But I’d at least showered and had on clean clothes.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“The guys are here. Are you ready?”
No.
“Sure,” I said and opened the door.
Weston was close—he’d been standing right outside the door—but when I’d opened it he got closer. I took two steps back and he continued forward. His bathroom was small so all it took was one more shuffle in retreat and my back was against the wall and suddenly Weston was right there. One hand was on the tile next to my head, the other coming to my chin, lifting it.
Why did I have to like that so much?
His lips came to mine and I liked that more. But when he pushed his tongue in my mouth only to tease me with a quick swipe against mine, I figured I liked that the best. It was different in a playful sort of way. He wasn’t trying to start something but still wanted a taste. I liked that he wanted that. That he didn’t hold back and he showed me.
I also figured that was the real reason I was starting to have feelings for him. It honestly made me feel safe. Something I hadn’t had a whole lot of in my life. Even when I’d thought he was being a jerk, he was being honest, I just didn’t like what he was being honest about.
Weston Beil was real. He was straight. He hid nothing.
And with all of that, I knew where I stood with him. And currently I was standing with his lips pressed against mine wishing no one was downstairs so maybe I could get more of what he gave me yesterday. That being the orgasm, not the sweet stuff he’d told me while we were in bed.
Yep, I was easy. And I didn’t care what Weston had said, I was acting like a slut. I just didn’t care because he felt that good.
“How is it possible that every time I see you I’m shocked at how beautiful you are?”
Weston said that. Straight out. Just came right out and told me I was beautiful.
I was screwed. Heartbreak was in my future. It wasn’t a maybe, it was a definite. And I had a feeling the hole he’d leave would be huge and ugly and probably never heal. I should start my internet searches on cat rescues now, because no one would ever fill the hole he was going to leave. So cats were in my future, too. Lots of them.
“You have to know when you say stuff to me like that it scares me.”
“Why’s that, Silver?” he whispered.
“Because it feels so good, and when you take it away, it’s gonna hurt.”
I watched as Weston’s jaw ticked and with his face this close I couldn’t miss the irritation that flashed in his eyes.
“We’ll see,” he weirdly said.
“See what?”
“When you’re ready to take a chance and believe, I’ll tell you.”
“But—”
“You ready to take that chance?”
“I’m still thinking.”
“You let me know when you’re ready and I’ll explain. If you’re not ready to make that decision in the next thirty seconds, we’ve got people downstairs waiting to talk to us.”
No, I wasn’t ready to make that decision in the next thirty seconds, and maybe not even in the next thirty years. And as much as I didn’t want to talk to Alec and the guys, it was better than standing in Weston’s bathroom, with Weston’s hand still on my face, his thumb gently stroking my cheek, the touch muddling my head. Making me believe we could explore what he was offering. And I wasn’t ready to admit that, so I ignored it. Completely pretended I didn’t already trust him, I just didn’t trust myself.
“Let’s go talk to Alec.”
Instead of being annoyed I was jerking him around, Weston’s lips tipped up. Through a chuckle he mumbled something that sounded like ‘we’ll see’ and dropped his hands and stepped away. I lost his body but he didn’t give me time to ponder all the reasons I wanted it back because he was dragging me out of the room.
He didn’t drop my hand until we made it to the stairs. Part of me wondered if he was embarrassed to touch me in front of the guys but the bigger part of me was grateful.
When we hit the living room all conversation came to a screeching halt and five men swung their eyes in our direction. I felt like a zoo animal under their scrutiny. No one hid it, they were all openly staring at me. Chasin and Holden were smiling. Jameson and Nixon’s expressions were blank, but Alec Hall had a deep frown and he wasn’t hiding that, either. The man was pissed.
Awesome.
“You want coffee?” Weston leaned forward and whispered in my ear. And since he was standing behind me I had the pleasure of feeling his chest against my back. I do not understand why he did this. He wasn’t asking me something private. He also didn’t have to get close.
“Please,” I answered.
Then I understood, because with his lips so close to my ear, all he had to do was turn his face a skosh and he’d be able to kiss my cheek. Which he did. Right in front of everyone and no one missed it.
Alec’s face was the only one that registered the kiss. His scowl remained but he added narrowed eyes.
“Sit and I’ll grab you a cup.”
Weston’s hand went to the small of my back, a light, gentle, yet protective touch I liked a whole bunch. I liked what it said more than the feel of it. He had my back, he wasn’t going to let anything happen to me.
The gesture gave me enough courage to face off against Alec and the rest of the team—reminding me I was Silver Coyle—stubborn, independent, chock-full of attitude.
“Hi, Alec,” I greeted. “Nice to see you.”
The big man’s body jerked and his frown deepened.
“She’s serious with that shit? Hi, Alec. Nice to see you,” Alec scoffed.
I wasn’t sure who he was talking to or if it was anyone specific, but his response pissed me off.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Do you live in an alternate universe or is Weston giving—”
“Don’t go there, brother,” Weston growled.
“Now what does that mean?” I angrily asked.
“It means you bounce into the room, smile on your face, acting like you weren’t locked in the bowels of a yacht packed full of cocaine just yesterday.”
“I didn’t bounce,” I told him.
“Now she’s splitting hairs.”
“Well, I didn’t. And I don’t think I was smiling either. I know where I was yesterday because I was there. I also know that my apartment was trashed and everything I own will be in a dumpster as soon as I can arrange it. What were you expecting? Me to be a slobbering, sobbing, broken mess? That’s not me. Weston and his team got me out, I’m fine, they’re all fine, and my shit can be replaced. But now that you’re being a jerk I’ll recant the ‘nice to see you’ part of my greeting.”
“Glad to see a few hours of captivity did nothing to quell the attitude.”
I gave Alec a dirty look. One I’d hoped would make him cower under the weight of it, but all it did was make him grin and shake his head.
“Handful,” he muttered, then his gaze came to mine and held my eyes. “Glad you’re safe and everything worked out.”
“Me, too. Sorry you had to clean up dead bodies. Weston told me you weren’t happy about that.”
“Dead bodies mean paperwork,” Alec responded.
It struck me then as odd we were talking about human lives that had been lost like one would talk about taking out the trash, and that made me feel funny inside. Heartless. Cruel.
“Hey,” Holden called and I looked over to him. “Don’t do that. Don’t take that on.”
“Take what on?”
“I see it, the guilt starting. Nothing that happened was your fault. The men who lost their lives made their choices. The wrong ones. They were criminals. They were running drugs. And believe me when I tell you, they weren’t feeling bad they had you locked up and they weren’t thinking twice about ending your life. So let that shit go. All of it.”
Holden was right of course, they didn’t feel bad about chaining me up. They didn’t feel bad when th
ey were dragging me out of the wheelhouse either. And one of them did tell me, he was going to kill me and toss me overboard. But I still couldn’t stop thinking about all the ways I’d gotten into that mess in the first place.
Weston came back to my side with a cup of coffee and gestured to the seat. “Sit.”
He set the mug down in front of me and I stared down at the blonde liquid remembering I didn’t tell him how I liked my coffee, yet the light color of it told me he’d gotten it right.
“How did you know how I like my coffee?”
“Watched you make it more than once while we were in DC.”
He had? I was a coffee junkie, therefore he’d have had plenty of opportunities to see me make it. But the fact he’d paid attention enough to remember made my tummy feel funny and butterflies start to flutter.
Butterflies? What was I, ten?
“Thanks,” I mumbled because that was all I could say while Alec and his team were sitting around the big country-style dining room table.
I couldn’t tell Weston that his thoughtfulness filled me with something that was more than joy, more than happiness, so much more I couldn’t find the word. No one had ever paid attention enough to know anything about me. Still to this day, my dad would ask if I wanted Coke or Pepsi when I visited him on his boat and he was stocking up on provisions in preparation for my arrival. The answer to that was neither. I drank Diet Coke in a pinch but preferred iced tea. Always had, even as a kid I’d hated Pepsi.
To sum that up, not even my father paid attention. My mother never cared enough to remember jack shit about me. My coworkers who I spent two weeks at a time with, after years of working with them, still couldn’t remember that I hated Hot Pockets, yet every shift Matt brought them in and offered me one. Every. Damn. Time. And I told him each time I thought they were gross.
So I didn’t know what to say or how to feel that Weston knew how I liked my coffee. Not because he’d asked and I’d told him but because he’d paid attention. But I did know how to feel when Weston’s eyes gentled and he gave me half-a-grin—scared.
He knew what it meant to me and when he reached out and traced the side of my face from my ear to my chin with a single finger before he dropped his hand and walked away, the rest of the room knew, it too. There was no missing it.
“We identified the couriers on the boat. All three men have ties to Jason Scott,” Alec stated.
“And you’ve identified Jason Scott as a captain, correct?” Nixon asked.
“That’s our assumption, he definitely runs a crew. But we’re not ruling him out as being higher on the food chain. Lieutenant’s a possibility but there’s no way he’s the leader.”
“Why’s that?” I blurted out, and when everyone’s eyes came to mine I wished I’d kept my mouth shut.
“Because Jason Scott is careless. He runs his crew sloppy. He makes calls on his cell to his soldiers. He travels to his drops using the same route every time. A man running a multi-million dollar drug ring isn’t stupid and he sure as fuck isn’t careless,” Alec told me. “We’ve tagged every man in his crew. Something new we found was one of the men was talking to Avon Chapman. Avon’s been on our radar because of his connection to Jason.”
I knew that name, Avon Chapman, I just couldn’t remember where I’d heard it.
“Why do I know that name?” I asked.
“Because he’s on the news regularly. He’s part of a community revitalization project for the Inner Harbor.”
Holy shit, Alec was right. That’s where I’d seen the man. I didn’t watch TV regularly and avoided the news when I was home, but it was on nonstop when I was on shift. It drove me crazy, but since everyone else liked to watch it I kept quiet.
“So this is…”
“Bigger than we thought?” Alec interrupted me. “Yeah, it is. We got community leaders wrapped up with known drug dealers. Which means shit has gotten complicated. DHS is trying to keep this under wraps. The second the Baltimore mayor gets word, we’re all fucked. The DEA will be brought in and the mayor will want city police and the drug task force brought in, too. There will be so many hands in my operation it will be fucked. So that brings us to you.”
“To me?”
“Someone was looking for something when they trashed your apartment and car—”
“My car?”
“Fuck,” Weston clipped and my gaze went to him.
This just kept getting better and better. A bad stench that lingered in the air, and no matter how many windows you opened it just wouldn’t go away. If my car looked like my apartment I was officially shit out of luck. I had decent savings, money I’d stashed away for a rainy day, some retirement accounts I could draw from, though I’d take a huge hit withdrawing money early. I could slowly replace my furniture and not have to touch my retirement. But I couldn’t do that and buy a new car.
I wondered if my insurance would cover an act of vandalism due to drug dealers ransacking my vehicle looking for something that wasn’t there.
Fuck me sideways.
“Babe.” Weston’s single word filled my ears and I closed my eyes.
It wasn’t what he’d said, it was the tone in which he’d said it. Caring, gentle, tender. I couldn’t deal with him being sweet.
Not now. And probably not tomorrow either.
California sounded good—maybe I’d pack up and move and get away from all of this.
13
Weston watched Silver’s face crumble and he wanted to kick Alec’s ass for blurting out that her car was fucked, then his own for not warning her.
He had no excuse, there’d been time after he kissed her but before they’d gone to sleep. He’d had time after Nix had texted to tell her that the meeting had been changed to the house instead of the office.
Instead, he’d found the time to ask her more about growing up on a boat and answer her questions about his Navy basic training. There had been plenty of opportunities, none of which he’d taken because he’d wanted her relaxed.
It was a little bit selfish but in the end, he’d made the decision not to tell her. He told himself he was trying to protect her, and he was, but more than that he liked the way she was cuddled to his side. Stress-free and compliant.
He was an ass and now Silver had been blindsided.
“Your car isn’t bad,” Weston told her.
Hurt flashed before she asked, “You knew?”
“I did,” he confirmed. “Holden told me last night.”
She nodded. Then as if remembering last night’s activities in the kitchen and the fact he’d come back upstairs with her clothes in hand, her eyes widened and her cheeks pinked. She knew Chasin and Holden had seen the clothes.
“Your purse and duffle are on the couch,” Holden informed Silver. “You’ll need to go through them and see if anything’s missing. And the car’s fine, other than your stuff being dumped out of the glove compartment and center console. I drove it to a friend of ours, Thompson. He’s gonna dust it and check it for hair and fibers. He should be done by tomorrow and I’ll go pick it up for you.”
Last night Holden hadn’t explained that he’d already taken it to Thompson’s place. He was a friend of Nixon’s we’d used in the past. They’d gone to school together and now the man worked as an independent forensic expert.
“Thanks,” Silver mumbled.
“Not sure there’s much to save but when this is done, if you wanna go through your apartment we’ll all be there with you,” Chasin added. “If you don’t wanna go back in, we’ll handle the dumpster so you don’t have to.”
“You don’t—”
“Silver, between the five of us it will take an hour, tops. And even if it took three weeks we’d still do it.”
Weston had always known he had great friends—the best. Men that he’d always thought of more like brothers. He’d never doubted Chasin, Holden, Nixon, and Jameson’s loyalty, never doubted they’d risk their lives for him, but hearing Chasin extend that to Silver made him all that mor
e grateful to have them at his back—and now at hers.
He was also thankful Holden and Chasin had immediately engaged, taking her mind away from any embarrassment. Yes, they’d seen the clothes, yes they were both smart men, yes they’d known something had gone down between Weston and Silver. But they were not the type of men to be dicks to a woman with the sole purpose of being a dick.
“How well do you know the men you work with?” Alec asked, bringing the conversation back to why he’d traveled all the way from DC for a sit-down.
“Not well,” Silver admitted and looked self-conscious. “I mean, I know surface stuff. We talk. Sometimes after our rotations are over we’ll all go grab a beer together, but I wouldn’t really call them friends.”
Weston tried to tamp down the jealous knot that tightened in his gut. It was irrational and unnecessary. Silver had let all that shit hang out last night, admitting she hadn’t had very many lovers. Not that Weston needed to be told, but she’d confirmed all the same. The moment she was in his arms, he’d known. Her touch had been tentative at first, clumsy, not knowing where to put her hands. Her inexperience had been a turn-on, but if that hadn’t been enough, when he’d slid his fingers into her tight sheath, his cock damn near exploded at the snug fit.
It had even crossed his mind, there was a possibility she was a virgin. Not that he concentrated on that thought too long, when his fingers were working her pussy and she was grinding down trying to take more.
“What can you tell us?” Alec’s question pulled Weston from his dirty memories and he watched Silver as she squirmed in her seat.
“What do you want to know?” she returned, obviously uncomfortable with everyone’s attention on her.
“You’re an observant woman, Silver.” Alec pointed out. “Does anything stand out? Something one of them has said, done, any changes in circumstances, cagy behavior, withdrawn. Anything.”
“Well, Gary’s wife just had a baby—their first. He seems excited but stressed about being a new dad. Jumpy every time his phone rings. He takes way more calls than the rest of us because his wife is seriously nervous about being a mom. Therefore she calls him like three hundred times a day. Matt’s single, lives on his boat, keeps to himself mostly. Rodger’s married, a chill kind of guy, always upbeat. Leonard’s divorced, his oldest daughter’s sick. He doesn’t talk about it much but I know the medical bills are killing him. He sold his boat and his motorcycle to pay for her treatment. His ex is kinda bitchy, she comes around sometimes. He meets her in the parking lot and is in a seriously bad mood when he comes back into the boathouse. My boss Travis is a nice guy. Smart, jovial, understanding but still demanding. He expects everyone to be the best they can be.” Silver stopped and shrugged her shoulders. “Those are the guys I work with the most. There’s another crew and I’ve filled in with them when someone’s been sick or needed time off, but I don’t know them really.”
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