by J. D. Light
My mouth fell open and I watched him with wide eyes as he leaned his head back against the seat, letting his lids fall closed with a little smirk on his face as the flight attendant started her safety speech.
Did that just happen, or did I fall asleep already on the plane and have a dream. Or maybe the plane crashed, and I was dead and entering the gates of Heaven where anything was possible, and my Heaven revolved around Renn.
All that was far more likely than him actually flirting with me, right? Surely the man hadn't just flirted with the son of his enemy. That didn't happen, did it?
Chapter Four
Okay, there wasn't any denying it anymore. There was absolutely no way there was anything normal about this attraction I had to Dylan. It was startlingly consuming, and even as I pretended to be relaxed the entire flight, I was entirely too aware of the way his shoulder pressed against mine. By the end of the flight, my whole body had been humming with energy.
We'd seen the lady with the unfortunate inability to use common sense again, and I actually saved her from nearly falling down while getting off the escalator when she got the extended handle caught on another person's bag after she decided to pick it up and carry it instead of just letting the thing rest on the steps, and once again proceeded to hold it horizontally like she was carrying a baby.
Dylan had laughed as I'd done my best to keep her and the other lady from falling while also trying to untangle their bags, and I ended up nearly becoming everyone's worst nightmare on those stupid handrails because I tried to reach out and brace myself while I leaned over to the other side, and grabbed the wrong damn rubber rail, nearly splitting my body in half.
Thankfully, nobody was hurt, and when I put the bag down on the escalator, and the woman tried to pick it up again, I shook my head, glaring at her. She sat it back down, but I didn’t know if that had to do with my expression, or the fact that Dylan was laughing so hard he was wheezing, but she didn't nearly kill anyone else before we lost her at the exit, so I was happy.
"You're right. I assumed you all wrong," Dylan said, leaning on the counter at the hotel check in, his cheek in his hand as he studied me while I waited for the woman to program our keys.
Apparently, we were sharing a room, which didn't bother me at all, but had stalled Dylan out for a moment in the beginning. He ended up closing his mouth and nodding his head, either not wanting to argue with the lady at the desk, or not wanting to offend me.
The girl at the front desk blushed when she looked at Dylan, but the man had no idea he was being observed, so I gave the girl a sympathetic smile as I took the keycard from her. She smiled, glancing away quickly, like most people did when they made eye contact with me, probably not wanting me to think that they were staring at my scar.
I really didn't care if they did. It was right there in the middle of my face for all to see, so it definitely wasn't like anyone could pretend they didn't see it. When I'd first gotten it, I'd been pissed, but that had more to do with Max Young than the fact that I had a scar. I'd never really thought too much about my appearance. Of course, I'd always thought I'd get the thing fixed before I found my mate, but if I was right…
"What did you assume?" I asked as Dylan followed behind me as we made our way to our room.
I glanced at him over my shoulder, possibly catching him staring at my ass, though he very well could have been lost in thought and not paying attention, but he jerked his head up quickly before he shrugged, pursing his lips.
"I don't know. I'm sure I'm the one who's been making things pretty weird back in Purdy with the running away every time you walk into a room, and all that, but I just thought you'd at least be uncomfortable with me around. At the very least, you'd find a reason not to like me."
"You're not a hard person to like, Dylan, and If I was uncomfortable around you, I definitely wouldn't be sharing a room with you."
That wasn't completely true. There were definitely aspects of me that weren't all that comfortable.
"I guess. As long as you're comfortable, so am I. Just…" We stopped outside the door to our room and I lifted the key to slide it into the lock, but Dylan's hand landed on mine and I turned slightly to look into his eyes. "If I ever do make you uncomfortable, will you tell me? I know we're getting along and everything, but I'd rather give you space than have you hate me."
Oh, sweet, gorgeous, funny Dylan. There is no way I could hate you. Especially because, with his hand on mine like that, there was very little doubt that I was right, and I was dying to get him out of that delphinium to see.
"Okay, but I need something from you in return."
He blinked over at me, his eyes nearly level with mine. "Okay," he said drawing the word out. "What?"
"I respect who you are as an agent. I know how good you are, but you can't be doing crazy shit that might get you killed, okay?"
I'd heard the stories. I knew that even before he was working with West who, in all honesty, was a bit of a nut job, he'd done some things that were borderline suicidal to make sure a job was done. I truly understood the need for that sometimes, and before we met, I had been the same way, but things were different now. There was a chance after this mission, we wouldn’t be the unmated ones anymore, and while I didn’t' want to stop going on missions like this, and I didn’t want him to either if he didn't choose that for himself, I also planned on being a bit more careful, and I hoped he'd be the same way.
His mouth parted, as he continued to watch me, his expression confused but intrigued. "Okay," he said huskily, before clearing his throat and shaking his head.
I pushed open the door and smirked as Dylan took in the king-sized bed and froze just inside the room, his eyes huge. Tossing my stuff on the side of the bed closest to the door, I unzipped my backpack and started pulling out all my information on Sheridan Maxwell and his ridiculously priced mansion before glancing back over at him.
"Do you mind if I have this side?"
He licked his lips, swallowing hard before shaking his head quickly and making his way to the other side, dropping his stuff next to the little side table.
"Are you sure you don't want to go over there tonight?" he asked, sounding a little flustered.
I smirked, watching the jerky way he was moving stuff around in his bag, probably already having forgotten what he was looking for in the first place. "Are you worried about sharing a room with me? There won't be anywhere to avoid me. I mean, I guess you could hide in the bathroom."
He jerked his head up to look at me, but as soon as he saw my smirk, he crossed his eyes, making a face. "No, it's just dark. I kinda figured we'd do this while it was… dark."
"We are. But we're going to go when everyone is headed to bed so we know who sleeps where. Makenzie was only ever in one room of the house, so he didn't know." I walked over to the table, set up next to the TV, and dropped the stack of information I'd collected in one of the chairs before pulling out the blueprints I'd had Green copy for me. "This is the original layout of the mansion. Two years ago, they filed for a permit for construction, but it doesn’t say what they did beyond remodeling the basement. I have a feeling someone was paid to write a half-ass permit report."
The blueprints were five pages to accommodate the three above-ground floors, the huge eighteen-hundred-foot basement, and the giant garage. Thankfully, I'd managed to get them scaled down a bit, so I got all but the garage spread across the desk, barely overlapping each other so we could see everything all at once instead of having to flip through the pages.
"Now this is an assumption," Dylan said, leaning in to look over everything, a tiny smirk on his face that told me he was feeling a little better. "But a pretty educated one based on where we've been finding people who these people are trying to hide, but I'm going to bet there were some fancy cage-type things that were installed, as well as some anchor bolts for like shackles and such."
I nodded, licking my teeth. "That assumption is probably a little closer to correct than your last one."
He pursed his lips, frowning. "Which reminds me. You're probably going to have to carry her on the way out, so we'll need to make sure to take a harness with us tomorrow when we go, so you can use both of your arms when you repel out of the window."
"Why me?" I asked, tilting my head. "Why don't you carry her?"
"I see that you think you’re being funny by the way your mouth is doing that thing," he said, pointing to his own mouth, "But I'm actually very strong. My muscles are just evenly disbursed."
I let my gaze move over his body, cataloging everything like I'd done countless times since I met him, but I definitely didn't make it a secret this time, smiling when I once again reached his blushing face. "I suppose they are."
He cleared his throat, sucking his cheeks in to keep from smiling as he fixed me with a stern look. "Eyes on the map, sir."
I chuckled, watching him squirm. "But it's funny when your ears turn red." And they were definitely red and getting redder by the second. It was a good thing I didn't have to agree not to make him feel uncomfortable, or he'd already be kicking me out.
***
"We can't get caught before the other team gets here," I whispered up at Dylan as he slowly made his way down the side of the house, my voice traveling easily over the frequency of our earpieces.
"I don't plan on getting caught at all."
He sounded irritated, and I had a feeling it was because he'd had to change our plan at the last second when we noticed a camera on the side of the house he'd originally planned to use, since it was the side that only had two windows on the ground level and absolutely no entrances, and therefore probably wouldn't have much security.
Apparently though, Sheridan wasn't taking any chances, and Dylan had needed to get creative with his climbing, and it had taken more time than he'd planned, so instead of catching everyone while they were going to sleep and seeing who went where, he'd had to rely on my nose which meant he'd had to be on the other end of the hallway so his delphinium didn't fuck with my sense of smell.
He'd stood down there, leaning against the wall and pouting about it the whole time I was checking on rooms, but we'd found Makenzie's family, and he'd managed to check the basement, finding two chosen, so at least it was done, and all we had left was to wait for the team to get there the next day so we could get everyone out and blow the bitch up.
He'd had to scale sideways along the overhang of the roof, since the only safe area on the whole house to climb up from ground level was one of the corners, and then we'd had to move across the wall once we'd cleared the cameras. Thankfully, we had these little devices that allowed us to move them slowly up the wall one at a time that had some kind of tiny little grips that allowed them to stick to almost any surface, including brick.
Those same devices had allowed us to come back down by doing the same thing, but backward… well, I'd used them to come down, Dylan was in the process of coming down, but he seemed to be having trouble with one of his grips.
"Stupid fucking thing. This is not the time to decide you don't want to work," he grumbled, hanging there by his rope and the one grip still working, while he fiddled with the other, still nearly fifteen feet in the air. "There," he said triumphantly, sticking the thing to the wall and releasing the other.
I could only assume what happened next was grip-failure, because one second he was stuck to the wall, and I turned to look around, making sure there was there wasn't anyone sneaking up on us, and the next he was letting out a quiet cry and falling to the ground at my feet.
"Are you okay?" I asked, immediately running to him and bending down next to where he was writhing on the ground.
It took him a lot longer than I liked to suck in a lungful of air, but then he groaned low, rolling onto his stomach and crossing his arms in front of him, pain evident on his face.
"I think I broke my ass." His voice was strained, telling me that he was actually hurting, and I cringed, looking down at the ass in question.
It still looked amazing.
Taking a long deep breath, he slowly climbed to his feet, reaching back to press against his tailbone. "That fucking hurt."
I licked my teeth, trying desperately not to laugh. Did it make me a bad shifter that the man I was starting to suspect might be my mate had just hurt his ass and I was trying not to laugh?
He glared at me and my awful attempt at keeping a straight face, and I shrugged.
"Do I need to carry you?"
He blinked at me for a moment before holding his arms out like a child waiting to be picked up. "Yes, please."
I chuckled, bending down to pick up the two grips off the ground, and he glared at the things before I spun him and dropped them into the side pockets of his backpack before swatting him on the ass. "Let's go."
"Fucker," he growled, putting his hand back on his tailbone. "I have a broken ass."
***
I knew I needed to be concentrating on the report I was sending back to everyone in Purdy, but my eyes kept straying over to where Dylan was bent slightly over the table, meticulously studying the plans with his hands braced on the edge of the wood, his head hanging forward on his shoulders slightly..
He was tempting me, and he didn't even realize it. The fact that he seemed to be doing just fine on his work while I struggled for every thought, pissed me off, and the urge to go over there and kiss him until he couldn't breathe was extremely tempting.
It was illogical and actually pretty dangerous to think like that, especially since we had many lives depending on both of us getting this intel absolutely perfect, but the unsettled part inside me, the part that thought the man might be my mate but didn't have absolute proof yet, needed something. I was restless and cranky, and it was only getting worse the longer I sat there watching him as he worked, completely ignoring my existence in the room.
I typed out twenty-three of the most nonsensical words of my life and sighed, shutting the laptop and putting it aside on the bed, deciding I wasn't getting anything else done until I knew for sure that he was my mate.
I stood slowly, tilting my head to the side when I saw Dylan's body tighten slightly. Was it possible that he was just as aware of me as I was of him? Moving closer, I watched him carefully, noticing the way his eyes quickly jumped in my direction before going back to the papers laid out in front of him while his fingers clenched around the edge of the table.
I smirked, sliding up behind him and looking over his shoulder before pulling back and speaking into the back of his head. "What are you doing?"
He gasped, his body tensing further, even as he elongated his neck slightly like he was giving me more access to the skin there. It was unconscious which was telling. I had a feeling, Dylan wouldn't purposely be doing any of the things he was doing to entice me at this point, since I was pretty sure despite the day we'd had together, he was still worried I couldn't help but associate him with his father in my head when nothing could be further from the truth. I couldn't look at him and see that man at all.
"I'm marking all the windows that were barred," he said huskily before clearing his throat. "I know we already know, and since we're the ones that will be getting them out in the first place, we're really the only ones who need to know, but just in case something crazy happens and someone else needs to go in, I'd rather they all know. It will also help if they know where we'll be coming out of."
I nodded, letting my cheek brush his ear as I leaned in, putting one hand on his hip while using the other to point out one of the windows he'd forgotten. "This one was too."
He swallowed hard, nodding, before leaning forward and marking out th
e window with a black squiggly line, and I bit my lip hard to keep from pressing my hips forward and grinding my dick into his ass cheek.
When he stood again, the call of his neck was too much to resist, and I pressed my nose to the skin just below the hairline on his neck, taking a deep, useless breath. I growled slightly in frustration, mad that I couldn't even pick up the smallest trace of his scent.
He turned his head slightly, looking at me over his shoulder and giving me the best access to the skin just below his ear at the corner of his jaw. "Uh. Did you just sniff me?"
He sounded surprised and confused, but I could also hear the way his voice had deepened slightly, letting me know that I wasn't the only one affected by us being so close.
"It's so crazy. This shit is super concentrated," I said, my voice a bit gruff. "They're making some that can be taken, and that's supposed to be really good, but I don't know why they would even need to. I can't smell you at all. I already knew about delphinium back when they first introduced using it for the FBI. It's something most foxes are taught by their skulk early on, but the flower isn't concentrated enough to block scent this well. It's just amazing how much they've improved it in such a short amount of time."
I ran the tip of my nose down from under his ear to the collar of his T-shirt, feeling like his smell was right there, just out of reach, and it was a frustration my fox shared, growling in my head.
"Do you think it's just going to magically stop working or something?" he asked, tipping his head again as I continued to assault the soft skin with my nose.
His eyes slid closed, and his breathing was coming harsher and harsher as he stood there, letting me sniff at him. I squeezed lightly on his hip and he made a high-pitched noise in the back of his throat, biting down on his bottom lip as a slight frown appeared between his eyebrows, making him look like he was in pain.
"Do you plan on marrying or mating someday?" I asked on a whisper, letting my breath fan against the fine hairs on the back of his neck. "Or are you more of a non-commitment type?"