“I don’t think I’m a smoker.”
He took another drag in response, this time exhaling out of the corner of his mouth, away from me. I watched him take another hit before it clicked. “That’s marijuana, isn’t it?”
“Last I checked, it was legal here.”
His clipped, curt response wasn’t warranted. I didn’t have an opinion on his smoking habits, legal or not. It wasn’t why I’d come out to talk to him.
“Nik tells me we’re going to an island.”
“Nik tells me the same thing.”
“Leo said you work for the guy who owns it?”
“Yep.”
“Is there anything I should know about it?”
“Nope.”
He might not bite, but he used to be a much better barker. Not letting his obvious annoyance derail me, I continued, “For a guy who always has so much to say, you suddenly seem like you’re not interested in talking.”
“And what does Goddess Thea wish to talk to little ol’ me about?”
Well, he doesn’t sound patronizing or anything. I pushed out a breath. Clearly, he didn’t want to talk about the island. The more I focused on Coop, the less convinced I was he had any intention of taking me there. I didn’t blame him. The island belonged to his boss and Coop knew exactly what I knew—Thea Gale was a huge liability.
“I’m sorry I messed up your plans. You don’t need to take me anywhere.”
“Oh, but I do,” he lamented to the trees in front of him, not to me. It reminded me of the way Nik had also tried to block me out. Nik had been sheltering his heart, while Coop was protecting something far different. But what?
“It was never my intention to cause any of you trouble.”
“What are your intentions, anyway?”
“To survive.”
With a huff, he dropped his chin and gave a brief shake of his head, like he suspected my answer had been a pathetic attempt at emotional manipulation. “How exactly do you see this playing out?”
“You mean with Nik?”
Cocking his head, Coop eyed me with a new level of annoyance.
“Look, I’m not trying to be evasive or obtuse. When you ask me how I see anything playing out, please realize I don’t have a past to draw on. I don’t have an expectation of a future. I have today, this hour—right now is my only true concept of time.”
And right now, Titan happily loped through the impossibly tall trees. The late afternoon wind held an invigorating chill as it trilled the Aspen leaves. The full sun heated my skin and made the Ponderosa bark smell exactly the same as when I had first stepped out of Nik’s Jeep. There was something perfect about this place—my bare feet cool on the wood deck, my face warm in the sunlight, and my heart full knowing Nik was inside the door, sleeping in the bed we’d made love in. I wanted to stay here and in this moment, where I could still feel him wrapped around me. Inside of me. Smell him on my skin. I wanted to feel like this every day. For this to be my home. But I knew it wasn’t.
“The future is way too big of a proposition for me to even consider,” I continued. “I realize it must be strange. I know you think I’m using Nik, and yes, to some degree I am. He’s all I have, all I know—”
Coop cut me off. “What if you have someone else?”
“Who? You?”
He gave another annoyed grunt. Even from his profile I spotted the roll of his eyes. Frustration raised his voice. “You had a life before the tornado. People were in it. People who could help you.” He paused to take a drag off the blunt in his fingers.
Like Nik, he was good at talking to me, but not with me when he wanted to keep his distance. Question was, what did Coop have hidden behind his walls?
He hitched a shoulder. “Don’t you want to know who your friends and family are?”
I’m sure it did seem odd. I’m sure not wanting to find those people made me come off as cold, unfeeling…guilty, even. And maybe I was all of those things. But everyone was a stranger to me, how was I supposed to know who I could trust?
And what about Coop? Sure, Nik had faith in him and Leo assured me he’d have my back. Even Titan seemed to like him. But the voice in my head was screaming at me to pay close attention to this scruffy, gruff man who was so intent on scaring me away.
Desperate to figure out how I could connect to him, I asked, “Haven’t you ever not known what tomorrow held in store for you? You’ve been in combat. Surely you’ve had head injuries?” Nik had told me most of the Team Guys had had concussions, and many had long-term issues from traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs. “Maybe you never lost your memory, but have you ever lost your focus, your reality? All I have is this voice in my head. It tells me when to hold on and when to run. And it’s telling me not to go back. Only to go forward down this road, wherever it’s taking me.”
“Nik will be waking up soon. You should go.”
I couldn’t tell if he was being dismissive because he was satisfied with my answer or if I’d merely reached the limits of his patience. His eagerness to be rid of me was obvious, though. I turned to head back into the house, but stopped short of giving him what he wanted. There was more he had to say to me and if I left now, I’d never know what it was.
“You don’t like me, do you?”
Coop turned, looking me in the eye. His dark blue irises were dulled, but deep. “I’m trying to help you. And if you want Nik to sleep with you again, I mean like truly fall asleep, then you sure as hell better be there when he wakes up.”
I might’ve believed he was sincere, but between the superior tone drenching his voice and the hollow glare in his annoyed eyes, I knew differently. As it stood though, I still hadn’t quite figured out what Coop’s problem with me was. It went deeper than my screwing up his plans. I was close though. Things were starting to come together, and I feared I wouldn’t like the form they’d eventually take.
I shook my head, as much to clear it as to chastise Coop. “I don’t understand you.”
“It’s not a requirement for you to.” The disinterest in his eyes didn’t flinch, but his lip cocked in a smirk before he took another drag off the joint. “How about we both agree—the only reason I’m trying to help you is because Nik being well rested and focused serves my own interests.”
I studied Coop longer than I should’ve and my own smirk dropped. Swallowing back any more questions, I nodded. “Fine.”
I turned away before my curiosity and scrutiny increased. Pricking and teasing the edges of my mind was everything I already needed to know about Coop, I just hadn’t identified it. For now, all I wanted was to scarf up a couple of Leo’s potato skins and take the gruff jerk’s advice—crawl back into Nik’s warm embrace before his eyes opened to find me gone.
“Shit. Thea, wait.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Nik’s naked body tangled in the sheets, his leg kicking out over mine as he groggily pulled me against him. I shut my eyes and tried to commit every warm crush of his body against mine to memory. The way his arms crossed around me, holding me close. The tingles his lips brushed down the sensitive skin on the back of my neck, as his low, manly voice asked, “Where’d you hop off to, Tigger?”
I kissed his forearm. The soft, dark hairs tickled my nose as his scent radiated through me. “I was hoping you wouldn’t wake up before I’d gotten back.”
“I didn’t. But before I fell asleep you smelled like gunpowder, sex, and survival candles. And now you smell like you’ve been cheating on me with bacon.” His teeth lightly raked my earlobe as his body, hardened and ready for another heavenly round, spooned mine.
It was impossible to ignore the desires churning hot as images from the past several hours in this room flooded through me. Even as tender and sore as I was, I wanted to repeat them all. We need to hurry…
I reluctantly pointed to the bedside table where a plate of food and two cold bottles of Leo-endorsed sports drinks awaited him. “I brought you sustenance.”
“Leo’s famous potato
skins? And I thought this day couldn’t get any better.” He shifted, reaching for the food.
“Enjoy it while you can, because things are about to get a whole lot worse.”
“Only easy day was yesterday,” he muttered.
I explained about the drone and the SUV while Nik ate. “We’re leaving as soon as possible. Coop’s boss already has a plane arranged at a private airstrip near Boulder. The plan is to make it look like Coop and Leo are leaving in the truck, but really it will be Coop and me.”
“What? No.” He washed back the last potato skin with neon red liquid. “You’re staying with me.”
“You told me I can trust Coop, so I am. Well, trying to. Besides, it was my idea. It’s the safest way for all of us to get to the airport without being followed and the only way to ensure nobody gets hurt because of me. Once we’ve made it to Boulder, then you’ll leave the tracking device from Titan’s collar here and drive to town with him and Leo. If anyone trails you, they’ll see I’m not with you and hopefully double back to your house, allowing you all to head down from the mountains without anyone behind you. Coop has the security set so if anyone shows up here at the house they’ll be intercepted quickly. Even if they don’t, by the time they realize we’re all gone, they won’t be able to follow us to the airstrip.”
“Sounds like you have it all figured out. How soon before this mission goes live?” His body curled flush behind mine again as he nuzzled my neck. One big hand slid over my breast, while his other tucked between my legs.
I really didn’t want to ever leave this bed. And I really, really didn’t want him to stop taking my body and mind to places only he could. But somehow I managed to squeak out, “We only have enough time to get ready.”
“Then we’ll make some time…by showering together.” He scooped me into his arms and carried me to the bathroom.
After reaching in to turn the water on, he set me on the vanity, spreading my thighs with his hands. “Got to wait for it to get hot,” he murmured as he hungrily kissed his way down between my legs, his tongue sending me to heaven over and over again.
* * * *
Leaving Nik didn’t seem real until we were standing in his garage and I was about to get into another man’s truck. Nik had that look. Not the good one. Not the hungry, heated one. This was the stiff, stony one from back behind the wall I’d thought I’d broken through. Leaving him like this, even for a few hours, didn’t sit well in my stomach. Needing to feel an actual connection to him, I wrapped my arms around his neck and lifted up on my toes for a kiss.
With a jerk of his chin, he kept the contact as brief as possible.
“Don’t kiss me like it’s goodbye.” His hardened eyes met mine and I felt the push from them as surely as if he’d done it with his hand. Stunned, I stumbled through my goodbyes to Titan and got up into the truck. Nik silently closed the door between us and disappeared into the house, not even bothering to watch us pull away.
I wanted so much to believe his words—this wasn’t goodbye, but I couldn’t help feeling differently. Had Coop been right? Had Nik only wanted one thing from me and now was fine with letting me go?
“Did you text Aimee?” Coop asked as he pulled out of Nik’s driveway.
I nodded, shaking off the insecurity with the hopes Nik had only gone behind his walls because he hated my leaving him as much as I did. “She’s going to meet us at the park in town in an hour. Should give us plenty of time for recon.”
I didn’t like lying to Nik about the plan, but I didn’t want to put him or anyone else in danger. And I didn’t want to run. I wanted to confront her head-on, and Coop had assured me Nik would talk me out of it. While these people might be powerful and dangerous, I doubted they’d be so brash as to do anything in broad daylight with Coop next to me. Besides, Aimee had had opportunity to hurt me back in Boulder and she hadn’t, so how bad could she really be?
Coop reached back and pulled something out of his backpack. I barely had time to register the folder full of documents he’d dropped in my lap before we were at the main highway. He whipped his truck the direction Nik and I had taken to go to Boulder, opposite of Estes Park and what we’d planned.
“Whoa! Where the hell are you going?” I lunged across the massive center console to grab at the steering wheel, but the seatbelt shocked me by locking down, holding me tight to the leather seat.
Coop didn’t even flinch at my flailing at him. Reclining his elbow on the window frame, he drove with his fingers lazily on the wheel. Clearly he didn’t find the curves he navigated at high speed any more dangerous than his pissed-off passenger.
I doubted he’d respond to reasoning, but short of unlatching my seatbelt and killing us both, it was my only option. “We had an agreement to handle this my way.”
“We are handling this your way. You didn’t want Nik involved.”
“This isn’t the plan we agreed to.”
“This is the plan Nik agreed to, and he’ll be tracking my phone. He’d come if we didn’t go toward the airport.” Coop glanced over, shaking his head at my death stare. “You can sit there and glare at me the whole ride for screwing you over. Or you can read the damn file.”
At least he was admitting he’d screwed me over. I had a feeling it was the best I was ever going to get out of the jerk. Frustrated, I looked down at the paper on top. “This is an autopsy report.”
“Supposedly yours. Look at the pictures—what do you notice?”
Hating the taste of the words on my tongue, I said, “The girl has red hair and a phoenix tattoo on her forearm.” Just like Aimee. The fiery shades of orange on this woman’s tattoo stood out, reminding me of Aimee’s words, ‘Having risen now…we’ll be adding color to my tattoo so it will match the other sisters’.’
“Still trust your friend, Aimee? Still want to meet her at the park?”
Instead of responding to Coop, I rifled through the additional files in the folder. My heartbeat hammered and my focus blurred as I stared down at my life story in black and white. I closed the folder. This wasn’t how I wanted to confront my past or who I wanted next to me when I did. “How were you able to get all of this?”
“I have the right resources. A powerful person.”
I huffed. “And this person trusts you?”
There was the slightest pause before he answered. “With almost everything. Why? Don’t I look trustworthy, Goddess Thea?”
I spared a glance at his scruffy, hardened appearance, but it wasn’t really his looks I was noticing. It was his eyes. With blue so dark and rich a girl should want to stare at them. But there was no light in his irises and getting lost in them must be like drowning in the nearly black depths of the seas Nik had described to me. In fact, my throat was closing as I sat next to him, hurtling down the mountain away from Nik.
“No, you look like a bad guy.” I couldn’t believe I’d ever trusted him. He probably had no intentions of taking me to the island. Question was, was he committing me to a life on the run? Or worse?
“Looks can be deceiving. Besides, the bad guys usually have the best intel. The supposed good guys can be bought, and if not, they can be hacked, which is how my source got most of this information.”
“And you trust this source?”
A look flashed over his face—chagrin? amusement? disbelief? “Yeah. With almost everything,” he said, his tone heavy and pensive.
“It’s the ‘almost’ part that scares me.”
Below his breath, he muttered, “Yeah, that part scares me, too.”
It was the first one hundred percent honest thing Coop had said to me. And I wasn’t sure I welcomed it. Tough, rugged, ripped Coop was scared of something? As much as I’d wanted to break down his barriers, I didn’t relish learning he had vulnerabilities. Especially given how my life was now entirely in his hands.
Realizing I had little to say in how this was all going to go down, I pushed out a calming breath. “So, when are you going to share this grand plan of yours?”
/> “Thought you’d never ask. I’ve arranged to meet with your fiancé and hand you over to him.”
* * * *
Nik had done everything he could think of—packed up clothes and supplies, readied the cabin for being gone for a couple of weeks, and finally made good use of the tracking device from Titan’s collar.
“Maybe you should sit down and try to relax,” Leo suggested. “The two of you are going to wear a rut in your wood floors.”
Nik glanced back at the panting dog hot on his heels, nearly tripping him at every turn. Titan didn’t like Thea being gone any more than Nik did. But for Nik it was not only being apart from Thea eating at his sanity, it was also the look in her eyes when she’d left.
He’d hurt her. She’d misunderstood when he’d broken away from her kiss. But the last time he’d said goodbye to someone he loved, they’d died.
“How close are they now?”
“Almost to Boulder,” Leo responded from his position on the bar stool.
They still had awhile before they’d get the go ahead from Coop. But at least they could head to the park to pick up Aimee soon. Thea would be pissed if she knew. She hated how involved in her problems he already was, but she’d understand when it was all said and done and she no longer had anyone to run from.
God, waiting to hear from her was killing him. He needed to keep moving. If he stopped to sit down, he wouldn’t be able to breathe. Sharking, the Team Guys called it. But as with sharks, SEALs didn’t always survive captivity.
“You always act like this on an op?”
Jerking his head, Nik caught Leo’s grin and grumbled. “No.”
In fact, he’d never felt this restless…useless, except during leave and usually he’d take a long run or hike or climb until he was too exhausted to do more than recover.
“So why is this different?”
Nik glared at his buddy’s shit-eating smirk. “You know why, asshole.”
Twist My Heart (Wicked Games Book 1) Page 25