“I won’t,” I said absently. My mind was already thinking ahead to what I needed to find next. I barely noticed ending the call.
The information that had brought me down here had been inaccurate, but that didn’t mean that Clay’s intel had been bad. He’d technically gotten the ‘assignment’ from his partner at the FBI, but he hadn’t gotten a specific name, and he hadn’t asked for one either.
Was it possible that the whole story of us being sent to find someone’s significant other was a smokescreen for what Clay had really been sent here to do? Did someone in the FBI or perhaps another part of the government know what was going on here? Had he been sent to find one of the missing groups as proof?
I needed to know who Clay’s partner had really been talking to.
Twenty-Six
Clay
I picked up the money Rylan had wired to me, and the look on the man’s face as he put it all in a bag told me this wasn’t the first time he’d handled cash this way. I just hoped that he cared enough about his reputation that he wasn’t going to do anything stupid like send some goons after the clueless American. I needed this to go smoothly.
When I arrived back at the hotel, Tess was waiting outside my door, the impatient way she was tapping her foot telling me that she’d been out here longer than she liked. I needed to cut this off before it got started.
“I wasn’t leaving you behind,” I said as I opened the door. “I just went to get the money Rylan sent.”
“Bri’s not there.”
I stopped only a few feet into the room and put the bag of money on the floor. “What are you talking about?”
Tess came inside and closed the door behind her. “I got ahold of someone at the Red Care here.”
“Okay?”
“She said there was no one named Brianne Gardener in that group. Six men, six women, all American, but no Brianne.”
“The number’s good to know,” I said. “It doesn’t mean that she’s right about Brianne though. Your mom said your sister was here.”
“I think the woman with the database is more reliable than my mother.”
She had a point. I might’ve only been a teenager the last time I’d seen Mrs. Gardener, but I remembered enough to know that Tess’s assessment of her mother’s reliability was accurate. “Did the lady with the database know where Brianne is?”
Tess shook her head, cupping her elbows as she crossed her arms. “She says no one with that name has worked for Red Care in the whole country.”
“You think your mom told you the wrong country?”
Tess shrugged. “Possibly.”
“We’ll find her,” I promised, going over to her to put my hand on her arm.
“I know,” she said, leaning toward me. “I did confirm that Taylor MacIntosh was part of the group.”
“That’s great,” I said, sending a smile her way. “Once I can let Ray know that MacIntosh is safe, we can pick up looking for Brianne again.”
I picked up the bag and set it on my dresser. Before I could begin counting the money, however, she spoke again.
“That’s not all I found out last night. How much do you know about why your partner sent you here?”
“Just what Ray told me,” I said, “but I trust him completely.”
She licked her lips, clearly anxious. “Are you sure you should?”
I gave her an incredulous look, then turned my attention back to the stacks of cash in front of me. She’d never met Ray, so I had to cut her some slack on the mistrust. Especially since she’d recently learned that her sister and mother hadn’t exactly been honest with her.
“Did you know that he took two trips from Denver to DC in the past week?”
I shook my head, only half-listening to what she was saying. “FBI agents travel.”
“You’re telling me that you don’t think it’s at all suspicious?” she asked. “Your partner asks you to do him a favor for the sister-in-law of the Secretary of State, who happens to be your partner’s ex-wife’s second cousin, even though he knows that you could lose your job and possibly get arrested. And while you’re doing this job, your partner travels across the country to DC, twice.”
I looked over at her, frowning. Was she seriously implying that Ray was involved in something shady? Anger sparked inside me. “Maybe he wanted to give the Secretary an update in person. Try to avoid someone overhearing him and selling the story to some journalist who cares more about making a name than finding the truth.”
Her eyes narrowed, and I felt a little flash of guilt, but I pushed it down and met her gaze with a steady one of my own.
“That’s not what I’m doing,” she said quietly. “I want the truth. Are you sure you do?”
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“What?” She looked startled, thrown off balance by the question. “You know why. To find my sister.”
“Even if Brianne’s not with this group, do you agree with me that those people need help?”
“Of course.”
“Then can we put aside everything that isn’t directly linked with what I have to do tonight? When we get MacIntosh back, then you can see if your theories still hold up.” I didn’t mean to sound flippant or dismissive, but I was only one person. I couldn’t do it all on my own. I needed her to understand. “I’m an investigator, so I get wanting to put all the pieces together, but we’re not here to solve a crime.”
The mutinous expression on Tess’s face was so familiar that it almost made me laugh. She’d gotten like that as a kid whenever someone told her she couldn’t do something that she wanted to do.
“Look, Tess, I get it. You want the truth. And I can’t say that I know one hundred percent that Ray’s on the level. I’m a profiler. I know that there are people who’ve done horrible things, and their loved ones had no idea. But, I also like to think I’m a good judge of character, and while I think Ray might bend the rules, I don’t think he’s corrupted.”
After a minute, she sighed. “All right. I’ll hold off on doing any more investigating until we have the group safe.”
We. Right.
“The ransom drop-off is simple.” I put the cash back into the bag and pretended it was the reason I wasn’t looking at her. “I go in with the cash. They send out the hostages. We get into the car, and that’s that.”
A shadow fell across my hands, and I didn’t have to look up to know that she was standing right next to me now. My awareness of her seemed to grow with every passing day.
“And what if it doesn’t happen that way?”
“Then we go to Plan B,” I said, keeping my voice even.
“What’s Plan B?”
I hesitated, but then told her the truth. “I’m still working on that.”
“Will we all fit in the rental car?”
Shit.
“No.”
She nodded. “All right, I’ll take care of transportation.”
“I’ve got it handled,” I said. I didn’t, not really, but I wasn’t going to make it her responsibility. Despite all our heated words about her involvement, and as much as I respected her, my gut instinct was still to protect her.
“I’m saying this once, and after that, you’re going to learn the hard way,” she said. “I’m coming with you. Tonight for the exchange, and then, if necessary for whatever Plan B turns out to be.”
I really wanted to pull rank, tell her she’d sit here, but I already knew how she’d respond.
“You’ll show up on your own if I tell you to stay behind.” It wasn’t a question.
“I will.”
I sighed and nodded. “You win.”
Twenty-Seven
Tess
I really didn’t need to take another shower, but here I was.
Clay and I had basically been sitting next to each other for the past few hours, writing down everything we’d observed and remembered, putting together a mental picture as well as a literal drawing of the neighborhood. When Clay had joked about not h
aving the time to build a full-scale model, it’d almost felt like we’d gone back in time and I was trying to tell him and Brianne how to fix their social studies project by taking it from 2D to 3D, and he’d quoted Back to the Future.
I’d thought that the more time we spent together, the more he’d end up annoying me, especially since it seemed like every plan he came up with as a backup if the ransom went wrong was a plan where I was barely involved at all. Instead, I’d found myself wanting to move closer to him, to find that space where the two of us had always existed when we were together. A space I hadn’t realized was exceedingly rare.
I closed my eyes and raised my face into the spray. The warm drops pelted my face hard enough to sting, but I absorbed the sensation, allowed it to distract me from the other sort of heat that had been steadily growing between my legs. I’d spent thirty-one years of my life not having sex, and it’d never seemed like a big deal. Sure, there’d been times I’d felt the need to relieve a little tension myself, but it’d never been forefront in my mind.
But now that Clay and I were here together, my sex drive had suddenly made an appearance.
Since that first time with him three days ago, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. About what we’d done. Then we’d had sex again the other night, and it’d made my appetite grow even more. Even when he pissed me off, I wanted him.
Sleeping with him hadn’t been a good idea the previous times we’d done it, and it still wasn’t a good idea now, but it didn’t stop me from wanting it. I’d tried distance. I’d tried thinking of all the ways I was angry at him.
And now I was taking a shower in the hopes of it cooling the ardor.
Instead, it just made matters worse.
My hands slid over my skin, slick with soap and water. I could take care of things myself. It’d be easy. I knew exactly what I needed to do. I’d done it plenty of times before. Fingers between my folds, finding my clit hard and throbbing. Other hand on my breast, pinching and plucking a nipple until the sensitive skin pebbled. A few hard circles and then a steady back-and-forth motion until I came.
Easy enough, but not what I truly craved.
I wanted bigger hands, stronger ones, fingers a little rougher than mine. I wanted arms around me, holding me up when my knees got too weak. Dammit! I didn’t want to get myself off because now I knew how good it felt to have someone else do it.
I heard the door open, and a shiver went through me. I told myself he just needed something, but then the shower curtain slid aside, and I knew the choice was mine. I could let things continue along the way they were going, or I could turn around and tell him that this needed to stop. We needed to focus on tonight, and then on finding my sister. We didn’t have time for any of this.
Except I was so wound up, I didn’t know how I’d be able to focus.
The moment Clay’s hands came down on my shoulders, I knew I wouldn’t be able to turn him away.
Energy practically radiated off him, filling our small space with an arousal as thick as the steam that had gathered.
As his hands skimmed over my shoulders and down my arms, he pressed his lips to my skin, setting it on fire. Neither of us said a word as he pressed his front to my back, his cock brushing against the top of the swell of my ass. He wasn’t completely hard, but he wasn’t soft either, and I rolled my hips, eliciting a rough sound.
His tongue flicked out, as if he was tasting my skin, and I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to think anymore. I just wanted to feel. So I did.
Arms. Threading fingers together. Joined hands under my breasts, down to my bellybutton. Guiding, leading, coaxing. Fingers stroking, rubbing, every pass sending a new ripple of pleasure through me. A moan fell from my mouth and was lost in the white noise of the shower.
I pushed back against him, his erection pressing into my spine as I encouraged him without words. I wanted more. More touching. More of him.
He took my earlobe between his teeth, tugging on it even as he slid two fingers inside me. One was his, the other mine, and the unfamiliar sensation had me squirming, grinding down until his palm was pressed hard against my clit. I cried out, the sound lost again.
His mouth fastened to the side of my neck, sucking and worrying at the skin until I knew he’d marked me, and the knowledge, combined with how our hands worked over all that sensitive skin, pushed me over the edge.
The hands between my legs held me up even as he wrapped his free arm around my waist. Then he was swinging me up into his arms like I weighed nothing. I curled against his chest, shivering as the cool air hit my wet skin. I didn’t have the chance to get cold though, because in a few long strides, we were next to his bed and he dropped me onto the sheets.
“Your bed’s going to get wet,” I protested, my heart racing.
He grinned, his eyes dark. “Only if we’re doing something right.”
My mouth went dry even as my pussy grew even wetter. Without looking away from me, he snagged a condom that he’d obviously set down before he’d joined me in the shower. He rolled it on, then grabbed my ankles and pulled my legs straight up until my heels rested on his pecs.
As he entered me, he leaned forward, pressing my legs down until the backs of my thighs burned. The position made the head of his cock rub over my g-spot, and I shuddered. I grabbed onto his forearms with a grip that surprised even me, then nodded, knowing he would be able to read on my face what I wanted.
He drew back, paused, slammed forward, driving the air from my lungs. My nails dug into him, and for a moment, I wondered how many of my scratches he’d wear before we went home. Then he was pushing into me with slow, deep thrusts, each one feeling like it was splitting me open and making me whole at the same time.
I didn’t think I’d ever felt complete, not since I’d been a child and my family had been together. Even then, I wasn’t sure. Maybe it was only how my memory had colored things because I’d naively assumed that life had been better when we’d all been together.
I needed to stop living in the past, trying to find that feeling again, if I’d ever had it in the first place. I’d thought I’d spent my life moving forward. College. Work. Not letting Mom and Brianne pull me back. But I’d been wrong. All of that had only been me chasing something I’d never get.
This was real.
Clay wasn’t my future, and our search here wasn’t my future, but it was the present, and that I could handle.
Suddenly, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me up. Our mouths fused together, tongues tangling as he held me tight. His body moved up into mine with short, jerky movements, the base of his cock rubbing against my clit until the friction was almost painful.
Tears burned my eyes, all the sensation and emotion and tension coming together in a whirlwind of chaos and pleasure that burst out of me with a climax hard enough to make everything go completely and blissfully blank.
Twenty-Eight
Clay
I was walking into an insanely dangerous situation without a weapon and only a petite journalist as backup, and all I could think about was how I’d spent the last few hours wrapped up in her.
Things between us were happening too fast, going too far, but I wasn’t sure I had the strength to stop. Not when losing myself in her body was the only thing keeping me sane. Too much could go wrong with this plan, and none of it was anything I could control.
Being with Tess had made things simple for a while, but I knew that once all of this was over, simple would quickly become complicated. It hadn’t changed my decision to join her in the shower though, and despite how it affected me now, I couldn’t bring myself to be sorry for it.
My phone buzzed against my leg, the alarm I’d set to tell me when it was time to finally put things into motion. The man I’d spoken with, Gerardo, had set the time and place, but I had no doubts that the cartel had been watching me from the moment I’d left them. I’d been tempted to scout the location beforehand anyway but decided that the information Tess could pull up on he
r laptop would be enough.
I moved to open the door, but before I could open it, Tess reached over and grabbed my hand. My eyes met hers, and she tightened her fingers around mine. She didn’t say that she didn’t want me to go or to be careful because we both understood that what we were doing was dangerous, but that look told me she felt both of those things.
I leaned over and kissed her cheek, then got out of the van. I mentally shook off everything that wasn’t the job and moved forward. I’d done my fair share of field work, but as a profiler, my area of expertise was more brain than brawn. I could handle myself in a fight, but without a weapon, I wasn’t as confident in my abilities to handle more than just Gerardo. If he didn’t come alone, I was fucked.
Each step I took was deliberate, not showing an ounce of hesitation. I kept a firm grip on the bag that held the rest of the money Rylan had wired me, shoulders squared as if daring someone to try to take it. The price Gerardo had given me was obscene, even for twelve people, but Rylan hadn’t even blinked when I’d told him. I’d known he was wealthy, but the ease with which he’d gathered that much had been mind-boggling.
Evening was quickly fading to night around me and shadows filled in every corner of the abandoned warehouse, giving Gerardo and his companions plenty of places to hide. I’d told Tess to stay in the van where they could see her, but where their access to her would be limited. If something happened to me, she would need to go contact the police, and I had no doubt she was recording everything on her phone to give us some leverage.
Being bold was our best tactic, but Gerardo had numbers on his side. He could afford to hide people throughout the building to make sure I did exactly what they wanted.
I’d arrived ten minutes early, preferring to watch Gerardo arrive rather than giving him that advantage, but I’d barely been there more than a minute or two when I heard a vehicle pull up. I shifted the bag higher onto my shoulder and blew out a breath. I could do this. Give them the money. Take the hostages back to the van. Drive to the hospital Tess had located ahead of time. Make the call to Ray.
Finding Brianne: New Pleasures Book 4 Page 13