Page 150 of Release

Chapter Thirty-Six

I was planning on going home tonight, but it would seem the boy and his Sir are trickier than I gave them credit for.

I learn this when I walk up behind the two goobers, who are standing with their arms around each other while talking with the president of Vanderbilt University and her husband. Placing my hands on both their shoulders, I lean in, my head between theirs.

“Gentlemen, should I alert the security detail we’re almost ready to leave?”

“Shortly,” George says, tipping his head and rubbing it against mine.

I should pull away, but I don’t. Because I can’t resist the idiot. I really can’t. I nuzzle him back.

Then I step away and hang out, hovering nearby, until they’re alone again and turn to me.

Declan wears a playful, sneaky smile. “We’re not going home tonight. Got a hotel suite for us. Until Monday morning.”

Literally, my mask drops into place like one of those frigging bulkhead doors dealing off a spaceship compartment in some sci-fi movie, with a seriously loudclangI’m shocked no one else heard.

“Oh. Okay, then.”

“Don’t worry, Ma’am,” the boy says, his voice low and his smile sneaky and playful. “I packed for you, too.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you,” George says, glancing around. “You think we’re leaving you out of the celebration, then you need your head examined. Already arranged it with the detail.”

My eyes widen. “No one told me about that!”

Declan slides his hands into his pockets, and I swear he’s channeling George as he stands there, shoulders back, head high, and drops his voice into a pussy-flooding purr. “You weren’tsupposedto know, Case.”

Uh oh.

Before I can say anything else, Declan steps closer, his brown gaze holding mine. “I’m calling in that markerrightnow, by the way. The overdue one. I want it fortonight.”

I know exactly which one he means, too.

Oh, boy.I’m fucked.

No, literally, I’m about to be fucked, and I know it. This isn’t my boy—this is pure Alpha Declan in the house. The skilled attorney, the wily political operative.

The man who, if he’d had the desire to show up more often instead of being content to be boy 99% of the time, might have been able to chip away at my defenses long before now.

No fault of his own, because I didn’t encourage him to do so.

I had no fucking clue how hot it’d be, to be quite honest.

I get the Dom eyebrow from him and feel my clit throb.

Somewhere, I suspect Ellen’s laughing at me.

George grins as he crosses his arms over his chest. “You know, I think I really like Alpha Declan.”

“Don’t get too used to him,” I mutter.

Declan edges forward, until we’re practically standing nose-to-nose, his hands still in his pockets and a downright cocky smirk on his luscious lips. A wave of barely constrained desire radiates from him like heat shimmers.

“Oh, I plan on enjoying everysecondof collecting on this particular contract,” he says. “Remind me, again, what the terms were?” Crinkles form at the outer edges of his eyes as his gaze playfully narrows. But he’s not fooling me—he’s serious.

Fuck.