by Becca Van
“I have never…” Brom began, only to swallow loudly, unable to complete his sentence.
“Me neither,” Ty said as he stumbled off the bed toward the bathroom. He started the water and after cleaning up went back to get Nicole. He wanted her to be comfortable so she would sleep the rest of the night. She looked so peaceful in sleep and he didn’t want to disturb her but he needed to take care of her. Possessiveness swept over him and he wanted to keep her in their bed and in their lives…forever. “Never in my life…” Rand stuttered.
“She’s special,” Brom said. “We can’t let her leave. I’m in love with her.”
“She hasn’t once said what she feels for us,” Ty replied and then clenched his jaw tight. Although he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Nicole by his side, he wasn’t about to put his heart out there only to get stomped on. If anyone was going to say the L word, she would have to say it first. “Bring her into the bathroom.”
Rand lifted Nicole from Brom’s chest and after testing the water with his foot, stepped over the rim of the tub and sat down with her on his lap. She sighed and snuggled her face into Rand’s neck, but didn’t open her eyes. Ty had never been more thankful than he was right now that the spa tub was large enough for six people. He stepped into it before sitting down next to Rand and Nicole. A moment later Brom also got into the tub. Between the three of them they had her washed and dried and back in bed half an hour later, and on clean sheets. Brom had stripped and remade the bed before coming in.
Once she was settled, Brom and Rand got in beside her and cuddled up close to her. Ty was feeling restless and antsy and knew it would be pointless trying to sleep right now, so he headed for the office to work for a while. He wanted to see if any more of the Japanese Underground criminals had come up on the radar and if so he had every intention of tracking everything they did.
The Elite Dragoons leaders, Whitmoor, Dalton, and Hayward Cartwright, had been working with their CO, Tony Sullivan as well as the FBI and the Japanese authorities in trying to correlate a list of names of criminals known for their affiliation in prostitution and the sex slave industry. But so far they had nothing to go on and none of the alerts they had set up had been triggered.
Ty had begun to wonder if the crims had pulled out of the USA after he and the rest of their team members had stopped the first two attempts on innocent women. He doubted they would have been successful if it wasn’t for the fact that their empathetic skills also seemed so much more than that. He still couldn’t get his head around the new ability and wondered if he’d ever get used to being more than the average Joe. It wasn’t that he didn’t like having more enhanced senses and such. He loved how much stronger and faster he was, but the empathy side of things was a little hard to deal with. Having to keep a shield up 24/7 was easy, what was hard was that when he let that shield down he was bombarded with other people’s emotions. Having his mental wall down was very draining and when he and his brothers had been able to connect with Nicole when she had left the ranch, he had kind of freaked out a little. Not that he’d told his brothers about his fears, but if they could see and feel what Nicole did he worried that she would be able to see and feel what they did.
He’d heard about how Sara had felt and known when Hay had been shot and he didn’t want Nicole to have to go through something like that. As far as he was concerned she shouldn’t have to feel their pain if they were ever unlucky enough to be injured. It made his gut churn at the thought. Just as he mentally shook his head and pulled from his introspection, an alarm on the other laptop sounded. Pushing back his chair he hurried over to Rand’s desk. After opening up the file and tapping away on the keyboard, he was able to bring up the software. The alert had been triggered by the name of Yumi Itou, who was a well-known Japanese criminal involved in drugs and the sex trade, in the town of Gillette, Wyoming, just over nine hours away.
Pulling his phone from his jeans pocket, he sent a text to Whit and waited for a reply. Since it was so late he didn’t expect their team leader to call a meeting until morning. The reply text came in and he smiled. He’d been right. They were to convene at 0600 hours and begin making plans.
* * * *
He rubbed his hands together when he saw the light come on in the office. Even though he had been kicked off the property and would have to be careful not to be seen, getting close to the house had been easy. No one was looking for him or suspected that he was up to no good. It was all that bitch’s fault and he had no intention of letting her get away with what she had done.
She’d humiliated him in front of the other hands causing him to lose his job, and before that she had stuck her nose into his business. Who the fuck did she think she was jumping in between him and some no-good two-bit whore? If she told anyone what the fucking hooker had said about his dick he would never be able to get another woman into his bed. His was bigger than a fucking pin and he wasn’t about to let her repeat what that bitch had said. His ego couldn’t take it and he couldn’t risk word spreading. It had been easy to set up that alert. Just because he was a ranch hand didn’t mean he didn’t know his way around a computer. He’d heard the team leaders talking in the barn when they thought no one was around and knew what they really did for a living. He’d heard one of the names of the crims they were looking for and because it was so unusual it had stuck in his mind.
He slipped back into the shadows and quietly made his way toward the driveway, staying behind the line of trees and back toward his car. Tomorrow would be soon enough to make his move and get that bitch.
* * * *
Yumi paced the hotel room he had leased in Minneapolis, Minnesota, while waiting for his right-hand man to find the information they were looking for. Sota Haru hadn’t looked away from the laptop he had been working on for the last three hours. He needed to know who had taken down his partner, Mika Takahashi, and some of their men and if whoever had taken down that part of their organization knew about the rest of them and what they were up to. So far, Sota hadn’t come up for air, but that was a good thing since he was a computer genius. But Yumi was impatient to know what the American authorities knew so that he could arrange for flight out of the country if necessary.
All of a sudden Sota looked up and pinned him with his eyes.
“What have you got?”
“Your name.”
“What? I have a fake passport and haven’t used my name. Fuck. Where? Why?”
“Give me about half an hour and I’ll find out,” Sota replied.
Yumi gave him a nod and began pacing again. His heart beat rapidly in his chest as he cursed the American police. How the hell they had gotten hold of his name he had no idea, but with Sota working on the computer, he would find out. And when he did, whoever was looking for him was a dead man, or woman.
When Sota raised his head again he had a smile on his face and then he began to explain. “It seems that a ranch hand who was working on a cattle ranch, called the Elite Dragoons in North Dakota, has a grudge against his ex-employer. He posted his disgruntlement on one of those social websites and then stupidly posted an ad for employment. His name is Abe Stone and even though he seems to be computer savvy, he is obviously a little stupid. Who would bag their previous employer and then post for employment in the same paragraph? The man must be out for revenge, because he was fired for hitting a woman.”
“What’s that got to…”
“Let me finish.” Sota held up his hand. “This Abe person has used your name on an internet café in Gillette, Wyoming. He obviously hacked them. I was able to trace the connection back to him. He is currently staying in a boarding house in Belcourt, North Dakota. The trail was easy to follow.”
“How would a ranch hand know my name, know anything about us?”
“That is the question I have been asking myself for the last half hour. What if this Abe was working for the men who took out Mika and the rest? What if the ranch he was working on is a cover for a covert operations group?”
Yumi stared at Sota as he rubbed his chin. It made sense and if the ranch was headquarters to the men who had killed his best friend Mika, then he was going to take them out. His boss wouldn’t blink at killing him or giving him up to the American authorities if it would keep his own ass safe.
He nodded to Sota. “Were you able to find anything out about this Elite Dragoons ranch?”
“No. It’s probably not listed.”
“Find the nearest airport to this Belcourt and book us a flight. We will find this Abe and get the information we need.”
Sota turned back to his laptop. “The nearest airport is about a half an hour away in Rolette. I have booked two flights on a small plane. We should be landing by late afternoon.”
* * * *
Rand hated leaving Nicole alone when she was still asleep, but he, his brothers and the rest of their team were due to meet at the main house in five minutes. Ty had filled them on the alarm that had gone off late last night on one Yumi Itou, who was on their list of Japanese Underworld criminals. If this asshole was in Gillette, Wyoming, then they had to go and check it out. They couldn’t let the prick and his men take more innocent women off the streets and sell them to the highest bidder.
After one more glance at Nicole, he gave a sigh and headed out. His brothers had already left and were probably wondering what was keeping him.
He sat down in the chair next to Ty in the dining room of the main house and sniffed appreciatively as May began to bring in breakfast. Sara must have still been in bed, too, because there was no sign of her. When everyone had filled their plates and began to eat, Whitmoor began talking.
“I want to head out by 0700 hours. That should give you enough time to be organized. I’ve already checked with the local authorities in Gillette and as far as the sheriff knows, no women have been abducted, as yet. He’s informed his deputies to keep a look out for this fucker Yumi, but if the bastard is in hiding, using a false name, then it will be like looking for a needle in a haystack. We are going to have to walk the town and the surrounding area with our shields down to see if we can pinpoint this bastard and his cohorts.”
“I don’t like leaving the women alone,” Rand stated. His gut was churning and tightly knotted and the hair on his nape was standing on end. He didn’t like that feeling one little bit, but had no idea why he felt so anxious.
Whit chewed his mouthful of food before speaking. “The women will be fine. I can give Coulter, Trace, and Corbin a heads up and ask them to keep an eye on them, but no one knows we are here. We engaged the enemy in a different state and made sure to check over all our vehicles for tracking devices before coming back home. Only one of the crims from both operations survived and he’s been locked up ever since. There is no way in hell he could have gotten word out to the others.”
Rand nodded. He knew that Whit was right, but that didn’t help lessen his unease.
“It’ll take a little over nine hours before we get to Gillette and we’ll spend the next few days reconnoitering the town,” Dalton said.
Hay cleared his throat, drawing everyone’s attention. “I know it’s going to be a drain on your minds and bodies to keep your shields down for so long, but we have to make sure we get this fucker before he can take another woman.”
“Would this Yumi be stupid enough to use his own name after we’ve taken down some of his faction already?” Cal Garton asked.
“Probably not,” Whit answered. He shrugged then met each team member’s gaze. “We’re just going to have to be extra vigilant and not discount anything we feel as we walk around Gillette. Anything that feels off, no matter how big or small, we check out. I’m not leaving anything to chance. If we can get this prick and his men, we may find out who is heading up this sex slave ring.”
Brom asked what was probably on everyone else’s lips. “You don’t think Yumi and Mika are the masterminds?”
Whit shook his head and sighed. “No.”
“We could be on this case for years,” Huntley Lathan said.
“Yes, we could,” Dalton replied. “We were the top team in the Marines and the government approached us to do those experiments so we could be even better than we were. Most of our troops are off in the Middle East, protecting innocents, and the men here at home are being used to take down and fight terrorists. We are the only team who knows about this sex slave ring and it is our duty to do everything we can, even if it does take years.”
Hunt grimaced. “I wasn’t complaining, man, but it would be nice if we could wrap these assholes up as quickly as possible.”
“And we will,” Whit said. “Tony is working with Japanese law enforcement as well as the FBI, trying to correlate as much information as he can. But until we know who the head of this ring is, we will have these assholes infiltrating our country, trying to kidnap innocent women. You know as well as I do that some people will do anything for cold hard cash. For all we know they’ve already got American citizens helping them scout out blonde-haired blue-eyed women.”
“Okay, let’s get moving,” Hay barked out.
Rand picked up his now empty plate and pushed back his chair. After taking his dishes into the kitchen, thanking May for the food with a kiss on the cheek, he headed out. His brothers did the same.
Rand was ready to go five minutes later. All he needed now was to load up with weapons and ammunition. He had time for another cup of coffee and he wanted to spend time with Nicole before they left, so after brewing the coffee and filling two mugs, he carried them both to Nicole’s room. Just as he placed the mugs on the bedside table she sighed and stretched.
Rand sat on the bed and then scooted up so his back was against the headboard with a pillow behind him. “Hey sunshine, how did you sleep?”
“Rand?” She sighed before opening her eyes.
“Yeah,” Rand said and then contentment washed over him when she rolled over, snuggled up close to him, placing her arm around his waist and then hugged him tight.
“Hmm, is that coffee I smell?”
“Yep.”
Nicole released him and sat up. She looked so sexy with her hair sleep tousled, her flushed cheeks and sleep-glazed eyes. The covers fell down and he couldn’t help but look at her beautiful perky breasts. As he watched, her nipples beaded into hard points, making his mouth water, but he held back. If he started something with her now, he would end up being late and then he would get a reaming out from his team leaders.
“You’re all dressed.” Nicole took the mug from him when he passed it to her.
“Yeah, we’re heading out in a bit.”
“You’re going on a mission?”
Rand nodded.
“Oh no! Has another woman been taken?”
“Not yet,” Rand replied and then went on to explain why the team was leaving.
“Well, I hope you find him.”
“Me, too, sunshine. Me, too.”
Ty entered the room, drawing Nicole’s gaze, and Brom was right behind him.
“Hi, baby, how are you feeling?”
“Good.”
“Are you sore, Nic?” Brom asked as he sat on the end of the bed.
Rand watched with fascination as pink crept up over Nicole’s cheeks and she lowered her head. How she could be embarrassed by a question after what they had done to her last night was an enigma to him but he guessed it would take a while for her to get used to their bluntness. At least he and Brom weren’t as tactless as Ty.
Ty had taken a seat on the bed on Nicole’s opposite side to him and when she lowered her head, he reached over and gently nudged her chin up. “Answer the question, baby.”
“I’m…a little tender.”
“Your pussy or your ass, baby?”
If it was at all possible, it looked like Nicole’s cheeks got redder but she kept her gaze on Ty and answered, if a little belligerently. She turned her head to dislodge Ty’s hand but then scowled at him, wrapped her arms across her chest beneath her breasts and stuck her chin out.
“My ass.”
“Hmm, we’ll have to make sure we stretch you out a bit each day we’re home.”
“An anal plug will help,” Brom said with a grin.
Nicole turned her glare to Brom, but none of them were fooled. Her nipples had hardened even more, her mouth was slightly parted and she was breathing faster. Ty leaned over and sucked on a nipple. She moaned, arched up, and threaded her fingers into his hair and then clutched the back of his neck as if trying to keep him there.
Ty released her nipple with a pop and then covered her lips with his. The kiss was hot, wet, and wild and had Rand’s dick filling with blood and pulsing against the zipper of his jeans. It was going to be hard to leave their woman behind, but they had a job to do. Ty slowed the kiss, gave her a peck on the forehead and headed toward the door. He looked back over his shoulder and met her eyes. “Stay out of trouble, baby.”
Nicole’s mouth opened but then she snapped it closed when Ty disappeared.
Brom stood and then sat where Ty had been sitting. His brother cupped Nicole’s breast in his hand and thrummed her nipple with his thumb while he kissed her. When he finally lifted his head they were both breathing heavily. Brom gave her a wink and then headed out.
Rand removed the empty cup from her hand and then picked her up and plopped her down onto his lap. He groaned with desire when she wriggled around on his hard cock. When he looked down, the little minx was smiling up at him like the cat that ate the cream.
“Just wait till we get back, sunshine. I am going to hold you down and lick and nibble every inch of this sexy little body. You’re going to be so hot you’ll be begging, but I’m not letting you come until you ask nicely.”
Nicole took his face in between her hands and stared deeply into his eyes. When he looked he felt as if he could see into her soul. She might not have told them she loved them, but he could see it as clear as day. Some of the tension in his body eased and then he kissed her. He put all his feelings into that kiss and by the time he lifted his head they were both shaking with desire.