by Nana Malone
“No more mistakes Lyra. None of us can afford anymore.”
Chapter 14
Marcus
Maybe I hadn’t thought through this whole teach Lyra a few things idea. The following afternoon, we were in the gym that was next to our flat, and she was wearing these leggings that should be illegal.
They were vermillion red that seemed to make her brown skin glow, and she’d paired them with a cut off T-shirt that kept showing me oh-so-intriguing glimpses of her midriff.
My concentration was nonexistent. All my energy was directed to making my eyeballs stay on her face and not stray to her tits or her midriff. Or, fuck me to Soho and back, that arse I was itching to take a bite of.
“Like this?” she asked.
I gently encapsulated Lyra’s hand with my own, showing her how to tighten her fist and where to place her thumb for maximum impact. Her skin was so damn soft. And Christ, she smelled good.
My dick was already having a hard time remembering that this session we were having was for practical purposes. To protect her. To keep her safe.
You mean when you can’t. Or even better, when you’re the cause of danger.
This sizzling spark of connection between us was dangerous. I hadn’t even realized I was searching for something like this.
It was foolhardy.
But what if it wasn’t? What if this was what Rhodes and Curtis had been talking about? Having someone to come home to, someone I could care about.
Curtis had once told me it was policy because when Aidan Saint-James and Orion McClintock founded the original agency, they had seen what the isolation could do to their agents. They were efficient, but they only had a shell of a life. The moment they gave them something to care about, they became more stable and lasted longer in the job.
So our agents were encouraged to have relationships. But obviously, operators couldn’t tell their partners anything about what they really did, so there was still a bit of distance there. Exodus never wanted an agent who would choose loyalty to their partner over loyalty to their agency.
And you might care a little too much about Lyra. You would just about give up every dime you have just to see her smile.
She grinned up at me. “Like this?”
I nodded slowly, my eyes focusing on her lips. When she pulled the bottom of her lip with her perfectly straight white teeth, I groaned. “Lyra, you’re trying to distract me.”
“I am not. I’m here to learn. I am making a fist. Look at me with my fist.”
“Okay, let’s try a couple of combinations with the pads. Remember what I showed you about making sure you keep your guard up? When you punch, you want to tuck your head just a little bit into your neck, kind of like a turtle. You don’t want to give anyone an easy target, yeah? And keep your arm locked in. You don’t want to swing wide because you’re losing the power of your force in that arc. You got me?”
“Um, okay. Tight fist, tuck my neck, hands up. Sure, got it.”
I loved her determined face. The furrow of her brow, the slight bite of her cheek that she always did, my little warrior. She wasn’t terrible either. She just needed time and work.
And let me guess, you volunteer all the time to put in the work with her?
I just wanted her to be able to take care of herself. I would never get the image of her getting hit out of my head. I hated it. She delivered some blows to the bag, still swinging a little too wildly. “Put your hips into it, and remember what I said, lock your arms. Keep them straight.”
More lip biting. More nodding. More combinations.
When I started to notice that she had sweat on her brow, I gave her a break.
“It’s good to get a workout in. Kickboxing is fun, but I guess not that applicable to a real-world fight. It’s not like I’m doing the stuff you see in MMA or anything.”
I helped her take off the gloves. “Hey, it’s okay. Most people aren’t. Most sane people anyway.”
“How come you know so much about self-defense? I know you said that you did Krav Maga, right?”
“Yeah. And I also did a lot of jujitsu when I was younger.”
“Wow, all these things I didn’t know about you.”
“Yeah, well, lots to learn, isn’t there?”
She tossed the towel over her shoulder after she dabbed her eyebrows. “So how does an adorable computer geek come to learn jujitsu and Krav Maga?”
I laughed. “Remember, I said I have brothers, right?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t... I mean, I’m sure boys fight, but to take it so far as to need to learn martial arts?”
The giant floor-to-ceiling windows of the gym let in so much light. The sunlight was dancing in her hair, adding streaks of brown, gold, and auburn to her curls.
“My older brother, Liam, is military, British SAS, and let’s just say kids who love computers and programming aren’t exactly the popular kids.”
She winced. “Right. I could see that.”
“So, anyway, I had my arse kicked. A lot.”
“Oh no.”
“Eventually, I got a lot bigger. But I also got into gaming hard core. Wanted to build my own games. So I started taking jujitsu and Krav Maga so I could have a good enough understanding of the moves to design games.”
“That’s so cool. It must have come in incredibly handy.”
I laughed. “Yes, handy indeed.”
“Even nerdy, you must have been cute though.”
I shook my head and laughed. “Uh, no. I was awkward. Gangly. For the longest time, I was small. So small.”
She stared at me, brows lifted. “No way.”
“Yes, way. I honestly didn’t see sunlight once for three weeks on a holiday break. Mom was beside herself. I was a proper geek. I stayed inside the house on a steady diet of American snacks from the corner shop.”
“What was your favorite?”
“Cheetos and Mountain Dew.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, those are the worst. You know that.”
“I’m sorry, but Cheetos are excellent. They’re the right kind of radioactive goodness that you need. Don’t get me wrong. Mum made sure that I ate actual food. But the moment she wasn’t looking, all the crisps I snuck didn’t do anything except make my skin oily and acne prone.”
She stared at me. “There isn’t a hint of a scrawny, geeky kid inside you.”
“Yeah, it was brutal at school. Luckily, my brothers were there, otherwise, the ass-kicking would have been much worse.”
“Fuck, I’m so sorry.”
“Nah, don’t be sorry. Liam, he comes through for you when you need him. And he did. The kind of fighting that Liam did in the military was hugely different than what I eventually learned to do. But still, it saved my life.”
“You know what? It’s sort of weird for you to actually be a video game designer with that body.”
“Well, I couldn’t stay a gangly, awkward kid forever. I grew ten inches over the course of a couple of summers, then one big final burst, and now here I am.”
She blinked. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s a prescription most people can follow. Eat crisps, play video games, grow ten inches over a couple of summers.”
I laughed at that. “I mean I grew naturally, but the muscles, those took work. Liam eventually introduced me to this bloke at the gym he used to go to. He taught me that what I lacked in size, I could make up for with speed. And I did.”
“Okay so you told me about Liam, that’s your brother, right? Is he the one with the son named Evan?”
I frowned, about to correct her that it was Ella, but then I remembered my lie, so I covered. There was no letting my guard down with her.
“Ah, Evan, yeah. He’s pretty stinking cute.”
“I love how your whole face lights up when you’re talking about him.”
“I can’t help it. The little sucker is adorable, you know?”
“Do you ever want a son of your own?”
I couldn’t explain the sudden ti
ghtening of my chest then, the desire to answer her honestly, but I kept it together. “Yeah, you know, one day. I’m only twenty-seven. I guess I have time.”
She nodded. “Yeah. One day will come soon enough, won’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Uncomfortable with the direction of our conversation, I turned it on her. “How about your family?”
She laughed and shook her head. “No, today it’s all about you and your family and friends. Who do you hang out with? I don’t think I’ve seen many people at your place.”
“Oh, my best mate, Rhodes. I go to his place a lot. His fiancée is an excellent cook.”
“Oh, that’s fun. How did you guys meet?”
Fuck me. “Oh, you know, work. I was doing a game component for a company and had to work with Rhodes. He’s a software developer.”
“Ah, geeks unite.”
“Yeah.” She was going to get really suspicious if she ever saw Rhodes and I together. We looked more like what we were, stone cold killers, than the geeky types. But that was our cover. “You should meet him some time.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could think about what I was saying. What the fuck was wrong with me? I was clearly losing it. Being surrounded by her scent had my brain muddled.
Separation. I needed to separate. The problem was that while my brain was giving the command, my body was not complying. Wholly non-compliant. As a matter of fact, it was leaning toward her as she was smiling up at me with those big dark eyes, staring clear into my soul, and I was convinced she would know that I was lying to her.
Then convince her, because her life depends on it.
I cleared my throat. “Ah, that’s enough soul baring.”
“But I like your soul bare. There’s something about the way you talk about your family. It’s like I can see them. It’s palpable.”
She wound her arms around my neck and my brain sent out the warning signals. Danger. Danger. Too close.
Then my heart did that tripping thing it always did around her. Christ, I could get lost in this woman. Really, really lost.
Determined to help her though, I cleared my throat. “Ready to go again?”
She took one last swig of her water and gave me a determined nod. “Yup, put me in coach.”
I laughed. “What am I going to do with you?”
“You, fine sir, are going to teach me to be a badass.”
* * *
Lyra
“Oh my God, you had that poor man trying to teach you how to fight?”
I winced, all the while laughing. “I know. I felt terrible. I can lie with my mouth, and even with my face, but to make my body forget muscle memory is just impossible.” He had seemed to marvel at how quickly I’d picked up the punches and blocks he’d shown me.
Tyler was on our comms. “Would you two fucking focus?”
Addie and I were on standby for the surveillance team looking for Prochenko and his contact. Since he hadn’t shown up for that meet at the fair, we’d had to rely on chatter to get another bead on him. Sometimes you just got lucky.
“You know what, Tyler? Set us to B channel. If they move, we’ll let you know.” With that declaration, Addie disconnected the line.
I rolled my eyes. “Addie, I’m pretty sure Roz isn’t going to like that.”
“Frankly, I don’t care what Roz likes. Saddling us with Tyler? That’s cruel and unusual punishment.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
“Okay so, back to the man that you’re actually interested in. Tell me the truth, who’s better in bed, Tyler or Marcus?”
I laughed, even as I took the binoculars and swept for our target. “There is no competition. Hands down, it’s Marcus.” Because when I was with him, I didn’t have to search for connection. It was there. It was evident in the way he looked at me, watched me. Made sure I was connected with him at all times. Yes, he was clearly very, very good in bed, which meant he had more practice than I wanted to even think about. But Marcus was real. It had felt real. And I was in more danger with him than I had ever been with Tyler.
I forced my attention on the task at hand. The house was dark. No movement, no nothing. “Is this the house? This feels wrong. It’s almost too quiet. Do we have the right location?”
Addie and I switched to Channel A. “Tyler, are you sure it’s 100 Crescents?”
“Yes. We’ve got other agents stationed there. Crescents Road, we’re in the right place. Sit tight.”
We shrugged and went back to watching. “Okay so, how did you manage to pretend you didn’t know how to fight? You’re really good at hand-to-hand combat. One of the best. I mean, Roz trained you herself. Everyone tells the new recruits the story of how you put your handler on her ass.”
I winced as I remembered. “To be fair, when she said go, I didn’t think of it as training. She’d said I’d have to fight for my life one day, and I didn’t want to get sent home. So I was fighting for my life.”
She shook her head, chuckling. “Only you.”
I shrugged. “These things happen.” I never did understand the point of doing anything for practice. If I was going to do it, I needed it to be perfect the first time. My little way of making my parents proud even though they weren’t there to see me.
I rolled my lips over my teeth, trying to contain the giggle. Addie’s eyes went wide.
“Oh my God, I need details about Marcus. First of all, what are we working with?” She waggled her eyebrows.
I barely stifled a giggle. “You know that moment when you reach into your date’s pants and you pray, like really pray, like you call on the Holy Mother, and Buddha, and the God you haven’t seen since Christmas, 2000?”
She nodded.
“My prayers were answered.”
She howled and cackled with laughter. “Oh my God. Yes, thank you dick gods. Thank you for listening. I feel like we need to sacrifice a goat or something.”
With a chuckle, I said, “You sound like my mother.”
She gave me a soft smile before I even realized what I had said. It was in reference to my mother, which I never did.
“That is the highest compliment.”
“You didn’t even know her.”
“No, but I know how reverently you talk about her, if you talk about her at all, which is rarely and almost never. So if you brought her up, then that’s great.”
I sighed. “I know that look on your face. You’re giving me that look that says you think Marcus is changing me.”
“Isn’t he?”
That was a good question. And by the way, how many ways had he changed me? I felt like me. I looked like me. Like I felt it deep inside. That shift. Even after Roz had gotten me into her section and I finally had family again, there was a part of me that always felt a little like… I don’t know… like I was separate. Not really part of a whole. And I didn’t know why I felt that way. Roz had always made me feel like I was her own. And everyone in the section had made me feel the same way too. Like I was legacy. Like they were all my family. But still, every now and again, I would get that feeling that said, this is not your family. They were my friends, and they were the family that I’d made. I just wondered what my parents would have thought of this life. Sometimes I envisioned going to their graves and telling them all about my life. How I’d grown up, who I was now, and that I saved lives and did something important with my life. But I could never go back to their graves on the off chance that somebody was following me.
A few times, I’d gone back to where I’d grown up in Massachusetts and walked through the cemetery, visited graves near theirs, but never theirs, because Lyra Adamson didn’t exist anymore. Her parents had died when she was eighteen. She’d lived with her aunt for a year, who hadn’t been particularly keen on taking care of her but had done so out of some sense of duty. And then, when she turned nineteen, Lyra Adamson disappeared, and Lyra Thomas, Lyra Burton, and Lyra Wilkinson were born.
“So, you let him win?”
Her question dragged me out of my reverie. “No, I let him show me how to fight. It’s different. And by the way, he’s had Krav Maga and jujitsu training, so it’s kind of amazing really. Plus, I get to reinforce my fighting skills with his techniques.”
“Yes, but his jujitsu and Krav Maga twice a week does not equate to your years of training.”
“I know, I know. It’s just nice to have something worthwhile to do while being in that situation, you know?”
She studied me. “Lyra, you’re not falling for him, are you? Like, actually falling? Not just in the God, it’s so nice to finally bone someone who knows what to do with his dick kind of way?”
“No, it’s not that serious. I’m just enjoying it. I never get to do that.”
“Well, in that case, I’m happy for you. Enjoy the ride.”
I smacked her on the shoulder. “Addie!”
“What? What a wild ride it must be.” She gave me a cheeky grin and waggled her eyebrows.
I snorted a laugh. “Oh my God, you’re impossible.”
“Yes, but I’ve never been more accurate. Look, a little friendly advice though?”
I sighed. “Let me guess, you’re going to give it to me whether I want it or not?”
“Yeah, because I love you. I think this is great. Dating, meeting someone, but there is a reason why The Firm doesn’t want us getting too close to people. You’ve got to find a way to keep some emotional distance. You understand that, right? I’m just worried because you seem like you’re not keeping as distant as you should.”
I met her gaze and saw that her blue eyes were filled with concern and worry. “I’ve got it, Addie, I promise. I won’t lose my head.”
“Famous last words.”
As I turned my attention back on the quaint Spanish stone house in the corner, I wondered if she had a right to be worried. I wanted Marcus, but was I putting him in danger? If Control thought that I was getting too close to him, they’d put a stop to it, one way or the other. So I needed to be careful before I lost my heart and he lost his life all in one blow.