Kit took slow steps to move closer to the wall, her head moving back and forth as she went top to bottom through the photographs. The frames stopped at the top edge of a high back chair set in the space. A chair that I often fell asleep in with a book in my hand or my lap covered in work I was desperate to finish in one sitting. "That is my family wall." I spoke softly to Kit, her back to me as she stood, leaning against the arm of the chair trying to get a better look.
Standing next to Kit, I slid the last two books into the shelf sideways on top of the other volumes of genetic research books I had. I turned and caught the small smile forming when she found the one picture of Davidek and I at the age of 12. Hugging each other in our lovely outfits of pleated stone washed jeans and random cartoon characters plastered on the fronts of our shirts. We both made for gangly, lanky, and awkward teenagers. Nothing but long arms, long legs and in my case, giant framed glasses.
Kit giggled, leaning over the chair to get even closer to the photograph. "This is Davey?" she turned quickly to see my confirmation nod, "Who knew you two were such awkward teens." Kit leaned back from the chair, turning back to me, "Who grew up to be two very attractive and incredible people."
I smiled, laughing airily as my hand settled on her shoulder, pausing before it ran down to press against the small of her back. The smile grew when I felt her lean ever so slightly into my touch, "We both have prodigious genetics in both family blood lines." Leaning closer and over Kit, I pointed at a recent photograph of my mother standing with Davidek's, both elegantly beautiful women with the age starting to grace the finer touches of their features. My mother looked exactly like I knew I would in my sixties and Davidek carried his mother's intense copper eyes and her nose. "Both of our mothers don't look a day over forty four. That was taken last spring at the first family BBQ of the season."
Kit tilted her head back, her nose almost brushing the side of my cheek we were so close. "You are beautiful, you do know that right?" Her voice was soft and airy. I glanced at her from the side of my view, not wanting to fully face her as I felt my skin heat up just from the soft, yet sensual tone in her voice. I tried to wave off the compliment, "I have heard that once or twice." The egocentric joke was an attempt to deflect the compliment and how warm I was getting the more Kit pressed against me. I had to eventually step back from her, "Did you think of a movie you wanted to watch or is it TV?"
Kit's hand captured my forearm, holding me and my attention captive. The way she looked when my eyes fluttered from her hand and up to meet hers, made me shiver. Sending a prompt ache to the center of my body, forcing my thigh muscles to tighten.
Kit held tightly onto my arm as she broke further into my personal space, her body heat increasing the ambient temperature around mine. She slowly pulled my arm to wrap around her waist, setting my hand on her hip, holding it there. My heart pounded in my ears like a high school drum line.
Unyielding pounding when I saw what was in Kit's eyes as her body moved closer to mine. God did I want her.
Hips grazing hips, breasts ghosting over mine. Kit was biting her bottom lip, holding in the mischievous grin that was looming over her face. She leaned forward, her nose and lips brushing my neck under my chin, forcing me to suck in an audible, ragged breath when her lips pressed against my thundering pulse.
When I felt the warm, wet tip of her tongue trace a line against the edges of the open mouth kiss she was placing on my neck, my hands clenched on the excess fabric of her sweatshirt. Squeezing the fabric tightly in my palm.
Kit continued her kisses up my neck, each one slow, directed, and sensual as they made the slow journey to the underside of my chin. Finding my lips shortly after one lingering kiss with a nip was placed on the curve of my chin.
Kit wouldn't kiss me like I hoped and expected; only smirking as her eyes darted from mine to my lips. She was waiting for me, waiting for a signal to continue this beautiful torture.
I nudged forward, my lips caressing over hers, pulling back as soon as we made the briefest contact. Kit had to take the lead, take what she wanted, I was not going to be the aggressor especially after she started this.
And take the lead she did. Kit growled when she lunged, soft lips mashing against mine. Her hands gripping the side of my head, handfuls of hair threaded in between her fingers as she tugged desperately to bring me closer.
I released the wads of purple material in my hands, sliding them under the edge of the hem and finding her warm, bare skin open to touch. Kit gasped into my mouth when she felt the pressure from my own need to have more of her.
Hands inched up, coming to the thin edge of a bra, fingers following seams back to the clasp. Two fingers found the hooks, latching onto them. It would take one flick and the clasp would be separated. I paused for a moment, my lips still entangled with hers as Kit's tongue fought with mine, both of us wanting to take so much from each other in the simple, yet hard kiss.
This was the point of no return, one flick and I would not be able to stop or want to stop. It had all built up to this point, I would either suck it up and step away for another day, or let it all go like I ached to. I broke from Kit to allow some air to refill my lungs, directing my lips to kiss down her collarbone and shoulder, biting lightly on the toned muscle I loved to run my fingers over. I bit gently, just enough to hear my name entangled in a throaty whisper from her.
I smirked, leaning back to look in her eyes. Hazel eyes hooded with desire and need, she had surpassed the point of no return and was on the verge of attacking me if I continued to draw this out. I opened my mouth to ask if this was what she wanted, her thumb and finger running over my lips silenced me. Kit kissed where her thumb had been, whispering, "I want you."
The alarm startled both of us, the harsh slamming sound of steel window covers closing off the three windows that lined the bedroom pushed us apart like a glass wall had suddenly been shoved in between our bodies.
The shrill beeping from the panel next to my bed drew my eyes away from the Kit. I strode over to the panel quickly, mashing buttons to silence it, I turned to look at Kit and found her to be gone, the bedroom door still moving from her exit. I slammed my palm against the large red button on the panel.
The wall next to my bed that was free from bookshelves and anything other than a framed painting of a woman slumped over in her bed with a small night creature sitting on her chest, slid away, revealing my own panic room. Larger than Kit's it held the heart of the security system and was my in home office, similar to the one in Malibu, but smaller.
I tapped on the keyboard as I sat in the chair, the monitors lighting up and flickering through all the cameras. The alarm that went off was a breach alarm, hence why the windows were covered. I cycled through the cameras, catching Kit running through the kitchen checking doors with a gun in her hand.
I continued cycling through the exterior cameras, stopping when I saw it. The garage door was smoking. I zoomed in and saw a small black circle and crater on the ground in front of the garage door, with more black residue sprayed all over the door.
"Fuck." The curse word I rarely used fell from my mouth, it was the remnants of a small bomb I was looking at on camera. I zoomed in further, recording all the evidence I could while I linked into the 911 dispatch center. The police of course were already aware what had happened. The blast would have woken up the entire neighborhood and by the amount of officers responding to the dispatcher telling them my address, I was five minutes from being swarmed with police.
I clicked faster, sending Davidek the video images while I tried to rewind DVR footage on another screen. I was hunched over, my attention divided in five different places when Kit rushed back into the room. Her voice strong and determined, she was in agent mode. "The doors are all secure; I can't tell if anyone was trying to break in. All the windows are still covered and there are no signs of breaching."
I turned to her, she was wide eyed with her jaw tight, the P99 gripped in her hand. "It was a bomb. Looks like a small p
ipe bomb went off at my garage door." I pointed at the monitor. "The police will be here shortly."
I returned to the other monitor I had reviewing through the DVR footage. I kept talking to Kit as I played the footage. "The alarm system is engineered to respond appropriately to threat levels. A simple first level break in will lock all doors and windows; send a silent alarm to the police department. HVAC attack, the system shuts down and reverts to my alternate air sources. The garage door can withstand explosions up to a five ton IED."
I paused when a black blurb dotted with the falling snowflakes flicked onto the screen, hovering in front of the garage. "What just happened was a full blown lockdown. The first millisecond of the blast, the system detects the immediate atmospheric change in temperature and detects the influx of chemicals in the air. Locking the house up like a castle, but stronger." I leaned closer to the monitor as the blurb squatted down and barely moved. I paused the DVR and dumped the footage into the edit program, running the footage over to lighten and sharpen the image.
I felt Kit stand behind me; I could hear her heart pumping adrenaline through her body as she tried to control her heavy breathing. "A bomb?" A question that was asked with masked fear.
"Yes." The editing program finished, filling the screen with crystal clear images that looked as if they were taken in the prime of the daylight hours. "A pipe bomb." I pointed at the short end of the bomb in the blurbs hand, "That is a standard metal plumbing cap, always used in the creation of pipe bombs. Very sturdy and adds to the blast damage when they detonate." The blurb had now taken the shape of a man about six feet tall and just under 195 pounds, dressed in all black, he handled the bomb in his hands with ease and expertise.
Kit leaned over me, squinting at the man. When the man stood up he turned and made the mistake of looking to his right, in the direction of my second set of cameras focused on the garage. I clicked a different monitor, bringing up the perfect full face image of the man. I closed my eyes, leaning roughly back into the chair, "It's the CIA." The man staring off into the distance was the man with the beard Nina had sent photographs over with dinner.
I leaned on the desk, my head cradled in my hands. My eyes were still closed, "This is a bold move on their part. A warning for me."
Kit leaned against the desk so she faced me, "A warning?"
I nodded in my hands, "Yes, a warning. It's their way of gently telling me I need to start cooperating with them or it will only get worse." I raised my head, setting my hands flat on the desk, "They are tired of waiting for me to come around and work with them, and this is their gentle way of telling me they will wait no longer." I stood up from the desk, reaching down to save everything and have it immediately forwarded to Ivan over the secured hard drives I had in Geneva. "They are getting ballsy."
I stepped out of the room, flopping onto the edge of the bed. My own adrenaline was slowly leaving me now that the fight or flight response was no longer needed. The doorbell ringing with the hefty pounding of police officer fists on my front door did little to distract my thoughts.
Kit hustled out of the panic room, "I will take care of the police. Is it all clear down there?"
"Yes. The bomb eliminated itself on detonation, it's safe for them and they won't find anything other than powder residue." I kept my eyes on the floor.
Kit knelt in front of me, her big hazel eyes, big hazel eyes that held so much determination in keeping me safe, looked up at me. "Stay here. I will go to them and get them out of here as fast as I can." She looked to the left, "How did I disarm the front door?"
"Control F will release the doors. The F11 key will reset the system, but keep it in standby." I returned to looking at the floor, listening to Kit hit the keys and the system beep to initiate the restore process. I looked up as Kit left the panic room, coming back to kneel in front of me, "Ten minutes tops, and I will be back up here."
I nodded, watching her stand up to tuck the gun in her back waistband. She took one last look at me; the want to stay with me was filling her eyes. The ever present struggle of bodyguard versus bodyguard in love with me was there. Kit took a deep breath and left the room to answer the second round of aggressive door pounding.
When she was gone, I reached over to the bedside table, pressing the button on the far right bottom, I closed up the panic room. The wall returning to its nondescript motif with the eerie, but comforting painting as its only companion.
I leaned onto my knees, my eyes drawn to the painting. It was the Nightmare by Fuseli. A beautiful, dark painting I had bought in Venice years ago. I kept it in my room, because it was far too morbid for the rest of the house, even though it brought me strange comfort when I looked at it. Now as I stared at the painting, it began to mirror my life.
The CIA was sitting on my chest like the little demon on the woman's chest with the New Church of the Rising Son lingering in the back shadows like the head of the horse peering from the curtains in the painting.
These two creatures were determined to make my life a nightmare if I didn't give them what they wanted.
I stood up from the bed, closing the door to cutting off the distant mumbles of Kit talking to the handful police officers in the foyer. I crawled onto the far edge of the bed just as the security system reset and the window covers retracted back up into the window frames, allowing the moonlight bouncing off the snowflakes to fill the room and combat the lamp light. I laid on my stomach, hitting the button to shut off all the lamps, leaving me in darkness and moonlight.
I turned my head on the pillow underneath, trying to let go of the last bits of adrenaline and fear in my system with deep even breaths. I was exhausted, my eyes heavy with the want for sleep.
My life was on a seesaw, bouncing from happiness to the nightmare that was brewing. What made it worse was I had no intentions of ever giving into the threats made by the CIA and the church, they could not scare me off easily regardless of the amount of threats and attacks they threw at me.
I took a deep breath as my eyes refused to stay open, I would destroy every last bit of my research and work before they got their hands on it.
The last thought in my head as sleep overtook me was if I could continue dragging Kit along through this growing nightmare. I loved her far too much to see her struggle with keeping me safe and loving me at the same time.
"Ma'am, I highly suggest that you allow us to do a sweep of the house for you." The police sergeant standing in front of me was doing his best to keep his manners. His thick leather jacket creaked every time he folded his arms and unfolded them in agitation, letting me know he was not happy I was stonewalling him. I was just happy it stopped snowing and the cold wind died away.
"Stop calling me ma'am. I appreciate it, but I work for my paycheck just like you do, Sgt. Sheehnan, call me Kit." I had my arms folded in a similar fashion, because I was freezing standing outside with the Sergeant, watching the mass of police officers, FBI and a handful of Secret Service Agents hover around in the snow processing the scene. The blue and red lights flickering across our faces giving everything a strange 3D feel.
I huddled my arms closer under the thin winter jacket I found in the closet when I opened the door to an army of excited police officers with their guns drawn. "Sgt. Sheehnan, as I explained to you and will again, the Senator's house is fine. The security systems in place have done its job and the only area of focus is the garage. I will send over the footage of the suspect from the cameras in the morning." I turned to him, his square jaw and typical cop grimace highlighted by the occasional red flash, "I promise you will get the same copy as the FBI and the Secret Service. I know how to share." I threw him my best smile. It seemed to ease the staunch and grumpy Sergeant who had pushed to search the entire house and property the moment the scene was cleared. I understood his goal was to make sure the house was clear and try to root out suspects and evidence, but Claire was my goal and I didn't want her disturbed or have anyone in the house to know how hefty her security system was.
&
nbsp; The Sergeant looked at me sideways before huffing, "Alright Kit, I guess we can make a deal." He then nodded to the blob of evidence techs, "I hate that we get pushed out of the way the moment a crime hits the federal level." He turned slightly, his leather jacket creaking, and met my eyes, "We usually can find suspects faster than they can." Sgt. Sheehnan looked at me harder, as if he recognized me or was trying to get a read off me, "Senator Avondale is a good woman. She has done her best to support the local police since she moved in here and I kind of take it personally that some low level fucktard would dare to do this." He dropped his arms, placing his hands on his gun belt in the typical cop way. "Kit, I apologize for my rudeness, but you reek of federal. What are you? Fibbies? DEA? Secret Service? I know Senator Avondale put the kibosh on any federal protection, that's why the station does extra patrols around this block." He turned to look at one of his officers walking past us, "So did she finally bend and allow the suits in?"
I bent my head down as the FBI's bomb tech walked past us with a box with red evidence tape around it. "I was a suit, former Secret Service." I huddled up in my jacket, "Senator Avondale is still opting out of federal protection." I glanced at the Sergeant, "Needless to say she still doesn't have full faith in the protection offered to her by the government." I moved closer to the Sergeant to allow more evidence techs to leave the scene.
He leaned back with me, "I don't blame her. Ever since that fuck up in her vacation house a few years ago, I wouldn't trust them either. They traced those one of those bastards back to being former CIA and nothing came of it."
I pulled my chin out of the collar of my jacket, "Are you talking about the attack inside of her house? Five years ago?" I was staring at him, curious how he knew the information he was sharing.
Sgt. Sheehnan motioned for me to follow him over to his patrol car to get out of the way of the mass exodus now happening, "Yeah, the one where two ass hats broke into her house and almost gutted her, but they got the raw deal when she dumped fifteen rounds each respectfully, into each of them." He sat on the hood of his white patrol car, feet up on the push bars, "Kit, before you get your panties twisted in a knot, Senator Avondale and I are pals."
Redemptio Animae Page 37