a man called Joe. I give her a gentle squeeze of reassurance and she looks up at me, gratefully.

‘Did you have regular customers there?’ he asks her, and she nods.

‘Yeh, some. No one that I ever had any trouble with,’ she answers.

‘OK, Miss Winters, thank you for your time,’ the detective says as he puts away his notebook and stands; we all follow suit.

‘We’ll get in touch with the Starbucks and your previous employer to see if we can access their cameras; hopefully we’ll see something. We will also ask our Cyber Crime Division to try and trace the email you were sent. They will liaise with your head of IT security here. We’ll keep you informed. As always, if there is anything else you think of, or any further contact, please just get in touch with me,’ he says kindly, and leaves the office.

I take a deep breath and try to stay calm, for Alaina’s sake more than anything else.

‘James, let me know how you get on with tracking the email,’ I say to my Head of IT Security.

‘Will do, boss,’ he says, as he also leaves the office.

‘Taylor, I’m taking Alaina home. You can reach me at home if needed. I’ll work from my home office for the rest of today,’ I tell him, knowing that he can run things smoothly in my absence.

‘Sure thing,’ he says with a slight shrug, and then leaves the office leaving Alaina and I alone.

‘Shouldn’t you stay and finish up here?’ she asks sounding unsure.

‘Stephan could take me home, and I could meet you there later,’ she offers and I smile. I love that she says home when she talks about going to my place.

‘No, sweetheart, I’m coming home with you. There is nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow,’ I reassure her, and steer her towards the door to collect her things from her desk.

Stephan is waiting for us in the company car park, the SUV already running. I hold Alaina in my arms the whole way home. She doesn’t say a word; she’s so quiet that I’m beginning to worry.

‘Sweetheart, talk to me,’ I say to her, as we pull up to the house, unable to bear her silence any longer.

‘I’m OK, Lucas, just trying to process everything,’ she says, giving me a small smile, and I nod. She walks into the house ahead of me, and I follow her in. She has an elegant, feminine walk; her hips sway slowly and it puts you into a kind of trance.

She turns when she’s in the foyer and catches me staring at her. She takes off her coat, stands in front of me and licks her lower lip. She does that a lot; it’s a hell of a turn on and really distracting.

‘See something you like?’ she asks looking up through her long lashes.

‘Plenty,’ I say hoarsely, and she smiles. She knows exactly what she does to me.

‘Let’s take a shower,’ she says, then, without waiting for an answer, she turns and starts walking slowly towards the bedroom, unzipping her dress as she goes.

I stalk after her and find her in the bathroom in nothing but her thong and heels… Jesus Christ!

‘You know that you drive me crazy,’ I tell her as I slowly walk towards her, removing my shirt and unzipping my pants. I continue to undress as she turns and hooking her thumbs into her thong, she bends over, sliding it slowly down her legs so I have a full view of her perfect ass. I hurry to remove my shoes, pants and underwear. At this point they’re cutting off the circulation; I’m so hard for her. She slips off her heels and makes her way into the bathroom, and I hear the water running. I remove the last of my clothes and join her.