“It’s fine. We should talk about what’s next.” She paced her way around the room, her shoulders tight and her expression carefully curated. “Where are we, anyway?” she asked, peeking through curtains he’d kept drawn shut, just in case. “Still in Panama City, right?”
“Cooper, come here.” She didn’t move from the window—and really, he hadn’t expected her to, nothing about her had ever been easy or compliant, which was half the reason he liked her so damn much. But his words had hurt her, so Will stood and went to her.
“What time is it?” She huffed a little laugh that tinkled, high and hollow, like broken glass swept along a sidewalk. “Guess I should be asking what day it is.”
Will plucked the mug of coffee from her fingers and set it on the windowsill. When she sighed, and her body went lax, she let him see another side of her. One he’d glimpsed in the bathroom.
One he didn’t like.
This was the Cooper who’d gone to her knees in that alley. The one who’d accepted death as her due. But this time, there were no drugs to blame.
This was guilt. Undiluted and harsh as bleach, it scrubbed away everything dynamic and beautiful and fierce until all that remained was a meek acceptance of whatever accusation or condemnation he wanted to hurl.
He couldn’t stand it. Vulnerability was one thing, a layer of Cooper he found oddly soft and compelling and worth exploring, but this . . . this he wouldn’t accept. Not from her.
And certainly not because of him.
“Cooper,” he whispered, trailing his fingers down the nape of her neck, following the curve of her spine all the way to the waistband of her jeans.
She went still beneath his touch. Desire? Confusion? A longing she couldn’t name but that matched his own?
He intended to clear it up for her.
He curled his fingers in the back of her pants and pulled her flush against him, then wrapped both arms around her, trapping her in tight and close, surrounding her as he let his head drop to the curve of her shoulder.
Because the shirt she wore gaped, and her skin smelled soft and clean, he let himself taste and smiled at the shiver that wrought.
Following the column of her neck, Will pressed a kiss to the pulse point he found there, scraped his teeth over skin she exposed with a tilt of her neck, then put his mouth to her ear.
“By my count, you’ve saved my life three times.”
She didn’t say anything, but brought her hands up to grip his forearms, as if she was afraid he’d step back. Afraid he’d leave.
He wouldn’t. Couldn’t, if he were being honest with himself. And it wasn’t because she needed him. It was because standing here, Cooper tucked up against him, waiting, wondering, hoping, Will felt more like himself than he had in almost a year. He couldn’t give that up.
Cooper was his touchstone, the steady point on the horizon he saw when everything else shifted and whirled and raged.
Will would be damned if he’d be any less than that for her.
“Once, a very long time ago, a bossy, egotistical sniper got my entire team though a hostile operation that had gone to shit.” Her cheek twitched beneath his mouth, as if a smile had risen to her face at the memory. “I liked her—even if she did call me a moron.”
“You wouldn’t listen,” she said.
He silenced her with a none-too-gentle nip to her ear. “Then she pulled me out of a pit and off a mountain, saving my life again.” He soothed the bite with a gentle brush of tongue, smiling when she shivered. “And again when I was too sick, too tired, too hurt to keep going.” He let her go and turned her to face him, then pressed her back against the wall. “I saved your life once and it was only necessary because I threw you out to begin with. So no, we’re not even close to even.”
Her breath caught, then left her in a rush, taking her tension and fear and guilt right along with it. Good. Those weren’t welcome, not between them, not going forward. And because he’d dreamed about this moment for fucking years, had wondered what it would be like to put his hands on her shoulders and press her back against the wall, he laid his mouth to hers.
Twice now, Will had tasted her. And both times had been nothing like what he’d expected. There was no clash of teeth or battle for control. No whispered promises or breathy moans. He didn’t want to drag his mouth from hers just to put it somewhere hotter, somewhere darker.
Well, he did.
Of course, he did.
But not with any real sense of urgency.
There’d be time. For the fire. For the fight. Time to take and plunder, ravage and ruin. He’d make sure of it.
But this? This was soft and slow. Thorough—Will wasn’t about to leave any corner of Cooper’s mouth unexplored—but gentle, too.
He brushed his thumbs along her cheeks, threaded his fingers through her hair, and let himself enjoy the fact that this woman—this fierce, capable, stubborn woman—let him hold her. Comfort her. Touch her when she was utterly disarmed.
She’d saved him, seen some of the worst of him, and still, she’d forgiven him. Trusted him. And in her arms and on her lips, that tasted like home and freedom and a comfort he hadn’t known he needed.
That she could take the same from him was an addiction he’d never overcome.
Reluctantly, because oh God he wanted to stay there, Will pulled away. Pushed the hair back from Cooper’s face, brushed a finger across her full, lower lip.
When she tilted her chin up, went to her toes, and reached for him, he stepped back, but let a grin curl the edge of his mouth.
“We need to talk.”
When she groaned, he laughed, and that felt almost as good as kissing her.
“So how do we do this?” Cooper asked from the corner of the couch where she sat with her feet tucked up and a fresh cup of coffee in her hand.
“I think we have to assume the bank is under surveillance.” Will joined her in the tiny living area of the flat he’d paid for with the cash he’d found tucked away in Cooper’s gear. Apparently, the going rate of anonymity was triple the list price these days. But staying off grid was essential. At least until they got through retrieving whatever Felix had left for him at the bank. “It’s the only thing that explains how Cole found you so damn fast.”
“Makes sense,” she agreed, then took a sip of her coffee and let her gaze stray to the curtain-covered window. “We were only blocks from the bank. So when I turned right instead of left . . .” She shrugged. “Maybe it was subconscious on my part, I don’t know. But I headed that direction and I guess Cole just got lucky.”
“So did we,” Will whispered and squeezed the top of her knee. “But going forward I’d rather not rely on luck.”
“Right. So we assume the bank’s being watched. We can’t go in the front—now that there’s a confirmed sighting, they’ll have a sniper on site. They might let us walk in, but there’s no way they’ll let us walk out.”
“Thank God Cole found you on the street—”
Cooper shook her head before he could finish the thought. “He won’t do it at distance.”
“I thought spotters and snipers had to function in both roles?”
“We do.” She stood and stretched, her t-shirt riding up as her back popped and cracked. “But Cole’s orders were specific. It has to be up close and personal.”
“How do you know that?” he asked, suspicion winding through him.
She shrugged. “He kept mumbling it when we fought. Over and over and over again. ‘Face-to-face,’” she recited.
Jesus.
Will started to stand, but Cooper waved him off with a flick of her wrist and a sad smile.
“It’s fine,” she assured him. “I’m fine.”
“The fuck it is. Cooper, it’s—”
“New to you. And horrifying, I know. But I’ve been living with this ax over my head for eighteen months now. I’m used to it.”
Used to it. Used to running. Used to looking over her shoulder. Use to waiting for her best frie
nd to come for her. Hurt her. Kill her.
Jesus, it stirred the rage in him. To be betrayed so thoroughly by those she’d trusted . . .
The darkness must have touched his face and curdled his expression, because Cooper sat next to Will on a heavy sigh. She pressed her leg against his, the touch firm and familiar.
“I don’t know how you live with this, Coop. Let alone forgive it.”
“Because it’s not his fault,” she said simply, then touched his arm and met his gaze. A sad smile changed her face to something soft, something tired. “You accused me of being loyal.”
“To a fault,” he agreed.
“Right. But the truth is, that was always Cole’s default setting, not mine.” She stretched out her legs, her bare toes curling in a way that pulled his thoughts in an entirely different direction.
“Cole, he was—is—one of the best. Stone-cold calm. Great at troubleshooting in the field. Super adaptable and the best to work with because he doesn’t let the stress touch him. The harder things get, the better he performs. He could have worked with anyone. But he chose me,” she said, her voice quiet but her tone reverent. “Did you know we went into the army at the same time?”
Will shook his head.
“Yeah. From basic on. We were always friendly but never close. That came later. Guess that’s why it always surprised me.” She shrugged off a little laugh.
“What did?”
“He knew I was a great shot,” she said by way of explanation. “Maybe one of the best. But he also knew I was being pushed out. Bullied into failure or deliberately overlooked. When it came to marksman training, no one wanted to work with me.”
“Except Cole,” Will offered.
“Except Cole. He put his foot down. Forced the other guys to back off. Forced the brass to take notice. He was good that way—could command attention without getting haughty or combative. They kept trying to reassign him to someone else. Someone better.”
“Better?” Will asked. He knew what she meant, but he wanted her to say it. Wanted her to know he’d believe it.
“Someone more suitable,” she hedged, but then gave in. “I can’t say I blame our training officer. Women don’t get selected for sniper school. There was a very real risk I was going to hold him back, keep him from realizing his potential.”
“But he wouldn’t have it.”
“Nope. Couldn’t have been easy, either. He’s a crack shot—partnered with anyone else, he could have taken the sniper position. But . . .” She shrugged.
“But he was loyal to you.”
“Always.” Her eyes watered, but she blinked way the emotion in the next second. “When it came down to it, Cole prioritized our partnership—me, really—over everything else.” She tugged the sleeves of her shirt down, her fingers worrying the right cuff. “It started in the army, took us all the way through sniper school. But that’s not where it ended.” She swallowed and took her time with the next part. “We’d been working with the CIA maybe six months when an operation went bad. It was a two-parter.” Her gaze went loose and distant, as if the memory had pulled her through a scope and far away. “Cole was on retrieval. I was on overwatch. One second everything’s good, the next . . . Well, you know how it is.”
“When shit goes bad, there’s no warning, no sense of the situation slipping away from you. It just goes.”
“Yeah. Anyway, Cole made it to the extraction point but I . . .” She swallowed hard, the ghostly touch of fear stroking her face. “I didn’t, and orders were to complete mission.”
“And leave you.”
“Yes.”
“Cole disobeyed.”
She nodded, and it made Will want to kill the prick just a little bit less.
“We both walked away from that one, and with the data, but Cole was disciplined over it.” She shook her head. “He didn’t give a shit about the write-up.”
“He didn’t abandon you. Wouldn’t quit on you.” It was an oversimplification of a complex relationship, but it was one Will understood.
“And I can’t give up on him.”
That kind of bond. That kind of loyalty. It was part of what made Special Forces so damn elite. It was all too easy to put himself in Cooper’s shoes. To imagine the fear and denial and bone-deep conviction that Ethan wouldn’t, couldn’t, betray him. That there had to be a reason. An explanation.
If what had been done to Cole had been done to Ethan instead, Will would have gone to the ends of the Earth and back again to make it right.
So yeah, he understood exactly what drove Cooper.
“Then let’s get into that safety deposit box.” And pray it held the key to setting Cole free and taking down the people who’d done this to him.
“How? It’s being watched.”
“Turns out,” Will said, squeezing her hand then letting go. “That’s the easy part. I called the bank to confirm what forms of identification I’d need to gain access—”
“Shit.” Cooper dropped her head into her hands. “I hadn’t even thought about paperwork.”
“Apparently, that’s not necessary. Box is accessed with fingerprints—they were pretty fucking cagey about how they got mine on file, by the way—and then there’s an additional authentication step, which they would not explain on the phone, but insisted would not require any form of ID.”
“Great, but that doesn’t get us into the bank itself.”
“Right.” He stood and stretched, wincing when the stitches in his side reminded him that, yeah, they were still there. “The woman I spoke to said security and anonymity is what they’re known for. They have protocols in place for quietly accessing the vault. They’ll send a car for us, then bring us in through a private garage. In and out. No one the wiser.”
Beside him, Cooper went stiff and still. “It’s too easy.”
“Yeah,” he agreed with a sigh. “I thought so, too. The second we climb into that car, we cede control.”
“Is there another way?” she asked.
“Maybe. If we had time or money or a court-ordered transfer.”
She looked at him, lines of stress changing the topography of her face.
“It’s your decision to make, Cooper. Wherever you go next, I’m with you.”
She stood, pressed a quick, chaste kiss to his mouth, and lingered just long enough to brush her thumb along the edge of his beard.
“Call for the car.”
Chapter Fourteen
Cooper hadn’t gotten this far by taking stupid, uncontrolled risks. And despite what Pierce might think, she never put her life in the hands of a someone she didn’t know or couldn’t predict. So when the black Mercedes with heavily tinted windows had pulled to the curb, Cooper thought sliding into the backseat would be the hardest thing she’d do all day.
She’d been dead wrong.
Watching Will force himself to join her, seeing his face when the driver had shut the door and sealed them into a darkened interior, had been so much worse.
The car made a turn and came to a stop outside a heavy, steel security gate that slowly rolled up after their driver entered a passcode into the callbox.
“Where are we?” Cooper asked, leaning closer to Will to glance through the windshield. Nerves danced beneath her skin like angry wasps. “We’re still blocks from the bank.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the driver said, glancing at Cooper in the rearview mirror then pulling the car into a dimly lit, underground garage. “Many of these buildings have private service tunnels. The bank makes use of them when necessary.”
Will flinched as the gate rattled shut behind them, blocking out the heavy sun of mid-afternoon. He clenched his eyes shut, his jaw flexing, his hands balling into fists.
“Hey.” Cooper touched his wrist, then pulled away when he jerked back against the door. “Will.” Though she didn’t feel it, she kept her voice steady and calm. “Look at me.”
He kept his eyes shut. Sweat beaded on his forehead and slipped down his temple. “I’m fine,�
� he ground out through clenched teeth.
“No, you’re not,” she whispered, the conversation something she didn’t intend to share with their driver. “And that’s okay.” She wanted to reach for him. To lace their hands together or curl her fingers around his wrist. Instead, she slid her open palm from shoulder to wrist, reminding him she was there, that he wasn’t alone, but careful not to hold him. Trap him.
“Hey, Bennett,” she said, sitting back but keeping her eyes on him. When he tilted his chin her direction and cut her a look, she quirked her lips at him. “What do you call a fake noodle?”
Surprise pushed back against the fear and anxiety that had carved harsh, tired lines across his face.
“An impasta.”
He choked on a laugh as the car pulled to a stop. “That was terrible.”
Yeah, it was. But he’d smiled despite himself and Cooper found herself wondering just what she’d find beneath that beard. Dimples, she thought. Long and deep. Canyons carved by better days and happier memories. Someday, she hoped to see them.
Hoped to see him free of the beard and the hair that covered his half-missing ear. Free of the insecurity and shame that drove him to cover the proof of his strength and survival in the first place.
“If you’ll follow me,” their driver said as he held open the door for Cooper. “I’ll escort you into the bank.”
She slid out of the Mercedes and into the dimly lit quiet of a private garage. Will followed her out, put a hand to the small of her back and left it there as they followed their escort to the steel door.
“I’ll wait for you here.” The driver entered a code into the security pad next to the door, then pulled it open on silent hinges.
A woman in a neatly tailored suit and mid-height heels waited for them on the other side. “Señor Bennett?”
“Yes.” Will extended his hand, which she shook before gesturing them inside.
“I’m Victoria Bustillo, regional vice president of investments,” she said in the sort of crisply accented English that said though it wasn’t her first language, she was far more than simply proficient. “I’m also the designated representative for your account.”
Fearless (Somerton Security Book 3) Page 15