Eleven (Brandon Fisher FBI Series)

Chapter 37 & 38

Chapter 37

WE HAD DINNER IN THE hotel restaurant, and when most groupings would be eating dessert and coffee, we were sipping on a drink and talking about what we were going to do after. But hours passed, and we still hadn't gone anywhere. We just continued drinking and talking.

"You going to have another?" Paige asked me as she sipped on a glass of merlot.

"I'm fine." Everything from this case weighed on my mind along with my marriage to Deb and the active attraction to Paige. I never should have kissed her last night, and I had no right to feel jealous when another man showed interest in her.

"The kid probably has a bedtime to adhere to." Jack laughed and sipped back on his olive martini.

Zachery laughed. "What is it ten thirty?"

"Try closer to midnight." I endured a few more minutes before excusing myself and heading back to my room. I needed to be alone.

I dropped on the bed with my arms crossed under my head and stared at the ceiling. I needed to call Deb. I dialed the new cell number. It rang once before a message came on.

"The number you are trying to reach is no longer in service."

My breath shortened.

How can she do this to me?

And as my thoughts progressed, they transformed from heartache to anger, to worry. I dialed the number again and met the same result. Maybe I had recorded the number incorrectly? I scrolled through the calls to my phone until I came to the one she made yesterday and I dropped my hand. She had called me from head office.

It hurt to breathe as if my heart had become splinters of metal, and with each inhale and exhale they stabbed further into the tissue.

I had to convince myself she was safe. I just hated what the flipside to that meant—she had disconnected her phone.

I took a deep breath, the exhale working its way out slowly, painfully. Deb was all right. I wasn't.

I undressed and pulled my MP3 player from my luggage bag and popped in the earbuds. Nothing like a workout would cure this. I needed the volume loud and the physical intensity draining. I started with jumping jacks as nothing got the heart beating faster. After a minute of these, I moved onto jabs, upper cuts, and then side and roundhouse kicks.

As I was nearing the end of the workout, I heard a pounding on the door even over Nickelback's Burn it to the Ground. I pulled one bud from an ear. My breathing was still labored when I opened the door. "Paige?"

She stepped into the room and put a hand on my chest. She didn't seem to care I was soaking wet. "I need you to listen to me." She looked down at my boxing shorts. "Why are you always in your underwear?"

I went to move to the bathroom for a towel. She grabbed my arm. "I didn't come here to talk."

"You just said you needed me to lis—"

Her lips pressed against mine, and as her mouth opened and mine reciprocated, I knew I didn't possess the strength to back away this time. Deb's face went through my thoughts but dissipated as fog does once the sun breaks through the clouds. I pulled Paige to me and cupped her breast in my hand. She moaned under my touch, and I under hers. I led her to my bed and made love to her. My thoughts weren't on Deb, on my failed marriage, or on Jack and how he might feel. They were simply in the moment, living and breathing in Paige. It had been too long.

*****

AFTERWARD WE HELD EACH OTHER and spoke of everything except for promises and expectations. I told her about Deb, and she ran a hand down my chest and listened. We ended up falling asleep because when my eyes opened a couple hours had gone by. The alarm clock read two forty-five. I nudged her. She groaned.