by Elise Faber
She wasn’t tiny, wouldn’t be an easy lift onto that wall.
But then again, she could probably hold herself up, couldn’t she?
She was sweet. She was shy. She was soft—even in the places she was hard.
“Fuck,” I whispered, knowing this wasn’t going to work, that I couldn’t go down this path and not end up hurting her.
She might be all the things—minus tiny—that I found attractive, but she was Jesse. My teammate, my friend, my . . . a woman I couldn’t protect because she would always be out there and at risk and—
The door to the locker room opened, and I listened to the soft slap of Jesse’s feet as she made her way over to the showers.
She didn’t say anything, just met my gaze for one heartbeat before closing the curtain. A moment later, the water turned on, her swimsuit hit the tile, and I’d actually taken a step in the direction of that stall before I remembered myself.
Before I remembered.
Turning on my heel, I left the locker room.
I almost didn’t hear the soft knock on my door a half-hour later, as I was just coming out of my shower—icy cold, for the record—the water still plinking as it made its way down the drain.
Hitching my towel around my hips, I left the bathroom and tugged open the door.
Jess stood on the other side.
Not a surprise, some part of me having known she’d come.
“You forgot these,” she said, her skin flushed from her shower, her wet hair darkened and slicked back into a ponytail, and held up my flip-flops, my T-shirt.
“Oh, yeah, I got . . .” I trailed off because I almost said something like I nearly was overrun by the urge to join you in that shower, and I don’t know why I’m having these feelings for you, but I can’t have them, and I ran so I didn’t try to see how easy it might be to fuck you against the tile-covered wall. “Distracted,” I finished lamely.
Also, this just in. I may have a problem with walls.
Either that, or a fetish.
“Right,” she said, her eyes flicking down to my towel, and I felt my cock twitch.
“I remembered—” I cut myself off before I could tell her . . . what?
Everything. I wanted to tell her everything.
“Yeah,” she whispered, as though that were a complete thought instead of the roiling in my mind. “I’ll see you around, Leo,” she said and turned in the direction that led out of the living quarters, back toward the rest of the base and our offices.
“Where are you going?” I blurted.
She glanced over her shoulder, the muscles flexing on her back, and I was struck by the beauty in those strong lines, beauty that wasn’t brought out via the moonlight, but rather whatever light she had inside her.
“I’ve got some work to catch up on,” she said, and there was something sad in her eyes, her voice, that I couldn’t let stand.
Not with Jess.
I didn’t want her to be sad. Not ever.
She was too . . .
Just too.
“Have dinner with me,” I said. “We can catch up on everything we missed over the last few years.”
“I thought we did that last night,” she said, one brow arching delicately.
We had done that.
“Then with the missions,” I hurried to say. “I have a lot to catch up on, and not all of it is something I can read in a report.”
Her eyes, Caribbean blue, studied mine before sliding over my shoulder. Her lips, lusher than I’d ever noticed before, pressed flat. “Hannah might be better suited to giving you a briefing.”
She was trying to avoid this, avoid me.
I should let her.
But something inside me wouldn’t let it go.
“Hannah’s busy,” I lied.
Eyes back to mine, that lifted brow remained.
“Please,” I found myself saying, because some part of me was telling me that I couldn’t let her walk away right at this moment.
Not like this.
“I’m going to be working for a few hours,” she said.
“I’ll come to you in two,” I told her. “If you’re not done, we can eat in your office. If you are, we can go search for your barn owl.”
A ghost of a smile.
“Okay?”
She relaxed. “Okay.”
Chapter Eight
Jesse
I glanced up at the sound of the knock, more of my bleary-eyed super skills coming to full effect.
It had taken me a while to focus, the sight of Leo in just a towel burned on my retina. He was gorgeous, and it was nearly impossible to focus on conversation when he was standing there, glistening drops of water slowly dripping down his torso.
But eventually, I’d fallen into the patterns of my work.
Our team’s job was to try and weed out traitors at KTS. The other team we collaborated with—made up of Linc’s wife, Olive, along with Laila, Ryker, Dan, and Ava—were tasked with tracking down that first traitor, Daniel (not to be confused with Dan) and what his activities were.
Hopefully, by working from both directions we would be able to make some headway.
Right now, Lily and I were focused on tracking down items on the black market that shouldn’t be there, and I’d found some. Weapons that had been specially crafted by KTS techs with certain bullets and scopes that weren’t available anywhere else, not to mention, were made up of special composite that our techs had created in-house and hadn’t allowed on the public market.
Not detectable by metal detectors, easy to manufacture, lightweight, stronger than steel.
It was good stuff.
But now . . . it was listed on the dark web.
And it appeared that a deal would be happening nearby in the next week. Now, I just needed to figure out where it would all go down.
Leo strode into the room, a tray in his hands. “Did I give you enough time?” he asked.
Not nearly enough time. I wanted to dive into my computer and stay inside until I managed to figure out the exact date, time, and location of the deal, but that would take hours, and I was exhausted. It would be much better if I picked this up again in the morning.
“No,” he said, before I could respond. “But you’ve had enough.”
I blinked up at him, brows drawn together.
Grinning, he plunked the tray down, right on top of my papers, making me jerk out a hand to save my cell phone from ending up as fodder.
“Do you mind?” I muttered.
“Thanks, Leo,” he said, “for bringing me sustenance and not allowing my stomach to go empty. You’re such a good friend.”
Friend.
Did friends kiss other friends’ thighs?
Probably not, if one looked at this from the traditional angle, but Leo had basically been kissing an old boo-boo. I’d realized that as I struggled to focus on my work, on trying to figure out the source and the details of the upcoming deal.
At least until I came to the conclusion that the kiss meant nothing. It was a paternal swipe of the lips, and that was all.
After I’d understood that, I’d been able to dive into work.
Because I’d rather be focused on tracing IP addresses and trolling through bank statement after bank statement looking for irregularities, on tracking down property owners and sourcing data through a twisting, winding path. I was good at details, excellent at sifting through the bullshit and narrowing in on the small, important things. That was probably why I was good at explosives. Not getting distracted by the extraneous clutter and reducing the bomb down to its individual parts—timer, detonator, combustible material.
Remove one or more of them to render it inert.
Job done.
But in this case, my task was far from done.
Not until KTS was safe and undertaking its mission again. That mission didn’t include allowing dangerous weapons and tech into the hands of bad guys, and it sure as shit didn’t include working with those bad guys.
; Leo cleared his throat, and though his mouth was curved, his eyes were serious. “You’re taking this personally,” he murmured.
How could I not?
KTS was what I’d built my adult existence on, a bright spot after a shitty childhood worth of darkness. I’d been happy here, had made it my family, and—I stifled a sigh—just like in real life, my family hadn’t stepped up.
A deadbeat dad.
A single mom who’d passed too young.
Grandparents unwilling to take me in.
Home after home after home where the bad and mediocre outweighed the good.
Always on edge, always waiting for the other shoe to drop, until . . . here. Until my teammates had become my new family. And until Daniel and Jack had ruined that.
“I don’t like it when the bad guys win,” I said, instead of telling Leo any of that.
We all had our own baggage and pain. Mine came from having the bonds shatter time and again. Leo . . . well, he didn’t discuss his past, and I’d respected the barrier enough to never push beyond what he was comfortable with, but I knew there was something that had cut him deep from his past, something that sometimes made shadows dance across his eyes.
“None of us do,” he said, patting her hand. “Now eat, and tell me what name you’ve come up for your owl.”
He’d brought me homemade pasta with pesto sauce, a Cesar salad, crunchy sourdough bread, and a huge slab of chocolate cake. It looked and smelled delicious, and while one of the perks of KTS was that we actually had good food, so much better than my commissary days of old, this was . . . well, I knew this option hadn’t been on the menu today. That he’d managed to get Cook to make it, make my favorite, that he’d known my favorite . . .
All of that convincing myself that him kissing my thigh was just soothing a boo-boo disappeared.
Again, I hoped.
“I don’t have a name for her yet,” I said, when he just looked at me, brows up. “I haven’t exactly had any spare brainpower around to think of a good one.”
“Hmm.” A beat. “Eat.” He nudged the tray closer.
“What about you?” I asked.
“I ate before I came,” he said with a smile, “considering that when I knocked on your door an hour ago, you didn’t even deem it polite to look up.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You were so engrossed in that”—he nodded to my laptop—“I figured you could use a little more time before I dragged you off to bed.”
He could drag me anywhere, and I would go.
“You were here an hour ago?”
A nod, lips curved.
“And I didn’t hear you?”
A shake of his head this time. “Nope.”
Damn. I must have been really out of it. “Some secret agent,” I said lightly, even though I was cursing myself for being so off my guard. Those kinds of instincts could get me killed.
I was supposed to be aware of my surroundings at all times, even when I was in a supposedly safe place.
“Eat,” he said.
I wasn’t feeling particularly hungry. Tired, yes. Worried about how we’d figure out the problems at KTS. Also, yes. Confused about Leo, hoping that him being here in my office with my favorite meal meant something, even as experience was telling me that it was nothing more than just kindness. Triple yes.
“I’m not hungry,” I murmured, and jerked my head in the direction of the door. “I’m sure you’re tired and want to go to bed.”
“Eat,” he repeated. “Then I’ll go to bed.”
“I said I’m not hungry.”
“I said”—his voice took on a sharp edge—“to eat. You need to fuel your body.”
I glanced down at my body, at the hard lines and lack of curves, the broad shoulders and heavy thighs. “I think I’ve fueled it enough over the years,” I muttered, before I could stop myself.
His eyes flared, and I could have cut out my tongue.
It was one thing to think shitty thoughts about myself, but it was another to reveal those insecurities, to speak that inner monologue aloud.
I was supposed to love my body, and at the very least, if I didn’t, I was supposed to pretend I did. I certainly wasn’t supposed to tell Leo any of those uncertainties.
Fire flared in his eyes.
I smothered a wince, not wanting a lecture.
His mouth opened, closed . . . and then quiet descended, long and heavy enough that I bent my head, studying the contents of my plate.
“Hedwig?” he asked.
I blinked, head jerking up. “What?”
“For your owl.”
My eyes rolled as my body relaxed, the lecture not forthcoming. “You mean I should steal the name for an owl from Harry Potter, who by the way, isn’t a barn owl at all?”
“It’s not like you have a better one.”
My teeth ground together. “I could find a better one.”
“Prove it.” He nudged the tray closer. Any nearer, and it would be on my fucking lap. “And eat while you’re at it.”
I sighed. “What’s it to you?”
His hand covered mine, sparks shooting up my arm. Sparks that only I felt, since he didn’t back away, didn’t react, didn’t come closer. “Do I need to feed you?” he asked, brows arching, reaching for the utensils.
I picked up the fork before he could, mostly to get my hand away from his, away from the imaginary sparks that only I felt. “I think I can manage.”
Leo sat back, looking smug and all too proud of himself. “What’s the name of that owl from the Tootsie Pop commercials?”
Since I’d just plunked a giant bite of pesto in my mouth (fuck salad for the moment, it was carbs, all carbs), I nearly choked on the noodles and sauce. But apparently my secret agent skills also extended to internal Heimlich, because I managed to both not die of pasta-related affixation and to also not spit my food out on the plate.
“Does that owl have a name?” I asked when I could speak again.
A grin. “No clue.” He tapped his chin, and I found myself taking another bite, then another. My embarrassment and twisted ego disappearing into the back of my brain as delicious sauce coated my tastebuds. “Professor Owl?” he asked. Then immediately shook his head. “Nah,” he said, more to himself than to me. “That’s just lame.”
I snorted, kept eating as he relayed even more ridiculous names.
Fluffy and Feathers, Speedy and Screech, Mrs. McFlyFace and Moonlight.
And by the time I’d finished my salad and started on the slab of cake, he’d moved onto other topics—namely, hockey and whether or not he could convince Dan to ask his sister Brit for tickets to the next game that was close.
“I heard they’re going to be good this season,” he said, “and it’s been years since I’ve seen a live game.”
“There are closer teams,” I said, licking icing off the fork and wondering if my stomach was too full to finish the piece. Then remembering that I was never too full to finish chocolate, especially chocolate cake. “I’ve been watching the Breakers play.”
He lifted a brow. “Weren’t they kind of a joke?”
“Rebuilding years,” I quipped. “Plus, their team has really gelled this year.”
“When we get some time off, we’ll go,” he said. “It’s not far.”
I smiled. “I can taste the beer already.”
He laughed. “There’s something about watered-down beers in an arena, isn’t there?”
I polished off the cake, lifted the now-empty tray, grinning because he was right. There was something about the excitement of live sports. The crowd, the speed, the crack of sticks and pucks, and the sharp edges of skates digging into ice.
“Yes,” I agreed, “there is.” With that, I stood and rolled my shoulders, yawning as fatigue slid through me now. I went through the motions of closing down my laptop, locking my reports away. I’d return the tray, sleep, and then get back at it in the morning.
“Here,” Leo murmured, snagging the platter. �
�I’ll take it back for you.”
“Serving and cleaning up after me?”
He sketched a bow. “I’m at your service.”
Laughter bubbled through me. “You’re an idiot.”
“Maybe.” He bumped my shoulder. “But you’re friends with one.”
Friends. Friends.
And what did that say about me?
Chapter Nine
Leo
Jess insisted on following me into the cafeteria, waiting as I stowed the dirty dishes in the appropriate bins, before walking beside me back to our rooms.
She was nearly my height; her stride easily matched mine.
And she’d gone quiet again.
Usually, I just accepted those moments as Jesse being Jesse, but for the first time I wondered what drew her under, what had caused her to withdraw back into herself.
Me?
Nothing? Just the natural course of a shy woman reaching her limits on conversation?
Fuck knew that she wasn’t one to prattle on.
It was just . . . today I wondered.
The halls were quiet. This base was smaller than the one in London, fewer teams living here on a permanent basis, more of them just rotating through to other locations—San Francisco, New York, Austin, Seattle, several other smaller cities in the States, many other bigger ones across the globe. So, there was just a small contingent here outside of Atlanta, in a spot that appeared at first glance to be quiet and in the middle of nowhere, but had been the epicenter for many of KTS’s problems.
Today, however, it was extra quiet.
Maybe because it was late. Maybe everyone else was working on the traitors.
Maybe it was as though the rest of the universe were sleeping, giving us space to—
I blinked, shook myself, continued walking.
Even as the silence continued to grate on me.
“What is it?” I blurted as we moved into the hallway that led to our rooms.