by Tate James
“I’ll go and stall him while you two get dressed. You can both owe me one later,” Cole suggested with a dirty undertone, then detached my fingers from his so he could get dressed. I stayed where I was with my face pressed into the bend of River’s neck, but I couldn’t stop myself from tilting my head to steal an indulgent look while the shredded ex-fighter pulled on his clothes. He dressed slowly enough that I knew he knew I was watching, which he confirmed with a smug wink as he left the room. Bastard.
“Come on, Kitten. You’d better shower quickly before Caleb decides to come and find you himself. Poor guy has been going out of his mind with worry for you.” River paused, his eyes sad. “We all were.” He then softened his heart-wrenching words by slapping me playfully on the ass to make me move.
“Mmm, shower sounds good right now. Care to join me?” I offered, climbing out of bed and strutting saucily, or at least that’s what I was aiming for, over toward my en suite.
“Not unless you want Caleb to come in here and find you all wet and soaped up while you ride my cock on the bathroom floor.” His words were meant as a warning, but I paused for a moment, debating if that would really be such a bad thing. Maybe Caleb would be into it…
“Go, Kitten. Before I change my mind.”
I shook off my pornographic musing, then blew him a cheeky kiss before shutting myself into the bathroom alone for a long, somewhat cool shower.
The raised voices alerted me to the fact that it was, as I’d suspected, all of the boys who had arrived. As I hurried down the stairs, I caught a snippet of their heated argument.
“—should have taken her to a hospital to get checked out!”
I paused mid-step in surprise. I couldn’t remember ever having heard Wesley raise his voice like that before.
There was a rumbled response from Cole, too low for me to hear, and I sneaked down a few more steps to try and hear a bit more before they saw me coming.
“Of course that’s what she said!” Wesley yelled. “When have you ever heard Kit admit she needs help? They could have done anything to her while they had her drugged, and you two were just okay with that? Just take her word for it that she’s fine?”
“What would you have had us do?” River barked with a little more aggression than usual. “You would have dragged her to get checked out against her will? In case you haven’t noticed, she is much stronger than us these days. We couldn’t make her do anything against her will short of sedating her, and I for one, have no intention of doing that. Do you?”
There was a tense silence for a second before Wesley replied, calmer, “No. No of course not. I would never… I just meant…” His earlier anger seemed to have run its course—he was back to quiet and fumbling—and it made me want to hug him so badly.
“We get it.” Caleb spoke in a calm voice, probably meant to smooth things over. “You’re just worried about her, Wes. We all are. But River and Cole would never have taken advantage of her. You know that.”
Hold up, Wesley accused them of taking advantage? My temper flared at the insinuation that I was some weak woman who couldn’t make her own decisions.
“I know. I’m sorry, guys. I didn’t mean to imply… I’m just a bit…” Wesley mumbled the last, and I couldn’t quite hear it.
“Jealous?” Caleb suggested, the cheeky shit. “I get it, bro. I am too… big time. I can’t believe you two assholes didn’t call until you knew you had a head start. That was not cool.”
“I didn’t call at all,” Cole corrected, sounding amused, and I heard the thud and chuckle of someone hitting him.
“I’m not jealous,” Wesley muttered defensively.
“Yeah, you are. We’ve all seen the way you look at her,” Caleb kept teasing poor Wesley, and I decided it was probably a good time for me to break the tension before things got awkward.
I knew Wesley probably didn’t like me like that, so I didn’t want him feeling uncomfortable around me just because of Caleb’s teasing. Despite my own feelings on the matter. Not to mention my imagination…
Making sure to tread a little heavier, I continued down the last of the stairs, yawning loudly as I turned the corner into the sitting room where they were all gathered. Five sets of eyes turned on me the second I entered the room, and all of a sudden I was feeling very self-conscious. After the amount of shit I had put these guys through lately, what if they were really mad at me?
No one moved or spoke for a second, and I scratched the back of my neck uncomfortably, wishing I had put more thought into my outfit choice. After my cold shower, I had pulled on a pair of comfy black sweatpants with Ugg boots then a tight, white tank top over my favorite turquoise bra. Over it all I had just tossed a zip up hoody and not zipped it up, so I was acutely aware of my girls on show for all five men staring at me. Likely my hair was still a sleep-tousled mess and my lips were still red and swollen from all the action they had seen in the night, too.
“Good morning,” I sang, awkward as hell and avoiding eye contact with everyone.
Caleb was the first to respond, standing abruptly from his seat on the couch and stalking over to me with a fierce look on his face that made me back up just a tiny step. When he reached me, he paused. A flash of uncertainty crossed his face, then he grasped my face in his palms and slammed his lips against mine, knocking the air out of me. For a second I was frozen in shock, then simply melted under his lips. The entire room and everyone in it fell away. My arms reached up around his strong neck, and his fingers tangled in my hair. I pulled myself in closer to his body until I could practically feel his heart galloping in sync with mine. After the number of times we had flirted, even came close to kissing, I should have had some idea of what I was in for, but nothing had prepared me for the sizzling heat passing between us. Not that kissing him was any better or worse than either of the men I had just woken up with. It was just different, unique and unmistakably Caleb.
“If you two are done?” Austin’s sarcasm splashed across our passionate moment like a bucket of ice water, and I jumped backwards in shock, my hand flying up to my mouth.
“Um…” Words had completely vacated my brain as my eyes remained locked on Caleb’s and his smoldered back at me like an apex predator.
“The team was just discussing whether you might like to visit a hospital and get checked out,” River diplomatically filled the silence, allowing me to snap out of my Caleb induced daze. When I glanced over to him appreciatively, I saw a heated look in his own eyes that suggested it wasn’t only Cole he was happy to share with.
Oh dear God, save me from my dirty thoughts.
“Um, sorry, what?” I shook myself a little to regain some brain power, and River smirked at me.
“Hospital,” he repeated. “Wesley thought perhaps it would be best for you to get checked out.”
“What? No! Absolutely not!” I frowned at the terrible suggestion. “I heal from pretty much anything. There is absolutely no need to go to a hospital, and even if I did, it would just cause more harm than good.”
Wesley heaved a defeated sigh and pulled off his glasses to polish them on the sleeve of his sweatshirt.
“I guess I should have known you’d say that,” he mumbled. “How about some coffee instead? I turned your machine on when we arrived, so it should be ready.”
“Well, now you’re speaking my language! I thought I smelled something delicious.” I grinned at him and grabbed his hand on my way through to the kitchen.
“Kit, can you tell us more about what happened to you? Where you’ve been for the last two weeks?” River prompted while I filled my cup from the fresh pot of coffee, one-handed, and I glanced up to see all four of them had followed Wesley and I. My other hand still grasped Wesley’s. For some reason, I wasn’t ready to let go.
I grimaced, then took a long sip of my coffee. “Do I have to?”
“I think it’s the least you can do after we have just spent two weeks searching the globe for you, calling in every favor we could think of, and generall
y worrying sick thinking you were dead or worse,” Austin snapped, and I couldn’t help the smirk that pulled at my lips. I reluctantly peeled my fingers off Wesley’s hand to allow him his own cup of coffee.
“I didn’t know you cared so much, Austin. Guess you weren’t entirely faking that makeout session after all, huh?” I teased, and he made a choked noise.
“I meant they were. I was just helping so that they would quit their crying over you,” he snarled, but a faint blush stained his high cheekbones.
“Woah, hold up!” Caleb interrupted. “What makeout session?”
All eyes turned to Austin, who glared death at me, so I just laughed and waved my free hand casually.
“It was nothing. Just stupid games,” I assured them. “So do you want to do this debrief or not?”
Having thought Austin would be a little appreciative that I’d just deflected the guys’ questions, I was surprised when I looked over at him and he looked downright furious.
Confusing man. I shrugged off his glare and thought about where to start my story and which parts to leave out.
21
When I’d finished telling the abridged version of events from my end, my stomach was rumbling loudly, but I could see the guys burning with questions. River had told them all to keep quiet until I was done, but the range of frowns I was getting said there were plenty of questions to come.
“So it worked then? You actually healed someone else?” Wesley was the first to get his question in, as I would have expected considering how scientifically curious he was about my abilities.
“Yup,” I said, not really having anything more to elaborate on it.
“How?” he pressed, understandably wanting more information, but I just had none to give.
I shrugged. “I have no idea. One minute, he was dying—I mean, properly dying, blood everywhere—and then the next he came back awake and started complaining that his back was burning where I had my hand. And then it just… healed.” I chewed my lip uncomfortably. Even though I had been able to heal myself for years, the idea of applying it to someone else, that it was magic and not just a genetic quirk, seriously weirded me out.
River cleared his throat, drawing my attention in time to catch his strange look at Cole. “And this… Vali, he was okay when you last saw him?” The look he gave me was crazy intense, and Cole refused to look at me at all.
“Yeah.” I narrowed my eyes at the two of them acting so strangely. “He was fine. On his feet and said he felt incredible. Why are you two looking so shifty right now?” Cole's teeth ground together in an audible creak, and I could see his fists clenching and unclenching.
“So, tell us more about the auction,” Caleb interjected, saving them from answering me. I let it go, for now.
“Uh, what else is there to tell? Mr. Grey must have set it up with Sergei or something,” I replied, leaving my spot on the counter and hunting through the pantry for food.
Why is there no damn food in this house?
“No, it sounds more like he just capitalized on the opportunity when he found out you had been entered,” Caleb said. “Otherwise, why bother with the whole auction house farce? Why not just have you delivered directly to him?”
“I agree,” River added, having recovered from his weird moment with Cole. “From the information we retrieved while interrogating Sergei, he just took you to piss off Cole and I after we had been heating things up for him with his boss.”
“Well that's something, I guess,” I muttered, grabbing an unopened packet of crackers from a shelf and hopping back up onto the counter. I don't know why I liked sitting on kitchen counters so much, I just did. In this room though, it gave me a bit more of a height advantage so I wasn't constantly looking up at everyone. Even Wes was at least four inches taller than me.
“So what's next? We still have another four weeks before we can chase down this lead in Alaska, right?” I looked around at them all in the hope one of them might have a plan ready. I needed to feel like I was doing something. Especially now that Dupree's information about my healing powers had turned out to be correct. I couldn't just sit around for four weeks and marinate in the fear that I had turned Vali into some sort of non-human. Maybe I should call him?
“I think first up we should go and get you some real food,” Caleb said with a grin. “Is that seriously the best you could find in that massive pantry?”
Stomach rumbling, I frowned down at the dry cracker in my hand. “Yeah… Neither Jonathan nor I have been here in weeks, so there aren't any groceries.”
“Where is he anyway?” Cole spoke for the first time since I’d begun telling my story, and his voice was low and quiet.
“I have no idea. He was acting really weird and then said he needed to get back to the office to deal with Zebra's death.” I raised my eyebrows at them all. “Which reminds me, how come I don't know any of your codenames?”
All of them seemed to glance at River with amused looks, but no one answered my question. I would have to try again later.
“Come on, let’s go find you some food,” River deflected, lifting me down from the counter. “We can discuss our next move while we eat.”
“Actually, I have something I need to discuss with Christina,” Austin said with a cough, looking uncomfortable. “Can we meet you guys somewhere in like”—he checked his chunky black watch—“an hour or so?”
“An hour?” Cole remarked. “That's some talk.” He glowered at Austin, daring him to explain himself further, but the younger man just locked his jaw and glared back at him stubbornly.
“All right, come on everyone.” River started towards the door. “Let's go and find somewhere to eat, and these two can meet us there later.”
Caleb protested a bit, clearly upset that his twin had been keeping secrets from him, but eventually River herded them all out the door.
“Austin, I will text you once everyone has decided where to eat. You know what they're like, though, so it could take the full hour.” River gave a barely perceptible eye roll and followed the other three out of my house.
In the resulting silence, Austin and I stared at one another across the kitchen, neither one of us speaking. Of course, I was the first to crack. I’d never been very good at uncomfortable silence.
“Okay so… what did you want to talk about?” I prompted, topping up my coffee cup once again from the almost empty pot. Still, he said nothing, just watched me sip my coffee with his intense emerald eyes, then shook his head a little and looked at the ceiling, sighing heavily.
“It's not so much of a talk as it is a show. Go get changed, we're heading out,” he ordered. Deciding it was easier to just go along with this weird encounter rather than press him for answers, I hopped off the counter and went upstairs to change.
22
Outside my home, Austin directed me towards an illegally parked Dodge Challenger and slid gracefully into the driver’s seat.
“Nice car,” I murmured as I buckled my safety belt and looked around. Like I would have expected from a secret agent's car, it was pristine. Not a single personal effect to be seen or linked back to the owner, in case he needed to dump it anywhere in a job gone wrong. It was the same reason my own car was so pristine.
“Hey, what happened to my car back in Cascade Falls? And all my stuff? Is it still at the house there?” I knew the house was being rented under Omega for the duration of the guys’ investigation but had no idea what the situation was now.
“It's fine; Director Pierre said he would take care of it all. We ended our job there after taking Sergei in. It kind of blew our covers.” He sort of snarled the words, and I got my back up.
“Sorry my kidnapping was such a fucking inconvenience for you,” I muttered and turned to look out the window as we drove.
“That's not…” He gave an irritated sigh, but I kept my gaze on the passing scenery. “That's not what I meant, and you know it. I just meant that we don't have the house in Cascade Falls anymore, so I imagine your shit
will all be sent here.” Austin backing down from an argument was not at all what I was used to from him.
“So where are you taking me, anyway? I am pretty hungry. Couldn’t this have waited until after we ate?” I sounded like a whining child, but I was really hungry. All I had eaten since the drugged plane food had been a few canapés during the New Year’s Eve party, and right on cue, my stomach let out a loud rumble.
“I'm sure you will live,” he commented in a dry tone, “Can't you just heal your need for food or something?”
“Not really how it works.” I rolled my eyes at him, but he gave me a serious look before turning back to the road.
“How does it work? Seriously. How does this healing magic actually work?” For once he actually sounded interested in hearing what I would say, and it threw me a bit.
“Um, I don't know,” I said and realized how stupid that sounded.
How could I not know?
“You must know,” he pushed. “You knew how it worked for yourself, before. It's why you and River hooked up that first time, isn't it? To heal your hand?”
“Well, yeah. But that was just from trial and error, and healing someone else seems totally different somehow.” I frowned. “Also, I don't seem to need the whole emotional trigger thing for my own healing anymore.”
He glanced sharply at me. “Really?”
“Yeah, it just… does it. I barely even have to think about it.” I picked at the fabric of the leather seat. I always fidgeted when I was uncomfortable, and Austin made me seriously uncomfortable.
“Okay, so what was going on when you healed Românul?” He questioned, not obviously trying to start an argument with me, but I wasn't naive enough to think this truce would last long.
“Um, I thought he was dying?” I suggested, and he shook his head.
“Okay, I am just going to spell it out, seeing as I'm not sure if you're being deliberately dense or if you really haven't worked this one through in your head, princess.” His familiar condescending tone was back, and I sighed inwardly. I knew reasonable Austin wasn't going to last long.
