Dine With Me

by Layla Reyne

“Get someone in that other building,” he shouted to Lauren, as he passed the van. Inside the building, he yanked open the stairwell door and took the steps three at a time, racing toward Cam and the scene. Weapon at the ready, he exited onto the penthouse hallway.

  To eerie quiet. No gunfire. No shouts. Until an anguished cry broke the silence.

  Nic ran the last few feet to the target apartment, heart in his bone-dry throat, and skidded inside across the slick marble foyer. The place looked like a disaster area. Sunlight reflected off broken glass, splintered furniture littered the space, and blood stained the walls and floor.

  Nic half scrambled, half tip-toed around the cavernous apartment, seeking the source of the blood while trying not to destroy evidence, heart climbing his throat with each step. Past the foyer, he saw the crew’s ringleader handcuffed to the dining bar’s footrest, and next to him, similarly restrained, their breaking-and-entering specialist. The former’s right arm was covered in blood, but the graze on his outer shoulder didn’t look life-threatening.

  Groaning to Nic’s right drew him into the living room. On the other side of the couch, an agent knelt over another, treating a leg wound. They hadn’t removed their helmets, but Nic could tell neither was Cam. They were thin and lanky, not the broad build of the former baller.

  Was this the agent down? Or was Cam down somewhere too?

  “Where’s—”

  “Here, Price.”

  Nic’s eyes shot up, connecting with Cam’s black ones across the room. Helmet off, dark hair ruffled, Cam looked fine, if tousled from a fight. A quick up and down of his person revealed no obvious injuries.

  “Boston,” Nic breathed on a grateful sigh. “You okay?”

  Cam nodded and Nic wanted nothing more than to close the distance between them, to claim that second kiss, to wet his worry-parched mouth with Cam’s lips and breath. The epitome of stupid and unprofessional. His haywire instincts were derailed by another agonized cry like the one he’d heard from the hallway. Grim, Cam tilted his head toward the room behind him. “You better come see this.”

  Civilian down, Nic recalled, dread racing up his spine.

  Was it Abby?

  Following Cam into the room, Nic was relieved to see Abby kneeling on the bed, her springy dyed curls unmistakable, bouncing in the breeze from the open window. Relief, however, died a quick death as she shifted back onto her haunches.

  Abby’s hands were covered in blood, but they were nowhere near as coated as the Serbian dignitary’s, pressed to his wife’s chest, fighting a losing battle against the life draining out of her.

  * * *

  Hours later, Cam stood outside a sleeping Stefan Kristić’s hospital room, watching through the door’s narrow window as a nurse tended to his IVs. After they’d told him his wife had died, the inconsolable husband had had to be sedated and his ruptured stitches resewn. Kristić had been shot in the shoulder—a through-and-through, not a fatal chest wound like his wife’s—but painful nonetheless.

  “He sure did make a mess of things,” the nurse muttered, as she stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind her.

  “He’ll be okay, though?” Cam asked.

  “As well as can be expected,” she said with grim sympathy for the man in the bed, and for a beleaguered Cam.

  He tried to put on a smile, figuring she’d had enough bleakness for one day. “You got a soda machine around these parts?”

  The smile, or his accent, must have been convincing enough, drawing a small grin from her. “Soda and snacks.” She snaked an arm through his and tugged him down the hall. “Follow me, handsome.”

  His own gray mood unfortunately returned as he stared at the little red lights on the vending machine. Thank God Nurse Adams, who’d slipped him her number, had been called away before his horror at the prices registered. After eight months in the Bay Area, he shouldn’t be surprised—everything cost a fucking fortune here—but two-fifty for a can of soda? Resigned, and in desperate need of caffeine, he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. A lonely dollar was all that greeted him. The horrors today just kept mounting.

  Though Cam only had himself to blame for the earlier one.

  What was supposed to have been a straightforward takedown had turned into a bloodbath. He’d had three teams in position, all his best agents, and the tip had been solid. Scott Chestnut’s crew had moved on the artifacts. What Cam hadn’t foreseen was one of Scott’s crew turning on him, his second-in-command, Rebecca Wright, who it appeared was working with the third party who’d tried to rip off the heist. The artifacts hadn’t been stolen, and all but one of their primary suspects were in custody, but things had gone sideways as fuck in the process.

  Maybe he should have let Nic lead. The ex-SEAL was certainly capable, even if an Assistant US Attorney leading an FBI team into a raid wasn’t exactly protocol. But if that had been Nic in the middle of the firefight...

  Cam banished the thought, only to hear Lauren’s voice in his head, shouting that Comm was under fire. At the pop of rifle fire hitting metal and glass, he’d faltered a split second, feeling disconnected, helpless and overcome with worry for Nic. Was that when Stefan or Anica Kristić had been shot? Or his agent? Had someone taken a bullet because he was distracted? He’d made that mistake before, getting distracted by what he wanted, and someone’s life had been stolen in the process.

  Someone dear to him.

  Wallet still in hand, he withdrew the laminated library card he always carried, running a thumb over a name that wasn’t his. The card had been faded and wrinkled decades ago—well-used—and if not for the effort to preserve it, he wouldn’t have this reminder of what—who—had been lost, when he’d been young and distracted.

  This was why he had rules.

  This was also why you weren’t supposed to get involved with colleagues. Granted, it had worked out for his best friend, but Jamie and Aidan were no longer colleagues.

  Not that he and Nic technically were either—colleagues or involved. They worked for separate agencies and one kiss did not a relationship make, even if they had been dancing around an attraction to each other for months.

  An attraction that had boiled over in that one kiss...

  Slipping the card back in his wallet and pocketing the leather billfold, Cam slumped against the wall and closed his eyes, recalling the icy hot glare of Nic’s blue ones from across a hotel elevator. Returning to their rooms after Jamie and Aidan’s wedding, he and Nic had been arguing when Cam’s beer- and whiskey-addled brain decided the best way to win the argument and shut the other man up was to put his mouth to better use.

  Two strides across the elevator cab and he’d shoved Nic against the mirrored wall, grabbing his sharp, angular jaw and slamming their mouths together. Never one to back down, the prosecutor had argued back, as was their way, but with his tongue instead of words. Forcing his way into Cam’s mouth, he’d taken control of the kiss and owned it. Owned him. Seconds later, when Nic had pushed him out of the elevator onto his floor, Cam had been an aching, turned-on mess.

  Neither had spoken of the kiss in the two weeks since. Nic probably thought he didn’t remember it; there had been hours of beer and whiskey shots and dueling pianos preceding it. Nic sure as fuck remembered it, though. His pale blues strayed to Cam’s mouth more often, he stood just that bit closer whenever they were in the same room, and he argued with him more hotly, like he wanted, consciously or not, to incite another explosive reaction.

  Another kiss.

  Cam never corrected Nic’s assumption, nor did he rise to the bait again, intentionally laid or not. Between his new role as San Francisco ASAC, and his new two-fifty-a-soda life in the Bay Area, which his government salary did not cover, his plate was already full of complications. And there was also the matter of Nic having once dated Aidan Talley, who was both Cam’s new partner and his best friend’s new husband. All signs po
inted to danger.

  So of course his fucking dick wanted to run right to it. He’d had those impulses, that other side of himself, under control. Work hard, play hard, but not like the punk kid who’d sacrificed something precious for what he’d wanted, or the hotshot college athlete who’d fucked his way through every fraternity and sorority at Boston College, still wild and desperate to blot out the past. Before he’d found the FBI and atonement avenue. Now, he worked hard as a kidnap specialist, rescuing himself and others in trouble, and limited his play to the occasional man or woman in his bed. That was how he stayed focused at work, how he avoided distractions that ended in tragedy.

  Then into his life walked Dominic Price, and Cam wanted to throw all his rules out the window.

  And look what that distraction might have cost them today.

  Groaning, Cam scrubbed his hands over his face, trying to block out the sight of Kristić in his hospital bed and the memory of his wife bleeding out, only to have the object of his distraction appear in the vending room doorway. Nic stood over the threshold, all six foot plus of him looking cool, calm, and perfectly suited, not a brown or gray hair on his head out of place, despite the rough-and-tumble morning.

  No, no thinking of rough.

  And definitely no thoughts of tumbling.

  “Bowers is here,” Nic said. “In the waiting area.”

  Cam’s thoughts instantly righted. “Fuck. I thought he’d at least wait ’til we got back to the Federal Building.”

  Nic shook his head. “We interrupted his day on the greens. He came straight here from the club.” Nic’s asshole boss was going to be extra salty. “I can deal with him myself,” Nic offered.

  “No.” Cam pushed off the wall. “This is a joint op.”

  “And your charm seems to have worn off, where my boss is concerned.”

  “He likes you any better?”

  Cam wondered if San Francisco’s US Attorney had always been chilly toward his best AUSA or if he’d only become frigid in recent months, as Nic’s ties to the FBI grew stronger. Both agencies were under the Department of Justice, often working side by side, but Bowers liked to think he was top dog. Since taking the helm as Special Agent in Charge, Aidan had disabused Bowers of his top-dog notion, frequently. And Cam, who Bowers used to like, had taken his partner and friend’s back. As had Nic. Their names had since skyrocketed up Bowers’s shit list, which Cam didn’t doubt was long.

  “Conceded,” Nic said, holding an arm out toward the hallway.

  Cam strode past, ignoring the other man’s tempting body heat. “Why is he all over our ass on this one?” Even given their shit-list perch, this was more oversight than usual.

  “High-profile, Aidan’s gone, hoping DOJ doesn’t reappoint him. Take your pick.”

  “Lot to pick from,” he said, as they made their way down the hallway to the waiting area. “How do you want to play this?”

  “Like any other debrief. We did nothing wrong.”

  “Tell that to Stefan Kristić.”

  Nic paused midstride and turned directly to him, blocking Cam’s path. “You ran a clean op. We had no indication of other parties on the scene.” His conviction was fierce, and Cam appreciated the support, especially as Nic had wanted to run the operation himself.

  “We should have checked the surrounding areas more closely,” Cam said. “Or dug deeper into Becca’s background.”

  “One, the third parties came up through the BART tunnels after we’d cleared the area. Two, all we’ve done for months is dig into background. There was no indication Becca had turned against Scott. You know that as well as I do.”

  Cam cast his gaze aside, rubbing a hand over his rough jaw, long past shave time. “We must have missed something.”

  Nic’s hand at his elbow, gently tugging it down, startled him out of his self-recrimination. “We didn’t miss anything,” he said, voice soft, comforting, like his thumb caressing the inside of Cam’s elbow was probably supposed to be. And it was. But it was more too, and Cam’s body reacted, rampaging pulse doing its best to pump all his blood south.

  “Price! Byrne! In here now!”

  Nic’s eyes flashed—equal parts desire and fury—before he snatched his hand away and turned, putting himself between Cam and Bowers. “On our way,” he returned. Cool, calm, all trace of fire gone, he’d tucked it away behind that smooth professional mask.

  Cam marveled at the skill, so much more refined than his own, while also appreciating the extra time to compose himself. Rolling down his shirtsleeves, he buttoned the cuffs and caught up to Nic outside the waiting room. They entered together, a united front.

  “Where’s Talley?” Bowers barked, beady eyes staring them down.

  “On his honeymoon,” Cam said, telling Bowers what he already knew. Aidan’s out-of-office days had been on all their calendars for months.

  “He should have come back for this,” Bowers said. “Or you should have waited.”

  “And how would that’ve worked?” Cam replied, irritation bleeding through his thinning patience. “Were we supposed to call up Scott and tell him it wasn’t a good day for the feds to bust his crew? I guarantee the heist would have happened in that case.”

  Bowers’s round face reddened. “Maybe no one would have died.”

  “On the contrary,” Nic said, “more than one person would have probably died if Cam’s team hadn’t intervened.”

  “Some consolation,” Bowers huffed. “I’ve got a dead dignitary’s wife on my hands and the Serbian consulate and DOJ breathing down my neck.”

  Cam’s bravado waned, reminded of Anica Kristić bleeding out as her husband tried to stem the flow, and of Stefan Kristić, thrashing in his hospital bed when the doctors told him his efforts had been in vain.

  “You can tell the Serbian consulate we have the parties responsible in custody.”

  “Not all of them,” Bowers said. “Rebecca Wright’s still out there.”

  “I’m on my way to question Abby next,” Nic said. “We’ll find Becca.”

  “And who she’s working for. DOJ wants this operation, all the way up the ladder, shut down for good.”

  Cam bristled at being told again what he already knew, especially when he and Nic had put in far more hours than Bowers had on this case.

  He held his tongue, though, until Bowers disappeared into the elevator at the end of the hall. “I hate that fucker.”

  “Not half as much as I do,” Nic answered through gritted teeth.

  Cam sensed there was more there, but now wasn’t the time to press. “I need to get to the office. See what the team’s got on the other shooters.”

  “And I need to talk to Abby.”

  “I want to be there for that.” Cam wanted to know how their CI hadn’t had a clue her girlfriend was about to turn on the crew.

  Nic, however, shook his head. “She’s better one-on-one. Let me talk to her first, then you can question her tomorrow.”

  Cam didn’t like it, but she was technically Nic’s CI, his play. And the prosecutor did seem to trust her. “All right,” Cam said. “Debrief first thing tomorrow?”

  Nic nodded, turning toward the exit, already onto the next task, just as Cam had suggested, but Cam wasn’t ready to let him go yet. He shot out a hand, grabbing the other man’s biceps. “I’ll catch the rest of ‘em,” he said, finding the words he should have said to Bowers.

  “And I’ll prosecute them.” Bitterness belied Nic’s words.

  Cam slid his hand down to Nic’s elbow, mimicking the earlier touch through the superfine wool of the dapper prosecutor’s suit coat. “I’m sorry about the way this turned out today, for Kristić, his wife, my agents, but I’m not sorry I took the lead. And I’m not sorry you were in the van.”

  “I still got shot at.”

  “By one shooter. You weren’t in the middle of the firef
ight.”

  Nic pressed his lips together, like he was measuring his words, eventually settling on “I could have helped. Maybe saved—”

  Cam tightened his hold, fingers digging into sinewy muscle through layers of fabric. “You could have maybe died. I’m not risking that, Price. I’m not risking you.”

  Buy Imperial Stout by Layla Reyne today!

  Copyright © 2018 Layla Reyne

  Also available from Layla Reyne:

  Relay, a Changing Lanes novel

  2019 RWA® RITA® Award Finalist in Contemporary Romance (Mid-Length)

  Captain is not a title Alejandro “Alex” Cantu takes lightly. Elected by his teammates to helm the US Men’s Swim Team, he proudly accepts the role, despite juggling endless training, team administrative work, and helping out on the family farm. And despite his ex-lover, Dane Ellis—swimming’s biggest star—also making the Olympic Team.

  Dane has been a pawn in his celebrity parents’ empire from crib to pool, flashing his camera-ready smile on demand and staying deeply in the closet. Only once did he drop the act—the summer he fell in love with Alex. Ten years later, Dane longs to cut his parents’ strings, drop his too-bright smile, and beg Alex for another chance.

  Alex, though, isn’t ready to forgive and forget, and Dane is a distraction he doesn’t need on his team, until an injury forces Alex to accept Dane as his medley relay anchor. Working together, their passion reignites. When Dane’s parents threaten reprisal and Alex is accused of doping, the two must risk everything to prove Alex’s innocence, to love one another, and to win back their spots on the team, together.

  To purchase and read Relay and other books by Layla Reyne, please visit Layla’s website at www.laylareyne.com.

  Copyright © 2018 by Layla Reyne

  Introducing the Carina Press Romance Promise!

  The Carina Press team all have one thing in common: we are romance readers with a longtime love of the genre. And we know what readers are looking for in a romance: a guarantee of a happily-ever-after (HEA) or happy-for-now (HFN). With that in mind, we’re initiating the Carina Press Romance Promise. When you see a book tagged with these words in our cover copy/book description, we’re making you, the reader, a very important promise: