As he expected, she didn’t take his hand, just kept her hold on her coffee cup. It made him grin.
“Guys, this is Louisa. Cabe, you remember Louisa came into the office.”
He smiled at Louisa. “Yeah, I remember.”
“Good to see you again,” Louisa said, her voice falling flat. “And pleased to meet you, Mac.”
“Lou has problems,” Six said, more to Mac than Cabe. “She needs our help.” The guys needed to know helping Lou was a priority. He couldn’t explain why, even to himself. He just knew it was more than friendly concern.
“Yeah?” Mac said. “What’s going on?”
“Someone broke into her house on Saturday night and tried to abduct her. I shot one of the assholes.”
“You were there?” Cabe asked.
“Yeah,” he said, knowing exactly what Cabe was getting at. “Saw a van, side door open, twitchy driver, engine running as I pulled up. And a window was wide open on the side of Lou’s house. And then I heard … Well, Lou needed help.”
“So you brought her here?” Mac asked.
“No, he didn’t, not immediately at any rate” Louisa said. Six listened as she objectively and dispassionately explained what had happened the previous day and what had gone on in the lab in the time leading up to her problems. The way she explained it, it sounded like a lab report. Clinical, dispassionate. Not at all like the woman who’d shaken in his arms when it had happened or who had snuck into his bed to feel safe. When she was finished, she took a large gulp of coffee.
“Louisa, can I ask why you’re so passionate about Huntington’s? Like, why that disease?” Cabe asked.
“Huntington’s is one hundred percent genetic. If one of your parents is a carrier, there is a one in two chance that you are going to contract it. My father died from it ten years ago. I never met my paternal grandmother because of it.”
How did he not know that it was genetic? Six reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her closer to the arm of his chair.
“Shit,” Mac said. “That’s rough, Louisa.”
“Do you know if you have it?” Six asked, his voice rough as his concern for her grew.
“I don’t know. There is a test for it. Genetic screening.”
“And you haven’t been tested?” he asked, pulling her closer.
“No, I don’t see the point. I don’t want to know.”
“Why not? And please, tell us to shut up if this is personal,” Cabe said.
“What’s the point? If I don’t find out but know it’s a possibility, I live every day as if it was my last and do the things I am most passionate about. Like finding a treatment for it. Not knowing keeps the urgency going. Makes me want to do as much as I can now in case I do have it.”
Silence settled around the table.
“I get that logic,” Six said quietly. “We’ve done a job for years that we knew we might not come back from. But you have to go out and assume you’ll come back, otherwise you die before you set foot in theater, sorry, out in the field. It’s kind of reverse logic, but I get it.”
“So now you understand why it’s critical that I get all that research back. Sure, we went too far on the last trial, but it was closer than I’d ever gotten. The drug we were working on was to help with the shaking, the chorea. Most medications to manage it have the risk of triggering psychiatric conditions. Paranoia, anxiety, suicidal thoughts. I’m trying to fix that.”
Jesus Christ. What did you say to someone who could be carrying a killer disease, just because they were born unlucky in the genetic lottery? His heart hurt for her and the mess she found herself in.
“What were you thinking, Six?” Mac asked.
“We need to try to confirm if it is Ivan or Vasilii who has it in for her, and why. I got the plates of the two vehicles that were used the night before last and yesterday. I suggest we start there. See who they belong to.”
“I’m on it,” Mac said.
“And I think we need eyes on Ivan, see who he is talking to, meeting with,” Six added.
Mac nodded. “Great idea. Let’s give that to Buddha and Gaz. Bailey and Ryder are coming in for interviews today so I need to be at the office for a little while.”
Cabe tapped his fingers on the table. “This ties up a lot of our guys. What do we do about the work we have lined up?”
Shit. The woman had just told them that she could be carrying a deadly disease and was one of the leading researchers in the field. “It’ll have to wait until we’ve taken care of Lou.”
“That’s all noble and shit, but we have bills to pay. You know that.”
Louisa pulled out of his arms. “Don’t worry,” she said, looking up at him with those sweet brown eyes. “I can pay you.” Six stiffened as she turned to look at the other men at the table. “I’m serious. I can afford to hire you. And it makes sense. You already said you needed money to build. It’s not a big deal.”
“Lou, sweetheart. Can you give me a sec with the guys, please?” Six asked.
She cast a glance toward Cabe and Mac and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Please. Don’t fall out with your business partners over me.”
He placed his hands on her biceps. “We fall out over shit all the time, have done since we were five years old,” he said, turning to glare at Cabe for a moment. “Just let us talk, and I’ll come get you. Go sit in the garden with your coffee, okay?”
“Fine. But I’ll be mad if you guys fight over this.”
Six smiled at her and moved her bangs. “So noted.”
Six watched her walk toward his room to reach the garden.
“Dude. What the hell?” Cabe said. “Thought we said she should go to the police.”
“Yeah, well, for the record, we did. Things escalated pretty quickly. I want to help her, and I get we have to charge her, but I don’t want to screw her over.”
Mac laughed. “Are we talking financially or…?”
“Fuck you.” Six couldn’t help but laugh.
“Joking aside, you know if she becomes a client, you can’t be in a relationship with her, right?” Mac said.
He dropped the grin and ignored the way his chest tightened. They were only just getting started, and now he had to put the brakes on knowing just how good it felt when she came apart in his arms.
Cabe nudged him. “We can’t be seen to be hooking up with clients. Does our rep no good whatsoever.”
Six ran his hands through his fingers. “Yeah,” he admitted reluctantly. “I do. Can we just … let’s come up with a price that doesn’t make me feel like an asshole.”
Hours later, after they’d agreed on a fee and Louisa had wired them their retainer, Six watched Louisa as she puttered around in the kitchen. She’d eaten only a small amount of the pizza he’d ordered, even though he’d ordered a fully loaded veggie one just for her. He didn’t know the first thing about Huntington’s and wondered if he should be getting foods that kept her strength up or something instead of feeding her dough with cheap tomato sauce and pre-cut vegetables.
She wiped down the counter and then took the plates out of the cupboard, restacked them, and put them back inside. He wondered if she realized that she did stuff like that when she was stressed. From his spot in the dining room, he saw her gravitate to the bookshelves in the living room, which she promptly began rearranging. He wondered what her logic was. Grouping by type, so he’d find all his business books separate from his fiction? Or alphabetized, regardless of genre? Knowing Louisa as he was coming to, it would be a mix of both.
“You know she’s a client now, right?” Cabe muttered under his breath, packing up his laptop.
Yeah. I fucking do. “I’m aware,” he said calmly, trying not to give any more away to Cabe than he had to.
“Bro. I didn’t do this to piss you off.” Cabe stood and rubbed his chin, something he did when thinking. “I’m sorry we need to charge her but we can’t afford to work for free because we feel bad for someone. And from the way you’re looking at her, I
’m sorry we have rules about dating clients. You get that, right?”
“Understood,” he said gruffly, watching as Louisa paced over to the window and began to stroke the leaves of one of the plants as she stared out toward the water that was just visible above the rooftops and tree line.
“There’s not more to it than you’re telling us, is there?” Cabe lowered his voice. “Did something already happen between you two?”
Six looked at Cabe, who was watching Louisa too. He had no intention of sharing what had happened between the two of them that morning. It was too important. Words to define it seemed just out of reach, but there’d been a hell of a lot more to it than purely physical. The way she’d looked at him, the way he’d drowned in those eyes of hers … it was everything, or it had been. Now he had to step away, be the good soldier, set the tone for the other guys.
“I got it, okay. Go home, Cabe,” he said. Six really did get it. Nothing good ever came of mixing business with pleasure, but his feelings for Louisa had been developing way before she’d decided to hire them. Hell, they’d been developed before she had ridden his cock with an abandon he’d never experienced. And now he was anxious to see what they could be together.
“Left you a case of beer in the fridge. See you tomorrow, asshole.”
“Yeah. ’Night,” he said, not unkindly. It would all blow over before the morning. Grudges never worked out, no matter how pissed they were at one another. Plus, it wasn’t as if he and Louisa could never get together. Putting their exploration of each other on hold would be a short-term thing. A postponement, not a cancellation.
He watched as Cabe said something to Louisa, who kept her head down but nodded before looking over toward Six. Cabe let himself out and Louisa walked over to him.
“You want a drink, Lou?” he said.
“I’d love one. I know it’s wrong to use alcohol as a crutch, but if I don’t do something to take the edge off, I might never get to sleep.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re a long way from the alcohol-abuse side of the drinking spectrum.” Six stood and placed his hand on her lower back. “Believe me, you deserve a little something.” They walked to the kitchen and he opened the fridge. “I got beer or pinot grigio. Take your pick.”
“Wine would be great,” she said as she squared the stools against the counter. She was a conundrum. She wasn’t consistent enough to be OCD as far as he could tell with his highly untrained eye—there was a pile of bills on the counter, for instance, that she hadn’t straightened. It was as if she just needed something to do with her hands when she was stressed out. Or worried. Or both.
He opened the bottle, grabbed a glass, and poured her a larger measure than he usually would. It would help her sleep. Her fingers brushed his as he handed the wine to her. They were frigidly cold, and the urge to pull her into his arms, to warm her and reassure, was so strong that he had to force himself to act busy getting his own beer.
“You ever surf?” he asked her as she set her wine glass on the counter and folded her arms on the countertop. Goddamn. The position gave him a clear view straight down the V of her blouse, revealing the curves of two perfectly tanned breasts. It drove him crazy. He remembered what they’d felt like in his hand, pressed up against his chest. So did his cock, which was certainly starting to tent his shorts, though he didn’t dare look down and draw her attention to it.
She shook her head. “Never took the time to learn.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do. When this is over, I’m going to teach you how to surf.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good—”
Six laughed. “It’s the best idea.” He’d love to see her in a bikini on a board. She’d be focused. And hot. And damn. He was back where his thoughts had started. “Listen, Lou. Now you’re a client … I’m not supposed to … Well, I can’t set a bad example for the other guys.”
“A bad example about what?” she asked, cocking her head so her bangs fell to the side. She had no idea how he’d do anything she asked if she looked straight at him.
“This.” He gestured between the two of them. “Exploring us. It needs to wait until our work with you is over.”
Disappointment saturated her features. “Oh … right. Okay.”
“I’m sorry, Lou. It’s just that—”
“No. No. I get it. It’s fine,” she said, pushing her half-drunk wine toward him. “I understand. I’m tired. Anyway … so … I’m going to go to bed. Good night, Six.” He watched her hurry off toward her room, one that was less than ten feet away from his, and sighed.
There was nothing he wanted more than to slide in bed next to her.
But he had a job to do.
And right now, it sucked.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Never had a light cotton blanket been so utterly irritating. Louisa turned in bed again, hating the way the sheet brushed against her sensitized skin. Over the course of the day, she’d watched Six morph from the guy she’d woken up with into the soldier she guessed he’d been. All business. He’d stopped looking at her as though he wanted her, and he certainly hadn’t returned to the conversation they’d started in bed that morning as he’d promised. Which frustrated the hell out of her because all she could think about was how good his body had felt pressed up against hers and how much she wanted his arms wrapped around her again.
Their conversation had ended awkwardly. She’d felt awkward. She’d watched for the light in his room to come on, but it never had. Instead, he’d spent the evening on the computer in the office, she guessed.
She understood and hated the idea that he didn’t want to mix business and pleasure. But a small part of her, the part used to being rejected for her bookish behavior, worried he’d simply gotten cold feet in the harsh reality of day. Perhaps he was happy to help her scratch her itch, but maybe he hadn’t found the whole thing quite as mind-blowing as she had. Or perhaps it was it finding out that she could be a carrier of Huntington’s. That had happened to her before. He’d said it was because they now had a business contract between them. One that Mac had written and given to her. But then she could have sworn she’d heard Six mutter a curse word under his breath as she’d signed it.
Whatever the reason, she was now in bed, a place she wasn’t really tired enough to be, and worst of all, she was alone.
Her phone vibrated on the bedside table, and she couldn’t resist picking it up to see who it was.
I was too hasty. I am sorry about what happened at your home. The police came to see me. Please can we meet to talk some more? Vasilii.
It struck her as odd. Vasilii never texted. He always sent emails. Or called her. Or swung by the lab. Not once had she received a message from him in all the years she’d worked there. And for him to send a text message over something so serious was most definitely out of character. She’d mention it to Six in the morning and see what he made of it.
Part of her wanted to trust him, but equally she wondered if they could track her location through her phone? To be on the safe side, she quickly turned the power off.
Louisa lay back in bed and stared up at the white beams in the ceiling. Just like the previous evening, she couldn’t sleep, but unlike the night before, she couldn’t slip into Six’s bed with him to make it all better. She was too hot, and, if she was honest, too horny with no clue what to do about it while sleeping across the hall from the man who was making her feel that way. Pull yourself together, North.
With exasperation taking her close to breaking point, she tossed the covers away with a huff and climbed out of bed. The house was warm, almost hot, but she couldn’t decide if that was because of the air conditioning that Six had told her didn’t work too well or because her thoughts were causing her to internally combust. She padded into the kitchen, got a cup and a tea bag, and set the kettle to boil on the stove. A cup of chamomile tea would help settle her nerves.
The house was silent, unlike the thoughts in her head.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Six’s r
ough voice washed over her, and she turned to face him. His eyes ran up and down her body, and she began to regret the decision to sleep in the little cami and shorts she’d purchased, so unlike her usual pajamas, especially when her nipples hardened in response.
Boxer briefs hugged his hips like a second skin and did little to hide the fact he was as well-endowed as she’d imagined, having not even gotten to the underwear-removal stage that morning. The kettle began to whistle, which made her jump, only adding to her embarrassment.
“No … I mean, yes. I couldn’t sleep,” she said, tripping over herself in an attempt to sound normal. With shaking hands, she poured the hot water into her mug and killed the gas. She yanked the drawer open to grab a spoon, but it clattered noisily out of her hand. She put her hand to her chest, fearing for her heart, the way it beat like there was a moth trapped inside her.
“Here,” Six said, walking right up behind her. Not so close that they touched, but close enough that she could feel the heat from his body. He placed one hand to one side of her to hold the mug, took the spoon in his other hand, and scooped out the tea bag, flipping both into the sink, all the while keeping her hemmed against the counter.
Louisa could feel him as surely as if his fingers were on her. In the window, she could see his reflection as he lowered his nose to her neck and breathed her in. No part of him brushed against her, yet Louisa could barely draw in a breath. She looked down at his hands, which gripped the edge of the laminate countertop, his knuckles white. The feelings of embarrassment from earlier collided up against a burning desire for him to touch her. Why was she so confused and aroused? Again?
Anticipation raced through her as he lifted a hand and brushed her hair toward one shoulder, the action making her shiver and the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention. She leaned her head to one side and closed her eyes.
“Tell me to stop, Lou,” he whispered in the stillness. “Tell me this is a bad idea. That I need to stay away from you because you’re my client.”
The sensation of his breath on her skin made every part of her come alive. “I can’t,” she said, almost desperately. “Show me,” she said.
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