Raven (Kindred #1)

by Scarlett Finn

  After becoming accustomed to the motion and the noise, she let her rigid muscles relax. Still holding on to him, she let herself breathe and rested her cheek on the leather at his back while trying to recall a time when she had felt so free. She came up blank. Given what she’d just been through, her exhilarated mood was quite a pronounced turnaround and it was all down to Raven and the security he provided her.

  The streets whizzed by and although she recognized that their route would take them back to her apartment, she was almost sorry about the brevity of their trip. She’d never been on a motorcycle or had a man so solid and formidable between her thighs. For the first time in her life, she wondered what it would be to live a life free of all responsibility and throw caution to the wind, as Raven did.

  He drove straight into the service alley at the rear of the building and pulled into a space between the dumpsters, then switched off the engine. In his same move of getting off the bike, he swept her up off her feet.

  He didn’t blink, just carried her in his arms to the back door, and keyed in the private code to the security pad. She didn’t know how he knew it, but he didn’t hide his knowledge. Now that she thought about it, he hadn’t used a security code to get out of CI, divulging he had expertise beyond the physical.

  Carrying her up the stairs to her apartment, she unlocked the door while still in his embrace. He took her inside, kicked the door shut, and carried her across the room, past the first column, to lie her on the couch.

  Elevating her right leg, he seated himself perpendicular to her body, between her legs, and made no apology for squashing her left leg between his ass and the back of the couch or his presumption. He slipped off her shoe and touched her injured ankle.

  The contact made her recoil. Without invitation, he strengthened his grip around her heel and tested her range of movement with his opposite hand. His thumb pushed into the delicate bones beneath her skin to move her ankle as he wanted it to move.

  He was so sure, so unapologetic, so entitled. Such a show of brutish control proved his power; he could contort her any way he chose to and all she could do was comply. Yet, by assessing her injury, he was demonstrating some level of care about her wellbeing.

  Each time they came into contact, she learned a little more about who he was. She might not have specifics, but his deeds spoke for him. He had never hurt her, despite his superior strength. Had never put her down, despite the hints of class behind his gruff exterior. He had a mission to protect her and tonight he’d proved he was a man of his word.

  The firm hold of his rough fingers rasped her smooth skin and her gratitude bloomed. Her feminine awareness was awakening too. Raven had saved her life and then taken her on an exhilarating ride through the city streets. Adrenaline, endorphins, hormones, they were all chemical and they were combining in her head, slinking down her spine, through her organs to tickle her enlivened skin.

  It was dark, but she could see the line of his jaw and how his hair was mussed suggesting he never did more than finger comb it. The musky scent of him made her pelvis grow heavy and the whisper of butterflies in her stomach began to gain speed and mass.

  He was touching her, exploring her injury, and didn’t reveal any signs he was as raw as she felt. With every second of contact, she grew more sensitive to his actions and her hips began to squirm.

  Fearing he would sense her interest or that she might do something embarrassing like whimper, she sighed. “Stop it,” she said, tugging her foot away from him.

  He caught her limb, pulled it back, and laid it on his lap. “You’ll have to elevate it and ice it,” he said. “Nothing’s broken, but it will probably swell, so take it easy for a few days.”

  “I have to go to work. I can’t just sit on my ass doing nothing.”

  With his focus still on her leg, he addressed it rather than her. His frown made her speculate. Was he pissed that he was here tending to her? Or was he a man with more on his mind than he was letting on?

  “Grant will understand,” he said. “You haven’t taken a fucking sick day for three years.”

  By now, she was getting used to him knowing everything about her and her life. Other, more relevant, questions plagued her, like why he had come to her aid and how he got into CI. She wanted to know if he knew Kahlil and what he and Grant were doing having a clandestine meeting, but at the same time, she didn’t want to betray Grant.

  “I’m not taking a sick day,” she said, sitting up without removing her legs from around him. Taking time off might help her sore ankle, but sitting in her apartment alone would only exasperate her confusion and there would be no answers here after Raven left her. “I need to know, Raven, why were you at CI tonight? How did you know that I needed help?”

  Still inspecting her leg, he sounded tired when he replied. “Both have the same answer… I’m watching.”

  “You’re still watching me? You said you were going away.”

  He circled her foot in his grip. There was no reason for him to be examining her still, except if he needed the distraction from establishing eye contact. “How’d you get mixed up with those guys?” he mumbled.

  “Kahlil and his men?”

  His whole demeanor changed. He grew tense, and his awareness became acute as his eyes slid up to hers in time with the whisper of his hands skimming up her shin. If she’d been vulnerable to him before, now that susceptibility intensified until her throat began to parch and her muscles ceased. Inching closer, he forced her to lean back when he propped a fist on the couch cushion by her hip.

  Intimidating her with the intensity of his mysterious brown eyes, his fixation tested the limits of her rapid heart rate. Doing her best, though it probably wasn’t enough, she tried not to reveal how affected she was by having his body within a few centimeters of hers, but her insides were beginning to feel like simmering soup.

  “How do you know his name?” he growled.

  The accusation laced through his question didn’t provoke distress as such, but she did feel small caged here beneath him at his mercy. “I went to the executive suite after my date with Julian,” she admitted. “Grant was there talking to a man he called Kahlil.”

  “What were they talking about?” he asked, using his size to ease her back further until she was in a submissive reclining position against the arm of the couch.

  His physical authority meant he didn’t have to ask her to lie down. He leaned forward and made her bend to his will. Having broken the seal of eye contact and proximity, he took advantage of the opportunity and examined every nuance of her expression. The way his gaze gobbled up her features made her feel like prey being dominated and toyed with by a starving predator.

  While she had been slowed by her own hormones, she hadn’t thought his were on alert. But nothing else could explain why his eyelids grew heavy over his sharp eyes. Off-kilter in the swamp of his unanticipated amorous attention, she tried to focus. “I don’t know exactly,” she stuttered. “A deal I think. Kahlil wanted to buy something that Grant was selling.”

  “Did they talk about what it was?” he asked, keeping his volume low. Curling a finger around a tendril of her hair, he let it slip free, then curled it around his digit again. The repetition of this private, personal contact calmed her.

  “No,” she said, taking the liberty of sliding her hands up his chest because she wanted to feel the heart that beat beneath his clothes. But his solid breadth made her catch her breath. She stroked up and down then up again until her hands floated around to the nape of his neck. “Do you know what it was?”

  The murmurs of her words were small gasping exhales that made her mouth water. Maybe it was the lack of light, the terror of the night, or the weight of him resting against her side, but this moment was intimate and somehow familiar, and she found herself transfixed by the proximity of his mouth. Lying in the cage of his arms, her next inhale made her shoulders slip back, causing her to arch into him.

  “Did they see you?” he asked, letting her hair fa
ll from his grip for a last time.

  “Does it matter if they did?” she murmured, curious about the tinge of concern she deciphered in his tone.

  When he tipped his chin a fraction higher, her mouth was tempted to ease closer. “If they did, I’ll need to alter my strategy.”

  Still trying to maintain the thread of conversation, while not being distracted by their fascination for each other, she made herself look into his eyes. “Your strategy?”

  “You’ll be in danger,” he said, moving his hand onto her face.

  Moving her head, she stroked her cheek against his palm, encouraging him to widen his fingers. “And your strategy is to keep me safe?”

  “Part of it.”

  Dazed by his considerate words, her eyes closed as she smiled. “That’s very sweet,” she whispered.

  “Sweet’s got nothing to fucking do with it,” he said.

  Seizing the back of her head, he tugged her forward to close his mouth over hers. Opening for him, Zara welcomed the mass of his tongue that plunged against her own, cool and delicious. She opened her hands on the leather of his jacket and tilted her chin to signal her own compliance. This was new. This man was dangerous. Yet, her body was alive with sensation and eager to explore every facet of him. Questions outweighed answers, but all she cared about was pressing her body up to his.

  He kissed her deep then sucked her lower lip as he withdrew and cast his eyes down. The tension in him made her stroke the width of his shoulders in solace and encouragement because she wasn’t finished, she wanted more, but her bubble was burst when he spoke.

  “I wasn’t supposed to do that,” he exhaled.

  Catching her breath, she barely recognized her raspy tone. “Not in your timetable?” she asked.

  “You’ve been through a trauma and you’re still in danger.”

  Scooping her hands up over his jaw, she made him look at her while she confessed. “The last man who kissed me ended up with a bullet in his head. I think you’re the one in danger.”

  Because he had returned to examining her mouth, Zara wondered and hoped that he might kiss her again. It seemed somehow right in this night of madness that she should embrace her desire to be reckless.

  “He didn’t die because he kissed you.”

  She smiled and loosened. “One day you’ll tell me what you mean by all these cryptic half statements you make.”

  “One day, I might,” he said, though she didn’t assume it was probable. A man who wouldn’t even give out his real name was unlikely to hand out his secrets without imminent cause.

  Clutching the open edges of his jacket, she inhaled the scent of this man and this moment. She wanted it to be real because she hadn’t felt an attraction this strong in her life. But she had to ask, “Is this your way of gaining my trust? Like you said Tim was trying to do?”

  “You don’t trust the men you sleep with, not in the way I need you to trust me.”

  Again, he revealed how well he knew her, though she couldn’t imagine how he knew something so personal. Especially being that she hadn’t had a long-term boyfriend for a couple of years. Zara was accustomed to holding herself back in relationships. It was what came with being disappointed by men one too many times.

  “Then kissing me was probably not a good idea.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” he said. Sweeping his arm around behind him, he trailed his fingertips down the length of her leg and elevated her foot onto the cushions stacked at the end of the couch. “Tell me what happened upstairs at CI.”

  He didn’t kiss her again, although she got the sense that he wanted to by the way his interest flicked to her mouth and over her body. Flattered by his attention, Zara’s arousal didn’t cool, but it was obvious he had returned to business, insinuating that they probably weren’t going to explore their attraction further, at least for tonight.

  “Nothing,” she said. “They didn’t see me. I listened for a while and then I left.”

  “Grant didn’t see you?”

  Now that they’d acknowledged the want of their bodies, it was easier to maintain her senses. “No.”

  “And you overheard their conversation?”

  Measuring his gaze, she anticipated his next question with suspicion. She wanted answers and didn’t want to reveal too much because despite his odd behavior this week, Grant had never given her cause to betray him.

  “Some of it,” she said.

  “What did they say? Give me specifics.”

  Releasing all of her weight onto the scroll arm of her couch, she told the truth. “Grant has been good to me. I’m not going to sell him out just because you kissed me.”

  When he sat upright, their trance of familiarity was broken. “How about because I saved your life tonight? Or because I’ve been looking out for you for weeks?”

  Wondering about what he might have protected her from without her knowledge, she asked, “Have you seen any danger?”

  He propped a hand on the back of the couch. “Danger like your boyfriend being shot dead in the street? Or thugs jumping you in an underground parking garage?”

  His point was valid. She didn’t need to know about unseen danger when the seen danger was scary enough. “I don’t want harm to come to anyone,” she said. “But I don’t believe that Grant would endanger people. He’s a good man and CI’s remit is to help people with what we create.”

  Switching position, he removed himself from her couch and sat on the edge of the coffee table. Resting his elbows on his knees, he joined his hands. “Why didn’t you show yourself to Grant tonight?”

  Driving her fists into the cushion beneath her, Zara tried to get upright while keeping her leg elevated because somehow it seemed more civilized to talk while sitting up. But the position was awkward and strained her abdominals because there was nothing substantial at her back to support her.

  “I wasn’t expecting him to be at the office and when I heard that he wasn’t alone, I didn’t want to interrupt.” Simple as that, yet Raven wasn’t buying it.

  His sneer betrayed that he didn’t believe the excuse and called her on it. “I’d guess that a woman with your credentials has interrupted meetings before. Does he usually have late night meetings that you don’t know about?”

  Averse to being brow beaten, she returned his derision. “How would I know?” she asked, willing to match his icy tone with her own. She worked late often and got enough late night calls from Grant to know tonight’s events weren’t the norm, but she wasn’t going to reveal that to Raven yet. She had to give Grant the benefit of the doubt.

  Some of Raven’s frost dispersed and he seemed to be trying to appeal to her better sense. “Because you’re astute and conscientious, Zara. You know that something else is going on here.”

  “I do because you’ve drawn my attention to it. You’ve made me so paranoid that I’m preoccupied by every suspicious detail.” Falling back onto the arm of the couch, she ran her hands through her hair and exhaled. “You’re making me crazy.” With the danger and now with the kissing too.

  “No, I’m preparing you for what’s coming,” he said and didn’t sound as flummoxed as she felt. In fact, he was positively cool and collected. “I’m proud that your blinders are coming off. If you don’t want to trust me, then don’t. Others will approach you and they won’t be as gentle as I’ve been.”

  And because she truly believed in her boss, she knew she could turn to him for help. “Grant won’t let anything happen to me.”

  Raven rose. “Then you’ve picked your side. You go to him and you tell him everything. Ask him for the truth… If he’s the man you think he is, then he’ll give you the full story and order round the clock protection for you.”

  “Protection?” By standing up for Grant, she’d managed to lose Raven’s goodwill. Without him, she’d be unguarded leaving her at the mercy of any other attackers intent on causing her harm.

  It seemed he was severing their association, but he did relax for a second. “I’ll give you o
ne last warning for free,” he said. “What Grant plans, what he’s about to do, it will test your loyalty to him and once you’re on the inside of the secret, there’s no getting back out.”

  He began to walk away. “Raven,” she said before he could leave her. Seeking him out, she had to tip her head all the way back to locate him beyond the couch. “I won’t tell him about you.”

  “You owe me nothing, Ms. Bandini, and you don’t know enough about me to give me up to anyone. Take care of yourself because no one else will.”

  The tattoo of his heavy steps receded. The door opened and closed. He was gone. Her life at CI had kept her busy and she’d never assumed Grant was capable of dubious dealings, but there was definitely something unpleasant about what had happened tonight.

  Steadfast in her loyalty to Grant McCormack, she was almost disappointed by the truth that she would never see Raven again. Reaching over her head, she groped for her cordless phone and speed-dialed her boss. It was late, but she knew he was awake because he’d been at the office. Except the line rang out until it went to voicemail.

  Grant might be busy now, but she’d clear a space for them to talk on Monday because she was tired of the questions and she wouldn’t deceive him anymore.

  FIVE

  Grant didn’t return the missed call and he was late to the office on Monday. He said nothing about his Saturday night meeting with Kahlil and not a word about the men in the parking garage. Either he hadn’t been told about what had happened or he hadn’t put the pieces together and identified her as the woman who was attacked. If she had to, Zara would put money on the former because the Grant McCormack she knew would be outraged by any woman being intimidated, especially on his property and as such would no doubt have brought up the incident with her as a prelude to strengthening security.

  Executive parking was one of the few areas in the building without video surveillance. A directive had been issued to remove all cameras from there a couple of months ago. At the time, it hadn’t made much sense, but no one questioned it. Now she had an inkling that Grant’s motive was to conceal these secret meetings with shady characters.