“We’re busy.”
The noise stopped. She had just closed her eyes when it began again. She glanced over and watched her cell phone vibrate against the nightstand. The blue light flashed, but still she didn’t reach for it. Not after the past few hours with Ben. The man sucked the energy right out of her.
But he still had some. Lips brushed against her skin as his fingers traveled to the bottom curve of her breast.
Then the vibrating started for a third round.
Ben’s forehead fell against her cheek. “Please tell me you don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Little late for that talk, isn’t it?”
His head shot up and his eyes glowed with an angry intensity. “I’m serious.”
“I can see that.” With the lights on she could see everything. Him naked…furious. That last part caught her by surprise. “Care to tell me what’s behind the change in mood?”
“Poaching another man’s woman is not an option. Not ever.”
She remembered he had started his tenure as a judge by hearing family law cases. Callie figured those early years of contested custody cases and people fighting over forks had taken a toll. “I wouldn’t be with you in the middle of my bed if I’d been keeping someone else here.”
“So, that’s a no?”
Clearly the man’s big brain misfired when his dick saw some action, because he sure wasn’t catching on very quick. “It’s a no. You’re not the only one who draws that line.” She rubbed her thumb over his frowning eyebrows.
“Okay.” He nodded. “Good.”
She didn’t have a law degree or wear a big black nightgown to work every day, but she knew anxiety when she saw it. Knew when she felt it shoot through the guy laying all over her. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”
The words barely left her lips when her home phone rang. Ben leaned up on an elbow and glared at the thing as if it were a foreign invader. “Who is this jackass?”
Unease washed through her. Someone this insistent planned on delivering bad news. “Maybe something’s wrong.”
He leaned across her and grabbed the receiver.
Mark. With sudden clarity, she knew who sat at the other end of the line dialing like a madman. Which meant she was in a shitload of trouble.
“Ben, wait—”
“What?” Ben asked the question into the phone, not to her.
When his eyebrows snapped together, she knew the flipping around in her stomach was there for a reason. “Give it to me.”
Ben shifted away from her, blocking her hand with his shoulder before she could reach the receiver. “When?”
When what? Yeah, this was bad. “Let me—” She tried another grab, but he used his body as a shield.
“How is he?” Ben asked.
So, not Emma. Callie wondered what “he” other than the “he” next to her was in trouble now. “He who?”
Ben shushed her. Actually sat naked on her bed and made an annoying hissing sound to get her to be quiet. She had no intention of obeying his command. It was her damn house, after all. “Who is it?”
“We’ll be right there,” Ben said to the person on the other end of the line.
When he handed the phone to her a second later, all she got was a dial tone. “Unless you plan on paying the mortgage, I answer the phone from now on.”
“Is this really the time to argue about something so dumb?”
“Would you prefer we make time later?” Instead of answering, Ben flipped back the covers and crawled out of bed. Not being a fan of the sex-and-run type, she grabbed his arm. “Where are you going off to without your pants, Your Honor?”
“There’s been an accident.”
His serious tone wiped the snootiness right out of her. “What?”
“We have to go.”
An hour later, Callie stood in an elevator and adjusted her gun for the third time. During the ride to the fourth floor of the hospital, Ben stood next to her with his fingers wrapped around the handrail behind him. They wore the same clothes from the day before and waited for the bell to ding and doors to open. Neither of them talked. But there wasn’t all that much to say. Not until they knew the particulars of what happened.
One thing was clear, someone had attacked Keith. Since the man weighed two-forty, and that was only when he forgot to eat, the danger level for all of them shot up. Even Ben had stopped whining about his protection detail. She would have celebrated his newfound brilliance, but she was too busy trying to figure out how hard Mark would kick her ass when he saw her.
She had spent hours on her back instead of on the job, or at least that’s the way Mark would see it. Not answering her phone had been a mistake. Making Mark track her down could spell the end of her freelance career.
“Ignore whatever my brother says when he sees you,” Ben said without bothering to look at her. He was too busy staring at the floor buttons as if they held the secret to life’s most intriguing questions.
“I can handle Mark.” And by that she meant she would stand there quietly while Mark yelled his head off.
“He’s not stupid.”
“I never said he was.”
“He’s going to know we slept together. He’ll have an opinion, and it won’t be good.” Ben exhaled loud enough to drown out the soft rock version of some dance song playing in the background. “So, like I said, let me deal with him.”
She carried a gun and proved her stamina during the naked slap-and-tickle games of the past few hours, yet Ben refused to concede that she could take care of herself. His Captain Save a ’Ho complex just never stopped. If a female walked in front of him, he felt the need to rescue her.
Fuck that.
“I’ve been shot at and lived through three days of your bossiness. Mark’s yelling doesn’t scare me.” It did a little, but admitting that would only give Ben an “in” and then she’d never get him out again.
“You’re not as smart as I thought.”
But she was. She knew Mark would crawl right up her ass about this. When he hired her, he had made a point of mentioning her past. Seemed Mark admired her for turning down her old boss’s advances and sticking up for other women who had dealt with the same by reporting him rather than ignoring it like so many other FBI females had been forced to do. Mark understood the chain of command and supervisors with friends in high places. He knew she had been set up and decided to walk away rather than get buried in paperwork at a desk job in Des Moines or someplace cold enough to freeze her fingers together.
Basically, Mark knew she didn’t sleep around on the job. Until now.
“If this is your idea of charming post-sex chatter, your bedroom skills need some work. Here’s a piece of advice: women don’t like being called names as soon as they get their underwear back on.” She tightened her ponytail. It was either that or strangle Ben. “Actually, name-calling is always bad, in case you weren’t clear.”
Ben’s mouth fell into a huge smile.
She saw it in the reflection on the back of the doors. “What’s so funny?”
“It’s about time.”
“For?”
He faced her as his hand slid across the railing to touch hers. “You ignored me during the drive over here. I thought that meant you planned to pretend nothing happened tonight. Since you’re all feisty, I’m thinking we’re back on track.”
As if she could push Ben from her mind. Despite the lapse of judgment and the huge mistake of going “no contact” when Mark needed to talk with her, she didn’t regret the sex. Her body craved Ben as much as she craved air. She didn’t know how the hell she’d break that addiction, but she would. Probably not on Mark’s timetable, but eventually.
“Would you like a grade for your performance?” she asked, hoping to get him all flustered and sputtering.
Ben threw her off. If anything, he grew even calmer. With his head balanced against the back wall of the elevator he shot her a sexy smile. “Only if it’s a high one.”
The hi
ghest, actually. Callie might need a new scale to measure his ability, and that was after only a few hours with him. She wondered how much greater he would be with prolonged contact. “Are you always this needy after sex?”
“Are you always this bitchy?”
She couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Touché.”
A chime sounded and then the doors opened, and she was saved from hearing whatever gem he might have come up with next. In a way she almost regretted that because the sparring functioned as a form of foreplay with them. Not that now was the time for that, because it sure as hell wasn’t. A good man had been injured. That fact trumped sexy talk no matter how much she enjoyed it.
They took a few steps down the hallway. Despite the early hour, nurses rushed around and several people stood by the station in the middle of the open area. Callie guessed this was calm compared to what the place looked like during peak hours.
The harsh smell of antiseptic filled her nose the second they turned the corner and started toward Keith’s room. Her lips scrunched up in a frown as she fought off the smell from invading her senses…and then she saw Mark. Tall, dark, and furious. He paced around a small waiting room with hunched shoulders, wearing a suit as black as his mood. He hadn’t noticed her yet, but she knew she was on his mind. That would explain the tic in his cheek.
The only other person in the area other than the security guard standing next to Keith’s room was Emma. Of course. Heaven forbid a Walker brother be somewhere and her not be there, too. For a woman who played the role of non-girlfriend, she sure did show up at girlfriend-like times.
Not that Emma looked any better than the rest of them. Her serene demeanor had vanished. That angelic round face had paled to ghostly proportions. Her mouth pulled tight in a frown as she wrung her hands on her lap.
Emma’s gaze followed Mark’s long gait, sweeping over him and holding briefly on his face. Until she saw Ben coming toward her. Then she switched focus. She stood up, causing Mark to hit hyper-lawman mode and spin around to see what was coming.
His glare hit Callie with the force of a gunshot. Combined with Emma’s stiffness, that was one impressive wall of human anger. Callie wondered if the two practiced that joint disappointed look or if it just came naturally.
Ben spoke first. “How’s Keith?”
“In the hospital,” Mark said in a voice as rough as the scar that marred the side of his cheek.
Talk about a “no kidding” moment. “Do we know what happened?” Callie asked, hoping to keep the conversation as professional as possible.
Mark shrugged. “As far as we can tell, he was outside the courthouse and got hit in the head. Lost a lot of blood. The doctors stitched him up and gave him something for pain, so I can’t talk to him yet, but I’m thinking from the angle of the wound he didn’t see his attacker.”
“So, he’s fine?” she asked, since Mark hadn’t volunteered the ending to the story.
Mark just nodded. No words. Just a swift sure movement of his head. Callie knew that couldn’t be good for her.
Ben shifted his weight from side to side, as if he were the one on the firing line. Callie didn’t know if the situation caused the anxiety or if standing in their small group where everyone knew he just had sex was a bit “too much information” for his taste. If it was the latter, he could get over it. They were adults. Adults had sex. Maybe not on the job and when danger lurked, but still.
“The police?” Callie asked.
Mark smacked his lips together. “Called. They’re investigating. I’ve worked with the chief before. He understands what’s happening and is talking about a joint operation.”
She doubted that was the case. “Is it?”
“No, but I let him think that to make things easier.”
A question finally popped out of Ben’s mouth over all of his uncharacteristic squirming. “Any chance we caught the incident on one of the security cameras?”
Emma shook her head as she tucked in closer to Mark’s side. “No. This guy’s good.”
“I’m not convinced that’s true. More likely he has inside information and knows enough to stay out of the way of video,” Mark added.
“Damn it.” Ben switched to pacing. “Why didn’t Keith know about the camera locations and stay within them?”
“Because no one thought Keith was in danger. The tactical plans involved you and Emma.” Mark didn’t say “dumbass,” but Callie was pretty sure she heard it in his tone.
Ben came to a sudden stop. “And where were you during all of this?”
Callie bit her tongue because she had been about to ask that very same question. Since Ben did it for her, Mark could rage at Ben instead of her. She refused to think of that as letting Ben rescue her. It was more like smart strategic thinking.
“Talking security with Emma.” Mark’s voice grew even chillier as he glanced at the security guard as if to make sure the other man wasn’t listening in, though how that was possible when he stood only a few feet away wasn’t all that clear.
Emma must have noticed, because she glanced between the brothers and then rushed to fill the conversational void caused by Mark’s shot of anger. “Keith was only away from me for about a half hour. Mark stayed with me the whole time. About business, of course.” The woman got more flustered and a bit breathless as she spoke.
Now there was an interesting extra sentence. All business? Mark and Emma together at night in a dark courthouse? Callie knew what would happen if she were in that situation with Ben. On her back, legs in the air, and lots of moaning. Hell, it did happen. Three times.
There was some weird non-sibling energy zapping around Mark and Emma. Callie could feel it, thought about ducking to keep from getting hit by it as it bounced around the room. The way they tried not to look at or touch each other was a dead giveaway as well. It was a sign of pent-up sexual frustration if ever Callie saw one. Showed that, maybe, Mark was human after all, though she doubted that could be proven with any sort of scientific certainty.
“We didn’t even realize there was a problem until Mark tried to reach Keith on the cell,” Emma said, continuing to talk faster than the human ear could hear.
Mark held up the object in question. “Yeah, I had a lot of trouble with phones tonight.”
Uh-oh. Time to beg for mercy. Callie decided to launch an offensive strike. “About that.”
Mark didn’t give her a chance to explain or grovel. “Can I see you for a moment?”
She wanted to say no, even toyed with the idea, but didn’t. She deserved this. She had no one to blame but herself. And Ben, but mostly her. “Sure.”
“Alone.” Mark made the word sound like an opening to a death march.
Apparently he didn’t want any witnesses. Callie feared that this request had more to do with his plans for her than with the sensitive topic.
Ben picked that moment to stop pacing and pay attention to the world around him. He crowded next to his brother in what Callie took to be a somewhat macho show of dominance. Brave move, since Mark carried a gun and didn’t think twice about using it.
“Mark, now is not the time,” Ben said, chest puffing out and eyes daring Mark to test him.
“Callie works for me.” Mark matched Ben’s puff with one of his own.
The good judge didn’t back down. “I’m the only one she’s tailing.”
Time to step in or risk having the Walker boys roll around the floor punching each other. As awesome a sight as that might be, this wasn’t the place. “How about I make my own decision about what I do?” Callie asked.
Her preference was to leave the hospital and never come back, but she knew that couldn’t happen. She owed Mark an explanation and an apology. And she was far from being done with Ben. The man knew his way around a bedroom…and a foyer. She planned to see what he could do with a kitchen table and a shower, and not necessarily in that order.
“Whatever Mark has to say can wait.” Ben stood up straighter, if that was even possible. “In fac
t, it could probably go without being said at all.”
Okay, enough of that. Testosterone all but dripped off Ben to puddle on the floor. He treated her like a breakable doll. On some level Callie found the scene unbelievably flattering. It showed she meant something. But on most every other level it was a demonstration of male chest-beating jackassery that she did not want at the moment. When she told Ben he needed to amp down the rescue dial—and she had—then he needed to listen. This was about being taken seriously and handling her punishment. Ben couldn’t do those things for her.
“I doubt Mark plans to shoot me right here in the hospital,” she said, hoping to hell that was true.
“I don’t think you’re his target,” Emma said under her breath.
“This isn’t up for debate.” Mark stared down Callie and then pointed at some distant point down the hallway. “Discussion. Now. Over there.”
Callie didn’t wait for a second command. She got her butt moving. “Look,” she said, thinking to get a jump on the conversation as they reached ground zero. “I messed up.”
“That’s an understatement.”
She didn’t exactly agree with that. Seemed to her Mark was blowing this out of proportion a bit, but he was in charge and she would respect that. “Okay.”
“I hired you to do a job.”
“I know.”
“I’m not paying you for sex.”
A passing nurse did a double take at that comment. Callie cleared her throat to keep from screaming. “To be clear, no one is paying me for sex.”
“With your history—”
Oh, hell no. “That’s low.”
“But accurate.”
It actually wasn’t, but she refused to make this conversation about her past. “Don’t go there, Mark.”
“There is no way you can watch Ben if you’re naked with him and nowhere near your phone. Where was your cell while the two of you were…” Mark stuttered before letting the subject drop.
“Fucking?”
Her boldness enraged him all over again. His head flushed red from his neck to his hairline. “Being provocative isn’t going to work. This is a serious breach of protocol, not to mention an ethical gray area.”
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