Holding on Tighter

by Shayla Black

  Scrambling to one side, he rolled Jolie to her back. In the shadowed room, he searched her flushed face, her dilated eyes. She panted, and her lips drew his stare. The ache tightened in his gut. Since losing Anna, he’d wanted sex but he hadn’t wanted any particular woman. The no-repeat rule had been easy because he hadn’t ever been tempted to break it.

  As she had from the start, Jolie challenged him on every level.

  He shouldn’t touch her again. It wasn’t smart. It wouldn’t end well.

  But Heath couldn’t seem to stop wanting her.

  “What is it?” she murmured, her body tense, waiting.

  He could have answered that a hundred ways. With a redirecting reminder that she needed sleep to prepare for her “big day.” An alpha pronouncement that he wouldn’t reward her running off with an orgasm. Either of those would squash the intimacy developing between them.

  When he opened his mouth, something else came out. “Karis told me you know about Anna.”

  She exhaled away some of her sexual tension. Her face softened. “Losing her must have been awful.”

  “Devastating.” Why the hell had he brought that up? He wasn’t saying that he couldn’t have sex because he was still too grief-stricken. It wasn’t true, and she would know better.

  “I’m sorry.”

  And she was. Jolie didn’t often wear her emotions on her face but he saw her sincerity.

  It struck him then exactly what he was trying to say. “I don’t get involved anymore.”

  “I don’t get involved ever.”

  That was a shame. Jolie had so much to offer, even if she didn’t see it. She would light up someone’s world. Life with her would never be boring, that was certain. Her sharp wit kept Heath guessing. If she wanted advice, Jolie would ask but she would never wait for his guidance to act. He appreciated her moxie and independence. She wasn’t—in any way—a girl.

  He should tell her that she had every reason to get involved with someone but he’d sound like a hypocrite. Worse, if she took his advice, he’d have to know another man touched her. He would have to imagine another man sliding his fingertips over the pale glow of her skin and looking into her eyes before he kissed her lips, inhaled her scent, then surged inside her soft silk body.

  At the thought, Heath jerked away. He was surprised by his clenched fists.

  The movement tugged at their joined ankles.

  Jolie touched a tentative hand to his shoulder. “You okay?”

  No. He was coming apart with want but too bound up to take her again. He liked her. He cared when he fucking didn’t want to. In his head, he replayed finding her in the coffeehouse with Callie, silently challenging him. He felt her desperation when she’d clung on the back of his motorcycle as they dashed through the night to rescue Karis from the office break-in. He saw her taunt him just minutes ago with her transparent nightgown as she eschewed knickers. He remembered her face flushing with pleasure last night before orgasm while he drowned in her feminine heat.

  “I didn’t protect Anna when it mattered.” His voice sounded hoarse. “I didn’t see the threat coming, didn’t put the pieces of the puzzle together. I still haven’t. And I regret that every day. With you, there’s danger on the horizon. Stop making it so bloody hard for me to do my job.”

  She swallowed audibly. “I wasn’t trying to make it hard today. I needed a friend.” She sighed. “I wanted less distraction. I can’t look at you and not . . . want.”

  At her words, he squeezed his eyes shut, his entire body going tense. He understood precisely what she meant. The two of them together was like throwing oil on a bonfire.

  Heath turned back to her in the dark, challenging. “What are we doing?”

  She shrugged. “Let’s . . . go to sleep.”

  Heath didn’t know if that would be possible for him. His cock throbbed for her. His gut clenched. His chest ached. His thoughts were wrung inside out.

  He prayed the answers would look clearer in the morning. “All right. But understand me.” He zeroed in on her. “Whether you meant to or not, you put yourself at risk today. Don’t make me live through the guilt of not being able to save someone else.”

  He almost choked on those words. It wasn’t easy swallowing that much blame.

  She didn’t break the moment with words, merely nodded.

  “Sleep well.” He lay back and stared at the ceiling. It would be a long night.

  Jolie hesitated, then curled up against him. Their feet tangled. He felt her warm breaths on his chest. This was her way of comforting him, and it touched him on a level that terrified him.

  Even so, Heath wrapped his arm around her and closed his eyes. Since Anna, Jolie was the only woman with whom he’d actually slept, he realized. Sex aside, he’d relaxed enough beside her to fall into healing slumber. For once, being more than physically close to a woman hadn’t felt wrong.

  That idea terrified him, too.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered, rubbing her bound ankle against his. “I won’t go anywhere. I promise.”

  Chapter Eight

  Rule for success number eight:

  Steady your reactions.

  AFTER sleeping better than expected, Heath was surprised to wake feeling restless. He untied his ankle from Jolie’s, rose, and made coffee. Barely five a.m. Normally, if he felt this agitated, he hit the gym or went for a run. He couldn’t leave her side now.

  But with Jolie still sleeping peacefully, that left him alone with his thoughts.

  Briefly, he thought about calling Mystery. She would talk to him. And she knew him, after all.

  Well . . . did she really? He frowned. Perhaps it was more accurate to say he knew her. He’d made it his job to learn Mystery’s every habit, quirk, and thought. But he’d never opened up to her. Since she’d gone from his day-to-day life, he realized he hadn’t been in love with her as much as she had been a comforting fixture. She was smart, had a fun sense of humor. His life with her had approached something like normal. Knowing at the end of every day that he’d kept her safe to see another sunrise had given him satisfaction. After the past few days, he saw clearly that caring about her wasn’t the same as the twisting, burning, ever-present ache to claim, comfort, and understand that Jolie made him feel.

  Maybe that’s why he’d awakened so agitated. Sleep hadn’t changed his outlook. She was still the fever he couldn’t shake.

  Heath grabbed his phone from his pocket and turned it over in his hands. He’d heard a rumor a few weeks back that Myles, his best mate from his MI5 days, had remarried and was expecting a baby again. Good news for him. Great, in fact.

  Heath thought back through the last half dozen years of random shags, the avoidance of letting anyone too close. How had Myles managed to work past the grief and guilt to let go of the tragedy and embrace the future again?

  Once, he and Myles had done everything together—worked, caroused, drank. Eventually, they’d both gotten married. Anna and Myles’s wife Lucy had got on right away and become the best of friends. Then one day they’d both been gone in the same senseless act of violence, leaving him and his mate struggling with grief and guilt. Heath hadn’t called Myles much after they’d become widowed. The man reminded him too much of all he’d lost. Myles hadn’t called a lot, either. Heath assumed that, like him, he hadn’t been able to handle the memories.

  In addition to losing his wife that day, Heath had lost his one real friend.

  A couple of weeks after Anna’s death, he’d quit his job and made it his mission to extract revenge. He had been successful . . . somewhat, learning the name of the thug who’d pulled the trigger, ending Anna’s and Lucy’s lives, along with the baby she and Myles had been expecting. The baby Anna had been so envious of. But their killer had been nothing more than a hired gun with a few low-level accomplices, willing to snuff out virtually anyone for a price. They’d been puppets before he had easily wasted them. To this day, Heath had no notion who’d been pulling their strings.

  Reve
nge had solved nothing, and afterward he’d had nothing left but to sink into the bottom of a bottle. Thankfully, a connection at MI5 had recommended him to Marshall Mullins as a potential bodyguard for Mystery. The job had probably saved his life.

  Heath glanced at his phone again, then punched in the security code and flipped through his contacts. Though he’d upgraded devices more than once through various versions and countries, he’d never quite been able to let go of Myles’s number. It remained one of his few links to the past. He hadn’t dialed it in at least a half dozen years, had scarcely thought at all about calling in nearly five.

  Now he considered it—hard.

  It wasn’t yet noon in London. Myles would be up and working. Rumor had it his old friend had a managerial role now. Oh, that was supposed to be classified but Heath heard whispers from time to time. Myles had been shot a couple years ago. He’d also turned forty a few months back. With his new wife pregnant, it made sense for the man to slow it down, play it safe.

  Myles had likely changed his number in the ensuing years. If not, what were the odds his old partner and friend would even answer? Would he want to hear from the ghost of his past or stop his life to listen to an old mate’s current woes?

  “Heath?” Jolie stood in the opening of the hallway, wrapping a fuzzy bathrobe around her middle. Her hair looked adorably mussed. Concern wrinkled her brow.

  He wanted to grab her, hold her, take her back to bed. Forget the world.

  Instead, he stood and pocketed his phone again. “Morning.” Calling Myles after all these years would only stir up the past. Dealing with the present was all he could handle now. “Coffee?”

  “Sure. I’ll need a tub of it today. I’d like to get into the office early and go over my pitch a few more times.”

  He nodded. “I installed as much of the security equipment as I could by myself yesterday. I’d like to finish the rest today. We should get moving.”

  “I’ll wake my sister. I hate to. When I peeked at her, she was sleeping so soundly.”

  He sent her an apologetic expression. “We can’t leave her alone just yet. She’ll have opportunities to sleep in once I’ve assigned her a bodyguard. I’ll get that done today as well.”

  Jolie woke Karis, and soon they were on their way to the office. Once there, Heath sat in a makeshift cubicle, testing the last of the card readers. To get everything operational by close of business today, he needed help, especially setting up the files that would log all the swiped activities, as well as enabling a redundant backup storage system for the data. He texted Sean Mackenzie. Moments later, his phone dinged with a reply. The former fed was stopping by with solutions to several of his issues. Heath sent back his thanks.

  Callie’s husband appeared at the suite’s door about two hours later. Beside him stood another man. Blond and obviously military at some point, he looked watchful, war-hardened, and itching for action. Heath very much feared the bloke had come to the right place.

  “Heath, this is Cutter Bryant,” Sean introduced. “He works for Joaquin and the Edgington brothers. He has an assignment starting in Dallas a week from Monday, so they’ve lent him to us until then, if that’s agreeable. It gives you a bit of time to find Karis someone more permanently, if necessary.”

  He held out his hand. “Hello.”

  Cutter shook it politely enough but clearly he wanted to get down to business. “What’s up?”

  “A dodgy situation I suspect could quickly turn dangerous.”

  When Cutter smiled, it wasn’t happy or polite. “Excellent.”

  Heath liked him instantly. “Why don’t I introduce you to Karis? She’s . . .” How did he explain the sweet, slightly bohemian girl? “She’s got a soft heart and she’s trying to put on a brave face but I think she’s scared.”

  “Roger that. I’ll try not to raise my voice above a dull roar or startle her unless necessary.”

  “Great.” Sean smiled. “Jack Cole is lending Stone to you for the tech help. He should be here in a few hours.” He withdrew his keys. “I’m joining Callie and Thorpe for a late lunch since her contractions have stopped for now. Let me know if there’s a change of plans or you need something else.” When he turned to leave, Sean paused. “By the way, the license plate you asked me to run? That car came back as stolen. It’s been recovered and local CSI swept it. Clean.”

  So a dead end. Damn. “Thanks for trying.”

  “Always. I asked Thorpe to put in a call. He knows people at city hall. They’re going to look into the street cameras in that area, see if they picked up a face. We should have an answer in a few days. I’ll let you know.”

  An excellent suggestion. Heath hoped that nothing dangerous happened while they waited.

  With a handshake, Sean left. Heath turned to Cutter and sized the man up. In a perfect situation, finding Karis additional security wouldn’t be necessary. But everything now was far from ideal. Jolie would be lost if something happened to her sister. Heath would never be more than her temporary lover, but while they were together, he intended to keep her as safe and happy as he could. The world would be a less interesting place if grief dimmed Jolie Quinn’s light.

  And wasn’t he sounding like a philosophical shit?

  “Come with me.” He led Cutter down the hall to a conference room and shut the door.

  Heath filled him in on everything happening around Betti. He’d hoped that applying a fresh head to the situation would help him find new perspective but Cutter seemed as perplexed as he was.

  “Why send gifts to Karis if Jolie is the target? If she’s actually the target at all . . .” The guy scowled.

  “Precisely. Nothing quite adds up. I would be less worried if these three incidents hadn’t taken place so closely together and if the intruder hadn’t been firing real bullets.”

  “What’s next?”

  “See if the police found any evidence, I suppose. The prowler wore gloves, so I doubt he left behind prints. If the official investigation is fruitless, I fear I’m in a position of waiting for something else to happen that will perhaps provide more clues. Both sisters swear they don’t have any enemies. I’m not even certain what this man wants, so I haven’t the faintest notion where to look next. Or even what to look for.”

  Cutter swore. “I’ve got nearly ten days to lend a hand. Hopefully, this situation comes to a head before then.”

  “Would you like to meet Karis now?”

  “Let’s do it.”

  Heath had a feeling the two would be like oil and water. Cutter seemed like the decisive sort, a man of action and few words. Karis fluttered her way through life, seeking out happiness like a moth searching for a flame.

  Before they could make their way out of the conference room, Cutter’s phone rang in a high-pitched chirp. “One minute. This might be an emergency.”

  Heath nodded as Cutter ripped the phone from the holder clipped to his belt, then turned away for some privacy. “Brea? What is it?”

  A pause. A faint murmur of a voice on the other end sounded rushed and panicked.

  “Slow down. It’s okay. What’s going on?”

  Whatever she said made Cutter’s entire body tense. A forbidding thunder suddenly rolled off him. “Have you seen a doctor?”

  Heath went on high alert himself. Not that he tried to eavesdrop, but in a small room, he couldn’t fail to hear. The snippets he caught made him worry for the woman on the other end of the phone.

  “You need to make an appointment today. It’s not going to go away.”

  Now Heath could hear the teary, pleading tone on the other end and frowned.

  “You need to see the doctor first. I’ll go with you. I promise not to do anything until then. After that, if you’re right—” She interrupted him, and he shook his head. “No. I can’t promise I won’t kill him.”

  More sobs sounded over the line.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart.” Cutter’s voice took a gentle turn. “We’ll figure it out. I’ll take care of you. I alw
ays have. I always will.”

  A minute later, they hung up and Cutter shoved his phone back