“Did anyone violate you?” His question took me off-guard and it took me a moment to understand.
“Are you asking me if I was raped?”
“Yes, sweetheart, that’s what I’m asking.” His tone was gentle and his voice just above a whisper.
“No, and no one tried.”
Kyle nodded but his features were unreadable.
“You wanna try to get some sleep? We have about four hours until we have to get ready to go to the airport.”
“You okay?” I inquired.
“No. And since we’re starting what’s happening between us off with complete honesty, I’ll tell you straight up, I boarded that boat knowing I was going to end every man’s life aboard. I felt no remorse in doing so. Had I known the details, I wouldn’t have made it as painless for them as I did. And here’s some more honesty for you, I wasn’t feeling all that generous seeing as the woman who’d captured my attention had been kidnapped, so I didn’t go easy.”
I was speechless. I couldn’t form words as I tried and failed to process what he’d told me. Never had anyone ever been on my side, cared about my safety, protected me. No one, not ever, so I didn’t know how to process that, either. I couldn’t begin to understand how it was possible this big, strong, good-looking man would drop everything to come to my aid. I just knew it felt good he had. I knew it felt like my heart was beating out of my chest and I didn’t want this feeling to go away.
“I don’t know what to say,” I finally spoke.
“Nothin’ to say. But you also should know what you’re getting into with me. My job takes me lots of places, dangerous places, where dangerous men mean to do others harm. It’s my mission to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“I assumed that was the case,” I whispered.
“Assuming and knowing are two very different things. Can you handle that?”
“Knowing what you do for a living? Yes. Knowing that you’ll be facing off with dangerous men? That part will scare me, but I think I can handle it.”
Maybe. Kind of. Sort of. The thought of Kyle putting himself in danger scared the hell out of me, but it was who he was. Hadn’t he just done that very thing to rescue me? It was a huge part of why I admired him. What attracted me to him, his bravery, his willingness to help those who couldn’t help themselves. I understood that calling. I appreciated it. And as much as it freaked me out, I’d do my best to handle it.
“Thank you for your honesty.” Kyle brought our hands to his lips and he kissed my fingers.
“Do you feel it, too?” I blurted out.
“Yeah, sweetheart, I do.”
Thank God he understood what I was asking because I wasn’t sure if I was questioning the intense connection I felt, or the sparks when he did something as simple as kiss my hand.
“This feels like more than getting to know each other,” I told him.
“It does,” he confirmed. “And I have to tell you I’m pleased as fuck you see it that way. It’d suck if I was the only one feeling it.”
What man says that?
I thought men were supposed to hide their feelings.
“What happens after tomorrow?”
“We go back to Maryland and figure things out.”
“Is that where you live?”
It was so totally bizarre that Kyle and I had had a conversation about sex and what sounded like to me starting a relationship, yet I didn’t even know where he lived. Hell, I didn’t know much about him, period. But strangely I knew all the important stuff. I knew he’d drop everything he was doing if I needed help. I knew he was honest and trustworthy. I knew he had a heart for service and he was humble about it. I knew he was kind and gentle and was willing to put up with all my crazy. That was good enough for me for now.
“At the moment, yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ve spent the last few years overseas. There was no point in paying for a house or apartment when I wasn’t going to use it. So I don’t have one.”
How did I forget about that? My eyes drifted closed and my heart started to hurt. He travelled for work. I travelled with the Peace Corps. How would a relationship work? Phone calls? Emails? Long distance and time between us? I didn’t like that thought at all.
“Maybe—”
“Don’t say it, Anaya. We’ll work it out. Headquarters is based in Maryland and I’m stateside now. The contract we were working is done and Zane, my boss, knows the team doesn’t want to spend another two years in the sandbox.’
“Earlier you said there were issues with your job.”
“Told you about Harry Landry and his ties to Omni,” Kyle started and I nodded because I remembered. It still freaked me out that a man who’d made a large donation to NCMEC was actually a sex trafficker. “Right before you and I met, the team was finishing a mission. Emerson, who is married to one of my teammates, Thad, was kidnapped and taken to Mexico. After we rescued her, we found a note threatening the company if we didn’t pull back.”
“And these Omni people are the ones that threatened you?”
“Yes. Not just my team, who’d been tracking them, the company as a whole. The note mentioned some of the wives.”
“You didn’t want to bring me into the middle of that?”
It doesn’t sound like I want to be in the middle of that mess.
“I won’t lie to you, these men are seriously fucked-up. Their reach is far and wide and we only know the half of it. But, and this is the part you need to trust me on, we will not let anything happen to you. I won’t let anything happen. That was why I thought I was making the right decision letting you go, told you I was wrong about that. I’m not perfect, I fuck up, but I never make the same mistake twice. You have a choice; we can stash you away in a safehouse until this is over or you can trust me to keep you safe and stay with me. But you have to know, the endgame is the same. We’re gonna explore what’s between us. We can continue that now, or hit the pause button and wait. Either way, I’m not letting you go.”
“A safehouse?” I whispered.
“We have many. You’d be completely cut off from the outside world and guarded twenty-four-seven.”
“But you wouldn’t be that guard?”
“No.”
Kyle said I had a choice, but I didn’t. Not really. I didn’t want to be locked away in a safehouse somewhere without him. I wanted to explore a relationship with Kyle. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t waste another opportunity, and a safehouse, while it may’ve been the smarter of the two options, felt a lot like hiding. Something I’d done too much of.
“I wanna stay with you.”
“Yeah?” He sounded surprised and I didn’t like it.
“If you say you’ll keep me safe, I trust you.”
His body relaxed and his eyes had gone lazy. The new look made him incredibly sexy. A look I wanted more of—a lot more.
I tried to stifle a yawn but Kyle saw it. He rolled to the side, hit the little switch near the nightstand, plunging the hotel room into darkness, and rolled back to me.
“Get some sleep, sweetheart.”
I wanted to verify he wasn’t going to leave but I refrained. Kyle had promised to keep me safe and I knew down to my soul, he’d keep that promise. So really there was no need to ask; I knew he’d stay beside me.
I closed my eyes and tried to go to sleep but my mind wouldn’t shut off. In a few hours I was going back to the States with a man I desperately wanted to get to know better. A man who scared me shitless because I knew if things didn’t work out, I’d be crushed. And it was only a matter of time before he realized I was too fucked-up to fix. I talked a big game about wanting to move forward, about wanting to be normal, but the truth was, I wasn’t brave. Not when it came to my demons. They always won.
“Take a chance, Anaya,” Kyle whispered in the darkness. “I swear I won’t let you fall.” But I would fall, I already was. “Be brave and jump, sweetheart.”
He tightened his grip on my hand an
d I squeezed back. A nonverbal agreement I hoped like hell I would survive.
Chapter 16
We’d made the long journey back to Maryland.
As soon as we’d hit altitude, I let go of the breath I’d been holding. Last night as I laid in the darkness next to Anaya, I’d been afraid she was going to change her mind and decide being with me wasn’t worth the risk. I’d been stupid and almost lost her once. I didn’t think I could handle it happening again, especially after she’d admitted she felt the same way I did. There was something between us that was worth exploring and I was willing to pull out all the stops to make sure that happened.
The first half of the plane ride, Anaya and I had talked. Most of the conversation had been innocuous. Favorite books and movies. Places she liked to go in San Diego. We waxed poetic about both of us being in the same city for years and had never run into each other. How different would my life have been if I’d met her when I was stationed in Coronado? Would I have recognized then that Anaya Baker would be the woman to crawl under my skin? Or would I’ve been too young and dumb to accept what my heart was telling me? By the end of our conversation, I was grateful I hadn’t met her back then—neither of us had been ready for the other.
But now I was ready. More than ready. Not only did I welcome the knowledge; I was ready to fight to keep her in my life.
Anaya had looked shell-shocked when Brooks, Thad, and Max had picked us up from the airport. She’d taken one look at the three overly large men and had stepped closer to me. I can’t deny that it felt good, her looking to me for protection.
The team hadn’t missed her reaction even if she’d immediately tried to hide it. Pride swelled in my chest when she stood tall next to me and offered her hand in greeting. For a woman who didn’t think she was brave, who had admitted she’d gone years without so much as a handshake, she sure was courageous.
We’d all piled into the SUV and gone straight to the Z Corps office in downtown Annapolis. During the drive Anaya sat between Dec and me, and with her hand firmly in mine, she’d engaged the team in conversation. I was grateful they hadn’t brought up what had happened in Timor-Leste. If she wanted to talk about it with them, she’d bring it up.
Brooks pulled into the parking structure and I glanced around at all the cars occupying the reserved parking for Z Corps.
“Who’s in today?” I asked.
“Full house,” Max returned.
“The women?”
“Seriously? You even need to ask.”
Fuck, shit, and goddamn.
Brooks cut the engine and we all piled out.
“You guys go ahead and go up. I need to talk to Anaya a minute.”
The team all nodded, except for Max. He was staring at Anaya and I didn’t like how he was eyeing her with suspicion. Such was his way—he and Declan were neck-and-neck in the trust department. Meaning, neither trusted outsiders, and to Max, Anaya was an unwelcomed stranger.
Declan passed by Max and slapped him on the shoulder twice and gestured toward the exit. Max followed, but not before his gaze swung to mine and his eyes narrowed. Something Anaya wouldn’t miss because he didn’t want her to.
Shit, fuck, goddamn.
I waited for the team to disappear and turned to Anaya. Her back was ramrod straight and fear danced in her eyes.
I needed to shut this shit down before she closed down.
“Anaya, look at me.” My gaze went from the exit to mine. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”
“Why doesn’t Max like me?”
“It’s not you,” I sighed. “Max has serious trust issues. Actually, issues don’t begin to cover it. He’ll come around. In the meantime, ignore him. I wanted to warn you, there’s gonna be a lot of people in the office. Not only all the men, but their women, too.”
“Okay.” Her brows pulled together.
“The women are…” Anaya stiffened, misreading my pause. “They’ll mean well but they’re gonna swarm around you.”
“What? Why?”
“Because they all know what happened in Timor-Leste. They’ll want to make sure you’re okay. They know you mean something to me so they’ll also want to feel you out. But mostly they’re gonna want to make sure you feel welcome. They’ll just be pushy when they go about that.”
“They know?” she whispered.
“Sweetheart, when you went missing it was a companywide effort to find you. With Omni looming over our heads, the women are in the office every day and their husbands don’t keep shit from them. Which means they know you were taken. They don’t know anything about your past and they won’t, not unless you feel like sharing. With that said, if you wanna share, you won’t find a better group of women to have your back.”
“I mean something to you?”
Anaya didn’t miss much and I didn’t think she’d allow my admission to go unquestioned.
“Hell, yeah you do. What is it you think we’re doing here?”
“I guess I just don’t understand how I could mean anything to you when we just met.”
“That makes two of us. But I’m not questioning it and I’m not fighting it.”
On that thought, I slowly brought my hands up to cup her cheeks and leaned down to brush my lips against hers. I was desperate to really kiss her. Wet, deep, and thorough. But I tamped down the urge knowing the parking garage was not the right place to push her.
When I straightened, her eyes were hazy, and fuck I wanted to see that look more often. Preferably when we were alone where I could test her boundaries, or rather after I’d tested those boundaries and she was lying satisfied in my arms. I bet that look would be even better—way fucking better.
Slow and steady wins the race.
And I definitely planned on winning.
“You ready to go up?” I asked.
Her entire being transformed right in front of me and I smiled. “Of course I am.”
There was the Anaya I first met.
At the time, I hadn’t known her confidence was laced with a healthy dose of fortitude. That just under the surface lay fear she worked hard to overcome, and every time I witnessed her conquer it, I had the urge to kiss the hell out of her. Tell her I was so proud of her. Tell her I was impressed with her tenacity.
So fucking strong.
“Then let’s go up. But if at any time it gets to be too much for you, let me know.”
“You’re handling me again,” she snapped.
“No,” I denied. “I’m telling you, I have your back. And when we get upstairs, you’ll get it.”
I led us out of the garage and into the front door of Z Corps. Ivy was noticeably missing from the front desk where she spent most of her day. Zane’s wife had taken over most of the duties his old personal assistant, Rena, had performed and then some, but Ivy refused to work in the office next to her husband, and no one in their right mind would refer to Ivy as Zane’s assistant. She preferred to do her work at the front desk, work that consisted of running the company so Zane didn’t have to.
I keyed in the code to unlock the front door and walked us through the empty reception area to another door and stopped. I placed my fingers on the biometric scanner and entered my eight-digit code, once accepted the lock clicked and I pushed open the door.
Our footsteps echoed in the hallway leading us to the elevator and when we stopped, I placed my face in front of the retinal scanner and waited.
“Where are you taking me, Area 51?” Anaya muttered beside me.
The elevator door slid open and I motioned for her to precede me.
“There’s one more security checkpoint,” I informed her.
“Seriously?”
We stepped out into another hallway and I repeated the processes, waiting for my fingerprints to be logged.
“The information we deal with could be catastrophic if it fell into the wrong hands. And the clients Zane meets with in the office require a certain level of privacy and protection.”
“Who does he meet with, the
president?” She giggled.
Damn, I liked that sound. And after I waited for the feeling to finish ricocheting through me, I thought about her comment. She’d hit the nail on the head with her off-handed remark. Not only did Zane meet with the president, Tom Anderson was a close friend of his. I wondered what Anaya’s reaction to Erin Anderson-Doyle would be. My teammate Colin’s wife was the president’s daughter.
Guess I’ll find out soon enough. Erin was in the building along with all the other women.
I pushed open the door, entering Z Corps’ inner sanctum, and Anaya stopped walking.
“Holy shit,” she muttered.
I followed her gaze around the room. Several doors opened to private offices and a large command room was enclosed in smart glass. This room housed all the surveillance monitors and was supervised twenty-four seven. In the middle was a maze of cubicles with high-tech work stations. Zane had spared no expense. All clean lines with gray walls and chrome accents. The space was enormous and impressive. It was also bustling with people.
All of whom stopped what they were doing to face us.
Zane straightened from the table he was bent over and started in our direction. I could feel the waves of nervousness coming from Anaya but she made no move.
“Anaya Baker. Nice to meet you, I’m Zane Lewis.”
“Nice to meet you face-to-face,” she greeted.
Zane took in her bruised face, and like the master of disguise he was, he showed no hint of emotion. But I knew Zane; he was seething that someone had hit her, and most especially the reason behind why she’d been struck.
My boss shifted toward the room and made the introductions. “Meet the Red Team, that’s Lincoln Parker, Colin Doyle, Jaxon Cain, Leo Gillonardo, and Jasmin Parker.” Each person gave Anaya a lift of their chin as their name was called.
Jasmin studied Anaya, her eyes squinted, and deep frown lines formed.
“What the fuck?” Jas growled and stepped closer. Anaya flinched at her aggressive approach and Jasmin’s very pissed-off eyes swung to mine. “Serious as shit, Kyle, I hope you gutted the fucker that did that. I hear you went easy on the douchebag, I’ll be totally disappointed in you.”
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