by Juno Rushdan
As he went to sit at the eat-in island, he got the sense he was being watched.
Kit stood in the doorway, wearing his Bob Marley T-shirt. Excellent choice. His tee was old, soft, and swam on her with the stretched collar exposing a bare shoulder. The threadbare cotton was nearly transparent, and in the light, it was almost as if she were naked.
The mop of her golden-brown hair was damp and shiny. Her skin looked delicate, smooth. All cleaned up, she wasn’t supermodel stunning, but Lord, have mercy, she was pretty.
She flashed an awkward grin, the weariness leaving her eyes, and padded into the kitchen barefoot. “Do you have anything to eat? I’m starving.”
“I can heat up one of my mom’s lasagnas from the freezer.”
“Lasagna?” She twisted her mouth as if mulling it over.
Oh, please don’t tell him she was allergic to carbs, gluten, and sugar.
“Is there a meat sauce?”
“One of the best you’ll ever taste.”
She winced like he’d offered her human flesh.
Figured she was the worst of them. “Let me guess—you’re a meat-hating vegan.”
“I’m an animal-loving vegetarian.”
Same difference. “How about spaghetti?”
Kit smiled, her face lighting up brighter than sunshine, knocking the air from his lungs. “Sounds perfect.”
He set a pot of water to boil, took out his mixer with pasta attachment, and grabbed the fresh dough from the fridge. Working with small pieces, he sent the dough through the roller, producing golden ribbons.
“You’re making pasta from scratch?” She sounded like she didn’t think it was possible.
He was shooting for impressed, not incredulous. “Fresh stuff tastes better.”
“The mountain of muscle can cook.” She leaned in, resting her forearms on the counter, and he caught the scent of his shower gel on her. He liked it, her smelling like him. “Can I help?”
“I’ve got it.” To encourage her to open up and truly trust him, he had to do some sharing himself. “After I was discharged from the service, I had PTSD and went through an adrenaline therapy program for vets. Extreme sports during the day and culinary therapy at night. We made our own dinners. Turns out cooking is a great stress reliever.”
“Your PTSD was the reason you built the sanctum?”
He nodded. “I used to sleep in there on a shitty cot. Until I got better.”
“My brother suffered from depression. Recovery can be tough. Not that what you went through was the same, but I get it.”
Tough didn’t skim the surface.
Castle salted the boiling water, added the pasta, and tossed a can of crushed tomatoes into a pan along with seasoning.
“Kyle, my brother…he lost his fight. Senior year of college.”
He met her glassy eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Battling his PTSD and the guilt over leaving one of his teammates behind had been the hardest fight of Castle’s life. Bad shit had festered in his soul like an infected wound.
I’m the lucky one. For years, he’d repeated the mantra until he finally felt that being alive was a blessing and not a burden. But the ache never went away.
“Losing my brother—and then my mom a year later—left a hole.”
He understood the devastation of not being able to save those you cared about, but she was left with no one. He had his mother, Maddox, the Gray Box and the family it provided. All of whom he kept at arm’s length because when shit happened—as it was always bound to—he could lose them in a blink.
Kit was a kind soul with a big heart. He wished he could ease her grief.
“Is that why you formed the Outliers, to fill the void?”
“Partly. It was also to keep others, gifted like my brother, from being isolated. They spend so much time on their computers, sometimes they forget how important a physical connection is until it’s too late.”
He’d denied himself any kind of real connection for so long he didn’t remember the last time he’d even accepted a hug instead of retreating from one.
“There’s something I haven’t been able to figure out that’s bugging me,” she said. “How did you guys find out about Ever Shield?”
“You must’ve used it, maybe a testing phase. The NSA reported…” He hesitated, not knowing if she was aware Ever Shield had crashed three major surveillance systems, affecting the entire intelligence community. “One of their programs—”
“Boundless Informant?”
He deliberated and made a split-second decision. “Yes. I don’t know the technical jargon. A communications black hole was detected in a digital field they were monitoring. Willow dug into it and found your Outliers in an online forum, bragging about Ever Shield.”
A sadness fell across her face. “I warned them not to breathe a word about the program.” She clicked her tongue. “I don’t know if I love Willow or hate her.”
“You had them create Ever Shield?” After she nodded, he asked, “Why?”
“The government shouldn’t have the right or the ability to invade the privacy of citizens and violate constitutional rights without a warrant. I wanted to do something about it. My guys were brilliant. Ever Shield ended up being bigger and more powerful than I imagined possible.”
She had no idea.
“Until I knew how to use it responsibly,” she said, “I thought it best if we sat on it. Despite what you and your boss might think, I love my country. I’m a patriot, not a terrorist.”
From what he knew of her, everything she said made sense.
Kit went to the fridge and opened it. “Domestic beer. Not surprising.” Bending over, she inspected his produce drawer.
His gaze inched up her long, bare legs—over her surprisingly nice ass—but his vision snagged on a purple bruise on her hip.
She glanced back at him as if to see whether he was staring. Busted!
“See something you like?”
“Please.” He shrugged. “I’m a man. We’re wired to look. Besides, it was your bruise that held my attention. Don’t worry, you’re not my type.”
“And what type is that? A vegetarian?” Kit pursed her sensuous mouth in a pout.
It was a crime against nature to have such an attractive woman in his home and not be able to kiss her. “No. A POI.” He faced the stove. “How did you get all banged up?”
“I fell down the stairs running out of the Lair.”
“Need some painkillers?”
“No. I’m okay.”
He plated the food. She grabbed a cold bottled water and he poured two fingers of Four Roses Single Barrel, offering her a drink, but she declined.
“Is Castle your real name or a nickname? Like Reaper?”
“Real. My dad named Maddox and me after two guys he worked with who saved his life.”
“That’s pretty cool.” She threw a healthy amount of parmesan on her pasta and dug in.
Kit closed her eyes in a dreamy way and a delirious moan escaped her. Followed by another and another with each mouthful like she was having one giant food-gasm.
He gave a low chuckle and glanced at her clean plate. “Did you enjoy that?”
She flashed an oh-yeah smirk but said, “I’m hypoglycemic and was starving. I was wired to moan once food hit my mouth.” Nibbling her lower lip, she dropped her gaze to his cup. “You’re so different than the sort of men I gravitate to. Domestic beer. The gun. Insane muscles. Drinking good bourbon from a red SOLO cup. Calluses. Freight-train personality.”
She had a tongue capable of launching a ballistic attack. The litany of insults left him speechless. Even the bit about his muscles didn’t sound good.
“Not that there’s any gravitation happening here.” She waved a dismissive hand between them, doing another lip nibble that made something in his
chest contract like a fist.
Dammit to hell. She grated on him, but rather than getting ticked, he found it invigorating. No one spoke to him that way, throwing him off-balance. No one.
“I know what you mean,” he said, winding up to dish it back to her as good as she’d served it. “The women I usually have in my home aren’t snooping vegans with high-maintenance personalities. No yoga-obsessed princesses who have piss-poor manners, dismissing people with whatever.”
For a second, he thought he’d gone too far.
“Vegetarian.” Her tongue snaked out, wetting her pink lips. “Not vegan.” She winked, and his center of gravity shifted. “And my doctor has advised me against yoga because of possible joint subluxation. I have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which causes hypermobility.” At the questioning look he pulled on, she added, “It means I’m double-jointed.”
His mind nosedived straight into the gutter. As tempting as the images flooding his head were, now wasn’t the time to indulge in them, but one thing was inescapable.
Kit was big fucking trouble.
She brought his stunted feelings to life, reminding him why he was lucky to be alive. A kick he normally only got from the job. And it had nothing to do with her looks. She was cute but too little for him. Narrow shoulders, small breasts, and slim hips. An almost fragile-looking figure on account of the bruises. Not his usual type.
It was Kit’s quick wit and ballsy spirit that were sucking him in. There was no lack of sparks flying between them, regardless of what lies she told herself or him for that matter.
Then the nuances of her body language clicked together in his head, like lock tumblers falling into place. The lip nibble, playing with her hair, how her eyes went squinty.
Those were her tells when she was lying.
She’d lied about how much she enjoyed the food, her attraction to him…and both times she’d told her story in the Gray Box.
A hot stab of anger sank in his chest, but he ignored it, needing to focus on what part of her story had been untrue. “Why did you go to the Lair on Friday?”
Her shoulders tensed. “What? I already told you.”
“Tell me again.”
“The guys had been working around the clock. As soon as the job was done, I wanted to get rid of Jasper, stop him from creating more problems.”
True.
“Did you know what they were working on?”
If she was complicit with terrorists in any way, he was going to find out right now before he invested more energy and concern.
“No. Not the specifics, but it didn’t feel right. I told them any job for so much money in so little time couldn’t be legal.”
True. But she’d still lied about something. He needed to know what. “When you saw the gun and understood the danger your friends were in, why didn’t you leave and call the police?”
“What’s going on? Why are you interrogating me all of a sudden?”
“Answer me.” His voice was rough even to his own ears, but he was losing his patience.
Her gaze flickered to his weapon on the counter and boomeranged to him. “I was in shock over what was happening. One of the men who had his back to me moved. If I didn’t duck out of the hall, he would’ve seen me once he turned. I slipped into the mainframe room.”
True.
“Then what happened?”
“I thought we had a truce, but I don’t feel like we’re on the same side right now.”
“I want to trust you, Kit, and I want you to trust me, but I need you to answer my questions. After you hid in the mainframe room, what happened?”
“I realized Jasper had given me a message, a way to stop them. I took one of the hard drives.” She dragged the corner of her lip through her teeth, her eyes crinkling in that dodgy way.
Shit. A fucking lie.
A haze of red shrouded his vision, his ears ringing with alarm bells he’d missed before. “Do you even have a hard drive? Or do they only want you dead because you were a witness?”
“What? Probably both.” She stiffened. “I’m certain I have information that can stop them. Or at least help find them. I just need time to decode it.”
That was true, or she believed it to be. “How many hard drives did you take?”
She bounced from slack-jawed surprise to spunky spitfire with triple the zest in a hot flash. “I told you. One.” Another shady squint as she fiddled with her hair.
There it was. “You lied to me!” He slapped his palm on the counter. “You’re a real powder keg. But you’re not going to blow up my career. My ass is on the line. Tell me the truth.”
She gifted him with a stare more stubborn than a mule’s.
“Or I’ll wash my hands of you and Sanborn will assign that hotshot Cutter to protect you.” He paused, letting that sink in. “How many drives did you take?”
Dead, bloated silence settled in the room and it reeked worse than a two-week-old corpse.
He was hot enough to spit bullets. “Good luck with Cutter.” Castle whipped out his cell phone. He hated this course of action, but she’d left him with no other choice.
“Three.” Her gaze fell. “I took three hard drives.”
The unexpected response hit him like a rock between the shoulder blades. His back tightened as he straightened in his seat, looking for signs of deception.
True. “Where are they?”
Her eyes snapped back up at him. “I’m not telling you so you can notify your boss.”
They’d circled back to this: her not trusting him. He would’ve been seething if her suspicion wasn’t justified. Once he got those drives, he was supposed to turn them over to Sanborn. “I don’t like being kept in the dark.”
“Too bad. Don’t cry about it now. We had a deal.”
“That was before I knew you were a damn liar.”
They stared at each other in a standoff. He could almost hear the gears churning in Kit’s brain, sensed her seesawing between further confrontation and confession.
Come on. Make the right choice.
“Thanks for the food. I would’ve been happy with a cheese sandwich, but a homecooked meal was much nicer.” Her undisguised sincerity had him softening against his will, damn it, and he wondered what new game she was playing. “I’m bushed. I need to rest for a few hours.”
She pushed away from the counter and stood.
Did she think she could shut him down? End of discussion?
“Kit-Kat.” The nickname tumbled from his mouth without thinking, and she met his eyes with a disarming smile—those two unfiltered syllables like a door opening in the darkness, illuminating a shred of possibility between them.
It’d been ages since a woman had infuriated and intrigued him. Hell, maybe no woman had ever done both, much less at once.
But this door was better left closed.
“If you don’t keep up your end of our deal, or if you hinder me from doing my job,” he said, his voice fiercer than necessary, “you’ll see a side of me you can’t handle.”
Her smile dissolved and she studied him intently. “I understand. It’s your way or the highway.”
That phrase hit him right in the solar plexus. His father used to say that. My way or the highway. So one day, Castle packed a bag and joined the navy.
He was suddenly ashamed of how he’d spoken to Kit. She was cooperating as much as could be reasonably expected. Nobody was going to put all their cards on the table at once. Building trust was about give and take. The process took time.
“I wouldn’t expect you to risk your career for me, someone you barely know.” She looked exhausted and overwhelmed, like she couldn’t take much more fighting. “I appreciate that you’re taking a chance on me, but this is my life. Help me get the hard drives and I’ll share everything pertaining to the men who killed the Outliers. You can rest assured
of that, Castle.”
The sound of his name on her lips made his gut clench. “I’ll hold you to that. I always get the job done, swiftly, and violently when required. I won’t fail in this.” I can’t.
“Good. Because right now, your job is keeping me safe. Anything I can do to help you stop those men, I will. I have no reason to protect them.”
No, but she had reason to protect the reputation of the Outliers and to cover her own ass.
She turned, leaving the kitchen, and padded up the stairs quiet as a sneaky feline.
Why hadn’t he seen sooner that she was lying?
He knew the answer and didn’t like it. She was under his skin—a grain of sand in an oyster. But Castle had never encountered a problem he couldn’t fix.
14
McLean, Virginia
6:40 p.m. EDT
“Why aren’t you eating?” Doc reached over the restaurant table, the charms on her bracelet tinkling, and held Sanborn’s hand.
It was endearing how she fretted over him, wanting him to enjoy every second they spent together. Her attention was special. It was also unsettling.
No one ever looked after him, not since his ex-wife Penny. His executive assistant didn’t count. Janet was a paid employee.
Sanborn was the one who accounted for everything and everyone, considered all the details, calculated and juggled a gazillion moving pieces, ensured his people were on point, had what they needed to complete the mission and stay safe.
His concern resurfaced over Castle bringing Katherine Westcott into his home. That woman was an element of chaos. Sanborn didn’t want Castle getting too close to her.
“You don’t like the food?” Doc asked, dragging him from his thoughts again.
“The food is delicious.” Tonight was a rare treat, tucked away in a cozy booth with Doc. It’d been weeks since he’d managed to leave the Gray Box early enough to have a real date with her. His job was his life, his cross to bear. “Your choice in restaurant is excellent. As usual.”