“Fooooood time!” Cassius shouted, making me jump, grabbing the tray of sandwiches and brandishing it in our direction.
Finally, after yet another delay, everyone had eaten, and we could discuss the events of the morning.
Cassius, Zayde, and Weston listened attentively as Caiden and I ran through what had happened at the hotel. Or, more accurately, I ran through the events, while Caiden grew more and more tense next to me as I described my harmless flirting, and the others agreed it had been a genius idea. Cass seemed to find it hilarious that I’d given Caiden the name “Barry,” but after Caiden threatened to punch him in the face, he stopped taunting him. As I described how I’d touched Petr’s hand to get a closer look, on the pretence of admiring his jewellery, Caiden growled under his breath and suddenly tugged me into his lap, putting his arms around my waist and burying his face in my hair.
I froze for a moment, noticing the mixture of surprise and amusement on the boys’ faces.
I knew not to read too much into it. He was just possessive. And jealous, even though he wouldn’t admit it.
It didn’t stop my heart beating faster, though, and those damn butterflies from starting up again.
I finished describing the rest of the morning, minus the part where we ended up parked in a field thanks to Caiden’s display of temper, and forwarded the selfies I’d taken with Petr to Weston’s phone so he could put them into his computer and work his magic on them.
“Never underestimate a woman,” Cassius said, as I trailed off. “I doubt any of us would have been that resourceful.”
“Well, unless he’d been gay, I suppose,” I mused. “Lucky for me, Petr seemed to like what he saw, and that worked in our favour.”
“Course he fucking did,” Caiden muttered in my ear. “He’s got eyes, hasn’t he.”
“Was that a backhanded compliment?” I murmured.
“Take it however you want,” he said dismissively and started tracing tiny patterns across my stomach with his fingers. I shivered at his touch.
“Anyway, back to business,” Cassius instructed, spreading out a printed map on the table in front of us, with several highlighted squares, and ran his finger across it. “Alstone Holdings offices.” His finger trailed lazily across the paper to a square marked on the coastline. “Then the docks, where some of the construction shipments come in. They’re only small.”
He tapped an area marked out on the map, almost directly between Alstone itself and the next town marked on the map, which happened to be Highnam, where Cade and I had been earlier.
“That’s the warehouses, where most of Alstone Holdings’ construction materials are stored, before they get taken around the country.”
His finger moved to the last marked area. “Final place of interest, and the hardest one to gain entry to.”
“AMC,” Weston told me.
“What? Like the TV channel?” I stared at him.
“Obviously not.” He rolled his eyes. “Alstone Members Club. Aka the boys’ club. No girls allowed.”
“I see.” Visions of rich, misogynistic men smoking cigars and dressed in suits popped into my head. Probably not far from the truth, I’d bet.
“We’re not allowed to officially join until we’re twenty-one,” Cassius said. “But we’ve started working on our dads to try and gain early entry. With my charm, I’m confident I can make it happen.”
“If you say so.” I leaned forwards, as much as I could with Caiden’s arms still wrapped around me, shuffling on his lap to try and find a more comfortable position. “So, what happened?”
Caiden tugged me back and I fell against him. “Stop wriggling,” he hissed in my ear. “You’re making my dick hard.”
“Oh. Shit. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Save it for later, though, when I can do something about it, yeah?”
“Uh, yeah. Okay,” I mumbled, flustered. Now he’d mentioned it, I could feel him pressing into me. I squeezed my legs together, suddenly needy and aching for him, and he groaned into my hair.
“Snowflake.”
Weston turned to me, thankfully either oblivious or choosing to ignore what was going on right in front of him, and I forced myself to stay as still as possible and concentrate on what he was saying. “We split up and covered all the marked areas. Z took the docks and warehouse; me and Cass took AMC plus a quick drive by of the offices.”
“Did you find anything?” Caiden and I both listened intently as the boys took it in turns to describe everything. As it turned out, they hadn’t discovered much. Security at all four locations was high, despite it being a Sunday. It was understandable for the docks and warehouses, since there was always the threat of theft of valuable construction materials. The offices were closed, and there was no way to get in without being security cleared. As for AMC…no chance. Not unless you were a member. Cassius and Weston had even prowled the alleys to try and find a back way in but came up empty-handed.
“We’re not giving up, though,” Caiden reassured me. He moved me off his lap and leaned forwards to grab a blunt from the ashtray in front of him, lighting it and inhaling deeply. He passed it to me, and I took a long drag, relaxing into the sofa.