Dangerous Connections (Aegis Group Book 9)

by Sidney Bristol

  She let her head tip back and arched her back.

  Silas’ hold on her hips tightened and he practically lifted her with one arm. She held onto his shoulders, her insides feeling like stretched taffy. He lowered her and thrust up.

  Ekko gasped as their bodies met. Her eyes snapped open and she dug her nails into his skin.

  Silas’ face filled her vision. He grinned at her, lips damp, hair mussed, brown eyes full of her.

  She gripped his shoulders and rose again without missing a beat.

  This time they moved in tandem and she watched the pleasure play across his face in the slight way his mouth tightened, how the tendons on the side of his neck flexed and how his eyes darkened.

  She leaned toward him so her breasts coasted along his chest as she moved and curled her fingers into his hair. She tugged, forcing him to tip his head back a tiny bit.

  Ekko bit his lip then kissed him. He surged into her harder than before. She groaned, but he swallowed the noise with his mouth. Their motions were frenzied, needing to touch deeper and harder. There was no pretense. He wasn’t putting on a show for her, this was real need.

  Silas turned, lying her down on her side and drawing her thigh up over his hip. He took her mouth in a desperate kiss and thrust. She could only hold on to him as each thrust rubbed against her clit, spiraling her higher and higher into ecstasy.

  The orgasm felt like a wave. Her awareness of anything not Silas dimmed. It was just him. And then the wave broke, sensation surging around her as he moved. She held on tight, the orgasm drawing out as he chased his own until they both lay there spent.

  Ekko’s head spun and her heart pounded. The rest of her was more or less jelly. Sweat slicked both their bodies. The spicy scent of him stuck in her nose, all while her insides were twisting around.

  Holy shit.

  What the hell just happened?

  That wasn’t sex, that was...

  Well, she didn’t have words for what that had been.

  Silas’ arm constricted around her pulling her impossibly closer. He kissed her forehead gently. She closed her eyes and smiled against his shoulder.

  What had she just done?

  She wasn’t sure what to call it and she wasn’t sure she could live through it again.

  “You want to use the bathroom?” he muttered. It was a rather abrupt, but she knew the reality of their situation didn’t allow for prolonged afterglow.

  “Not yet.” She sighed and wished she could just stay here a while longer.

  “Be here when I come back?”

  She stopped breathing for a moment.

  Was he asking her to sleep in here? With him?

  No part of her was opposed to this idea.

  “Okay,” she said.

  Silas once more kissed her brow then extracted himself from her limbs and the sheets. She curled up on her side and watched him through her lashes.

  Things had happened so fast she hadn’t gotten the chance to really look at him.

  He was an attractive man. She’d seen that at the beginning. But it wasn’t just his face that looked good. Every bit of him was sculpted and molded as if by a master. The strength of him was perfectly balanced with his beauty. Though she doubted anyone else would call him beautiful, but to her the scars and that deadly air of his were just parts of who he was. Even the simple act of scooping up his boxers and walking across the room was beautiful.

  He glanced back at her, catching her stare, and smiled.

  Oh, that man and those mischievous eyes of his.

  The door shut and she rolled to her back, pressing her hand against her heart.

  What in the world had she gotten herself into with him?

  SATURDAY. DSS SAFE House, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

  Igney shoved the front door of the DSS Safe House open. He’d come back as soon as he’d finished tracking down the taxi driver. It helped that Igney had taken out some of his initial rage on the man. Now Igney was in control. Utterly calm despite the white hot rage bubbling up through his body.

  Where the hell was Pasley?

  Igney stopped a few feet into the foyer.

  Pasley had no doubt spoken to the taxi driver first, but he hadn’t shared the man’s intel. Pasley had kept it to himself. Why? To what purpose or end? Was he trying to wrap up the job on his own? Cut Igney out of it?

  He’d never pegged Pasley for the ambitious type. It was why, despite the other man’s slow ways, Igney liked working with him. He knew that Pasley would never be competition for a raise or a more desirable position.

  But could that have changed? Where was Pasley?

  Igney walked through the house with new purpose. There were fewer people around now as some were being transferred back to the home office for an extensive evaluation. The place almost felt empty.

  He came to stop next to the site admin’s desk. “Hey, when was Pasley’s last check-in?”

  “He returned an hour ago,” the man said without glancing up.

  Pasley was here?

  “Thanks,” Igney mumbled.

  He clenched his teeth and turned on his heel, heading upstairs to the rooms. Each team of two shared a room, which served a few purposes. There were too many people here to have privacy. Sharing was also supposed to foster closeness between partners, but it also allowed them to keep an eye on each other. While most DSS operatives were the most faithful, every now and then some saw the toxic world outside their border and wanted to flee.

  Igney saw the light on under the door of the room he shared with Pasley.

  So he was here after all.

  Igney shoved the door open.

  Sure enough, Pasley lay on his narrow bed looking at his phone. He glanced at Igney, but otherwise didn’t react.

  “We have to talk,” Igney managed to get out.

  He shut the door behind him, careful not to slam it.

  “You changed your clothes,” Pasley said.

  “I had to after I interviewed a certain taxi driver.”

  Pasley froze. It wasn’t as if the man had been moving, he just seemed to grow stiller, quieter. Because now he’d been found out?

  “I find a taxi driver who recognizes the targets. And what do I learn? Someone had already asked the man about our targets.” Igney’s gaze narrowed.

  Pasley tucked his phone in his pocket then clasped his hands behind his head. “The address the driver gave me led to nothing. Another dead end.”

  Igney took a step toward him. Oh, how he wanted to skin Pasley alive, feel his blood trickle between his fingers. In a direct confrontation they’d be evenly matched. Pasley might even have the advantage of weight, though Igney was faster.

  “And you said nothing?” he demanded.

  “You were more interested in who was being recalled. What point was there telling you about another dead end?”

  Normally Igney would have believed Pasley, but now he wondered if he had never truly understood the man.

  “Show me,” Igney said.

  Pasley blinked once before nodding and sitting up. “Very well.”

  Could Igney trust the man? Was Pasley more than he appeared?

  PASLEY TRIED TO IGNORE the sweat dampening his shirt under his coat.

  He’d thought there was no way Igney would find the taxi driver. The man had gone off shift, or it had seemed that way.

  How had Igney found him?

  Pasley strode down the sidewalk, hands in his coat, clenching the brass knuckles in one hand and a knife in the other.

  Did he dare alter the address he’d been given? Would Igney know?

  Most of the time Igney wasn’t the most thorough when it came to questioning people. He was satisfied with generalized answers, where Pasley wanted more detail. The driver could have told Igney a cross street whereas Pasley wanted the full address.

  Had the driver given the address to Igney?

  If Pasley was going to be free of the DSS, he had to play his hand carefully. He couldn’t slip off now. The operative
s coming to Mongolia would be eager to hunt him down and prove themselves. No, Pasley’s best chance was to draw this job out. Make it last. Get farther away from their border. Then, when Igney was focused on climbing the ladder, slip away never to be found again.

  There were many corners of the globe where a man could farm a bit of earth and be left in peace. He wanted to find that, live off the land and put the killing behind him.

  But first he had to fool his partner, and Pasley wasn’t sure he could do that.

  He darted a glance at Igney. If it came down to it, could Pasley kill him? He didn’t want to, but if it meant freedom, could he?

  Igney was fast, crafty and fought dirty. If Pasley got his hands on Igney, he might stand a chance, but Igney would never let that happen. He was too fast and the more practiced killer.

  No, Pasley had to be smart. And that meant prolonging their time out of Dauria.

  He slowed his step and Igney matched him. The other man didn’t glance left or right. There was no indication that he knew where they were.

  “This is the cross street where they were dropped off.” Pasley turned to examine a darkened store front.

  “You looked around already?” Igney pulled out his phone.

  “I did.” Pasley steeled himself for the lie. “The driver said he stopped to talk to his wife and saw the three of them go into that condo with the sign on it. Place is empty.”

  This was Pasley’s moment of truth. There was no going back.

  Would Igney buy the lie?

  Igney pivoted to face the street and glanced up. Directly at the vacant condo. “And you didn’t call for backup?”

  “The way those three have been moving, do you really think they stopped there?”

  Pasley saw Igney grimace in the reflection on the glass.

  “You’re right,” Igney said. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  Pasley nodded but didn’t say anything, content to let Igney lead.

  Had that just worked? Did Igney believe him?

  Before Pasley could stop himself he glanced up, at the flats overhead, where their targets really were. He said a silent thank you to whatever was looking out for him. With luck, he wouldn’t have to kill again.

  11.

  Sunday. Safe House, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

  Silas swiped the rag over the kitchen counters. There wasn’t a speck of food on them, but it gave him something to do since he couldn’t hear the soft sounds of Ekko moving around anymore. The coffee machine bubbled and gurgled, drowning out everything else at this early hour.

  He’d fallen asleep almost immediately after his final walk-through of the house. The moment his head touched the pillow and Ekko snuggled up to him, he’d been out. He’d slept the sleep of the dead. All the little sounds hadn’t woken him this time, at least not for a few hours.

  His eyes had popped open around four and he’d lain there, holding Ekko, and trying to feel anything except content.

  He shouldn’t get to feel content. Not with their lives in danger or with a woman he barely knew. Hell, before the other day they’d pretty much been enemies. Now, what were they?

  Footsteps thumped in the hall.

  Silas turned toward the coffeepot. He picked up the carafe and poured a mug, timing it so that he’d just finished filling it the moment Ekko stepped into view.

  For one moment the world seemed to stand still. He didn’t breathe. His heart didn’t beat. Everything was utterly at peace.

  She was beautiful.

  It wasn’t her glossy, freshly washed hair or the make-up or the contacts. It was her. The woman who risked her life for someone else. She was beautiful.

  “Ready?” He passed the mug across the counter to her.

  She smiled, her whole face seeming to light up, and took the mug from him. “Thanks, and yeah, I think I am. You joining me today?”

  “Me?” He chuckled. “No way.”

  “Oh come on.” She bent forward, propping herself up on her elbows as she drank. “We’re just doing daily missions. Easy stuff, promise.”

  “You said yesterday was easy stuff.” He leaned back against the fridge and crossed his arms.

  “Everyone dies. You get revived. It’s not a big deal.” She took another sip. “Come on.”

  Silas considered saying no.

  He could. But what was the point?

  They couldn’t risk being seen out of the apartment, so it wasn’t like he was doing physical perimeter checks. Zain had a three person rotation on the cameras back in Seattle. They were in near constant communication. If anyone so much as breathed in the condo’s direction they’d know and could execute their evacuation plan.

  “Come on.” Ekko reached over and snagged his hand. “It’ll be good for you.”

  He quirked a brow at her. “Video games are good for me?”

  “Having fun for a little while is. Besides, I can use the backup in chat to help me stay on top of what people are saying.”

  He sighed. “Fine.”

  Ekko grinned at him and hooked her fingers in his.

  He’d caved the moment she asked and knew he was going to say yes.

  What was wrong with him?

  “Come on, I’ve got to go live in a few minutes.” She dragged him across to the dining table.

  One of the modifications they’d made was appropriating Ekko’s third monitor for the laptop so Silas could keep an eye on the camera feeds and participate.

  “Right, so today’s plan is to start out doing general inventory upkeep on my main characters. I can do that and talk to people, take questions, that sort of thing. I’m allotting about half an hour to that, then we start the daily mission stuff. You should go finish that quest from yesterday and maybe get one more level out of it before joining up with the group.”

  Silas tapped the button and while his game loaded peered at Ekko’s screens.

  Her game was loading, but she was also fiddling with the streaming side of things.

  “Am I supposed to watch in-game chat, or streaming chat?” he asked. The two chats weren’t the same and it had taken him a while to figure that out when watching her. It hadn’t been until he’d logged in himself that it had all clicked.

  She didn’t glance up as she typed. “In-game, please? I always lose track of that one because I’m watching streaming chat.”

  “Copy that.”

  Ekko glanced at him and smiled.

  Something dinged.

  She straightened and directed her beaming smile at the camera.

  The same ding sounded again and her smile widened.

  “Hello, Bat Brigade.” She waved at the camera. “Wow there’s a lot of you. I didn’t think there’d be this many of you with the weird hours. Hi, everyone. Hello. Thanks for joining me for this off-hours stream.”

  Silas half listened to Ekko give a short update on their supposed progress with getting back home. She still kept the information sparse and didn’t answer or outright ignored questions for more details. Instead she called out some of those in chat, asking yet again how they were doing, if their animals were doing better. She didn’t have notes or anything to help her keep it straight that he could see. This was all stuff she knew about people.

  He’d like to kick himself and ask, how had he ever thought she was selfish?

  The truth was she’d presented a front to him and he’d bought into it. She was good at reading people. She was just so damn good.

  The floorboard in the hall squeaked.

  He glanced at the camera monitors.

  Nothing was amiss.

  Silas turned as a door thunked shut.

  Chayan?

  Was the man up and about already?

  This afternoon Silas and Ekko were going to have to talk about what to do. The man was grieving, but he couldn’t waste away and lose himself in that grief. He understood Ekko’s concern about Chayan drinking a day away, but he also respected the need to get lost in a bottle. It wasn’t a great solution, but every now and th
en numbness helped.

  The sound of the shower came on, easing Silas’ concern. That was a good sign.

  “Okay.” Ekko clapped her hands. “We’re going to start forming a group for today’s dailies. Let me know in chat if you want to join in. And welcome to all the new viewers.”

  Silas straightened.

  That was his cue.

  Sure enough, he had a group invitation waiting for him on his screen. He accepted it and sighed. How many times was he going to die today?

  He stole Ekko’s now empty mug and got them both more coffee while more people were added to the group.

  Half an hour later Silas had only died five times. Though Ekko didn’t acknowledge him on the stream, she was always there to revive his character and reach over to give his hand a squeeze if he did something really well.

  She was a caretaker.

  He understood the community gathered around her now. She made them all feel seen and heard. Everything about her made sense now. This crazy trip was another manifestation of her heart caring for others. She’d seen a need and she’d answered it. Because that was who she was.

  Once again he kicked himself for not seeing it sooner.

  A bit of movement caught his attention. He turned his head and saw Chayan peering into the living room. His hair was damp and he wore the sweatshirt from the clothes Silas had given him.

  He waved at the other man.

  Chayan offered him a hesitant smile before tip-toeing into the kitchen and pouring himself some coffee.

  Silas pulled out the chair on his other side and thumped it. If Chayan felt like being out and about, Silas wanted to make room for him.

  Chayan didn’t immediately accept the offer. He warmed up food in the microwave and topped his mug off before padding over to sit at Silas’ elbow. The sweats were baggy on Chayan, but they were clean. The man was making a little effort today. In Silas’ book, that was a good sign. They couldn’t afford to lose Chayan to that well of emotion.

  Silas groaned as his avatar stumbled and his screen faded, signaling that he’d died. Again.

  Chayan peered at the screen. “Something bad happen?”

  “I died,” Silas said, keeping his voice low.