I raked his body with my gaze, keeping my anger front and center. “That’s false advertising.”
His grin made my knees threaten to give out. In a suit and tie and looking all civilized, he’d been potent. Now, with every muscle highlighted by tight clothes and his charm focused a hundred percent on me? He was devastating, damn it.
Not that he needed to know that. He didn’t need any more ammunition against me—this bizarre, blindsiding attraction was already making me weak. And weakness was unacceptable.
“Nothing about this”—Eli gestured down his delectable body, and I had to fight not to look again—“is false advertising, Beautiful.”
I could feel the flush creeping up my cheeks, the mottled red that took over as my temper threatened to get the better of me. “My name,” I gritted out, “is Nix.”
He leaned close enough that I could taste mint and something sweet on my tongue. I’d never had a sweet tooth, not like Maris, but now Eli’s essence was right there, filling my nose, my mouth, tempting me to take him all the way in...
“Mikaela.”
My gaze dropped to his lips, watched them form the syllables of my given name. The boiling mass that was my anger narrowed, compacted, pushed down my body to settle like fire in my lower belly. That heat, that need made me reckless.
I leaned closer, defying him, defying myself. “You’re cocky, aren’t you?”
The amber of his eyes warmed to brown as he smiled down at me. I flinched when his fingertips slid across my cheek to tuck the hair that had escaped from my ponytail back behind my ear, leaving a trail of tingles along my skin. “It’s not cocky if it’s the truth, Mikaela.”
I suddenly had the feeling he was very much right. For one brief instant I could feel myself leaning forward, moving in, craving the taste of that mouth. Wanting to know his truth intimately, no matter how dangerous it might be.
And the next I was reeling back, eyes wide, heart in my throat. Without a backward glance, I scrambled into the truck.
Retreating. Like a coward.
Round one to the playboy.
He got another point for hopping into the Humvee without crowing over my stupid actions—giving in or withdrawing, either one. The dog joined us, taking the middle of the bench seat but sticking close to Eli still. He eyed me, his dark brown gaze seeming curious despite the space he kept between us.
I don’t mind you either, dog. Just keep your master away from me and we’ll be fine.
My tongue tied itself in a knot as Eli steered the Humvee toward the gates. Tension rode the air, growing and growing until I felt like one word would snap me in two. I’d expected Eli to be a chatterbox given the fact that he never seemed to stop digging into me, but instead the man sat quietly, completely at ease, his body relaxed as he drove onto the main road. I found myself staring at his hands on the wheel, remembering the calluses I’d felt as his fingers brushed gently over my cheek. What would those fingers feel like on other, more sensitive areas of my body? On my breasts? My inner thighs? My...
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I hissed under my breath.
“Problem?” Eli asked, his amused glance irritating me even more.
“Why would there be a problem?”
Eli shrugged. “Just seems to be the norm when I’m with you,” he said helpfully. I narrowed my eyes, hoping he would heed the warning. “I’m thinking we need to find a way to help you work off some of that frustration.”
I snorted. “Got a boxing ring?”
The amusement slid from his face, replaced by something much darker, more intense. “Whatever you need, Beautiful, I’ll provide.”
“Would you stop that?” I snapped.
I was becoming a shrew. It wasn’t a good look on me, but I couldn’t help it—the flirting had to stop.
“Stop what?” he asked. Up ahead, our SUV sat on the side of the road, waiting. Eli flashed his lights, a welcome of sorts, as he approached. “Being nice?”
“Yes!” I rubbed my eyes, wishing I could get rid of the ache behind them. “Stop being”—I struggled for the right word—“this!”
Passing the SUV, Eli maneuvered into a three-point turn and brought us to a stop behind the other vehicle. He turned the key in the ignition, then shifted in the seat to face me over the dog’s head. The intense look was back, subverting the flirty playboy, and with it was the faintest hint of vulnerability, of confusion, as if he didn’t quite know what to say. So he didn’t. We sat in silence for a minute, long enough that Titus got out of the SUV and started to walk toward us.
Eli’s amber gaze flicked to Titus, then to me. Meeting those eyes sent a frisson of need down my spine.
“I think,” he finally said, his gaze burrowing deep into my soul, “that I’d do just about anything for you, Mikaela, but stopping isn’t one of them. I—”
The thump of Titus’s fist on my window shattered the moment. Eli’s lips went tight as he turned to get out of the truck. I opened my door.
“Everything okay?” Titus asked, his gaze hard on Eli as the younger man rounded the Humvee.
“It’s fine,” I said. Gesturing Maris out of the SUV, I waved in Eli’s general direction without daring to meet his eyes. “This is Eli Agozi. Eli, Titus Webster.”
The two men didn’t shake hands, I noticed. Eli extended his when Maris joined us.
“My sister, Maris Nixon.”
Maris’s smile was genuine in the way only Maris could be. “Hello.”
I expected Eli to say something flirty, to charm my sister the way he’d tried to charm me. He didn’t. His look was friendly, his handshake firm, but there was none of the intensity he apparently reserved only for me. Not sure which of us was the lucky girl there—the man irritated me, but I couldn’t deny my relief when he didn’t seem equally, or possibly more, fixated on Maris. She was beautiful, after all.
She was also his age.
“We’re going to the house,” I said, then nodded toward the SUV. “Follow us up?”
Titus raised his cell for us to see. “Still no signal?”
“No.” I shot Eli a frown. “Probably not anytime soon.” Which should worry me—if we were separated, we had no way to contact each other. I’d have to make sure we stayed together, but in the enemy camp—if that’s what this was—that was the best strategy anyway.
Titus was thinking hard, I could tell. Meeting his eyes, I tried to get him to understand we’d fill him in later, on our own terms. And I didn’t use our safe word, the one that would tell him I was in trouble. When he gave me a short nod, I knew he got my message.
“Let’s go then,” he said. “Sooner the better.”
“Maris, want to ride with us?” I asked. Anything for a buffer between Eli and me. Even five minutes in the Humvee alone was more than I could handle right now.
“Sure.”
We settled in, and Eli pulled around our SUV to lead the way back.
“What’s the dog’s name?” Maris asked Eli, gesturing to where he sat on the floorboard, his nose close to Eli’s leg as if he needed some part of them touching no matter the obstacles.
The glance Eli gave the creature could only be described as proud. I mean, the dog was nothing special, handsome in his own way but without any clear breed. Not bulky like a rottweiler, but maybe a lab or Doberman or possibly shepherd mix, given the length of his hair. And yet Eli’s expression as he stared at his pet, indulgent and affectionate, was almost as potent as a man making goo-goo eyes at a baby. I could feel the knot of irritation literally dissolve in my belly as something warmer and much more powerful took its place.
“This is Diesel.”
At the sound of his name, Diesel thumped his tail against my foot. Maris put out her hand, palm up, and the dog gave it a sniff and a lick.
My sister’s laugh filled the truck, and she patted Diesel on the head. “So I figured after the e-mail this morning, things would move fast, but not this fast,” she said. “What gives?”
“What e-mail?” Eli asked
, his voice rough.
Maris turned to me, wide eyes telling me she hadn’t intended to reveal a secret. But honestly, how long could we conceivably go without giving the Agozi brothers a deadline? Apparently they hadn’t received one of their own.
“X contacted us again this morning,” I told Eli, patting Maris’s thigh unobtrusively to let her know things were okay. “We have seventy-two hours to move on the target, or...”
I watched Eli’s knuckles go white on the steering wheel as I trailed off. “Or what?”
“Or our information gets passed on to the appropriate authorities.” He already knew what that information was, so why keep the consequences a secret?
A rough curse escaped him, and the Humvee picked up speed immediately. I gripped the handle above the passenger door. “Eli—”
“You should’ve told us we were in a hurry,” he said, and I knew the words were directed at me.
“I don’t know you,” I reminded him, even though the truth was I’d simply not thought to share that information yet. I’d been busy meeting with the enemy, then bringing my team back together. And getting tied up in knots over a mercenary playboy.
“You’ll know me well enough when this is all over,” he muttered under his breath, clear enough for both Maris and me to catch. Her expression when she turned to me was half amusement, half shock. I couldn’t exactly explain to her what I didn’t understand myself, so I shrugged instead.
And kept my mouth shut. What the hell could I say, anyway? Nothing that made sense of this, that was for damn sure.
Chapter Fourteen
Levi —
Impatience ate at me as we waited for Eli to return. The rest of Nix’s team refused to strategize without her here, so I’d left them to stew while Remi and I went over what data Eli had collected on Bram Sullivan and X so far. But in the back of my mind was the knowledge that Abby could return at any minute from her “important appointment” that I’d known nothing about. I wanted things secure, wanted to know she was safe when she got back to me, and right now the gnawing in my gut didn’t say “safe.”
“Incoming,” Remi said from his spot in front of the computer.
“About damn time,” I growled.
Monty and Rhys rose from the couch they’d taken residence on, moving to the door to await their crew. Remi stood next to me, waiting. Watching.
“There’s not enough in those files to find X,” Remi said under his breath, just loud enough for me to hear.
“Not yet.” But yet could take a while. “We’re outnumbered.” My brain told me to trust my instincts, to trust my brothers’ instincts, but my gut... Damn it, nothing was trustworthy if it meant Abby was in danger. And I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off, something I needed to uncover and root out before it got anywhere close to her.
A beep sounded from the computer, and Remi glanced that way. “Abby’s home,” he whispered.
Time’s up. “I don’t think—”
Eli burst through the back door, anger slashing across his face. “We need to kidnap Bram Sullivan.”
“What?”
The word echoed from every corner of the room as if all of us had suddenly lost the connection between our ears and brains. Eli ignored the questions, crossing the room straight to us, bypassing Nix’s crew. “We need Sullivan,” he repeated. “Mikaela received an e-mail this morning threatening them with a seventy-two-hour deadline.”
I cursed under my breath. Remi’s cursing was louder.
Eli stopped at the end of the conference table to grip the back of a chair, his face hard, intent. So unlike him, even in the middle of an op. I hadn’t missed the way he refused to call Nix by her nickname. At first I’d thought it was just an irritation, a way to throw her off her game. Now I had to wonder...
“Isn’t that their problem?” I barked. My woman was upstairs. Our family mattered. Eli’s priorities had shifted with the dog; were they shifting more?
The look he leveled on me answered the question loud and clear—those eyes were shooting daggers, and the only one receiving that look should be X, not his family.
“It’s our problem if Bram gets taken out by someone else,” he said. “X has a minimum of two teams; who’s to say he doesn’t have more? And what happens to the teams who don’t accomplish what he wants?”
Remi rubbed his jaw, obviously considering the argument. I opened my mouth to shoot it down, but a buzz in my back pocket distracted me. A quick glance at my cell said Abby was texting me. I slid it back into my pocket, promising I’d check it as soon as I set my little brother straight.
“As much as it might seem self-serving,” Nix said, stepping up beside Eli, “I have to go with your brother here. None of us want the exposure X has threatened.”
“He gave you the deadline, though, not us,” Remi pointed out. His tone made it a question.
Rhys moved to the other side of the conference table and mimicked Eli’s pose, intentionally or not. “Maybe he’s given up on y’all, figures you won’t do the job and wants to make sure we do.”
Which meant the intel X had on us could go live any second. If Rhys was right.
The tall, long-haired blond I knew was Titus Webster joined us, along with Maris, Nix’s sister. I gave the man a once-over, remembering their background and confirming he would be just as deadly as the other two in a fight.
My phone buzzed again. Remi looked at me, but I shook my head.
I locked my gaze on Nix. “Why not just kill him?”
I knew our reasoning, our principles, but not theirs—and I wanted to hear them. When Eli opened his mouth to respond, my warning look shut his mouth.
Nix narrowed her eyes. “Because as far as we’ve been able to gather, the man hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“Aside from some horrible choices in onesies,” Monty added in, one eyebrow quirked. Maris grinned.
“True,” Nix said, the corners of her mouth tipping up the slightest bit. “And even if he had done something wrong, he’s the only lead we have on X. If we don’t cut this off at the head, he’ll use whatever he’s got against us indefinitely, and you know it, Levi.”
She might be lying, just saying what she thought I wanted to hear. But she wasn’t wrong. My brothers and I had already had the same discussion privately.
“So we—”
Another buzz from my phone cut me off, making my heart kick up a notch. Abby knew if I didn’t answer immediately, I was doing something important. She might send a follow-up text, but she wouldn’t send three. I pulled my phone out again. Clicked to open my texts.
And dropped my phone on the conference table after reading them.
“Levi?”
Eli’s voice came from far off. I was vaguely aware of him rounding the table, of Remi picking up my phone, but I was in too much shock to respond. So much shock I actually clutched my stomach, the pain of a gut punch, and turned away from the table, giving my enemy my back for the first time in my adult life.
There had been two calm requests for me to come upstairs. Very calm. Very brief. Then:
I’m pregnant, I’m spotting, and they’re putting me on bed rest. Get the FUCK up here now!
Holy shit. I’m pregnant. “She’s—”
Remi’s hand on my arm stopped the words from escaping. I forced myself to focus, to think, to—
“What is it?” Eli asked.
Rather than saying it out loud, Remi handed over the phone, his expression telling Eli to keep the info to himself. Then Remi turned to me.
“Go now,” he said firmly, that tone a brick wall against any objections I might have. “We’ll handle things here, and I’ll keep you advised, I promise. Go.” He pulled his own phone out. “I’m calling Leah right now.”
Eli was cursing under his breath, pacing with my phone in his hand.
“Is everything all right?” Nix asked. I was in too much shock to tell if her question was genuine, and apparently my brothers weren’t going to make the decision for m
e, because Remi barked out, “It’s personal,” shutting the door on any further inquiries.
He gave me a shove. “Get the fuck up there.”
I turned without a backward glance, racing for the stairs. Fuck the elevator, I wasn’t waiting. Trusting my brothers to watch my back like they always had, I rushed upstairs to Abby.
Pregnant. Holy shit, she was pregnant.
And then the rest of her message knocked me upside the head. For how long?
The thought had me stumbling on the concrete stairs up to the first floor. A shard of pain shot through my knee as it hit the edge of the next step, but I ignored it. Ignored everything but getting to her as fast as humanly possible.
When I reached our bedroom, the door was wide open. I could see Abby’s tiny form huddled in the middle of the bed, her shoes still on, purse still clutched close, her body shaking so much I saw it from yards away. I was across the room in the next breath.
“Abby?”
I rounded the bed, needing to see her face, needing to know she was all right. But she wasn’t, was she? How could she be?
Her cheeks were flushed red, her eyes squeezed tight against the tears tracking down her face. I knelt beside her, reached for one tightly balled hand pressing against her chest.
“Abby? I’m here, little bird. I’m here. Look at me.”
She shook her head, and a sob racked her body.
I could think of a thousand dumbass demands to make, a thousand questions to ask—but I didn’t. I kicked off my shoes instead. Pulled Abby’s off. Set her purse on the floor. Then crawled onto the bed and pulled her resisting form into my arms.
“Don’t!”
I palmed the fists banging against my chest, gripped the back of her neck, and threw a leg over her lower body. Tucked her in close. “Shh. Shhh.”
“No!” She struggled against me, getting nowhere. “I needed you,” she cried. “I needed you, and you weren’t there.”
For a stupid moment I found myself wondering why she hadn’t told me—and then my brain kicked in and I knew why. Because I hadn’t been around. Because over and over I’d walked out to deal with my own ridiculous shit, shit that didn’t matter anymore. But those nightly decisions had put Abby at risk.
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