by Lexi Blake
She hadn’t expected it either, and that was a good thing. Two years had gone past in a bland fashion, the days flying by without making any real memories.
Owen Shaw was a revelation.
He took a deep breath and lowered her to the floor, her feet finding purchase. She managed to lean against the wall but couldn’t quite work up the will to shove her skirt down.
“Becca, I…” he began, his eyes soft on her.
The phone rang and Owen cursed, turning away. He grabbed it with his right hand as his left managed to tug at his jeans, tucking himself back in. “This better be good, Colin, because I’m thinking about murdering you again.”
Suddenly she didn’t ever want to leave this stupid elevator. Someone could send them food down the emergency hatch. Food and wine and Owen. They could eat and drink and have a ton of sex. The bathroom could be a problem and she would need a shower, but those seemed like minor issues.
God, she was not doing this again. She was not going to confuse good sex with emotional attachment. Nope. This was why she’d taken the two years off, and she was damn well going to learn something from it.
They came from completely different worlds. This had been a moment out of time, and she couldn’t make more of it than there was.
Without another word, Owen slammed the phone down.
The elevator immediately started moving, and Becca heard a squeak come from her mouth. She pulled her skirt down as fast as she could.
Owen grabbed his shirt and dragged it over his head before picking up her cardigan. “Sorry, love. We’re busting out of this place. Here.” He held it out for her, helping her into the plain cardigan she sometimes thought she wore like armor. He smoothed back her hair and placed the sweetest kiss on her forehead. “You look perfectly respectable.”
Something about how chaste that kiss was made any potential embarrassment fly away. This didn’t have to be awkward. It had been the single best sex of her life, and she would think about him for-freaking-ever. She grabbed her bag and turned to the doors as they slid open.
“Thank you,” she whispered, a secret smile turning her lips up. “It was good to meet you, Owen Shaw.”
He was right beside her, their hands brushing but not quite tangling together as they faced the seventh floor. A small crowd had gathered. Her coworker Carter Adams paced at the back of the crowd. River and Jax and the man she’d seen earlier dealing with the moving van were there. He was an attractive man, like Jax, but neither could hold a candle to her Owen.
Not hers. He’d only been hers for a moment, and that was okay.
“And you, Becca Walsh,” he said in that deep, sexy accent.
“We heard you were stuck when we got back from our run. Carter told us,” River was saying as she exited. “I was worried. I would freak out if I spent four hours in that tiny box.”
“I had good company,” she said, her smile widening. “Good night, guys.”
Carter fell in beside her. She should have known he would hear about the elevator. He was friends with Colin. Carter had been one of the first people she’d met when she’d moved here.
He could also be a bit of a busybody.
“Who was that man? Are you okay?” Carter asked.
She didn’t want to spend her evening listening to Carter complain, because that was mostly what he did. “I’m perfect and that was Owen Shaw. He was perfect, too.”
“Who is Owen Shaw?” Carter glanced behind them, probably looking at the man again.
“I think he’s new in the building.” They’d had more important things to talk about than which apartment he lived in. Maybe he was one of the new guys.
“There was a delivery for you,” he said. “I put it on your bar.”
They’d exchanged keys when they’d gotten to know each other. Sometimes she locked herself out and he could be helpful. He also accepted packages for her when she wasn’t around. “What was it?”
“Well, it wasn’t from that guy, I’ll tell you,” he retorted. “I think it’s from Cathy.”
Ah, the surprise she’d mentioned. She opened her door. “’Night, Carter. I’ll see you in the morning.”
She let the door close behind her and turned. A brilliant arrangement of flowers was sitting on her bar.
Cathy had remembered. Today was the anniversary of her hiring at Huisman. Two years to the day.
Those gorgeous blooms reminded her that she’d made a new start. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and smiled.
Maybe that promise she’d made to her mother wasn’t so far away after all.
Chapter Five
Owen grabbed his bag and followed Robert off the lift. He was in an oddly good mood. He was about to get his arse kicked, and it had been worth it.
She had been worth it, and the truth was he couldn’t wait to see her again. Allowing her to walk away from him had been an indulgence. His instinct was to tangle his fingers in hers and tell her to take him back to her place so they could do things right and proper this time.
Not that it hadn’t felt right. Nothing in his life had felt as right as getting Rebecca Walsh up against a wall and shoving his way inside her.
She’d been hot and tight around him. He could still feel her nails digging into the flesh of his shoulders and back. He wanted to see the marks she’d left there.
He hadn’t marked her. She might like a bite of pain. He would definitely like to look at her shoulder or the nape of her neck and see a mark, one he’d put there. He loved the fact that her nails had scratched down his back, damn near drawing blood.
He would explore it with her the next time they got together.
Because there was definitely going to be a next time.
“Are you all right?” Jax was walking behind them, but he’d noticed River was back at the door to the apartment she shared with her husband and their big mutt.
She winked her husband’s way and they disappeared inside.
“I’m fine, mate.” He wasn’t supposed to know Jax either, but Jax seemed to have forgotten that fact. “I think I’ll take the stairs next time though. I’m Owen.”
Jax stared down at his hand. “She’s gone, man. We’re safe.”
Owen lowered his voice. “You can’t know that.”
He started down the hall toward the flat he was supposed to share with his lover. They needed to put some distance between them and Becca. Once he’d rounded the corner, she wouldn’t be able to see them.
The door to his flat was open and Ezra Fain stood there. Well, well, the gang was all here. “Yes, we can. While the elevator was down, we were able to wire this whole floor. All we had to do was monitor the stairs. We managed to get into her apartment. We didn’t stay long, but we’ve got it bugged now. Dante thinks he can get into her office tomorrow night. But getting into her lab is going to be more difficult. Tucker, what’s she doing right now?”
“She’s smiling at herself in the mirror.” Tucker looked up as they walked into the flat. He sat at the kitchen table, a laptop in front of him. “She went inside, put her stuff down, and now she’s kind of staring at herself.”
Sasha sat beside him, a glass of what looked like water, but was more than likely vodka, in his hand. “She looks incredibly pleased with herself. What did you do, Owen?”
Luckily, Robert ignored Sasha altogether. “Give us an update on everything that happened with her. I’ll be honest, we weren’t entirely sure she was the person with you in the elevator until that kid Colin came in. We thought you might be alone. Jax was about to go into the shaft and rescue you.”
“I’m good at fixing things,” Jax admitted.
“But then Colin, who looks a lot like the human version of a chihuahua, came in,” Ezra explained. “Apparently Dr. Walsh is vocal in the residents’ association meetings. Colin is scared of her, but then I think he might be scared of a stiff breeze. Are you okay?”
“I’ve been in a lift for four hours,” he said because he had something to take care of. He
couldn’t have simply pulled the thing off and tossed it aside. He’d been trying to be a gentleman around Becca. “I’m hitting the loo before we have this debrief.”
Because the debrief could turn into his firing. Could they fire him? They didn’t actually pay him, so they probably couldn’t fire him. Of course they could kick his arse out on the street.
And he could show up at Becca’s. He might be able to worm his way in. She was lonely. He was lonely. They could not be lonely together.
Shouldn’t he be more worried about how they would take things? Apparently righteously good sex put him in a mellow mood.
“Need to clean up, do you, Romeo?” Sasha asked with a deep chuckle.
He turned and headed to the bathroom because he hadn’t exactly gotten rid of the condom and it was starting to feel nasty.
He handled his business and washed his hands, looking at himself in the mirror. Was this what Becca was doing? Staring at herself because what had happened in that lift seemed to have changed her somehow? He felt it. Something had shifted in his life, but in this moment all he could think about was his past and how far he’d had to come to get to the second he’d held a hand out and opened the lift doors for the woman. The horrible rash he’d had from the drugs he’d been given had faded over the long months. He was back to being strong again. It had taken him almost two years, but he could hold his own in a fight. He’d had to relearn how to walk practically, and that hadn’t come from his memory loss.
Becca would call it a side effect. Dr. McDonald’s drug would almost surely have a black box warning. Side effects may include complete and utter loss of self, rashes that decimate the skin, and overnight atrophy. That meant his muscles stopped working. At least he thought that’s what the doctors had meant.
He had a handsome face, but it was different from the one he’d had before. There wasn’t a lot of light in his eyes. He didn’t smile the way the bugger in the photos did—like he hadn’t a care in the world. Except he had. He should have cared about the fact that he was a disloyal bastard who should have trusted his team.
Did any of them actually trust him?
Should Becca Walsh trust him?
He picked up his bag and strode back into the room where his whole team seemed to be arguing. Apparently the movers had done their job and the decent-sized apartment was filled with boxes and furniture.
“It’s not a bad thing,” Robert was saying. “Being alone with her probably allowed Owen to lay the groundwork for our cover. Unless they didn’t get along, and then we’re fucked.”
“I would be surprised if that’s the case. River and I like her a lot,” Jax replied. “She’s easy to get along with. You’ll see. We’re having her over for dinner. It’s good that she’ll already be comfortable with Owen.”
“I bet she’s incredibly comfortable with Owen.” Sasha was staring at the laptop screen.
“I don’t know.” Ezra paced in front of the fireplace. “There’s a reason Tag put him in a backup role.”
“Owen can handle himself,” Robert replied with a confidence that Owen was pretty sure he was about to shake because he couldn’t hide this one. “According to all his records he was good in the field.”
“Yeah, well, he doesn’t remember a damn thing and he didn’t get the training the rest of you had,” Ezra pointed out.
“You mean the training where we were tortured and forced to commit crimes?” Jax’s arms had gone over his chest and his stare was steely.
“The training where a crazy bitch doctor pumped us all full of drugs and then proceeded to force us to try to kill each other? That training?” Dante walked in from the kitchen, a beer in his hand.
Yeah, he hadn’t been forced to survive that. What had happened to him had been brief. She’d only managed to dose him once, though it seemed to have been enough.
Then why have you started to remember things you shouldn’t? Little things like how it feels to stand in a surf with the sun on your face?
He shoved the thought aside because Ezra had his hands up, obviously conceding the point.
“I get it,” Ezra said. “It was hell, but it also trained you all on how to conduct yourselves during an investigation.”
Dante put a hand on Sasha’s shoulder. “Yes, this one learned how to nap so his coworkers must clean up all the trash.”
Sasha shrugged it off. “You’re better at it than I am. And Owen knows exactly how to conduct an investigation into what kind of underwear a woman wears.”
His eyes came up, the only one who realized Owen had walked back in the room, and that made him wonder how observant the resident drunken Russian really was. Sasha always seemed to not care, but then he knew things the others didn’t.
Robert sighed and waved for him to come back into the living room. “Let’s get this started. We’ll be alerted if Dr. Walsh leaves her apartment. We’re safe meeting here, but after today Tucker, Sasha, and Dante have to be extremely careful about when they come into this building. You’re working at Huisman. You can’t be seen here by Walsh. It would be far too much of a coincidence.”
Tucker leaned back in his chair. “I’ve been at Huisman for a couple of days and I haven’t even come close to meeting the big boss.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Ezra pointed out. “I don’t want you to engage her too heavily. Keep your head down. Get us an idea of how the foundation works. I want to know how deep the ties to McDonald went. Hope was getting her money from somewhere after Kronberg let her go.”
Kronberg was a large pharmaceutical company that had been involved in a group known only as The Collective. When Taggart had taken down McDonald, he’d also dealt a mighty blow to that group, though from what he’d read, The Collective had cut ties with McDonald long before that day.
Tucker was staring at Ezra. “Uh, bank robberies? You remember the part where a couple of us are wanted by Interpol for robbing places? I think that’s where she got the money.”
“I do know what she made you do.” Ezra sank down to the couch, crossing one leg over the other and getting comfortable. “But I also know roughly how much was stolen and Phoebe, the forensic accountant Taggart uses, doesn’t think it came close to paying for the high-tech facility in France we found you, Dante, Sasha, and Jax in. Despite the fact that the Huisman family is Dutch, they have heavy ties to France as well. When they moved their base of operations to Canada fifty years ago, they were originally in Montreal.”
“Just because they speak French and the facility happened to be in France doesn’t prove anything,” Robert replied. “And you shouldn’t have sat on that couch. Apparently Buster’s found his new happy place. You’re going to be covered in dog hair.”
Jax sent Ezra an apologetic grin. “Sorry. The boy knows comfort when he sees it.” He looked back at Owen. “Did the two of you talk about work at all? What did you think of her? She’s not as serious as she comes off in the reports, right?”
“She’s funny and smart,” he allowed. And sexy as hell. So fucking sexy. What would it be like to be able to have her in a proper bed, with all the time in the world to explore that gorgeous body of hers?
Jax nodded. “She is. I like her.”
Ezra turned his stare Jax’s way. “You’re not out here to make friends, and if River is going to have trouble separating the mission from her friendships, we need to talk about shipping you both back to Dallas.”
Jax’s jaw had gone tight. “We know what the op is and we know how important it is. Don’t forget I’m the one who sacrificed to get us here.”
Robert moved to Owen’s side as Jax and Ezra argued. His voice was low as he ignored the sniping. “Did you have a good talk with her?”
“Yes.” And a good shag. A nice hearty bang with the tightest pussy he’d ever been in. Well, that he could remember being in. “She’s a smart lady.”
He wanted to see her breasts. He’d felt them and they’d been soft and full against his palms. They’d felt perfect crushed against h
is chest as he thrust up inside her.
Fuck, he was getting hot just thinking about it. About her.
He didn’t like the fact that Sasha was staring at her on the laptop screen.
“Did she seem like the kind of woman who wants a diverse set of friends?” Robert was asking. “Everything we have on her says she’s had gay friends in her life before. She was particularly close to a man and his husband when she was doing her residency in Boston.”
“I’m sure she’s very open minded.” How open minded would she be? She’d responded beautifully when he’d taken over. She hadn’t minded being the aggressor, but she’d practically melted in his arms when he’d topped her.
How would she like more exotic play? How would she respond when he tied her up and tortured her with his tongue, playing with her pussy and her clitoris and her sweet arse?
He wanted to see that, too. He wanted her naked and laid out on the bed, a feast for his senses.
“You remembered our back story?” Robert asked.
“I remembered it.” How to explain this to him without getting into an immediate fistfight? “She knows I’m a bodyguard.”
Ezra and Jax seemed to have ironed out their differences.
“Excellent. So everything is in place,” Ezra said. “It might actually be better this way. She’ll get to know both of you, but let Robert take the lead.”
Because Robert was the smart one. Robert was the one who hadn’t betrayed the team in another life. Robert hadn’t turned over a couple of Taggarts to the wicked witch. Big Tag liked Robert, precisely why he’d wanted Robert in charge and not Owen.
“I’ll take over from here,” Robert assured him. “Now that she understands we’re a couple, I can go over tomorrow and thank her for helping keep you calm. I’ll tell her I was worried because you can be claustrophobic.”
“Did she keep you calm?” Sasha had a knowing look on his face.
Fucker. “She ain’t going to buy that we’re gay, Robert.”
“Of course she will. Don’t stereotype. We can be manly and gay,” Robert said with a prim quality to his voice.
