Under the Rose

by Nolan, Kathryn

  I remembered my ex-partner, Gregory, cheerfully showing off a new car I knew he couldn’t afford on a special agent’s salary. I thought about how good it had felt to smack my hand against that full mug of coffee, staining a stack of case notes I was never, ever going to finish—because that was exactly the way my job was structured. Never ahead, always behind. Always a disappointment. In high school and college, I’d been able to force my high academic course load into submission to garner my father’s stilted approval. Being a special agent was the first time in my life when I couldn’t overwork my way to success. Because I was already officially overworked and—according to my father—failing across the board.

  “It’s hard for people to recognize what’s been true all along,” I said.

  “That was definitely the case for me,” Freya admitted. “So, yes, that’s why I was never a girl who got love letters. Even if I had received one, it probably would have been a joke.”

  I had to blink away a surge of anger. “And all those nerdy, writer boyfriends? They never—”

  “It wasn’t like that in college, Byrne,” she said.

  “Like what?”

  She pushed her glasses up her nose. “Passionate. Earth-shattering. Whatever it was that George felt for Alfred that compelled them to put it down on the page. It wasn’t seduction or hunger or compulsion. They were just boyfriends, I guess. It wasn’t like they were under my skin. It wasn’t like I couldn’t stop thinking about them, day and night. Dreaming about them.” She swallowed hard and avoided my gaze. “Craving them.”

  I knew craving well. Especially the kind you bury deep enough to deny for years. The kind that makes you promise a woman you’d tear her underwear in two and fuck her without mercy against a wall in a bathroom, surrounded by book thieves.

  “They should have written them for you,” I said, coming to join her on the landing.

  She looked startled at that—so startled that I immediately regretted saying it.

  “I’m sorry I was pissed at you after you snagged the valedictorian spot at Princeton,” I admitted. I’d been an asshole when she’d told me—walked off without congratulating her and glared at her whenever I had the opportunity.

  “Oh, that’s right,” she said, lips tipping up. “You wouldn’t speak to me. And I’d thought we weren’t ever going to see each other again anyway until…”

  “Quantico happened,” I finished.

  “We were bloodthirsty back then, Byrne. I launched a smear campaign against you for the honor of being president of a twenty-person college club. Those were dark days.”

  “Still,” I pressed. “You deserved the top spot. I was a shithead.”

  Freya blushed a little, fiddling with the strap of her gold dress. “Well, you don’t have to apologize. We were twenty-two years old. We were all shitheads at that age.”

  We took the stairs down—walked this time—and immediately began searching the lower part of the house.

  “Also, time check.” she glanced at her watch. “Twenty-five minutes left.”

  “Son of a bitch,” I swore. “Is there a basement? An attic?”

  “No attic, not that we found. Maybe a basement?” But as we moved through the lower half of the hall, we found nothing. It wasn’t a huge building, and the easily accessible hiding spots revealed no box of rare letters. We searched as fast as we could while careful not to leave a noticeable mess.

  We were officially empty-handed.

  “Time check,” I asked wearily, knowing we were fucked.

  “Eight minutes.”

  She was sliding a couch back to its original spot, having discovered no trap doors or secret pages taped to the bottom. I rolled my head from side to side, getting the kinks out. Wincing.

  Pissed.

  “We don’t have to leave in an hour,” Freya said, sensing my irritation. “If the other private detectives are wrong, we should keep looking.”

  I shook my head, already envisioning the conversation I’d be having with my father. Private detective for three days and I already fucked up. This was supposed to be easy—at least in the words of my father. But I’d promised to get my head on straight and instead all I’d done so far was lose it around Freya.

  Thud.

  “What was that?” I hissed, both of us freezing in our tracks.

  Thud. Thud.

  Fucking boot steps. A heavy tread outside the front door. Muffled voices. Dragging.

  And a doorknob, starting to turn.

  32

  Freya

  Sam and I didn’t even have a second to consider a coherent thought. My shocked, terrified expression was enough to have Sam grabbing my hand and pulling me toward that window. I scooped up my purse, my heels, and the tux jacket as Sam slid the window open.

  The front door opened at the exact same time—the creak loud in the quiet room.

  “Go, go, go,” Sam whispered, practically shoving me out. I dropped to the grass easily, and he followed right behind. We didn’t even bother closing the window—just ran across the front grass and down the sidewalk.

  “My car’s close,” he whisper-shouted over his shoulder, booking it through yellow pools of streetlamp light. He reached the stop sign at the end of the street, turned around.

  Noticed I was far behind.

  It was my heels. Breaking, entering, and fleeing into the night was horrendously challenging when tottering along in stilettos. I ripped them off and tried to run in my bare feet. But the sidewalk was rough and rocky, littered with glass. He was on me in an instant, bending down and scooping me against his chest. I let out a sound that was half laughter, half frustration.

  “Byrne,” I whispered, “I do not need to be carried.”

  “I will admit to your prowess on the track if you let me carry you to the car. You slicing open your foot on broken glass—or breaking an ankle trying to run in heels—is only going to further jeopardize this case. I’m being a good partner.”

  “What was that about prowess again?” I mused. I should have been more jostled in his arms—he was running fast—but his hold on me was tight, arms strong, chest broad and perfect for me to rest my cheek on. He only ran for one more city block, passing groups of people out on the town. Ran until we hit Broad Street. A normal person would have been out of breath, but Sam appeared only slightly winded as he placed me gently on the ground. I kept my hand on his arm as I slipped my devilish heels back on.

  “You are Superman,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t ever let you get hurt,” he said.

  “I know that,” I said, “and I appreciate it. Next time I’ll strap you to my back, okay? Make it even.”

  His eyes twinkled before he nodded at the parking garage where we’d parked his car that morning. Glancing behind us, we jogged down the aisles until coming to his car and climbing inside.

  My phone rang the minute we locked the doors. Abe.

  It was fifteen minutes past midnight. I put it on speaker while staring at Sam across the console.

  “Good news or bad?” I said by way of greeting.

  “Bad,” Abe said. “Unless you have those letters in your hands?”

  Sam exhaled an angry-sounding breath. “No, sir,” he said.

  Silence, and then—“Scarlett and I just had a long conversation. She said this other firm walked into Francisco’s office at the Franklin Museum with the George Sand love letters. All thirteen of them, in pristine condition.”

  “Fuck me,” Sam swore.

  “Abe, that’s not possible,” I said. “We just spent a very strange night with these weird-ass rich people, and they couldn’t stop talking about the letters. We all had to write down what we were bidding on at this auction tomorrow night. Or tonight, rather.”

  “What’s happening tonight?” Abe asked.

  Sam and I exchanged a look.

  “We don’t quite know, sir,” Sam said. “A kind of underground auction, I believe. Evandale wrote down that we were most interested in purchasing the George Sand l
etters. Nine other people were there. Dr. Ward read the slips and announced that all of us were interested in the same exact item.”

  “The letters,” I said.

  “Ward could have been lying, or it could have been a trick,” Abe said. “They could have forged copies.”

  “That firm could have forged copies,” I said.

  “I suggested the very same thing. They are, of course, going about authenticating them. But until then, consider our contract canceled and the case finished,” Abe said.

  Sam slapped the steering wheel with his hand. Glared out the window. The finality of it hurt more than I anticipated, especially considering how badly I’d wanted off this case from the beginning.

  “Sometimes we try our hardest and we still fail,” Abe said.

  “This is a mistake,” I said. “Believe me, I’m the last person to ever suggest this, but I think we need to keep our cover. Go to that auction. The letters are there.”

  “They can’t be in the hands of the museum and at this auction,” Abe said shortly.

  “Sir,” Sam said, “I agree with Freya.”

  We shared a tentative smile.

  “Unless you can gather concrete proof, I can’t authorize the two of you moving forward,” Abe said. “Risky and expensive are the two things I try and avoid the most, as you well know. The two of you have worked non-stop for the past forty-eight hours. Go home. Sleep. We can debrief in the morning and see if the authentication comes back in our favor.” He shifted his tone. “I’ll even bring you donuts.”

  “That actually doesn’t seem appetizing right now,” I said, rubbing my forehead.

  There was a pause until he said, “I know you’re disappointed.”

  Sam was about to tear the steering wheel in two.

  “It’s fine,” I said and knew I sounded pissed. But I was. “We’ll see you at Codex in the morning.”

  Abe hung up the phone, and I let it drop onto the console.

  “Those letters can’t be real,” I said.

  “I cannot believe we’re not going to close this case,” Sam growled. “I should have threatened Ward in the basement when I had the chance.”

  “Do you disagree with the decisions we made as partners?” I asked, tone icy.

  “You made decisions,” he shot back. “And I made decisions. We made barely any decisions together as partners.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “We actually worked well together tonight. At least I thought we had.”

  “Negative, Evandale,” he said. “If we lost this case, it’s because you’re too stubborn to listen to anyone but yourself.”

  “Says the most stubborn person I know.”

  Sam turned to face me fully in the car. I was struck with the massive size of him. He’d tossed his jacket in the backseat, and the white shirt could barely fit the breadth of his shoulders. He’d been tugging at his bowtie, which was now open, revealing an inch of bare chest. One hand was in his hair, one hand was wrapped around the back of the seat like it was tethering him down.

  “I think it was true at Quantico and it’s true now,” Sam said quietly—but fiercely. “We don’t work well together. We lost this case because of it. The two of us together are a distraction. You are a distraction to me. I can’t focus around you.”

  “I’m a distraction to you?” I asked. “You kissed me in the bathroom. That’s pretty fucking distracting.”

  “I hoped that would remove the temptation,” he growled. “Because we’d know what it was like.” His voice was growing rougher and rougher.

  “If you liked our kiss that much, are you pissed at me? Or pissed at yourself for making us even more distracted?”

  We were glaring at each other now, the space between us shrinking with our combined irritation.

  “I’ll give you real honesty since you won’t give it to me,” I continued. “I think you’re picking a pointless fight because you’re more comfortable arguing than you are expressing your feelings. You forget that we share the same personality attributes, unfortunately. Which means I hate failing as much as you do. I know how shitty it feels.”

  I swallowed against a very real hesitation to be vulnerable in front of my nemesis. But he was staring at my mouth. I liked being stared at like that—like I was rare and delicious.

  “I hate failing,” I repeated. “And I’ve wanted to kiss you since the day we met.”

  His nostrils flared at that, but he didn’t say a word.

  “Is that what you wanted too?” I asked.

  He closed his eyes like he was in pain. His breath was coming fast, heavy. I worried that he’d flex his muscles and rip the car in half—he was that tightly wound.

  “I have never kissed a woman like that before,” he said. “I’ve never needed to touch a woman like that before.”

  Now I was panting, rubbing my thighs together to try and ease the persistent ache that appeared whenever we argued.

  “So, yeah, I fucking wanted it,” he said harshly. “But wanting to fuck each other is exactly the reason why we failed.”

  My jaw dropped open. “That’s that, then? We lose this case, you go back to the FBI, and we end things the way they began? Fighting with each other and never talking about what’s actually going on between us?”

  Sam shrugged like it was no big deal. Even though I could tell. Could tell there were things he wanted to say and things he wanted to do. But he was holding himself back like he always did, tamping down any inclination for messy emotions.

  “This was inevitable,” he said. “Our failure was inevitable. If you weren’t the most stubborn and irritating woman I’d ever known—”

  “And if you weren’t the most arrogant and frustrating man I’d ever met—”

  But I didn’t even finish the sentence. I grabbed his white shirt and dragged his upper body across the console at the same time as he crashed our lips together in a bruising kiss.

  He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me across his lap.

  It was our first real kiss in semi-private, and I didn’t hold back. I moaned, I sighed, I ripped his shirt, sending buttons flying, and scratched my nails down his perfect superhero chest. When I latched onto his lower lip and bit, Sam Byrne snarled like an animal. Speared his fingers into my hair and captured my mouth, groaning every time my nails bit into his skin.

  “You wouldn’t be such a fucking distraction if you weren’t this goddamn beautiful,” he hissed, ripping the strap of my dress clean off my body. The fabric fell from my breasts, and he descended upon them with ravenous intent. “You used to sit next to me in class and slide that pen in and out of your fucking mouth. Are you kidding me, Evandale?” He yanked me higher, one palm spread between my shoulder blades, face pressed to my sternum as he sucked my nipples into tight peaks.

  “What a little perv you were,” I gasped, yanking at his thick hair. “Must have been subconscious on my part.”

  “You’re too smart for that.” He scraped his teeth across my rib cage, and I shivered. His thumb was stroking across my lower lip. I sucked it, felt his body tremble with restraint.

  “Maybe I wanted to tease the hot guy next to me,” I said, arching again into his mouth, which was currently doing extraordinary things to my nipples.

  “Which guy?” he demanded.

  I picked his head up, kissed him hard. “You, you idiot.”

  Our kiss this time lacked finesse but made up for it in passion. I was practically climbing him, and he was shifting away the fabric of my gold dress. When his palms landed on my ass, he squeezed hard. It felt amazing, to be handled roughly, to have serious, controlled Sam unraveling right in front of me.

  “You wouldn’t be such a fucking distraction if you hadn’t strutted around half-naked and wet every night in our Quantico dorms,” I whispered, nipping his throat.

  His chuckle was dark, arrogant. “Must have been subconscious on my part.”

  He moved me with firm hands, laying me across his lap in the car. The windows were slo
wly starting to steam. And the sounds we were making were nothing like our previous sparring sessions—there was nothing to describe the guttural, biological release of Sam and me slamming together like this, of devouring each other in the front seat of a car because we’d always expressed things better physically anyway.

  “Spread your legs.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” I said—but who was I kidding? They were spreading of their own accord, my body already seeking the pleasure that awaited me. I’d known Sam for a long, long time. And what I knew was that his ambition and tireless drive made him very, very good at everything he did.

  It turned out that finger-fucking me in a sequined dress while in the front seat of a car was no exception.

  33

  Sam

  Freya was beautiful, adorable, pliable in my lap.

  Her glasses were torn off, hair tangled, breasts bare and perfect. Nothing could stop me from making this woman say my name and beg for more. She deserved exquisite pleasure. Nothing less.

  My hand smoothed along her toned legs, fingers stopping at the seam of her underwear, already wet. I stroked up and down along it—and Freya slammed our mouths together. Pulled hard on the strands of my hair as I stroked. Stroked. Her hips were rolling not a second later, seeking a deeper friction.

  “Is making your partner come a distraction?” I whispered against her lips.

  “Yes,” she sighed. “Yes. Oh, it’s the best kind.”

  I slipped past the material, touched the folds of her sex for the first time. She was hot, wet, perfect. “Is this right?”

  I slipped a finger inside her. She was gripping my face, out of control.

  “That’s fucking perfect,” she gasped. “I’d be furious with you if you weren’t so goddamn good at this.”