by Celia Kyle
“You done staring yet?” Laughter tinged his words, and she wrenched her attention from his ass. He remained bent over and peeked at her from beneath his arm. She met his teasing gaze for a split second, his twitching lips enough to make her face flush, and then shot her stare to the ground. “Or should I go ahead and strip for you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she mumbled.
“Liar.” His chuckle turned deep and dark, like smooth chocolate that lured her forward a step before she realized she’d moved. He straightened and turned away from the fridge, nudging the door closed with his foot.
His bare foot.
Could feet be sexy?
Abby’s cougar purred. Apparently.
“Come eat.” He placed a carton of eggs and a bag of shredded cheese on the counter.
“You keep trying to feed me.” She steeled herself for the impending encounter, prepared herself for being so close to Declan without touching him.
“Because you need to eat.” He didn’t give her a spare glance, just cracked an egg on the edge of the pan, a nice sizzle following the move. He tossed the empty shell in the sink and then focused on her, blue eyes intent. “We need to be ready for what’s coming.”
“Coming?” Her heartbeat stuttered, and fear threatened to take over.
Declan’s eyes bled amber for a moment, flickering between man and wolf, and he refocused on the stove. “A team is hunting you on behalf of the director.” He flipped the egg and then waved the spatula toward the corner—his computer system. “They’ve already hacked the traffic cams, and I have no doubt they’re routing everything through facial recognition.”
“I don’t know what that means.” Or rather, she didn’t want to know.
He was quiet then, attention wholly on the frying pan, as if his cooking decided the fate of the world. The longer he ignored her, the more nervous she became, until she simply couldn’t take it anymore.
“Declan?” He didn’t make a sound, just flipped the second egg onto the plate and slid it across the counter. Declan was fast, but so was she, thanks to her cat. She reached for him, fingers wrapped around his wrist before he could fully retreat. “Declan, what does that mean?”
He stared at her hand, eyes no longer holding even a hint of his human half—the wolf was in residence. “The director wants you—what you know. Badly. Which means that team wants you even more.” He turned his wrist, shifting position until he held her hand in his. And he was so gentle, so careful with her. “Bad enough to do what it takes to get it.”
“Would it be wrong to give—”
“Sweetheart,” he murmured, blue eyes black and staring deep into her soul. “Shifter Operations Command is a pretty name for men who do bad things. You can’t imagine that the director is better than any of his agents. Regardless, Birch is feeling twitchy, and that’s never a good thing. Until we know more, you’re with me. Once we’re holding all the cards, we’ll figure out our play. For now it’s just us.” He pointed at the plate with his free hand. “Eat.”
Abby squeezed her thighs together, core tightening and aching with a jolt of desire. He’d aroused her with a single word and a dark look, and she called herself an idiot for getting hot and bothered over the wolf because he’d told her to eat.
There was something very, very wrong with her. Very.
She fed herself with her free hand, the other captive in Declan’s gentle grip. He traced her wrist with his thumb. So calm, so gentle. The assassin who touched her as if she’d shatter at any moment.
Maybe she would because that thought was enough of a reminder for her. Declan wasn’t simply a man seducing a woman. He was a killer—cold and merciless.
She tried to withdraw from his hold, but he merely tightened his grip, keeping her captive. “You didn’t tell me why.”
Declan increased the pressure of his thumb on her wrist. “Your heart’s racing.”
“Tell me what’s going on.”
“Is it racing because you want me, baby?” His deep voice was a seductive caress until he got to baby. That was enough to drown her desire.
Abby whipped her head up, eyes snapping open, and she glared at him. “No,” she snapped. “It’s racing because an asshole won’t let me go and won’t tell me what the hell is going on.”
The corner of his mouth curled up in a seductive smirk. “You keep lying to yourself if you want, but, baby”—she internally flinched—“I can smell your need. I can practically taste it on my tongue. I may be an asshole, but you like it.”
She did like it, but she wasn’t going to say the words aloud. “Tell me.”
“You want the truth.” He shook his head. “That’s what you’ll get.”
Declan released her, and she snatched her hand from his, rubbing her wrist and trying to wash away the feel of his skin on hers.
“You need to eat because everything up to this moment has been a cakewalk and you’re gonna need all the strength you can get just to survive what’s coming.”
Chapter Seventeen
The beast scraped Declan from the inside out, determined to gain its freedom so it could soothe the damage he’d done. But he didn’t want the wolf smoothing things over. He—they—needed the distance. The thing inside him, his feral half, had one too many long-term ideas about Abby. It didn’t care that Declan wasn’t a long-term guy. He was the go-to guy if a woman needed an itch scratched and didn’t care if he’d blown up a yacht five minutes before he walked through her door.
Abby would care. A lot.
“What do you mean? What’s coming?”
Sweet naive Abby with her pale sparkling blue eyes and golden hair. God, he wanted to taste her. Wanted to take her and keep her safe from all the bullshit that was about to go down.
“Gimme this.” He pulled her plate away and placed it in the sink. “We can go over to the desk.”
He pretended his dick wasn’t rock hard and he rounded the counter. Not looking at her, he strode to the computer station, intent on getting the dangerous explanation done and over with before he did something stupid. Like bend her over the couch and…
And she wasn’t following. He paused and turned back to her. “Abby?”
Her face flushed red, all pink and sexy, and his cock throbbed. Hell, it’d been hard from the moment he’d first heard her wake. He needed to get rid of her and get into some other woman’s bed. Soon. Before the wolf convinced him to take her.
Abby’s attention drifted down his body, and he had to admit he was fucking pleased that she liked what she saw. She licked those plump lips, her breathing speeding up while the delicious scent of her arousal filled the air.
“Still don’t want me, baby?” He smirked because it pissed her off. Called her baby for the same reason. It was fun, ruffling her fur and being the recipient of fiery glares.
“No,” she snapped, but her darkening blush told him she lied. Eh, he’d let her keep lying to herself. It’d make his life easier when it was time to walk away. If she kept giving him those “fuck me” looks, he was bound to have her. The only question was whether it’d be hard and fast or gentle and slow.
“All right, then.” He returned to his path, not stopping until he got to his desk. Entering his password took less than two seconds and then they were in his system.
“These guys”—he waved his hand toward the left screen—“are the team hunting you. Decent enough. Not as seasoned as my own, but they do what they’re told for the ‘greater good’ or some shit.” He flicked her a glance and caught her confused expression. “They joined SHOC voluntarily.”
“You didn’t?”
He had to open his fucking mouth, didn’t he?
“Let’s say that I was encouraged to put my skills to use in an alternative capacity.”
Abby grinned and he sure as hell wasn’t pleased about it. “Really? Kill the wrong guy?”
Declan shrugged. “Didn’t kill the guy.”
At least, that was what’d originally put him on
the council’s radar. Then he’d gotten out of the game and Birch showed up and…Two years of bullshit he didn’t like thinking about.
“Most teams are made up of men who’ve found that SHOC is a nice alternative.”
“To what?”
“Death,” he drawled. “We do the dirty work that needs to be done. SHOC has an accord with the council that gives us diplomatic immunity when it comes to freelance work.” He shrugged. “We can’t turn into serial killers or start slaughtering humans left and right, but we don’t have to keep looking over our shoulders when we take on a little action on the side.”
She swallowed hard, and he could practically read her thoughts. She wanted to know about his past—whom he’d killed—but on the other hand, she didn’t. “And that team?”
“Like I said, they’re puppies. Their team is made up of ex-Trackers turned agents who were born and bred to appease their superiors. That used to be the council.” He glared at the screen displaying the team moving around their safe house. “They just want to please the director. No matter the cost.”
“I’m a shifter,” she said. “Isn’t SHOC supposed to help and protect…?”
Declan pitied her. He really did.
“Sweetheart,” he murmured, liking the way the endearment rolled off his tongue a little too much. He reached for her hand, and when she didn’t pull away, he tugged her all the way onto his lap—one arm around her waist and the other still holding that delicate hand. He liked having her close, touching her and holding her. He’d hate himself for it later, hate himself for staining her with the darkness that clung to his skin. For now he’d enjoy her nearness.
“We’re not dealing with the council here. The SHOC director is a lot like the rest of my team—dirty and not giving a damn about anything but completing a job.”
Her lower lip trembled, and he felt like the asshole who told a bunch of kids that Santa wasn’t real. “But we could call the council, right? They could…”
“When it comes to intense shit like this? I don’t trust anyone.”
“Not even your team?”
Declan’s wolf sneered at him, the animal’s general “you’re an idiot” attitude more than clear. “I would trust my team,” he allowed slowly. “But I won’t call them in for this. Not when it means going against SHOC. I don’t want them to be branded rogue for something I did alone.”
He leaned forward and tapped a few keys, then grabbed his mouse, sliding the cursor from screen to screen.
Declan clicked another corner of the screen, bringing it into focus. “The team tasked with retrieving you are into traffic cams and some of the big-boy security systems for the buildings surrounding your home.”
Abby jolted, and he stroked her back, palm sliding up and down her spine. “They’d know if we were coming.”
“Yes.” No sense in lying. He gestured at a different set of images. “On this side is Eric Foster—FosCo—and by extension, Unified Humanity. His guys tapped in, too, but their tech is slower. As soon as we pass a traffic cam, we’ll end up with SHOC on us before UH gets their thumbs out of their asses.”
“You hacked into UH and SHOC? How?”
Declan snorted. “Baby”—he hated the way she flinched, but it was for the best. She was sweetness and light and he…wasn’t—“I didn’t live this long by being stupid. My eyes are everywhere.”
He pulled up footage from the previous night, the recordings he’d pieced together to make a mini-movie of her dash to freedom. It showed Abby racing away from FosCo right until she reached the edge of the pier. He paused the recording there—an ethereal image of her standing on the precipice and prepared to jump.
“I don’t have eyes in the ocean. Where did you hide the tablet?”
Abby hesitated, lower lip caught between her teeth and indecision plain on her face.
He squeezed her hip. “I can’t protect you if you don’t give me a little trust.”
Abby sighed, and her shoulders slumped. “Can you pull up a map of the coast? There’s a little island—Palm Island.”
“You hid the tablet on an island?” He raised a single brow. “You swam to an island, hid the tablet, and then swam to shore? That’s some stamina.”
Stamina he wouldn’t mind enjoying. How long could they fuck before she got tired?
“After I got shot.”
“Yeah, I remember.” Hated that he remembered, but he did. “So we’ll have to steal a boat.” He brought up the map she’d requested and scanned the coastal marinas. “How long will it take you to find the tablet once we hit the island?”
“Not long. I know exactly where I left it.”
“Five minutes? Fifteen? I need numbers, ba—” He snapped his mouth closed and tried again. “I can’t plan without numbers.”
“Five, then.” She jerked her head in a stiff nod. “I can get it in five.”
“Good. The less time we’re exposed, the lower the risk.”
“I don’t want you hurt because of me, Declan. You can hand me over to the director.”
“No, I really can’t.” Because fuck all, it would be a lot easier to wash his hands of everything. Except…except something deep twisted at the mere idea of letting her get more than ten feet from him.
She didn’t say anything for a moment, and he waited, tensed and ready to snap at her if she started in with that “hand me over” bullshit again.
“Okay,” she whispered. “We’ll avoid SHOC and UH, but what about your own team? Where are they?”
Declan shook his head, hating the answer. “I have no idea, but we’ll worry about that later.”
For now they were going over the plan. And once this shit was sorted, he was gone. She’d go back to her number-crunching life and he’d…force himself to be anywhere but with her.
Chapter Eighteen
Cole
Cole figured he should probably listen to the Director Quade’s bitching. Should, but wasn’t. It was one of those “same shit, different day” things. It all boiled down to the same message: the team fucked up, so they’d better fix it, dammit. They might.
And then they might not.
It depended on whether he—they—felt like it. Right then Cole was trying to juggle six balls of C-4 while sitting in a chair balanced on two legs. His record was five.
“One girl. How fucking hard is it to hold on to one fucking girl?” The head of SHOC snarled—his inner snake baring its poisonous fangs. Yeah, the director of Shifter Operations Command was a snake. Literally.
Waves of the man’s fury darted through the room. The asshole who was supposed to have gone to the southern field office had decided to head on over and supervise Abby’s retrieval instead. Lucky them.
“Apparently,” Cole drawled, and slowly turned his attention to the raging bear, focus split between the C-4 and the director, “very.”
The snake shifter’s gaze seared him, but Cole couldn’t find an ounce of fear. His tiger obeyed orders by choice, not some knee-knocking terror. Right now it wanted to choose to lift his tail and spray the asshole with piss for shits and giggles.
“You.” The director pointed and glared at Cole.
Cole lifted one corner of his mouth in a smirk. “Me.”
“You knew about this.” He stomped closer to Cole. “He’s your partner, and you—”
The nearer Director Quade drew, the more agitated his tiger became. The striped cat rose within Cole’s mind with a low, rumbling snarl. He caught each tumbling ball of C-4 in his hands, one after another until he held all six.
“I have a name.” He adjusted his weight, and the other two legs of the chair thumped to the ground. “I am part of a team.” He placed the balls on the table that separated him from the director. “I don’t like your fucking tone.”
Quade leaned across the table, midnight eyes boring into his own. The bastard’s snake was on the rise, and Cole let his own beast edge closer.
“You joined SHOC and agreed to do as ordered.” The deadly black mamba curl
ed his lip. “You were ordered to secure the prisoner and turn her over so she could be interrogated.”
“Interrogated?” Ethan came into the room, the lion’s walk smooth and slow, as if he were relaxed, but Cole knew better. The lion shifter hated Quade just as much as anyone. “I was under the impression you had a few questions for her. A couple of finer points to discuss before you patted her on the head and sent her on her way.”
The director spun. “What I do with a prisoner—”
“Aw, she’s a prisoner?” Grant whined around a mouthful of sandwich. His boots thumped heavily on the thin carpet. “When did that happen?”
“After your communications mysteriously”—the director’s heavy glare landed on Grant—“went down.”
“I know, right?” Grant’s eyes were wide. “What’s up with that?” He shook his head and took another bite of his sub. “Funny how shit randomly breaks. Know what I mean?”
Cole snorted and rolled his eyes.
“You, Mr. Shaw”—the director’s midnight eyes narrowed on Grant—“were hired—”
“Drafted,” Cole coughed, but the director ignored him.
“For a specific purpose.” Quade continued as if Cole hadn’t interrupted. “If you cannot meet the requirements of your job, you will find yourself in a council prison.”
Ethan strolled deeper into the room, eyes on his cell phone until he came to a stop at Cole’s side. He tucked his phone away and crossed his arms over his chest. “Then the council will find its newest prisoner missing within twenty-four hours of him walking through the front door.” The lion tipped his head to the side. “Or did you forget who I am?”
Ethan wasn’t just a pretty boy with pretty cars. He was a ghost—in and out of any situation before anyone registered his presence.
Grant joined them as well, hopping onto the table, legs swinging.
“I want her.” The snake followed the words with a long hiss.
Cole tipped his head to the side. “How’s it feel to want?”
“You will locate and secure her.” The threat was obvious in Director Quade’s voice.