Reckless (Benson's Boys Book 1)

by Janet Elizabeth Henderson

  Callum glared at him and Tessa looked at him like he was an idiot.

  “Come on,” Dimitri said. “Don’t tell me you didn’t think that was interesting?”

  “The house is plenty big enough for two couples,” Bob said. “Big enough for privacy when you get noisy with the missus and don’t want anybody to hear.” He waggled his eyebrows. “If you know what we mean.”

  Bill rolled his eyes. “Everybody knows what you mean. It wasn’t subtle.” He looked at Dimitri. “When the kids moved out we thought of selling, but we liked the house. Bob and Dianne didn’t mind sharing. It works out great. Except during ladies nights.”

  “Okay.” Callum stared at the ceiling. Dimitri imagined he was praying for strength. After a few seconds, he faced the brothers. “Now that we’ve got your living arrangements sorted out, how about you tell us what the hell happened here?”

  The two men obviously decided they weren’t in trouble any longer and jerked their arms from their keepers.

  “I need a seat.” Bill tottered over to bench against the wall and plopped down. A second later his brother did the same.

  “We were down here,” Bill said, “when there was a crash upstairs. We thought it was one of you coming back and opened the door to shout up to you, let you know we were down here.”

  Bob nodded. “We didn’t want to scare the women if they caught us in our underwear.”

  “You could have just got dressed,” Dimitri pointed out.

  Bill shook his head. “We were in the middle of a fight.”

  “That I was winning,” Bob said.

  Bill pointedly ignored his brother. “Anyway, we heard shouting. Somebody said to do as much damage as possible. It took us a minute to figure out what was going on.”

  “There was another order, this time telling them to sweep the building.” Bob looked confused. “That’s how he put it. Seemed weird, but never mind. We could hear everything because they were in the stairwell at that point and this building is like a big echo chamber when it’s empty.”

  “We knew we had to hide.” Bill shared a look with his brother, before turning to Callum. “We already told Julia this, but you lot need a panic room. Make that several panic rooms. One on each floor. For the people who can’t run fast to the other ones.”

  “Like us,” Bob patted his belly. “I need to cut back on my cooked breakfasts.”

  “We ran into the nearest interrogation room and planned to lock ourselves in there.”

  “Only we discovered that the bloody door automatically locked when you entered and only opened from the outside. Which left us stuck in a room, with no way out and a building full of bad guys.”

  “It’s a design flaw.” Bill waved his hands around. The reason for all his gesturing was unclear. “What if there’s a fire? How is a person supposed to get out of there?”

  “Nobody is supposed to be in there without supervision,” Dimitri pointed out. “If there was a fire, your handler would get you out.”

  Bob wasn’t mollified. “We thought we’d be safe. Instead we were trapped. It would have been like shooting fish in a barrel.” He glared at Callum. “You’re getting a panic room. I don’t care if you don’t want one. You’re getting one.”

  Dimitri had to shake his head to clear it. “You’re carpenters. What are you going to do? Build a panic box and shove it in the corner of the room?”

  Bill pointed a bony finger at him. “That’s the sort of attitude we’d expect from the younger, more ignorant generation. Don’t you think we have connections in the business, son? We can tap our sources and get a state of the art panic room installed tomorrow. We’ve been at the building game longer than you’ve been out of nappies. Bloody insulting, that’s what your attitude is, bloody insulting.” He clasped his hands on top of his round belly and huffed.

  “Back to the intruders.” At the strained sound of Callum’s voice, Dimitri placed himself between his boss and the wall of death. Just in case Callum snapped and decided to put the Granger brothers out of his misery. “What else can you tell us?”

  “The guy in charge was looking for somebody,” Bill said. “He told his men to bring the blonde to him.”

  Dimitri’s muscles locked in place as the old men stared at him.

  “Guess that means they’re after your girlfriend,” Bob said. “She’s the only blonde in the building.”

  “What did she do this time?” Bill said. “Has this got something to do with this afternoon? Did she Taser some other poor idiot after she knocked you out?”

  Tessa cocked an eyebrow at him. “Your girlfriend Tasered you?”

  “It’s how she shows she cares.” Dimitri wasn’t about to explain his complex and highly violent relationship to a stranger.

  “Why didn’t you two phone for help?” Callum was back on track.

  Bill waved a hand at his underwear. “Does it look like I’m keeping a phone in here? Anyway, we don’t abide by them mobile phones.”

  Bob nodded. “They fry your brain.”

  “Landlines,” Bill added. “They’re the only phones that’re safe. The other ones send microwaves in to destroy your mind.” He pointed at each of them. “Brain tumours. Mark my words. Get rid of your phones before it’s too late.”

  “The intruders,” Callum said through gritted teeth. “What happened with the intruders?”

  “The morons were crashing around when the cops arrived. Then all hell broke loose.” Bob looked at his brother.

  Bill nodded. “They came charging back down the stairs. Then some idiot on the ground floor fired at the cops.”

  “Through the window. We heard the glass shatter.”

  “Bloody idiots,” Bill said. “The guy in charge shouted at them to stop and get out the back. Ten seconds, he shouted. It seemed like a weird thing to shout at the time. We didn’t have a clue what he meant.”

  “But we only had to wait ten seconds to find out,” Bob said. “That’s when the blast went off.”

  “I’m serious about a panic room. You really need it,” Bill said. “One with a toilet. I almost crapped my pants when that blast went off.”

  “Heart attack material.” Bob patted his chest. “I nearly died.”

  Tessa turned her back on the brothers, effectively dismissing them. They didn’t like that at all.

  “They had a car waiting at the back of the house,” she said to Callum. “They were gone before the smoke cleared. We tracked them on CCTV but they swapped cars and we lost them. No distinguishing marks. There were four of them, decked out in black with gloves and balaclavas. There won’t be any prints. We need to check your security footage, see if we get anything that might help identify these assholes.”

  Callum hung his head. “There isn’t any. We’re on a limited system and the cameras aren’t operational yet. I’ll tap our sources. See if we can find out who’s behind this.”

  Tessa stared at Callum for a long time. Any other man would have shifted nervously under her gaze. Callum just waited, daring her to say something. Which, of course, she did.

  “You know this is a security firm, right? You’d better hope this doesn’t get out, or your business will tank. If you can’t even monitor your own property properly, what the hell chance do you have of doing it for someone else?”

  “We are under construction.” The words were squeezed through Callum’s teeth.

  Tessa’s eyes sparkled. “Tell you what. I’ll keep it to myself—for a price.”

  “What do you want this time?”

  “Dinner in a venue of my choice.” She practically oozed glee. “I hear Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant is very nice.”

  Callum mumbled something about evil women being the bane of his life. Tessa just laughed.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  When Dimitri snuck back into their room, Megan was asleep, sprawled face down across the middle of the bed. Even in her sleep, she took up all the space around her. He was beginning to think there was no way to contain Megan Donaldson. And
he wasn’t entirely sure he’d want her contained even if there were.

  Knowing nothing would wake Megan when she was out cold, he showered before he slipped into bed beside her.

  “G’way.” Mostly asleep, Megan shoved him out of her space.

  With a chuckle, Dimitri wedged himself under her and hauled her up against him.

  “Joe?” Eyes closed, she tucked her head against his chest.

  A feral sound escaped him. “Dimitri. Damn it woman. Why is Joe always your first guess?”

  He frowned down at her, but she was oblivious. Snuggling against him, like a kitten trying to find the perfect spot to curl up.

  “Screwed up today,” she mumbled against his skin.

  “I know. Go to sleep.” The reminder he might have lost her made him fight to relax.

  “Won’t do it again.” It was barely a whisper, but it still made his heart clench.

  “Sh, go back to sleep.” He wrapped his arm around her, cupping the curve of her ass.

  Megan wriggled until her one of her legs was over his body and her hand was tangled in his hair.

  “Bossy,” she said. It was barely a whisper. “You’re stealing my heart.”

  He stilled at her words, but she was already asleep. Breathing deeply, he took the scent that was uniquely Megan into his lungs. “You’ve already stolen mine, Buffy.”

  Dimitri kissed the top of her head as he gently stroked her arm. Smooth perfect skin under his touch. A fragile shell that betrayed a heart of steel. Although Megan would balk at the thought of not being able to fight her own battles, he still couldn’t stop his imagination from thinking of ways to get her out of danger. His family owned a small house in the south of Russia. No one would think to look for her there. He nuzzled her forehead, fully aware that the only way he’d get her out of London now would be if she was unconscious. Even then, as soon as she realised where she’d been stashed, she’d rip apart everything in her path to get back to the action.

  His Megan was a warrior. The fact she was untrained, fearless and rash didn’t diminish that fact. Training could be fixed, and experience would help her to rein in her more impulsive tendencies. Then she would be glorious. A truly amazing field operative. A formidable opponent. A perfect partner.

  If he could just keep her alive long enough to get her there.

  He understood Megan’s need to protect her sister. The need that had driven her to take matters into her own hands earlier that day when she didn’t think the team were going to do it for her. In a lot of ways, they were exactly alike. When it came to safeguarding family they were feral in their determination not to fail. He couldn’t even fault her for putting her own life on the line for her sister—he would have done exactly the same thing. He chuckled. Well, maybe not exactly the same thing. The urge to cover his groin hit him hard at the memory of Megan’s warning to Rudi.

  He pulled her tighter to him, making her hum in her sleep as she snuggled against him. Her warmth seeped into him, reassuring him that she was really there and she was fine. And he would do everything in his power to keep her that way. First thing in the morning, he’d talk to Callum about upping her training schedule—after he convinced the man not to carry through with his threat to fire her, that is.

  Closing his eyes he took a few deep, settling breaths and let himself drown in her scent. How this woman had gotten under his skin so fast he didn’t know. But now that he had her, he had no intention of ever letting go. Holding her tight, Dimitri let sleep take him, confident in his ability to put himself between Megan and danger, if it should come for her in the night.

  Megan woke to the feeling of lips on her spine. Dimitri. The man practically made her purr. Although letting him know that wouldn’t be good for his already humungous ego. A wicked smile tugged at her lips before she mumbled, “Joe?”

  Her tease earned a sharp bite to the curve of her hip.

  “Dimitri.” She felt the bed shift. Hands landed either side of her.

  A hot and heavy body pressed against her back. Sharp teeth nipped at her earlobe. “Call me by another man’s name again and you’ll regret it.”

  “Mm? What will you do?” She wriggled her backside against his hard length.

  The hair on his legs bristled against her skin. The softer hair on his chest tickled her back. It was a caress.

  “I’ll make sure you never forget who’s touching you.” It was a warning and a promise.

  The words were a caress to the parts of her that were desperate for his touch.

  “Show me,” she challenged.

  “Not now.” There was a smile in his voice as he kissed his way down her neck to her shoulder. “I like you all sleepy and compliant. I want to play before you wake up and start fighting with me again.”

  “Devil.” But it was more of a purr than an insult.

  “Don’t move,” he whispered against her nape. “Let me do all the work.”

  At last, an order she actually wanted to obey. She smiled against her pillow, vaguely aware that it smelled of Dimitri, green and earthy. It made her think of walking in leaf strewn woodland. Bliss.

  He pressed open mouthed kisses down the length of her spine until he was kneeling between her legs. Warm hands trailed from her shoulders, over the curve of her behind to her thighs. She shivered as he caressed the sensitive inside of her thighs, before sliding over her backside to the flare of her hips.

  “So soft.” The wonder in his voice warmed her soul.

  She felt him lean forward to twirl his tongue lazily in the small of her back.

  “Mmm.” Her brain was officially closed for the duration. All she could do was revel in the sensations Dimitri produced. Delicious, delicious sensations.

  “You like that?”

  He didn’t seem to need an answer, so she didn’t give him one. She was floating in that blissful place between sleep and awareness, where sensation was everything, and she never wanted it to end.

  Strong hands turned her slowly, until she was lying on her back. She opened one eye a crack, to see him in the early morning light. He knelt between her legs, his hands smoothing over her body sensitising her skin to his barest touch. A gentle brush on the backs of her knees made her purr. A tingle on her thigh made her yearn for more. A whisper of a touch on the inside of her wrist. Soft circles around the fullness of her breasts made them swollen and desperate for a stronger touch. His hand, flat and gentle, curved around her throat. His thumb stroked along her jaw and then his hand slid down the centre of her body, over her stomach to brush through her curls. Then the fleeting touch was gone again.

  She moaned, deep and low. “You’re making me crazy.”

  The answer was a knowing chuckle before the wetness of his tongue hit her sensitive nipple. With a gasp, she bowed her body up into his touch.

  “Nuh, uh.” Firm on her hips. “Stay.”

  “Do I look like a dog to you?” The complaint was weak.

  “You look like perfection to me.” His mouth covered her nipple and he sucked deep.

  The sound he yanked from her throat was nothing she’d recognise if she heard it later. Her hands shot to his head, threading her fingers through his hair to hold on tight.

  Relentlessly, he sucked and nibbled and teased, until she was panting, desperate for more. Fingers tightened on the tip of her neglected breast, squeezing hard. Electric jolts through her body.

  “Yes.” Widening her legs, she cradled him closer to her body.

  She was slick with need, every inch of her body oversensitive as she writhed beneath him. More. She needed more. “I need you inside me.”

  “Not yet.” He trailed his tongue down her stomach, teasing her belly button with the tip of it, while his hands stayed on her breasts, massaging, caressing, teasing.

  “Please.” The word was a gasp, her mind no longer cognizant of language. Sounds merged—her gasps and breaths, Dimitri’s words and cooing encouragement. She heard her own blood pulsing through her body. Need was loud in every breath an
d moan.

  There was only Dimitri’s touch. Actions became purely instinctual, born of need, driven by sensation. Her hips lifted as he blew cool air over the wet trail he’d left on her skin.

  Lips covered her wet core and he gave her the most intimate of kisses. Words burst from her mouth. She didn’t recognise them. All she knew was the ferocious pressure building inside of her, making her primal in her need for release.

  “Sh.” He gentled her, before launching another assault to make her lose her mind.

  Fingers slid inside her, stroking, teasing. She clamped down on him, wanting all of it, but needing more.

  “Please, please, please, please…” Her neck arched, eyes pressed shut as lights blazed behind them. A kaleidoscope of colour. “Please.” It was a sob. Desperate need filled with raw brutal longing. He kept her on edge, ready to snap at any moment. Hovering on the brink of losing control completely.

  Suddenly his touch was gone.

  “No!” It was a wail.

  His body pressed over hers. His lips demanding her kiss. Demanding her surrender. Taking it anyway.

  “Now.” An order, pressed against her lips.

  He surged into her and she shattered. Back bowed, neck taut, nails digging into his sides. There was no thought. No ability to reason. Just wonderful, overwhelming feeling. Tingles in her body. Shudders as she came down from her peak. She blinked her eyes open to find him staring at her and that’s when he started to move.

  “Mine.” He nipped her bottom lip as he rocked into her.

  She wrapped her legs around him. Lazy, drunk on him. Yet, already the pressure was starting to build anew.

  “Again.” It was an order.

  Her tongue flicked out to wet dry lips as she let him take her where he wanted to go.

  “Again.” A demand.

  He shifted back onto his knees, taking her with him. Holding her backside, he lifted her up to meet his thrusts. His hard length hit every sensitive spot inside her, while predatory eyes filled with ownership watched her. Cheeks flushed, lips swollen, his muscles flexing as he moved inside her, holding her tight—exactly where she needed to be.