I nod, completely dumbfounded by his words. “I do, but I don’t know anything about private security and surveillance.”
“But you know about all that business-y shit, right? That’s what we need. Someone to go out there and get us new contracts, bigger contracts, and help grow the business. You can do that.”
I smile because he isn’t asking, Tag just assumes I can do it. I like that. I like it a lot. “Yes.”
He nods. “Good. I’ve already talked to the others. They want to talk to you and make sure you can hold your own, but they’re on board.”
“So if I’m not a completely idiotic socialite I have a job?” He nods and I wrap my arms around his neck, giddy with excitement. “I have a job!” I squeal and kiss his face all over as I say, “I have a job,” over and over again.
“Hey, Princess, you got a job?” I lean on his shoulder and laugh so hard my sides ache.
“God, I love you.” Oh no. I didn’t say it out loud. If I keep my eyes closed and let the silence eat the words they weren’t said, right? The silence stretches and I have a feeling I’ve just messed up my new life before it even begins.
Chapter Four - Callie
I think I’ve ruined things between Tag and me. Ever since I told him I loved him, things have been weird. Nothing that would be noticeable to an outsider. but I feel it as keenly as if it were a living breathing thing. We still talk at home, but it is surface talk, and when we made love it is powerful but there is a distance between us. I don’t like it at all, in fact it breaks my heart.
The only good thing about the past few weeks was my job. After talking with the other Howard brothers, I was immediately hired despite my lack of experience. I dove right in with the work and quickly began streamlining certain procedures so they could focus on what they do best. Max, who was closest in age to Tag and me, was the hardest to convince, but after I got a contract with a well-known Hollywood starlet and then secured a probationary one-year contract with the British government with the option to extend to five, he’d finally come around.
It is time for me to find a place of my own. I can afford it easily and really don’t want to make Tag uncomfortable in his own home. I click on a few real estate ads for houses. If all goes well, I can make Boulder my permanent home. Then again, if things go south with Tag, I won’t have a job and would probably have to leave again. I close all those windows and click on apartment ads. I really love waking up in Tag’s arms and passing out in a sweaty, sated sleep next to him. I will miss it, but it would kill me to watch the distance grow between us.
My office phone rings and I pick it up with a question in my voice. “Hello?” Very few people know to call me and especially to my direct extension.
“Callie, love, how are ya?”
“Gavin? Oh my goodness, how are you? How’d you know to find me here?”
“I’m well love, doing well. What are you doing in Colorado? I thought for sure you’d be married to that boring bag of bones Stuart.”
“That didn’t work out too well for me, so I’m reinventing myself. Wait until you see me, you’ll flip. How’s Alastair?”
I could hear the smile in his voice. “Sexy as ever, love. But now we must get down to business. I wish I was calling for a better reason.”
It takes my brain a second to process what he was saying. In fact, I have no idea what he is trying to say. “What news, Gavin?” My heart hammers in my chest. “Just tell me.”
“Sorry, love, I hate to be the one to tell you, but it looks like your boy Levi Howard was taken prisoner along with a few of our boys.”
“Shit,” I lean back in my chair, my heart heavy with the news I’d have to give to three big, handsome men. “Okay. Tell me everything you know.” I listen for twenty minutes as he gives me every detail he has. Gavin promises to send any helpful information he gets since we are now contractors with his government.
I make a quick trip to the bathroom because I know the next few hours will be long and I might not get a chance for a while. My heart is breaking with what I’ll have to tell these guys, but I need to do it. “Okay you’ve got this.” I needed to give myself a pep talk as I gathered my notes and maps and the research I had so far. Max was a tech expert, so he’d be able to dig up any additional information they might need.
“Hey do you have a minute?” Tag’s voice washed over me, soothing and calming in these frantic moments.
“Not really, we need to go. Can we talk later?” I see his eyes dart to my screen and realize he’s seen the apartment search I’d done before Gavin’s call. “It’s not what you think, okay? We will talk about this, I promise.”
He isn’t happy but he nods and follows me out the door. As I pass their offices, I call to Max and Reece that we need to meet in the conference room.
Ten minutes later, we were all gathered around the large oak conference table. “I received a call today from a friend of mine who works in British intelligence.” I take a deep breath and decide it is best to just spit it out. “It seems the flight Levi was on was carrying 3 American soldiers, 2 British soldiers and 2 Canadians. The plane was headed to Fort Benning when contact was lost somewhere over the Atlantic.” I turn on the projector and a photo of Levi appears on the wall. “This photo was sent to the British government yesterday. We’re not sure if the other governments have been contacted.”
“Is this a hostage situation?” Max was already on his super-secret totally encrypted laptop looking up information.
“I’m not quite sure, but Gavin said no requests have been made yet. This could just be a way to get our attention, but if they don’t want anything…” I trail off, not knowing what to say.
“If they don’t want anything then they’re all as good as dead.” It didn’t sound any better when Reece said it even though I knew was the truth.
“How did you come upon this information, Callie, when none of us have heard a thing?”
Tag is upset. I can tell by his tone and the way his eyes shoot missiles at me. “I introduced Gavin to his husband Alastair, whom I went to grad school with.” I narrow my gaze at him before turning back to Max. “This is everything we have. The last known coordinates of the plane, the IP address the message came from. Unfortunately, it was rerouted through several different countries, but MI-6 says it likely came from the Middle East.”
Max looks at me and gives me an impressed smile. “Thanks, Callie.” He looks at his watch. “Let’s reconvene in an hour and see if we’ve come up with anything new to find our brother.”
Tag
Shit. All the information that’s come at me in the past hour is enough to make me want to board a flight and beat the shit out of every person I find until my brother is back with us, where he belongs. Hearing Callie so happy to talk to some British fuck on the phone about tore my heart out, but it is be no more than I deserve. She told me she love me and I said nothing. Not one fucking word. Things are strained between us and we’d only lived together a short time. She is already looking for another place to live.
Shit.
Now it looks like someone has taken my brother and that fucking sucks. For weeks, months we’ve been expecting Levi to walk through the doors of Hawkeye Security Solutions with a shit-eating grin on his face and that cocky strut of his. But no, he is somewhere as a prisoner probably being beaten and tortured. “Fuck!” This is a shit storm none of us ever saw coming. I mean Levi fucking Howard is a SEAL. He’s a badass motherfucker who kicks ass for a living. If someone kidnapped Levi and other Special Ops guys, then it had to be an inside job. “Shit!” I need to talk this out.
“Max,it has to be an inside job.” I explain my theory as quickly and succinctly as I can. Max tosses out alternative arguments to make sure we have all our bases covered. “I think it’s time to call in a few of the others, but only the guys we can trust.” Max agrees.
“Let’s wait until tomorrow. I want to spend tonight gathering more intel and we all need to get a good rest. I don’t think we’ll g
et much in the next few days.” He smiles up at me. “Callie is great, Tag. She does a great job and for some reason she loves your ugly mug.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Hearing Tag praise Callie isn’t what I need to hear right now. But since we’ll all get a good night’s sleep, I guess we’ll have it out. “Call me if you need anything.”
I don’t want to have a conversation with Callie about us because I know she isn’t mine to keep. She is a pampered princess with one hell of a work ethic and she is smart as fuck. Why her dad didn’t want her running The Morgan Group is beyond me. Max was right; she is fucking brilliant. And I am going to lose her.
Why didn’t I tell her I loved her when she said it? It’s not like I don’t because, shit, by the time we’d made it to Colorado, I knew I’d fallen for her like the pussy that I am. She is great, damn near perfect, and I’d had it for her since we were kids. As an adult, Callie is a fucking dream come true. She is smart, hardworking and she actually seems to give a shit about me, something no one but my brothers can say.
“Do you want to grab some dinner at home so we can talk?” Speak of the devil. Callie stands in my doorway looking wary and tired.
“Sure, let’s go.” I can’t let Callie leave me and I won’t.
As soon as the door closes behind me, she turnes and kicks off her shoes. “So talk.”
I have to smile at her demanding tone. It makes me proud but it also makes me hot as hell. “Why are you leaving me?”
She looks confused. “I’m not leaving you. What are you talking about?”
She knows, but I tell her anyway. “You were looking at apartments in Boulder, what else should I think?”
She sighs and walks into the kitchen to pour herself a stiff drink. My girl doesn’t go for wine when she needs a drink; she reaches for the whiskey. “It’s not because I’m leaving you. Tag, you have to admit things have been weird since I said I love you. I didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable in your own home because you don’t feel the same way.” She tosses back the whiskey and pours another. “I love you, Tag, I do. Maybe it’s too soon, I don’t know, but I know how I feel. I feel you pulling back and hate it. So if you need me to be out of here to make things easier for you, I’ll do it.”
“Shit, Princess, is that what you think?” Man I’d fucked this up more than I thought. “You just shocked me when you said it in the car and I didn’t know what to do. No one has ever said that to me before.” Her shocked gasp is just another reason I love her. She always feels shit on my behalf. Right now, she’s upset that no one has seen how great I am and told me they loved me before her. “I handled it badly and, as time went by, I didn’t know how to say it.”
“It?”
Her wide, honey-brown eyes are filled with disbelief. I have to smile at her. “I should have told you in that car that I love you, that I am crazy as fuck about you and want to keep you by my side forever. I should have said all that and more, but shit, Callie, you’re way too good for me. You deserve so much more than I can give you, but I’m a selfish bastard and I want you. I want you so damn bad I ache with it.”
She slams back another whiskey and stares at me, her face nothing but a blank mask. Then I see it, one side of her mouth slowly beginning to lift and then the other side. “So what you’re saying is that you’re madly in love with me, a girl with nothing but a small trust fund to her name and a new job at a fast-growing company? Did I get that right?”
“Hey, Princess, that’s pretty good for a socialite.” I love giving her shit because she dishes it right back. “And since you’re with a bona fide bad boy who’s set for life, you can feel free to decorate this space in your crazy bold colors and patterns.”
“Really?” She tries to hide her excitement. “Well I do have my own money so I won’t have to be a kept woman, you know.”
“Aw but honey I want nothing more than to keep you. Forever.” I lift her up until she wraps her legs around my waist.
“Forever is a long time, Ranger.” She kisses my neck and my knees damn near buckle. “Now let’s get something to eat, I’m starved.”
“You know Callie, I’m pretty hungry, too.” I lower her onto our marble dining table and quickly remove her skirt and silky red thong. “Fuck baby you are making me hard in those stockings.”
She extends her legs, resting her ankles on my shoulders. “These old things?”
“Mmmm,” I grunt at her and pull up a chair. “So. Very. Hungry.” I use my hands to push her thighs out until she is bared to me. “So silky and pink. Ooh and so wet. Is that wet pussy for me?”
“You know it is, Ranger. I’ve been thinking about you all day and this is what happens.”
I love that my sweet little Callie can talk dirty. It is a fucking turn on, let me tell you. I grab her and pull her closer so I can feast on her sweet pussy. And I do. I flatten my tongue and swipe up and down, occasionally sliding through her folds until her hips began to roll under my mouth. I spread those pretty brown lips and watched the cream spill from her pussy. I lapped it up and sucked it out, making her squirm and tighten her thighs around me. “Give me all of your juices, Princess.”
“Take it, Tag, it’s all yours anyway.” She holds her lips open for me so I can feast and I do not disappoint. I suck that sweet clit into mouth and pull until she vibrates with her need to come.
“You want to come, Callie? You need to come all over my tongue?” She moans and fists a handful of my hair, keeping me where she needs me. Need. Me. I slide three fingers inside her sweet heat and clamp on to her clit until she screams my name and comes all over my tongue. I slow my mouth to bring her down a little but not too much. My girl loves to come and she can practically do it on command.
“Tag, I need you inside me now. I need to feel you.”
Her soft whispers drive me crazy and I stand, knocking over the chair and getting rid of my pants and underwear. “You want this hard dick?” I smack her clit and she gasps because she is still extremely sensitive. “Are you wet enough for me, Princess?” I almost come as soon as I came near her wet heat so yeah, she is more than wet enough. She is dripping fucking wet and I coat myself in her before I slam inside.
“Oh!” She digs her feet into my ass to spur me on and I hammer into her until we are both climbing the walls to reach our pleasure. “So close,” she groans and I feel her squeeze me, so I know she is closer than close. She is standing right on the edge. I pinch her clit and stroke harder and faster into her until we both scream our pleasure loud enough to shake the walls.
“Fuck, Callie. How do you do that?”
She smiles that beautiful, sated smile of hers. “I know! It’s like every time I prepare for spectacular and it always surpasses that. Is it me or is it better every single time?”
“It’s not just you, Princess. I can say I’ve never had sex quite so satisfying and passionate.”
“You mean it’s not always like this?” I want to laugh.
“Fuck no. It’s never like this. Not until you.”
She kisses me when she sits up. “Because we’re in love? I’ve never been in love with anyone before and I’ve never had this kind of sex.”
“Honey me either. But if love is all it takes to keep us both coming like this, I think we’ll need to stay better hydrated.” She laughs and kisses my heart, her pussy pumping me again and making me hard. “Callie,” I warn her. If I fuck her again now it will be fast and raw and full of need.
“I know, Tag. Me too.”
The phone rings and I pick up. “Max, what’s up?” I listen and step back, pulling out of Callie’s body as I get the news that rocks my world. “Okay. See you soon.”
“What’s up? Is Levi okay? Please say he’s okay?”
“I wish I could. A drone strike just landed on the building where we think Levi and the others are being held hostage.”
“Shit,” Callie says as she rubs my arm.
Yeah. Double shit.
THE END
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Escaping With the Bad Boy Page 3