He chuckled at that and lifted his mug in salute. “Point taken.”
Looking at him nearly naked and bantering about sex without indulging was too much, so she spun back to her desk, scrolled back to the top of her lesson for the sixth time and started over.
His coffee mug clunked against the Formica and his bare footsteps sounded on the kitchen’s cheap linoleum. A second later, he braced his hands on either side of her, one on her desk and the other on the back of her chair. Black currant and woodsmoke wrapped around her, and his body heat licked against hers. He checked the screen for all of two seconds before he turned his face and murmured close to her ear. “Not making much progress.”
“I was distracted.”
“Mmm.”
A simple hum. Nothing more. But she felt it everywhere. Deeply.
He straightened and her whole body cried out at the loss. Before she could formulate a witty response, or at least refocus on her lesson, he cupped her far knee and spun her in her chair.
“What are you doing?” Mindless to anything but the lingering aftershock of his unexpected touch, the question came out as a whisper.
Thoughtfully, he skimmed the back of his knuckles along the exposed skin above her neckline then farther down along the edge of her robe. When his fingers reached her belt, he crooked them beneath and tugged until the fabric slipped free. Slowly he pushed her robe apart with both hands and sucked in a low breath that bordered on a hiss.
“Knox?”
“Hmm?” Totally focused. A hunter undistracted from his prey.
Still, she tried again, scrambling to find some mental footing in the midst of the sensations his perusal stirred. “What are you doing?”
He palmed her knees, slowly pressed them apart and crouched between them. Rolling to his knees, he gripped her hips, jerked her to the edge of her chair and lifted his hungry gaze to hers. “Wanted to do this the last time I was here.”
He wouldn’t. Dear God, if he put his mouth to her here, she’d never get anything productive done at her desk ever again. “But I have to work.”
He grinned. A wolf’s smile that sent ripples fanning out in all directions. “So do I.” He cupped the back of one knee, lifted it up and as wide as the desk beside her allowed and lowered his mouth toward her sex. “Now, brace, because I’m about to give you thanks for a solid night’s sleep in a way you won’t soon forget.”
Chapter Thirteen
Knox had a ton to do. Between the time he’d taken off Saturday night and his inability to concentrate on Sunday, he was way the fuck behind, but he still couldn’t stop staring at his screen.
It had taken half of last night and most of the morning, but finally he’d found the thread, and now the man Darya had apparently worked for was staring back at him. The picture was black and white and grainy as hell, but she was right behind the guy. Dressed to the nines, she had her head down as though trying to blend into the background.
Like that could ever happen. He’d left her place over twenty-four hours ago and he was still juiced. Not just by the things they’d done, but by the mother of all miracles that had happened when he’d gotten home. Hell, he still couldn’t believe it. The taste of her had still been on his tongue and his dick so hard it hurt to walk. He’d refused to get off with her again—no more condoms and a need to walk out with some kind of upper hand had driven him to leave shortly after she’d come against his mouth. But he’d been naked and flat on his bed in all of five minutes of walking in his front door, stroking one off with the previous night’s details as clear as if they were happening all over again in real life.
He’d come. Hard.
And then he’d fallen asleep.
For four fucking hours.
That shit never happened by his own hand. Ever. Especially after he’d just had eight solid hours the night before. He’d woken with dried spunk on his belly, her scent all over him and his dick ready and raring to go again.
Yeah, he had his work cut out for him keeping his distance. Hell, he wasn’t even sure a repeat was a good idea, no matter how well he’d slept after.
The door handle clicked behind him and he flipped the display on his screen to his email. That was another problem he needed to fix and fast. No one ever snuck up on him. Especially not here with cameras mounted at every conceivable angle. And yet, Beckett strode in behind him with a box of donuts and a monster cup of joe.
Beckett slid the box onto the desk beside him and dragged one of the chairs from his working table up beside Knox. “What’s new in the land of cyber goodness?”
Well, at least that much was a safe topic. God knew he was going to get his ass handed to him before Beckett ambled back to his own office. “Got the goods on Darya. At least at a high level. What she said about being born and educated in Yekaterinburg checks out. So does the move to St. Petersburg after.”
He pulled up the picture of Darya’s boss and angled his primary screen toward Beckett. “Went to work for this guy. Yefim Mishin.”
“Doing what?”
“Personal assistant. A pretty coveted job from what I can tell.”
“And what’s Yefim do?”
“An accountant on paper, but some of the articles paint him as more of a financial guru. Right hand to an oligarch.”
Beckett’s easygoing demeanor went stone-cold in a snap. “You think she’s running because she stole from the guy? The way I understand it, oligarchs are barely a step up from the mob.”
Knox shook his head, his focus drawn back to the picture of Darya as sure as if she’d reached out and guided his face by her own hand. “If she’s got money, she’s not using it. Not even a dime. Her stuff is quality, but all secondhand or very old.”
The image of her in her desk chair, her body drawn in on itself and her voice barely more than a whisper as she’d shared her first weeks in the US, boomeranged back to him. She’d felt every word. Relived every memory. No way the emotion that had been behind her story had anything to do with nefarious deeds. “Not thinking she’s not the type to steal.”
“Well, at least you’ve dropped the idea of her being some dastardly killer.”
“Yeah, I found out about that, too.” He pulled up the best of the old social media pics he’d found of the real Jeannie Simpson and put it side by side with the ones officially linked to Darya’s passport and driver’s license. “Darya shared the details on JJ. She hired Darya shortly after she landed here. They made a connection. When JJ was diagnosed with brain cancer she took it on herself to set Darya up to carry on with her identity before she kicked it. The woman was smart. Did just enough altering of Darya’s facial features to match her own. Smart move to throw off facial recognition.”
“Damn. That’s one hell of a fairy godmother.”
“Tell me about it.”
Beckett leaned in, popped open the box he’d brought in and snagged a donut. “So, when did this treasure trove of information come out? When you dropped her off last night, or the morning after?”
And here comes the ass-handing.
In one last dodge to avoid the whole scene entirely, he flipped open his email and scanned the list of senders without really clocking a word. “She’s coming in this morning at ten. I need you to handle getting her prints and retina scans. Show her around and introduce her to the rest of the crew while you’re at it. I already talked to Katy. She’s gonna get her hooked into handling some app support tickets.”
“Why me? Darya’s your employee.”
Goddamn Beckett. He never could just come out and say what he wanted to know. Had to prod and dig until a person finally confessed just to be free of the bastard.
Knox dragged his billfold out of his back pocket, peeled out the stack of hundreds he’d grabbed on the way in and plunked them down on the counter. “One large. You win.”
Even monitoring him out of the corner of Knox’s eye, Beckett’s sly grin was too big to miss. “Oh, yeah. That’s what I’m talking about. In less than two weeks, too.” He smacked his hands together, effectively dusting the crumbs from his annihilated donut off his fingers and celebrating in one fell swoop. He snatched the cash, folded the wad with a whole lot of I-told-you-so attitude and stuffed it in his back pocket. “So? How was it?”
Knox dropped all pretense of work and slumped back in his chair. “Really? We gonna comb each other’s hair and giggle, too? Maybe we can take a little extra time and spring for a mani/pedi.” Whatever the fuck that was. All he knew was that the moms, Viv, Gabe and Nat had a standing appointment for the damned things every two weeks.
“Ah, come on, man. She’s hot. The way you practically threaded Seth on a spit, I figure you had some crazy aggression to work off.”
Yeah he had. And Darya had not only taken every scrap of it, but had turned around and goaded him for more. He refocused on his screen and hit reply to an email he hadn’t even read for the sole purpose of having something to do. “Just do me a favor. Show her around. Get her set up. Make sure she gets one of our computers and secured VPN access so I can keep closer ties on what she’s up to.”
Beckett chuckled, reclined against his seat back and hooked one steel-toed boot heel on the rung of his chair. “She rung your bell. Hard.”
Goddamn it. Knox anchored his elbows on the desk and dug the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “Brother, just do me a solid and handle this. I need distance with this one.” He looked up and met Beckett’s too shrewd stare. “Give her an office if you want, but encourage her to work remote.”
“You don’t like people to work remote. You’re the kingpin of micromanagers and don’t trust anything you can’t see with your own security cams. Hell, you’d hover over every one of our employees if you could figure out how to pull it off and still get work done.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not gonna hover over her. I already muddied the lines. I don’t need to make it worse and I need you to help me the fuck out.”
Beckett studied him a minute, one elbow planted on top of Knox’s desk and his finger doing that push/pull thoughtful tell along his lower lip. Knox was just about to stand and bail when Beckett dropped his arm, nudged the box of donuts closer to Knox and stood. “Have a donut, brother. You look like you could use the sugar rush.”
With that he ambled toward the exit.
“Are you gonna cover this?” Knox called over one shoulder.
Beckett waved him off without so much as a glance. “Don’t sweat it, brother. I’ve got your back.”
Chapter Fourteen
A new day and a new start. Yesterday, Darya had let herself nurse the mother of all sex hangovers as long as she’d wanted, but today was fresh. All business.
Or at least that was the goal.
With one last slow exhale, she closed her eyes and pictured herself detached. Professional and calm. She’d used the same visualization to get her through all kinds of tense conversations at Yefim’s side. Negotiations that covered ridiculous sums of money and thinly veiled references to murder. Surely the tactic would work on a man who made her sex weep with a single dirty look.
She popped the handle on her Challenger and stepped into the late-July heat. Even at ten ’til ten in the morning, the air was thick with the promise of a scorching afternoon.
The security latch clicked open on the tinted double doors before she’d even lifted her arm to open it, and a second later the super-chilled air from inside wafted against her skin.
“The new victim arrives!” Katy stood behind her desk and held out her hand. “I mean trainee, of course, but you’ll appreciate the term victim by the time Knox deems you ready for prime time.”
Darya shook her hand, grateful for the levity as well as the warm welcome. “I don’t mind hard work. And he speaks very highly of you.”
“Only because I’m as stubborn as he is and stuck at it until I proved he’d be better off with me than without me.” She sat back down, held up one finger and snatched the phone from its cradle. After she’d pushed a few buttons, she anchored the earpiece in place with her shoulder and said to Darya, “Knox gave me the rundown this morning. Said you already had your assignments for the next few days, but asked me to teach you the ropes on app support.”
Before Darya could respond, she snapped to attention as if someone had answered the other line. “Hey, Beck. Darya’s here.” She smiled at whatever he said then volleyed back with, “Yeah, got it.” She slid the phone back in place. “Beckett’s on his way up.”
“Beckett?”
“Yeah, he’s gonna handle your scans and get you set up in the office. Just head back this way when you’re done and I’ll walk you through our ticketing system and how we triage everything.”
Beckett.
Not Knox.
Not even so much as a hello.
It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did, but the realization packed an immense punch. An unprotected blow square to the center of her belly. But could she blame him? He’d told her no strings and no expectations, and she’d agreed. Had even implied her feelings ran the same way. Now it was time to do her part, even if it was all a load of crap.
Katy motioned to Darya’s outfit. “You know, the dress code’s casual here. Jeans, sweats—heck one time, Misty showed up in flannel pajamas. Though, in fairness, that time she was just popping in before she had to run an errand for Knox.”
Darya scanned her linen sheath dress. The cut was simple and the buff color soft against her skin, but dressing for the office had helped her distance herself mentally. Still, cutting back on the dry-cleaning bill would be good. “Who’s Misty?”
“Knox’s assistant. She’s not exactly technically savvy, but she’s wicked good at keeping everyone’s rabid squirrels in a row.”
The heavy steel door to her right chunked open and Beckett ambled out. Of all the brothers, he’d always seemed the scariest in pictures—tall enough nearly everyone looked up to him with impressive muscle to balance his height. His dark chocolate hair was cropped close on the sides, only marginally longer on top, lending more severity to his strong, square jaw, but it was the quiet lethalness that emanated from behind his blue eyes that put people on edge. A deadly panther always poised and ready to pounce.
Yet today a huge smile split his chiseled face. “Hey, JJ.”
Nine months she’d carried her friend’s name and accepted it as her own, but hearing it now felt clunky. Wrong. As though she’d slipped her shoes on the wrong feet and gone for a stroll regardless.
He motioned to Katy. “Katy’s already got most of your information entered in the system. We’ll just need you to confirm your social and all the other details.”
Oh. Right. Just because she’d shared her real name with Knox and his brothers didn’t mean she could do the same with the rest of the world. Mistakes like that would crush what little normalcy Jeannie’s gift had created for her. “Thank you. Of course.”
He crowded close, the nearness more what she’d have expected from Knox after the night they’d shared than a man she barely knew. His voice dropped to a low rumble. “You ready to get set up so you can get to work?”
The words were right, but a suggested undercurrent wiggled beneath them. She inched backward. “Yes, absolutely.”
Beckett grinned as though he’d not only registered her discomfort, but that she’d somehow done exactly as he wanted. He motioned her toward the door he’d appeared from. “Well, then, let’s get busy.”
Weird. Something was off. Not quite big-bad-wolfish, but definitely something that told her to tread carefully. She nodded to Katy and cautiously started out in front of Beckett. “I’ll see you soon.”
If Katy had caught on to whatever was going on with Be
ckett, she didn’t show it, simply ducked her head back to the screen while her fingers flew across the keyboard. “Yep. I’ll be here when you’re done.”
At the door, Darya tried to open it, but remembered the hand scanner to one side when it wouldn’t budge.
Beckett moved in tight behind her and splayed his huge hand on the black pad. “Just relax,” he muttered low near her ear. “Trust me.”
Trust him? To do what?
The lock clicked open and he pulled the door wide.
She opened her mouth to ask her thoughts aloud, but he shook his head, a movement she’d have missed entirely if her gaze hadn’t been rooted on his face.
Definitely weird. Still she proceeded forward, her heels clicking delicately on the industrial tile.
“We’re headed to the last door on your right. Once we get your prints uploaded we’ll get you a computer and access set up.”
“Where’s Knox?” She hadn’t meant to ask it. Had promised herself she wouldn’t, but between Beckett’s odd behavior and her general first-day nervousness it leaped right out.
Beckett chuckled, a satisfied rumble that stopped just short of a caveman beating on his chest. “Don’t worry about him. I’ll take good care of you.” He splayed his hand low on her back, reached around her and opened the door so she could proceed him inside. “I promise.”
And so it went. Touch, tease and wink-wink all through the orientation process. Not once did he cross an inappropriate line, but by the time they’d scanned her prints and retrieved a computer from a tech lover’s utopian supply room, a soft breeze could have sent her leaping from her skin.
They’d just fired up her new equipment, Beckett leaning close over her shoulder while he pointed to her screen, when a low buzz sounded from somewhere.
Beckett grinned and murmured so low she could barely hear it. “Took him long enough.” He straightened and dug his phone out of his back pocket. “Yeah, what’s up?” He focused on the floor, his expression completely blank. “Not sure what you’re talkin’ about, brother. Just gettin’ our girl set up like you asked.” His lips twitched and he turned his back. “Now, why the hell would I do that? And even if I did, what difference would it make?” His shoulders shook, but when he spoke there was no trace of the laughter she’d expected alongside it. “Yeah, yeah. Got it. Message received.” He twisted enough to catch Darya’s stare and winked. “Later.”
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