“What’s at the location you’re giving me?”
“Not what, Mr. Bennett. Who. Specifically, one Dr. Jerome Mitchell.”
Cooper swallowed back a gasp, but not before Will jerked his head to face her. “He’s the physician who oversaw several of the trials—I thought he was dead.”
“As you were meant to,” the voice on the line supplied. “Now, the location—”
“Wait, I don’t have anything to write on,” Will said, glancing around the room.
“No, you don’t, so I suggest you pay attention.”
As promised, he read off the coordinates, then waited for Will to repeat them back to him. When it was done, the voice said, “Be at that location in thirty-six hours. Not twenty-four. Not forty-eight. Thirty-six,” he stressed. “Dr. Mitchell will be waiting. Arrive with more than the two of you, we cancel. Arrive too soon and we cancel. Arrive too late—”
“You cancel?” Will snapped but was ignored with little more than a beat of a dismissive silence.
“Your window closes and, for the safety of our client, he, along with all of his information and documentation, will be moved.”
The line went dead.
“What a prick,” Will said, shoving a hand through his hair.
Cooper reached for him, curling her fingers into the fabric of his shirt, and waited for the ground to stop shifting beneath her feet. More and more she felt as if she were staring through her scope, lining up the shot, only to wonder if she had the right target in her crosshairs.
“What do we do?” Her voice was small, but the vault bounced it back twice as hard anyway.
Will turned to her, one hand smoothing across his beard-covered jaw.
“Only two choices, really.” He pocketed the casino coin and set the business card back in the box. “Move forward or quit.”
God, he made it sound so easy. So simple.
“How much information do you think Mitchell really has?”
“All of it,” she said, her voice flayed by the double-edged blade of hope and yet another setback. Another mystery. “He was the man in charge of the clinical trials. He would know everything. Patients. The pharmaceutical companies, the officials who gave the green light. Medical records. Names and files. Tests and outcomes. The drugs and the side effects and . . .”
She swallowed back the flood of words before she could utter the one she most wanted to hear and was most afraid to say.
“And a way to reverse it all,” Will finished for her. “A way to free Cole.”
Cooper closed her eyes against just how much it meant to hear someone else say it, out loud, like it was more than a pipe dream or fragile possibility. “Yes.”
“We’d be going in blind, Cooper.” Will sighed and let his gaze wander over the boxes lining the walls. “I don’t know where these coordinates lead, but based on that call? On the security measures we had to go through just to make a damn phone call? We won’t be able to do any kind of recon. Can’t plan or prepare or call in support. They’ll have done all of those things, but us? We’ll have to take it on faith.” He released a frustrated breath. “So, I’ll ask you—do you think we can trust these guys?”
“Honest answer?”
He nodded.
“I think they’ll do exactly what that guy said. In thirty-six hours, they’ll move Dr. Mitchell and I’ll be right back to square one.” Cooper drummed her fingers along the tabletop. “But do I trust them not to turn on us?” She shivered, and words of warning that sounded suspiciously like Pierce filtered through the buzz of racing thoughts. “No, no I don’t.”
“Neither do I.”
“What about you?”
“Me?” he asked, surprise pulling his attention back to her face.
“How much do you trust Felix? Because he left this box for you. Made sure that you were the only one who’d know that story, who could unlock that location. I’m here by accident, but you—you were always meant to walk this road.” She met his gaze and asked a question she knew would hurt. “Would he betray you?”
Will’s mouth dropped open, his first instinct, just as hers would have been, to bite off a quick and harsh denial. Instead, he snapped his mouth shut and forced his reply through jaded experiences and a new, more suspicious outlook. Another wound, another scar left by twelve months of captivity and torture. And one Cooper couldn’t hope to erase or soothe or heal. Betrayal burned deep, and the brand would last forever.
But hopefully it would fade over time.
“I trust him,” Will finally said. “There’s a reason he chose the coin. It’s always been a series of escalating challenges between us. That ten-dollar token is the reason I applied for Delta. The reason he made a pass at an admiral’s son . . . and the reason Felix took him home to meet his parents,” Will explained, and Cooper tried to ignore the way it cut, deep and painful, knowing that she’d been the end of that relationship.
That she’d been the end of this tradition.
“It wasn’t all pancakes and pickup lines—it was a promise. That there were always more adventures. More challenges. More life. He’d have no reason to set me up . . . but even if he did, he wouldn’t use this. Wouldn’t trade on it that way.”
Cooper wanted to argue, wanted to insist that of course he’d trade on that coin and the history it carried. That loyalty and friendship and the memories those things created were, in the right hands, the deadliest of weapons. But because the words were jaded and bitter and Pierce’s, she bit them back.
“Then I have to go,” she said.
“We have to go,” he corrected. “We’re in this together.”
Copper barely felt the smile she forced to her face. Will meant every word. Even now, even after everything, he was so damn loyal. So damn willing to stand by a friend.
And as badly as she wanted to cling to his hand and walk by his side and face the rest of what would come with the added strength of someone else’s support, she simply couldn’t bring herself to be that damn selfish.
She’d needed Will to access the vault. But now his job was done. He could go home. He deserved to go home. Deserved to rest and recover and find the parts of himself he’d buried deep but hadn’t lost.
And Cooper could give that to him. Would give that to him.
This man, she thought, with bittersweet clarity, she could free. He’d hate her for it, but she could do it.
She just had to be strong enough to leave him behind.
Chapter Sixteen
Cooper Reed was a lot of things. Sexy. Smart. A sharp shot and a loyal friend. But subtle?
Not even a little bit.
From a perch or in a hide, she was probably used to being just shy of invisible.
But being still and silent enough to disappear was one thing. Going unnoticed while trying to sneak past a spec ops guy in the middle of the night was another skillset entirely.
And one Cooper definitely did not possess.
Will had known almost from the jump that something had changed. Cooper had been quiet, subdued even as they’d left the bank and made their way back. At first, he’d thought it disappointment.
That much, he could understand.
She didn’t have to tell him how much it had hurt to open that box and find questions where she’d expected answers instead.
It had been written across her face. Crushing defeat. Hollowed-out exhaustion. And the terrifying realization that it still wasn’t over.
So her quiet reflection in the car hadn’t surprised him.
Neither had her resigned reaction to mapping the coordinates—a desolate stretch of Costa Rican coastline, accessible by a single, narrow and winding road that would require a four-wheel drive.
What had surprised him was her lack of interest in planning what came next. Getting a truck—which they’d done that afternoon—planning the route, accounting for travel time, packing their gear.
She’d been quiet through all of it, responding to questions with one- or two-word answers.
She’d been up in her head. Making plans. Looking through rations of food and ammunition. More than once, he’d caught her mumbling her way through well-used checklists. He hated that it all came so easily to her.
That she was so used to thinking on her feet, planning out her steps, moving quickly and efficiently. There was no second guessing. Not where Cooper was concerned.
It was the sort of utilitarian discipline spec ops trained for. But in Cooper it was next level. Tested and hardened under brutal, unrelenting conditions.
And she was used to doing it by herself. Without support or backup or the simple comfort of knowing she wasn’t alone. That there was someone else, equally trained and just as competent, beside or behind her.
The loneliness that realization wrought ached in Will like an ulcer that would never heal. He understood it, had lived with it, and hated seeing the mark it had left on Cooper.
But because he knew what it was to get on with things, to keep moving—because really, what other choice was there?—he recognized just what was happening when she’d set her gear by the door and her boots by her bed.
They might have agreed to leave at the break of dawn, but when that sun came up, Cooper planned to be long gone.
That she thought she could sneak past him amused him.
That she planned to leave him behind enraged him.
She made her way across the floor, her boots in one hand, the keys to the truck in the other.
She was good, he’d give her that. Quiet. Organized. Light on her feet.
But he was better.
Will rose from the couch, slipped silently into her wake, and closed the distance.
When her hand touched the knob and she reached for her pack, he reached past her in the dark and flicked the switch for the single, recessed bulb that lit the kitchenette.
“Fuck!” She jumped, and her boots clattered to the floor. “Christ, you scared me,” she said, her breathing hard and fast, her eyes darting everywhere but his face.
“Going somewhere?”
She swallowed and looked up at him, her irises a slowly expanding pool of blue as her eyes adjusted to the light.
“I—”
“Be very careful with what you say next, Cooper.” He braced a palm against the door and leaned in close, trapping her against the wall. “And do not lie to me.”
She shut her mouth, swallowing back whatever excuse she had poised on the tip of her tongue. She closed her eyes, and her muscles went loose and tired.
“I have to do this,” she whispered, lines of sadness and resolution changing the contours of her face. “But you don’t.”
She opened her eyes, tilted her chin, and met his gaze head-on. “You can go home, Will. In thirty-six hours you could be stateside. With friends and family and the people who love you.” She put her hand to his chest when he shook his head. “You deserve to go home. To rest and heal and recover.” She trailed her hand down the front of his t-shirt, let her fingers trace the row of stitches along his side that he never forgot but mostly ignored. “So much has happened in such a short time. It feels like I found you on that mountain weeks ago. But it was days.”
He flinched when her thumb pressed against the wound.
“You’re still hurting, still healing. And I’ve asked more of you than was ever right or fair.” Her hand dropped away. “I had to. Getting those coordinates would have been impossible without you. But the rest . . . I can do this on my own.”
He’d thought she was walking out on him. As he’d lain awake on that couch, every conceivable thought had run through his head. That she’d lied to him. That she didn’t trust him or just didn’t need him.
That she’d played him.
But it was so much worse.
“Go home, Will.”
She was trying to save him. Protect him. By sending him home and going forward alone.
Like hell.
“Get healthy. Be happy.” She actually had the damn nerve to smile at him. “I’ll be okay from here.”
And this from the woman who was worried about losing herself. About crossing a line she could never come back from.
There were a thousand things he wanted to say and a million ways to say them. He went with the simplest.
“No.” He dropped his chin, let his forehead touch hers, and breathed her in. There was nothing fancy about the way Cooper smelled. No French perfumes or high-end lotions. Just the simple scent of soap and skin and the lingering mark of a recent shower.
It was honest and fresh, and he knew if he led her back to bed and climbed in next to her that the same scent would be there to greet him, surround him, and lull him into a sleep he chased but rarely achieved on his own.
Maybe it had happened when she’d left Matías alive and let him take his vengeance. Maybe it happened when she’d found him, weak and trembling and unable to do something as basic as shave, yet seen only a survivor’s strength. Maybe it had been the culmination of a hundred little moments over a handful of days. Or maybe it stretched back over years and texts and unfulfilled promises; a seed that had been planted and waited for the right conditions to grow.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter where it had begun, because it all ended in the same place. Somewhere along the line, Cooper Reed had become synonymous with home.
Which meant Will couldn’t go back without her.
Because she was there, the heat of her body close and comforting, her face turned up and her mouth a hard line of frustration, he leaned in to kiss her.
She turned her head away, but a tiny, agonized noise escaped her throat.
She ducked beneath his arm and reached for the knob.
“Don’t walk out that door, Coop,” he warned.
She stiffened, the order stripping back the vulnerability that had been riding her and leaving behind the woman he was far more familiar with.
“Or what?” she snapped, bristling like an indignant cat that had been backed into a corner but didn’t intend to stay there. “You going to keep me here? We both know how that plays out.”
“Nope.”
At his casual tone, she shot a look over her shoulder.
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweats. “You’re free to leave.” He grinned. “And I’m free to follow. I know where you’re going, Coop. How you plan to get there. When you have to be there. How long do you really think it’ll take me to catch up?”
“You don’t have a car, or the money to get one.”
“Like that’ll stop me.”
She turned on him, her eyes flashing and her fists curling. “You have the chance to go home!” she yelled. “Do you know what I’d do for that? How much I dream about it? How scared I am that I’ll never have it?”
“Cooper . . .”
“No,” she snapped, and shoved him back when he stepped forward. “No, you don’t get to do that. I don’t need you to make it better.”
He ignored her words and focused on her tone. Listened to the way each syllable climbed in pitch. The way she rushed out each word, as if she had to get it out in a single breath or not all.
“And I don’t need you to protect me,” he said, walking straight into her personal space and crowding her between his body and the door she couldn’t seem to open. “I can’t go home, Coop. Not without you.”
On instinct, or frustration, or just because she was plain pissed off, she put both her hands on his chest and shoved.
He didn’t so much as take a step back.
“What’s stopping you?” she demanded with another shove. “You’ve got no reason to stay.”
When she shoved him again, with both words and fists, his patience snapped. He grabbed her wrists, forced them against the door and above her head, and claimed that frustrating, demanding mouth with his.
As if he’d caught her entirely off guard, her hips jerked,
but then her mouth dropped open and her tongue met his and finally, finally he kissed her the way he’d always wanted to. With teeth and tongue. Fire and ice. With bold strokes and ruthless maneuvers.
And like the worthy adversary she was, Cooper met each tactic with a gambit of her own.
Invaded as often as she retreated.
Bucked as much as she succumbed.
When she tugged at her wrists, he tightened his grip, and she sucked his bottom lip into her mouth and bit—hard enough to hurt, fast enough to get away with it—then let him go with a grin he tasted on his tongue and felt in his dick.
When he shoved a knee between her legs, she wrenched her mouth from his and lost control of a moan—an agony and an invitation and a promise—and turned her head to the side, exposing the long column of her throat.
He scraped his teeth along the corded tendons, licked a path over a pulsing vein, dragged his beard over soft, sensitive flesh. And this time when she opened her mouth, it wasn’t to moan or demand or tell him to go home.
It was to beg.
“Will, please.” She jerked her hips, searching for the friction his knee promised but his own long-held desires denied. When he finally allowed her to come, it would be under his hands and at his mercy. If he had his way, she’d be out of control and out of her mind. There’d be no thoughts. No countermeasures. No demands.
Just the final confrontation and the surrender he knew she’d fight but ultimately embrace.
But not yet.
He let her go and stepped back, his cock aching and his heart racing.
But it was worth it for the single second she stood there, suspended against the door, her wrists above her head, her legs splayed and her breathing hard. As if he’d never let her go. Never stepped away.
“Now, tell me again,” he said, watching as her arms slid down the door and a pretty pink flush slipped up her neck. “Tell me again that I should go.” He shifted, his t-shirt a constant itch against skin that had gone hot with anticipation. “Tell me again that I’ve got no reason to stay.”
She set her jaw and clenched her fists, her mouth swollen and her hair a mess.
Fearless (Somerton Security Book 3) Page 17