“Ride me, Rachel,” came the gruff order as his hands moved her hips in a rhythm that pleased them both.
Once she started moving, she couldn’t stop. Feeling the delicious stretch and rub as he filled her up, teasing nerves that only he could reach, giving pleasure only he could give.
Touching him was an addiction. One that made possessiveness rear its head and roar. “This body is mine,” she declared, her fingers digging into his shoulders.
“And is this body mine?” His strong hands lifted her hips before slamming her down onto him again.
“Yes,” she screamed. “Yes, it’s yours.”
He clasped her nape. “Then give me all of it.” And covered his mouth with hers.
Their kiss was desperate, hungry, and lacking in finesse. But Rachel didn’t care. All she could think about, all she wanted, was all of him. She moved faster, grinding her hips into his, gasping her pleasure into his mouth. Swallowing his sounds of need in return.
His arm tightened around her as she climbed again. Her limbs were weak, her movements uncoordinated, as thoughts fled and sensation took over. Giddy, she spun around inside her mind, trusting him to keep her safe.
His hips surged, pushing himself deeper. Once. Twice. Three times and they exploded together. His body tensed, his muscles clenched beneath her, around her, inside of her as they fell over the precipice, safe in each other’s arms.
Gradually, as though emerging from a daze, Rachel blinked her eyes and the room came back into focus. She still straddled Harvard, a dead weight in his arms, their bodies slick with sweat and sticky with release. His heart thudded against her chest, their beats matching as they panted for air.
His hand caressing her back, he kissed her temple. “I heard you,” he said, his voice full of emotion. “And I love you too.”
Rachel’s arms tightened around him. “I can’t move.”
His deep chuckle reverberated through her. “Then, we stay here.”
It was as though they were secure inside their own cocoon, and neither of them wanted to do anything to jeopardize it. Rachel wasn’t sure how long they sat like that as her mind wandered and her thoughts reordered themselves. But eventually, clarity and the world outside began to intrude.
“I’m not going back to Benson Security,” she said at last. “I’m staying at TayFor. It’s where I was always meant to be.”
He squeezed her tight for a second. “They need a new head of security anyway.”
“You don’t have to take that job, Michael. I know it’s not what you envisioned doing when you left the CIA. It’s hardly the pinnacle of a security career.”
She felt him shrug. “I’m not an ambitious man, Rachel. I wanted the challenge of working with the CIA, now I want the challenge of loving you and making our life together. I’ll be fine. And if I get bored, I can always do some freelance work for Callum.”
“You’re sure you want to come with me?” Changing his whole life for her was a huge ask, and she feared he’d regret it.
“I’m sure, but there’s a condition.”
Her heart stuttered. “Of course, there is.”
“No trust.” He chuckled again. “I want us to get married for real. Those are my terms for sorting out TayFor’s security and for watching your back for the rest of your life. You have to make an honest man of me.”
“You are pathetically bad at negotiation.” She felt a surge of pure happiness. “You should have held out for a higher salary and a better car.”
“I don’t need a higher salary. I’m marrying an heiress.” When she sat up and glared at him, he laughed. “I’m worth millions, Rachel. I’m very good at playing the stock market. I don’t need your money or the job at TayFor.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Or my stupid cousins when they went on about prenups.”
“Because it’s not important. I was lucky with the stock market, that’s all. Plus, I planned to keep you whether I had money or not.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “That arrogance of yours really isn’t attractive.”
“Yes, it is.” He smiled, and it made her melt. “You haven’t answered me. We’re getting married, right?”
Letting out a heavy sigh, she rested her head back on his shoulder. “I suppose so. If we must.”
“Your enthusiasm underwhelms me, but I heard a yes in there, and that’s all I care about.” His body flexed as something seemed to occur to him. “We’re not going to triple barrel our names, are we? Rachel Ford-Talbot-Carter? That’s just wrong.”
“Don’t be an idiot.” She snuggled closer. “You’ll just change your name, and that will be the end of it.”
“Yeah, that ain’t gonna happen.”
“Men. You’re always so difficult.”
“You’d better believe it,” he said as he stood with her wrapped around him. “Come on. This time, you can scrub my back.” And he headed for the bathroom.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Rachel might have avoided the topic of the video during her night with Harvard, but the following morning, there was no getting away from it. Especially as her colleagues at Benson Security seemed so adamant about discussing it.
It was barely seven a.m., and the conference room was full. Everyone who was able had turned up for the meeting—and they’d brought breakfast along with them. There were donuts and Danish pastries, coffees and teas. And then there was Ryan, with a full English breakfast in front of him.
Rachel let out a sigh of disgust as she eyed the mountain of food in front of Ryan. “Do you have to turn every surface in front of you into a pig trough? You’re heading for a heart attack.” Not that she cared. She just felt the need to point it out.
“At least I have a heart.” He grinned and held up his hand to Joe for a high five.
Joe just groaned. “Dude, that was lame.”
“Yeah? Well, it’s early.”
“Aye,” Callum snapped. “It is. Too damn early. Some of us have been up most of the night. How about we get to the point of this meeting?”
“Isobel isn’t sleeping too well during this stage of her pregnancy,” Noah informed everyone. “So Callum isn’t sleeping either.”
“Did I ask you to update everybody on my life?” Callum barked.
Lake shook his head at his partner, his lip twitching in what approximated a smile for him. “Did Elle get something off the video?”
Well, that answered that question. Apparently, everyone was up to speed with the latest piece of her past that had slapped her in the face.
“No.” Elle shook her head and yawned. “Harry’s running every imaging analysis tool we can get our hands on. The pixel ratio isn’t as good as we’d like, but then the video was shot on a ten-year-old phone. Cameras have improved a lot since then. After we run a comparative diagnostic, we’ll take the video frame by frame and enhance the quality to isolate any details that may have been hidden. But that’ll take time.”
“What about the metadata?” Harvard asked.
“It was stripped.” Elle looked annoyed. “But Harry thinks it was done recently by a newer app, so there might be a shadow of it left underneath.”
“What’s metadata?” Rachel asked. Must they speak in techie? And if they had to, couldn’t they at least be polite enough to translate for the normal people?
“It’s information about a file that’s stored in a way that you can’t see it unless you go looking for it.” Harvard smiled at her. “Ten years ago, before people were fully aware of what extra data was saved with their files, and before guidelines and restrictions were put into place, there was a whole lot of sensitive info stored in the metadata. If the team can access it, they might get some personal info that you wouldn’t get from a phone today.”
Elle nodded. “Exactly. The video editing might offer up some clues too. If that’s recent, then there might be some metadata transfer from the process that the blackmailer missed. It depends on how computer savvy they are.”
Rachel waved a hand. �
��Blah, blah, blah, computer talk, more blah. Do we have something or not?”
Harvard rubbed the spot between her shoulders, making everyone freeze in place and stare at them.
“She gets cranky in the mornings,” he said with amusement.
“I hope you know what you’re doing.” Ryan shook his head at Harvard. “Rachel’s been known to eat her prey.”
Callum glared at them. “Can we focus? What you’re saying is, you don’t have anything off the video yet, but you and Harry are working on it. Where is Harry?”
“Here.” A hand appeared above the end of the table.
Rachel peeked underneath, and sure enough, Harry was sitting tailor style on the floor, surrounded by at least half a dozen laptops.
She straightened again and looked at Callum, whose head was red.
“Why the hell are you on the floor?” he shouted.
“Needed more space.”
“Get your arse to the table for meetings. This isn’t how we run a business.”
“I swear,” Rachel said. “If you start going on about how much better things were in the army again, I will tackle you to the floor, remove one of your prosthetic legs, and beat you to death with it.”
There was silence before Harry said, “She’s always been cranky in the mornings.”
Lake leaned forward to clasp his hands on the table. “Let’s recap. We don’t have anything from the video yet. We don’t have any leads on the men who attacked Rachel. We don’t know who’s behind all of this, but for some reason, they want you gone from the family company. Did I miss anything?”
“No.” Rachel folded her arms over her red and black color-block dress. “Except that I have no intention of giving in to a blackmailer’s demands ever again. Once was enough, and I’m a whole lot older and less easy to intimidate than I was when I was twenty. They’re going to be very disappointed when I don’t resign today.”
“You can’t go back to TayFor,” Lake said evenly, obviously under the misguided belief that he was the boss of her. “It’s too dangerous. We don’t know what your return might provoke.”
“Plus”—Elle stole a sausage from Ryan’s plate, earning herself a glare as he wrapped his arm around his food to guard it—“there’s no need to go back to TayFor; we found the thief.”
“That’s not the only reason I have for returning,” Rachel said, feeling strangely hesitant about sharing her plans. She glanced at Harvard, and his usual calm demeanor immediately eased her nerves. “Which is why I called you here this morning. I’ve decided to return to my family’s company for the foreseeable future.”
“Yes!” Ryan shot to his feet, fists in the air. “Best. News. Ever.” He grinned as he pointed around the room. “Pay up because I won the bet. She’s been lured back to the family company. I’m rich.” He faced Rachel. “I could kiss you right now.”
“And then I’d have to get a rabies shot, so please don’t.”
“What bet?” Harvard asked as Ryan sat back down and folded his arms over yet another T-shirt that Rachel didn’t understand. This one said, By the Power of Grayskull.
“You know how we had to drop the sex bet?” Ryan said. Everyone around him groaned. “What? We can’t even mention the word now?”
“This is a business meeting,” Callum snapped. “So, no, you can’t mention sex.”
Ryan pointed at Rachel. “It’s not like it’s a secret. They’re obviously doing it, which means I would’ve won the first bet too.”
“You shouldn’t even be betting on your teammate’s sex life.” Callum glared at Ryan, as though that would somehow miraculously make his point sink through Ryan’s thick skull.
“Exactly,” Ryan said. “Once we realized that betting on Rachel’s sex life might cause her to have a full-blown PTSD fit, we canceled the bet. But I started a new one on how long before she went back to TayFor for real. And I won. I am the master!”
“Please, for the love of Prada, stop talking,” Rachel told him.
“I don’t even care that everybody’s in a bad mood. That’s how happy I am,” Ryan said before he got stuck back into his food.
“Rachel,” Lake said, returning her attention to the man who’d started Benson Security, “explain your leaving.” He was also a man of few words.
“It’s really very simple; my family needs me right now. And I fit in there, in a way I never did here or with Harry’s company. Programming is Harry’s dream. Benson Security’s yours. But TayFor has always been mine.” She studied her nails for a moment, wondering if it was time to swap out the red. Perhaps for black. Or maybe an icy silver. “I don’t plan on selling my share in this company. I’d like to remain a silent partner.”
“Is that even possible?” Ryan asked, grinning at his own joke.
Rachel, along with everyone else, ignored him. “I intend to start working for TayFor from today. There isn’t much to hand over as far as Benson Security is concerned; the women’s side of the business has only just started. Perhaps Julia could look after that in my absence.”
“Me?” came a squeak from the houseplant.
“Yes. You. It takes a businessperson to organize it, and you are the most qualified.” She pointed at Harvard. “Apart from that, I’m taking him with me.”
“Bloody hell, Rachel,” Callum exploded. “You can’t just walk out on us and take our people with you.”
“Of course, I can. I’m still a partner in this company, which means I own a stake in him.”
There were groans throughout the room.
“Rachel,” Elle said patiently, “we talked about this during our girls’ night. You don’t own the people who work for you. They…we aren’t chattels.”
“What Rachel means,” Harvard said, “is that I’m choosing to go with her and take over as head of security at TayFor. You can consider this my resignation.”
“Hell, no,” Joe and Noah both snapped at the same time.
Noah glared at Harvard. “The whole point of the three of us joining the same security company as Joe and Grunt was to hang out together. Beast’s already pissed off to follow his wife around the world. If you go too, that’ll just leave me and Joe in London. Grunt might as well be on another planet instead of in Scotland; phone conversations with him are few and far between and consist mainly of me talking and him grunting. You talked me into moving my kids to London. And now you’re backing out on us?”
“I’ll still be in London, and I’ll still get to hang out with you. It’s not like we’re moving to New Zealand; we’ll see all of you.”
“Speak for yourself,” Rachel said.
There were a few people she’d be happy to see the back of. Ryan being top of her list. She already had an annoying younger brother; she didn’t need a second one. And Ryan had been trying to fill that role for years. Although without her around to keep an eye on him, he’d probably choke on a chicken bone. She sighed. She’d have to see the idiot after all. Responsibility sucked.
“Are you going to tell them our other news?” Harvard asked, loud enough for everyone to hear.
“No.” She frowned at him.
His lips twitched. “Then how about I do it? We’re getting married.”
“Married?” Elle gaped at them. “For real?”
“Don’t make such a big deal out of it,” Rachel said. “I’m sure it won’t last.”
“That’s what you said about your relationship to begin with,” Elle accused, as though Rachel had deliberately lied to them. It wasn’t her fault Harvard kept screwing up her plans.
“When we’re done with this touchy-feely crap,” Callum blared over all of them, “can we concentrate on Rachel’s blackmailer and what we’re going to do about that?”
“First, we need to talk about the guy locked up downstairs,” Joe said. “We can’t keep him there forever. The cops frown on unlawful imprisonment.”
Lake and Callum shared a look of cold understanding.
“You can’t kill him either,” the potted plant said befo
re Julia peeked out through the leaves. “That’s just wrong.”
Honestly, it was like working in a kindergarten. Which was one of the reasons Rachel was keen to get back to TayFor. At least that building was populated by adults. “Julia, why are you hiding? You know everyone in this room. I thought we got past this?”
“I’m not hiding,” Julia said. “I just like sitting in the corner. And the plant smells nice.”
“It’s plastic,” Rachel pointed out.
“I like the smell of plastic.”
“Julia’s right,” Harvard told Lake and Callum. “You can’t kill Terrance. But if need be, I could make him disappear.”
“I didn’t hear any of this.” Noah put his fingers in his ears.
“One thing’s for certain,” Rachel said. “We can’t keep him in the basement forever. His wife’s been calling Jonathan daily to ask when her husband’s top-secret work trip will end. At some point, she’ll stop calling TayFor and start calling the police.”
“Let him go,” Harry said from the floor. “We have enough evidence to hand over to the police once we catch the blackmailer. Terrance isn’t going anywhere in the meantime.” His cheerful grin appeared over the edge of the table. “I canceled his passport and added his name to every no-travel list in the UK.”
“Hackers rule.” Elle patted Harry’s head, and he beamed up at her.
“Plus,” Ryan added as he pushed away his empty plate and reached for a donut, “we could microchip him, like they do with all dogs.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal too,” Julia informed them.
“Yes,” Noah shouted, his fingers still in his ears even though that was obviously proving useless. “It is.”
Her smile sad, Elle caught Rachel’s eye. “You’re going to miss this.”
“Yes,” Rachel agreed. “In much the same way I miss the bout of chickenpox that hospitalized me as a child.”
“Right.” Callum stood. “If nobody has anything to add, we’re done here. Ryan, you’re staying at TayFor until the blackmailer’s found. Your priority is to keep your ears and eyes open, and to watch Rachel’s back.”
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