by Laura Kaye
Shame and heat lanced through her in equal measure. Shame because of what Cole had done. The difference here was that Kat would be ready—for anything. And heat at the images Beckett’s words evoked. But way bigger than either of those was the absolutely volcanic rage building inside her at the way he discounted her. Like she couldn’t contribute. Like she was just dead frickin’ weight around here. Kat gave a humorless chuckle. “I have thrown bigger men than you over my shoulder.”
Nick held up his hands. “Kat, Beckett—”
Beckett took a big step closer, but the desk kept them separated. Kat was pretty sure he’d be in her face if it hadn’t. “In. A. Fucking. Class. Not in a real-life situation? Right?”
The way he asked that last bit was so condescending that she wanted to pull her hair out, even as the truth of his words shamed her. Again. Had she really slept with this asshole? Twice? “So, the first time you took your training out into the field, you weren’t actually qualified to make use of it? Because you’d only done it in exercises up until that point?”
Marz rose from his chair and put a hand on Beckett’s chest, but the guy sidestepped him, his big thighs coming up against the desk. “Not even close to being the same thing, Kat. But, please, do continue to equate nearly two years of elite military training to some self-defense classes.”
Marz grabbed Beckett’s shoulder, but the bigger man shook him off.
Heat poured into Kat’s face, and it took everything she had not to fly up over that desk and tackle Beckett to the floor for a good, would-serve-him-right pummeling. “Oh, my God, do you even known how ginormous an asshole you are? Like, for real? All I’m asserting is the ability to watch out for Becca. Period.”
“Kat,” Nick said, from right beside her. “Kat.”
“What?” she yelled, turning. “You feel the same way? Because, please, if you also believe I’m too damn inept and untrustworthy to keep an eye on Becca in a public place—all while you guys have established a defensive perimeter around the building and she’s wired—please say so now and I’ll happily keep my useless, scrawny ass out of it.”
The tension in the room was so strong, it nearly formed a physical presence in the air itself.
For a long moment Nick didn’t answer, and a sting bit at the backs of Kat’s eyes. “I think you’re a good choice for being on the inside with her,” he finally said. “I don’t love the idea of it, but it makes sense.”
Kat wasn’t sure why or even what it really meant, but she felt as if Nick’s words had somehow hauled her back from jumping off a ledge. Though she didn’t even have to look at Beckett to know he was royally pissed. She could feel it boomeranging off of him. At least what he thought of her was perfectly clear now. And she’d almost entertained the idea that they could be something . . . more.
Ha fucking ha.
The rest of the conversation went much smoother after that. And Kat made sure of it by pointedly ignoring Beckett and not making any eye contact with him whatsoever. She didn’t need the stress, and the team certainly didn’t need the distraction of whatever bullshit lay between them.
Over the next forty-five minutes, they laid out a timeline, mission assignments, and objectives, namely:
Feel Kaine out for what he was really doing there.
Have Becca feed him select information to assess his reactions and see if he acted on said information.
Plant listening and tracking devices on his car and person, if possible.
Easy peasy.
Except, if Kat was honest, her insides were vibrating nonstop. Because while she believed she could handle whatever might happen inside a crowded coffee shop, just the very act of planning an actual covert op was so damn foreign. Still, being a lawyer trained you in a certain amount of deception—both sniffing it out and, when necessary, practicing it. Her head would be ready when the time came. No way was she losing Nick’s confidence or letting anything happen to Becca, who Kat already adored.
Kat felt like a million years had passed by the time they wrapped up. She’d been perched on the edge of Marz’s desk, and was about to hop down when he spoke.
“So, since we’re all here,” he said, “I might as well share that we weren’t able to find anything useful on the names from Kat’s personnel files. After the meeting tomorrow morning, I’ll work up a Plan B.”
Nick nodded. “Well, the lack of information is telling in and of itself, so it’s a start.”
“Roger that,” Marz said, his voice tired.
“Hey Marz?” Kat said in a quiet voice. He looked her way, and she gave him a small smile. “Go to bed tonight. For once.”
He winked and shrugged. “We’ll see.”
“No seeing,” Nick said. “She’s right. If the shit’s about to hit the fan, I want you running on full power. All of you. So get a decent night’s sleep.”
Words of agreement all around.
Emilie slid off her table and came up behind Marz, then looped her arms around his neck. “I’ll take good care of him.”
“I’m sure you will,” Kat said, chuckling at Emilie’s suggestive look. “Annnd on that note, I’m outta here.” She hopped down and kept moving, not wanting to get wrapped up in any small talk with anyone. Or, mostly, with one person in particular . . .
“Kat?” Beckett. Of course. Even among the din of other conversation, she picked his deep voice out of the group. How annoying was that? Annoying enough that she didn’t stop.
He didn’t call out to her a second time.
BECKETT HAD LESS than four hours before they’d leave to get into position at the coffee shop, and he couldn’t fall asleep. Despite his exhaustion and his stress and his need to just power down for a while, his brain was a speeding train of chaotic thoughts. About the op. About this whole clusterfuck. About Katherine freaking Rixey.
She was pissed at him. Beyond pissed. And he wasn’t too thrilled with her either.
Although, to be fair, it was less that he was unhappy with her than really fucking irate at the idea of her being a part of the morning’s op.
The minute she’d volunteered to accompany Becca into the coffee shop, something in Beckett’s brain had snapped. Fury had washed through him, squeezing his chest and kicking him in the gut. Anger, he was used to. But his reaction had been more than that, and he’d been lying awake for hours dissecting it. What he found at the end of his mental microscope he didn’t like one fucking bit.
He was . . . worried. About Kat being put in harm’s way.
Sonofabitch.
And worry was not something he was all that used to feeling. The closest he got was with Marz, because he knew the guy’s leg hurt him. But that was also all wrapped up with Beckett’s guilt over Marz’s injury in the first place. And it wasn’t like his feelings about any of that had done either him or Marz the slightest bit of good. In fact, as far as Beckett could tell, all this bullshit he felt about the whole situation with his best friend had only served to damage their relationship. Better to tamp that shit down good and tight and lock it all away.
That was his usual M.O. And it had been more than good enough the past thirty-four years.
Kat Rixey was screwing it all to hell and back.
Beckett pushed himself off his stomach and swung his legs off the side of the bed. No use lying here when sleep had absolutely no chance of finding him. Not with his head all filled with churn and burn. For fuck’s sake.
Might as well make himself useful. They had a shit ton of documents that needed reading through, and they weren’t going to read themselves.
He crossed to his bags, the air cool against his naked body, and found a pair of jeans in the darkness. He didn’t need lights because there wasn’t much to navigate in his room in the unfinished third-floor apartment. Only a mattress set in the one corner and his bags in the other took up any space on the floor. Not so different from his place back in D.C., really. Beckett hadn’t felt at home anywhere since being discharged from the Army, so he hadn’t made the slight
est effort to turn his rental into anything more than a place to lay his head at night.
But maybe that was his thing. Maybe he was meant to float through life—unattached, unfeeling, unwanted.
Although, reuniting with his team a few weeks ago had taken the sharpest edges off those feelings. He’d felt more grounded while here than in the whole year before. What the hell was going to happen when they finally solved this mystery?
No time to worry about that now.
He hiked up and zipped the jeans, then found the black T-shirt he’d worn earlier in the day. He’d barely brought the cotton near his head when Kat’s scent washed over him. Which was a big no fucking way, not going there. Dropping it to the floor, he blindly searched for another shirt and tugged on the first thing he found.
Good efuckingnough for two-something in the morning.
Quietly, he made his way through the apartment he shared with Marz and Emilie and Easy and Jenna. The rest of the Hard Ink team slept in the Rixeys’ apartment downstairs, including Kat. Like he really needed to be thinking of her lying in bed, her body all stretched out, her hair sprawled over the pillow, her heat warming the sheets.
He took the steps down to the second floor one at a time, not wanting the noise of his footsteps to echo into either apartment and disturb anyone. And then he keyed in the pass code to the door. He pulled it open and found relative darkness—only the lights in the far corner over Marz’s desk were on. Damn. If that boy didn’t get some sleep soon—
But as the door closed behind him, Beckett didn’t see Marz at his desk. In fact, the computers were all empty. As was the room as a whole, since Dare had all the Ravens pulling extra watch shifts.
Thank God for small favors. Mood he was in, Beckett wasn’t really fit for public consumption anyway. In his bare feet, he started across the room.
Movement from the corner of his good eye.
He nearly groaned out loud.
Kat. In some sort of weird contortionist position on the mats.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
No answer. In the dimness, he made out the thin white cords to a pair of earbuds.
She shifted position, lowering the leg that had been raised so that she was on her hands and feet, her firm little rear up in the air. Who did yoga at oh-dark-hundred?
Jesus. He scrubbed a hand over his face.
He didn’t need to be seeing this right now. He really didn’t. Because his body couldn’t stand to witness her ass offered up like that in skintight black pants and not react. Not after what they’d shared yesterday. Not after he’d learned how fucking good it felt to be buried deep inside her.
After a few moments she shifted again, going down into a high plank that emphasized just how fit and tight her little body was. She held the plank for what must’ve been a full minute without even shaking.
“Kat?” he said louder, feeling like an asshole watching her work out without her realizing he was there—and getting more and more turned on by this little demonstration of her strength and flexibility.
He came up along her side, close enough to hear the deafening volume of the music playing in her ears, and crouched down.
She screamed and jerked away, her hand going to her heart even as she back scrabbled. “Damnit, Beckett.” She tore out the earbuds. “What the hell are you doing?”
God, she was gorgeous. That was all he could think for a long moment. Even annoyed as shit with him, she appealed to him in a way no other woman ever had. “I, uh, was trying not to scare you.”
She tossed the length of her ponytail over her shoulder. “Well, congratulations on a job well done.”
Beckett sighed. “Kat—”
She held up a hand. “Never mind. Neither of us needs another fight. I’ll go.”
He rose as she did. “Kat—”
For a second she gave him a strange look, and then she bolted toward him, rammed into his gut, and flipped him over her back. As the breath whooshed out of him on impact, Beckett’s brain scrambled to catch up to what the fuck had just happened.
He blinked and looked up.
Kat stood over him, arms crossed, hip jutted out to the side, smirk on her face. “That was just for the record.” She turned on her heel and made it maybe two steps.
A flash fire ripped through Beckett’s mind. He flew off the floor and grabbed her from behind before she’d even made it off the mat. Light as she was, he easily lifted her off the ground, keeping her from using the floor for any leverage against which to strike at him. She screamed and thrashed against him.
And then he took her to the mat and came down on top of her, his front to hers. Breathing hard—from the adrenaline rush more than the hit he’d taken—he pressed his lips to her ear. “Five seconds. For the record.”
Kat’s muscles exploded into action, her arms and legs surrounding him, trying to grip him tightly. She was going for a choke hold or a joint lock, and he wasn’t giving her the satisfaction. He fought against her holds, went for his own shots at pinning her, and wrestled her until they were both breathing hard and cursing and hot from the exertion.
Beckett had possibly never been more turned on in his life.
“Give up, Kat,” he rasped, less and less worried about hurting her when she was so ably proving she could take it.
“Fuck you,” she whispered, going for his throat.
He grinned and gripped her arms, prying them apart with his greater strength and pinning them to the floor.
Her whole body moved in a wave beneath him as she brought her hips up to try to clamp her thighs around his neck. Damn, she was skilled at this. He had to give her that, especially as she managed to get a knee up over his shoulder and knock him hard enough in the carotid artery to momentarily daze him. She got her arms free from his and had almost escaped from underneath him when his wits returned.
He dove and caught her around the stomach, taking her down once more so that he lay on top of her, his front to her back. “Where do you think you’re going?” he whispered in her ear.
Slowly, the fight drained out of her muscles. “Nowhere,” she said, panting. No doubt his weight made it harder for her to catch her breath. But he wasn’t giving up this advantage for anything. Because being pinned underneath him was probably the only way she was going to listen to what he had to say. And the fact that she wasn’t still struggling to get away set his blood on fire.
“I’m sorry. About last night,” he whispered, dragging his lips against her ear. She shuddered. “I was an asshole.”
“Yes,” she said, although the need he heard in the word was as much about how he was teasing her skin with his lips and gently rocking his hips against her ass. He would’ve put money on it.
“I just didn’t want you there,” he said.
She huffed and jerked, suddenly trying to get free of him again. “That was clear, Beckett.”
Way to go, asshole. But he wasn’t letting her go until she understood him clearly. He pinned her arm down again and shifted his weight upward, securing her upper body beneath him. “Because I hate the thought of you getting hurt, Kat. Nothing to do with whether you can handle it. But the thought of you in harm’s way makes me fucking crazy. Okay? I don’t like it. It makes me want to destroy things with my bare hands. Jesus.”
“Oh,” she said, the fight going out of her once more, as if his words had appeased her. “But you’ll be there. You all will.”
He dragged his tongue up the side of her neck. A thin sheen of sweat had broken out across her skin as they wrestled, and she tasted fucking delicious. Salty and sweet and something that was all Kat. “I’ll be there, Kat,” he said, shifting his hips against her ass. He was rock fucking hard.
“Beckett,” she whispered, the sound plaintive and needy.
“You drive me so goddamned crazy I don’t know what I’m doing half the time,” he said, his arm curling under her shoulder, his legs going to the outside of hers, his hips grinding against her rear.
; And then she ground right back, arching her spine to bring her ass up more firmly against his cock. The breathy moan she unleashed went right to his balls, making them heavy and achy.
“I swear I didn’t plan this, but I want inside you, Kat. Tell me what you want.”
She twisted her head as far as she could in this position and met his gaze from the corners of her eyes. “Just like this,” she said as her hands went to her hips and pushed the stretchy fabric down.
Beckett couldn’t move fast enough. He lifted his hips to help tug her pants and panties down to mid-thigh and to free his cock and balls from the denim. And then he laid down on top of her again, pinning her to the floor as he penetrated her opening inch by scalding hot inch.
“Feel how fucking wet you are. Jesus Christ, that’s so good.” He bottomed out inside her.
“Oh, my God, that’s deep,” she cried.
“Never deep enough,” he said, withdrawing his hips on a slow retreat. “Never deep enough, Kat.” He wrapped her ponytail around his fist and forced her head back. She came up on her elbows, allowing Beckett to wrap one arm around her upper body while he used the other to turn her face toward him. “It’s never fucking enough,” he said, meeting those bright green eyes. So filled with desire. For him.
He kissed her on a tortured groan and fucked her hard and fast, then maddeningly slow and deep until they were both moaning and cursing and panting.
“Jesus, Beckett, I’m gonna come, I’m gonna come.”
“Yeah, Angel. Show me how much you love my fucking cock, how good I make you feel.”
Her channel tightened, tightened, tightened around him until Beckett groaned and Kat cried out. And then they were both coming, Beckett’s orgasm going on so long his vision went splotchy around the edges. Jesus. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see. Couldn’t do anything but feel Kat around him, under him . . . inside him.
“Oh, my God,” she rasped when their bodies settled down.
Beckett was immediately conscious of how heavy he might be, and now that the haze of lust was gone from his head, it bothered him in a way it hadn’t before. He moved—
Kat caught his hip in her hand and held him. “Don’t move. I want to feel your weight awhile longer.”
