Concealed Force

Chapter 17

After folding everything, ironing and sorting the laundry into labeled bags, Laura and Alyssa delivered them back to the rooms they'd come from. It took a couple of hours, and it was tedious after enjoying beers on the roof, but Alyssa said they'd started now, so they may as well keep drinking. She had a bottle of spiced rum in the trolley and they both took swigs as they knocked on doors, laughing at each other and at nothing.

As Laura passed her own room Reid came out.

"You done?" he said. "I want you."

Laura felt a thrill run through her before she swallowed the feeling and turned to Alyssa.

"What you looking at me for?" the other woman said. "Like I'm an authority here." And she wheeled the trolley away without looking back.

The sense of camaraderie she'd felt that afternoon disappeared in an instant and Laura had a moment of real grief. She felt as if she'd been hanging out with an old friend, and now she was more homesick than ever.

She knew she was floppy with regret as Reid pulled her inside the room and shut the door. "You okay?" he asked, frowning at her.

"Yeah, fine."

"Been with Alyssa all day?"

"Yeah."

"Any problems?"

"No. The guy in room four-oh-two told me to tell you he didn't come on to me. He seemed keen you knew."

He flashed his teeth in a grim smile. "Good. I like to hear people have been paying attention."

"Are you allowed to beat people up? I mean, isn't it against the law?"

That made him serious again. "I do what I have to, to survive. You think I've got this far by being a pacifist? You think it would have worked out for me in prison if I'd kept my fists to myself?"

She studied him. Trying to fit the different Reids into one man, the man in front of her. The club member, the fighter, the gentle guy who'd held her when she was crying, the cop with some mysterious mission, and the man who sent her pulse into overdrive and made her wet between the legs with the slightest touch.

"I guess you have to be able to get into character," she said, thinking that maybe he was more like her than she'd thought. An actor, of a kind.

"Yeah. And you do too. There's another party tonight. The club has something planned for tomorrow and they want to let off steam before it."

"Okay."

"They'll expect me to be there."

"I understand."

He gave her a tight nod.

"You okay?" she asked, eyeing his fists, balled against his thighs.

"Honestly? I'm finding it difficult. This... You knowing. Normally I don't let the act drop. Ever. There's stuff I won't do, lines I won't cross, but I don't let anyone see me. It's too hard. But with you..."

"With me, you have to switch between the real you and the fake one."

He nodded, his eyes warm. "Something like that."

"So what can we do? Can I help?"

"Nope. It's just the situation."

"Well, you know, you don't have to let the act drop for me, if it's easier. Just be who you usually are all the time. I can cope with rougher Reid. Really. I can manage. You don't have to hold my hand."

He looked at her for a long moment. His gaze hungry, yearning.

"I don't think I can do that. I mean, I have to separate the pretense off. Otherwise I'll end up doing something I regret."