Sex On The Seats (Love After Midnight Book 4) by Elise Faber (most inspirational books .txt) 📗

a put couple of muffins into the box then taped it closed. “There you go.” She passed it over to me, stepping back when I tried to give her some money.

Sighing, I tucked a twenty into the tip jar, ignored her narrowed eyes, then called my goodbyes, walking out the front door.

A few minutes later, I was approaching Niki’s house and letting myself in.

It was quiet inside, so I put the box on the counter and peeked inside. Chocolate croissants and chocolate muffins. Two chocoholics, I thought. That was fitting.

I snagged a plate, put a croissant on it, and filled another mug with coffee, bringing both upstairs to Niki’s office.

She was on the phone now but aware enough that she saw me come in.

I didn’t interrupt, just swapped out the empty mug for the fresh one, found a safe place to stash the plate with the croissant, then brushed my knuckles over her cheek before I slipped back out, shutting the door behind me.

The key burned a hole in my pocket after I’d left a note next to the bakery box, one muffin wrapped in a paper towel, and stepped onto the front porch. But Niki was distracted and upstairs, and I couldn’t just leave the house unlocked now, could I?

No. I couldn’t.

Just like I couldn’t safely leave it under the mat.

Any yahoo might walk up and find it.

What if she had an Amazon delivery, and the dude decided to help him or herself to those baked goods?

Niki might commit murder.

So I locked up, pocketed the key again, and headed to my car. That was the safest course of action for everyone, including the neighborhood delivery drivers.

I drove home with a smile on my face, my heart full, and a muffin in my belly.

Because I just couldn’t wait.

Chapter Sixteen

Niki

I finally took a breath, my neck and shoulders aching, and realized I wasn’t wearing any pants.

Then I remembered that Archer had come in and out several times.

And I hadn’t even acknowledged him.

Because one of our tracing programs, one whose source code I’d written in an effort to infiltrate a certain faction of the Russian mob, had been discovered.

It was supposed to be untraceable, so they shouldn’t have been able to trace it back to us.

But it wasn’t supposed to have been noticed in the first place.

And that hadn’t gone well, had it?

I’d spent who knew how many hours trying to stay ahead of whomever was on the other end, trying to extract the program without them discovering my presence. It had been a challenging shell game, hiding out amongst the code, deleting and adding in secrecy.

Until I’d managed to extract the program. Hopefully, successfully. But I’d strengthened my firewalls and put every and any security procedure in place that I could think of, just in case.

The unfortunate part was that I hadn’t been able to get the information KTS had been after. I’d retrieved some stuff that was good for them to know, but the big smoking gun that prosecutors could use and/or the locations of their operatives in the U.S. hadn’t been retrieved.

And I fucking hated that I hadn’t been able to get my part of the job done.

Even though Laila—my contact at the secret semi-sanctioned government agency—hadn’t been mad when I’d reached out to her, we’d both been disappointed that we hadn’t gotten what we needed to take the bad guys down.

Neither of us liked to fail.

But I hated more that the failure was on my shoulders.

“Shit,” I muttered. “And in all of that, I didn’t even acknowledge that Archer brought me coffee and a croissant”—I focused on the clock on my computer, saw it was just past four—“almost eight hours ago.”

Processing the time meant that I suddenly became aware of several things, all at once. One, I desperately needed to pee. Two, I was really, really thirsty. Three, I could eat a dozen more of those croissants. And four, probably the most important of all these things, was that I needed to call Archer immediately and apologize.

I snatched my cell from my desk, scrolled to his number, and dialed.

It rang once and went to voicemail, causing my heart to sink.

“Fuck,” I whispered, moving out of my office and heading to my bathroom to take care of business then to wash my hands and face, to brush my teeth and turn myself into something that resembled a human.

Then I pushed into my closet, changed, and went downstairs.

I’d fuel up, call him again.

And if he didn’t pick up, I was grabbing three cans of tiny raviolis, my loaf of white bread from the fridge, and I was making the man the only dinner I knew how.

I saw the bakery box first.

Then I saw the note.

My heart hiccupped in my chest. My fingers trembled when I reached out to touch it, as though the slip of paper was going to disappear upon contact, as though Archer was going to disappear.

Because chocolate croissants and notes. Coffee and homemade dinners. Chocolate chip pancakes and ice cream sundaes.

Though, I’d made the last.

So maybe I was contributing to feeding our stomachs, at least a little bit.

With refined sugar and extra calories and artificial dyes. Not the best.

Also . . . meh. It was something.

My fingertips touched the scrap of paper, and it didn’t disappear; it didn’t just puff away into smoke. Instead, it crinkled, and I picked it up, read slowly, the words moving from my eyes to my brain to my heart in one warm slide.

“Archer,” I murmured, holding the paper to my chest.

I read it again because I quite literally couldn’t stop myself.

Come by whenever you’re done, no matter the hour.

But if you’re still working at seven, I’m coming over and hauling you away from that godforsaken machine.

No arguments. You must listen to the man you’re dating (some might say your boyfriend).

-A

P.S. My guest spot is number twenty-six.

I laughed out loud at the last, even as my emotions swept up and jerked through me like rapids, threatening to pull me under, pushing