Part 5 (2/2)

After dinner Diana returned to her office to get some second opinions from her staff, and Ryder, sensing he was no longer needed or wanted, excused himself.

”Do you mind if I change into something more comfortable?” Melissa asked. When Sebastian grinned at her, she blushed hotly.

”As in sweats.h.i.+rt-and-pants kind of comfortable, and does your mind always have to be in the gutter?”

Sebastian raised his hands in surrender. ”Sorry, but the cliche was too much to resist.”

”Well, try. This is supposed to be business.” Although she was having serious doubts about her own abilities to resist his charm and keep to the agreement.

”Yep, just business. So go get comfortable-” he did a Groucho Marx kind of eyebrow wiggle ”-while I scan away.”

Despite her better judgment, his actions dragged a laugh from her. She playfully jabbed him in the arm and retired to her bedroom to change.

Quickly slipping into sweatpants and a T-s.h.i.+rt, she returned to Ryder's office, where Sebastian was now three-quarters of the way through the journal. Melissa held up another diary-the next one by the second Danvers-and asked, ”Mind if I keep reading this in here until you're done?”

Without s.h.i.+fting his gaze away from the monitor or breaking the rhythm of his work, Sebastian inclined his head in the direction of the couch in the office. ”Make yourself at home.”

Home. As she settled herself onto the leather couch and pulled a light throw over her legs, she did feel homey with Sebastian in the room.

What did he think of everything that was going on? Would he be glad to be done with his end of it? Would he volunteer for something else or go his own way, much as he seemed to do with everything in his life? It saddened her to think he would leave without a second thought.

As he lifted his gaze, it collided with hers. She guiltily s.h.i.+fted her attention back to the journal, telling herself to concentrate. She wasn't sure whether she'd read the page before, so she began again.

And again and again. She yawned, the dinner and comfort of the couch making her sleepy. She battled drowsiness, but it was a losing fight. Closing her eyes, she told herself it would only be a quick nap.

At the speed Sebastian was going, he'd soon be done with the first of her father's journals. She counted on him to wake her so she could get to work and find a cure for Ryder, or at least find out if she had some keeper company.

Chapter 8.

S ebastian slipped the last pages of the journal onto the bed of the scanner. With a few keystrokes, he imported the image into his program, then named, encrypted and saved the doc.u.ment to a disk located at a remote server.Done, he thought and looked in Melissa's direction to see if she was ready for the next journal.

She clearly was not.

He slowly rose from Ryder's chair and padded quietly across the room. Placing the journal he had just finished on the coffee table, he knelt by the edge of the sofa.

She looked younger while she slept, but there were still smudges of dark circles beneath her eyes, a testament to the fact that she had not been resting well. Who could? he thought and delayed waking her, content to sit there and observe her for a moment. He was feeling decidedly guilty about having to pull her from what was probably a well-deserved rest.

Her lips formed a smile. He itched to trace the edges of it, remembering another slumbery one the morning after their sole night together. Their amazing night together.

Down boy, he told himself. It was just business.

He was about to reach out and wake her when she chuckled, surprising herself out of sleep.

Her eyes, a deep midnight highlighted with brighter bits of aquamarine, slowly opened. When she saw him there, her smile grew wider. ”I was a little tired,” she said in soft husky tones.

Sebastian brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen onto her forehead. ”You laughed in your sleep. Something funny?”

”VLAD.”.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand back, obviously surprised. ”VLAD? As in-”

”Vampires, Lycanthropes And Demons.” Melissa sat up and stretched. ”I thought it was funny.”

Sebastian tried his best not to notice how the soft fabric of her pastel pink T-s.h.i.+rt clung to her curves and rode up with her stretch to expose the taut muscles of her midriff. Get your mind elsewhere, he warned himself. ”Ryder clearly didn't think so.”

Melissa shrugged. ”Ryder needs to lighten up. Lose that broody immortal act.”

It was Sebastian's turn to chuckle. ”Give Diana time. I'm sure she'll shake him up.”

Melissa rested against the arm of the sofa. ”I guess all I've seen is FBI Agent Diana. It's hard for me to see her as-”

”A wild and crazy kind of girl?” Sebastian glanced her way. ”I'm sorry again. I know it couldn't have been easy to hear Diana tell you about your parents tonight.”

Another shrug, only this time she wrapped her arms across her midsection, belying her unease. ”Thanks. This may sound weird, but I wasn't feeling sad. It kind of made me angry.”

Sebastian sat next to her on the couch. ”Care to explain?”

”When they died the first time, I was angry. At myself for not calling the police right away. At the weather and G.o.d and even at my parents. Especially my parents.”

Sebastian could understand the anger, having lived through it himself when his father died. ”Unresolved issues.”

A confused look crossed Melissa's face. ”How-”

”My dad was killed in a drive-by shooting when I was eighteen. We hadn't really had a good relations.h.i.+p.” Melissa reached out and covered his hand. He was surprised by her actions, but when he faced her, her gaze was tender. ”I'm sorry.”

He smiled tightly. ”So why the anger again?”

”Because whoever killed them robbed me of the chance to settle things between us. To maybe make things right,” she admitted with no hint of evasion.

Another first. From her touch to her being open with him, this was something new. Something...He stopped there, because this something was supposed to be all about business. Only sitting here, holding her hand and talking with her was definitely about something more. He liked it and wanted to keep the conversation going. ”I felt the same way. Like there was so much more I could have said to my dad. So much more I could have done to make him proud of me.”

”He'd be proud of you now.” Melissa gently squeezed his hand as if to rea.s.sure him.

When Sebastian met her gaze, Melissa realized he didn't agree with her a.s.sessment. It was almost a repeat of the other night when he'd left her on the balcony and she wondered what could have made Sebastian so uncertain of his worthiness.

As if you don't know, a little voice in her head challenged, reminding her of her own failed relations.h.i.+p with her father.

”You don't know me all that well, yet,” he said, but there was a hint of both challenge and jest in his tone.

”Not yet,” she replied. ”But there's time.”

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