She wasn’t sure if it was disgust or surprise on his face, but Grant turned his attention to the corner of the desk that jutted between them. “I want to trust you. But I know that I can’t trust him,” he said. “I thought that with him cutting you out, with him being so distant, that you might have come to your senses.”
So he’d hoped that she would agree with his decisions if Brodie dumped her. It didn’t make sense why he would think that because she’d never been the kind of woman to need a man, or one who would contort herself into what a man wanted her to be. It just proved how little Grant knew her even after working with her for more than five years.
“If you don’t trust me, why did you let Sutcliffe reveal his compound to me yesterday?” she asked, If Grant wanted to work with Sutcliffe then he should be trying to protect his possible ally.
But he wasn’t shameful, in fact, he seemed proud when he rested his hands on the arms of his chair and swung it side to side a few inches back and forth, projecting nothing but ease. “He has nothing to hide and you didn’t see anything yesterday that could compromise him. Did you think about what Ben told you? Did you think about what it is we’re trying to do?”
“Yes, I did,” she said. “But I don’t think that Ben knew everything. What I saw was wonderful and everyone appeared happy. But it’s easy to be happy when you only know half of the story.”
Grant nodded and stood up. “If you’re not going to join us, then we can’t let you see any more. And I will have to ask that you return the CI property you have in your possession.”
He’d become cold, and the quick turnaround made her wonder if this whole thing had been a ruse just to try and soften her enough to return what she’d taken from the Atlas warehouse. “The CI property?” she asked. “You mean Game Time, the devices and the viruses.”
Businesslike, he lifted his proud chin. “Yes, that’s what I mean.”
“I can’t do that, Grant,” she said, leaving her seat and moving backwards. “If I hand over those things, you’ll use them to hurt people.”
“You know that we’re working on building more. You’re only delaying what will be inevitable,” he said. “I’ll give you two weeks to turn the items over.”
“And then what?” If he wasn’t going to play nice and was resorting to threatening her, then she was going to make him see it through.
But he wasn’t going to be forthcoming, which screamed further cowardice on his part. “I’m sure you’ll have come to your senses by then,” he said and frowned at his desk. “I have work to be doing.”
Being dismissed by him was fine by her. She’d been threatened by Grant before and it had come to naught, so she wasn’t afraid now. But Brodie would be interested to know that Grant was throwing his lot in so thoroughly with the men the Kindred planned to take down.
TEN
Lunchtime took too long to come, but when Brodie came into her office with his hood pulled up to hide his face, she smiled. He hadn’t called to say he was coming or asked for access from security. He wasn’t even wearing a standard security pass. She’d expected a phone call or some kind of communication telling her to come down to meet him in the street or parking lot, having him saunter into her office full of propriety was definitely better than that.
Impressed by his means, she smiled, pleased that he was able to access her even in this secure space. “Can I help you, sir?” she asked. “How did you get in here?”
He closed the office door and came over to her desk. Moving around the furniture, he pulled her chair out, away from her workspace, and sat on her desk right in front of her.
He stroked her tamed hair. “Someone put my fingerprint in the system,” he said.
Here he was, alert and active, she’d never felt joy so potent. It was like a liberation for all of them, they were a team, figuring out this mess, adhering to priority one. On that note, she had to ask, “You’re comfortable with your fingerprint floating around in CI?”
“It won’t last,” he said. “And it’s Tuck’s tech, so good luck to anyone who tries to chase it.”
“You said that you would have something to report,” she said, rolling her chair closer so she could rest her arms on his open thighs. The proximity made her breathe him in and such pleasure flooded her that she let her head fall onto his leg.
“I talked to Kraft and we’ve got leads on all of the men who were in Purdy’s on Friday. The police are having trouble tracking them down, but they all have ties to a town in New York. The town that Sutcliffe’s compound is located in. Thanks to your excursion yesterday, we have the exact coordinates.”
“Did you give them to Kraft?”
“I nudged him that direction out of courtesy,” he said. “But I want to track these guys down myself.”
She knew what that meant and when she stood up to meet his eye, she stayed in the shelter of his body and curled her arms around his torso when he grasped the back of her neck. “Do we want to go after them one by one, or do we have a larger plan to take down Sutcliffe and all of his followers?”
“That’s what we’re gonna discuss tonight with our guests at the manor. They’ll be getting in later.”
Her office door opened and she peeked past Brodie to see Grant coming in with a stack of documents. When he’d closed the door, he looked up with her name on his lips, but he stopped and dropped all of the papers when he recognized her guest.
“He… he is not allowed in this building!” Grant asserted with an outstretched arm, he pointed to Brodie with a rigid index finger. Trying to fathom how she should deal with these brothers coming face to face, she surged up and hurried toward Grant, but came up with no answers.
Brodie sauntered around the desk into the empty space between her workstation and the door. “What’s the matter, bro?” Brodie asked.
Seating himself on the front edge of her desk, he reached over to snag her wrist and tugged her body into the space between his thighs. Losing her balance, Zara fell against him. He curled an arm down her back and around her opposite hip, while the other scooped her hair aside to give him access to the side of her neck.
Grant ignored the provocative behavior, but Zara wasn’t as successful at ignoring her lover’s overt intimacy. She had to blink a few times to try to couple her setting with the arousal caused by his kiss.
“You cannot bring guests into this building, Zara,” Grant chastised her. “Your security clearance is a privilege, not a right.”
“Oh,” Brodie hissed, focusing on the part of her neck he’d just kissed, his hand slid down to cup her breast. “That sounded like a threat to me. What happens to men who threaten my baby?”
With a petulant huff, Grant’s mouth fell open. “You better not have a weapon in here!” he asserted. “He better not have a weapon!”
Grant came nearer and she spun around to block Brodie from rising. Her love didn’t let her body depart from his. But at least with her back to Brodie, she could measure Grant’s reactions. “He doesn’t need a weapon to hurt you, Grant,” she said, trying to keep the peace between the men. “And he’s only teasing. He won’t hurt you.”
“Because I’m family?” Grant asked.
“Because she told me not to,” Brodie said, gripping her hips then sliding his hands up the outside of her waist to the sides of her breasts and back down. “I’m biding my time ‘til you piss her off enough that she relaxes the choke chain… course I’ve got plenty of buddies who owe me favors.”
“You’re not going to hurt him,” she said toward her shoulder, then looked to reassure Grant. “Rave’s not interested in CI company secrets and even if he was, he wouldn’t have to be in the building to reach them.”
“Implying that you’re selling company secrets?” Grant asked then frowned. “And why do you call him Rave?”
Answering that one was a breeze. “We’re out of the building and we’re not alone,” she said, realizing how well trained she was. “Rules are rules.”
Brodie’s hands closed
around her breasts again and he lowered his head to hum into the back of her neck. Grant’s lip curled in disgust. “I didn’t peg you as the type to be attracted to Neanderthals,” he sneered. “And I shouldn’t have to tell you not to fraternize on company time.”
Without taking his face from her skin, Brodie fielded a quip that came off as more threatening than funny. “Bet if she was fraternizing with you, you wouldn’t object so loud,” Brodie said, squeezing and fondling her breasts in an obvious attempt to show off and make Grant more uncomfortable. “Undo some of the buttons on that shirt, baby.”
Her smile was for display purposes only. Her lover’s actions were stirring chemicals in her brain that oozed down through her body and the arousal was making it difficult for her to focus. Taking Brodie’s wrists, she tried to pull his hands away to give herself a fighting chance of following the conversation, but he shook her grip from him and carried on groping.
“You’re making her uncomfortable,” Grant declared and he was right, but not for the reasons he thought. The last thing Zara would ever be was embarrassed of Brodie or his proprietary actions. Belonging to him was the greatest thrill she’d ever experienced and her pride in him was boundless.
“She knows how to make me stop if she wants me to,” Brodie said, kissing her neck through her ponytail. “And no one speaks for my woman except me, so you watch your step.”
Just happy that her breasts were distracting enough to quell Brodie’s usual instinct to be violent, Zara let him go on kissing and caressing. “Is there something that you needed?” she asked, trying to get rid of Grant before this situation turned nuclear, which it could at any given second.
It had taken her and Tuck working together to get Brodie off Grant the last time, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to separate them on her own. If Brodie decided it was time to finish Grant, he’d be able to do it in an instant.
Although he was visibly displeased and kept sneering at Brodie, Grant answered her question. “I came in to tell you that we have to go to New York this weekend.”
Brodie’s laugh was so rare that she probably looked as confused as Grant did when she heard it. “Nice try,” Brodie smirked. “She’s not going to New York.” Even when he seemed to be distracted, he was aware of everything that was going on.
Sounding more huffy than superior, Grant seemed to be losing his battle with his own restraint. “You are not in a position to influence her professional duties.”
Any discomfort she’d felt before at being groped by her boyfriend while her boss was standing over them, paled in comparison to the bolt of discomfort and terror that came when Brodie took her hips to move her aside. For Brodie to move her so deliberately out of his way suggested he wanted her a safe distance from whatever he was about to do. She was forgotten when he walked towards his brother, who did his best not to shrink in the face of Brodie’s intimidating stature.
“My name’s above the door on this place too,” Brodie’s baser growl made her swallow.
Even being the sole focus of this man’s love, and being in a secure place under his protection, she wasn’t saved from the flash of fear that the intensity of his words provoked. Soon though, the trepidation was replaced by arousal and admiration. Brodie was afraid of nothing and defended the honor of his beliefs and responsibilities no matter the circumstance. That was her man standing there between her and injustice. The environment didn’t matter, the subject didn’t matter, Brodie’s integrity never wavered.
That being the case, she was still on alert herself, Brodie wasn’t pleased and was probably looking for an outlet for the discomfort caused by his recent change in behavior. Being out and trying to return to form had to be rousing opposing reactions in him. If Brodie started a fight, this moment could change everything in a heartbeat.
Grant laughed and her eyes bulged in the shock of what his patronizing reaction would provoke. Leaping forward, she took Brodie’s hand to try to hold him back, but he extricated his digits and didn’t flinch, retreat, or even look at her.
“Laugh again, Saint, I dare you,” Brodie said, and she curled her lower lip over her teeth in anticipation of what would happen if he did.
He didn’t, but he did get rather haughty. “This company belongs to me. You got the estate, which has my name above the door as well.”
Both had been bequeathed to both boys after the death of their parents, she guessed that the decision to take one each was more of a gentleman’s agreement than a formal or legal one.
If it had been Grant’s intention to belittle or scare Brodie, he failed. “Except you’re too much of a pansy ass to step over the threshold,” Brodie said. He didn’t need to laugh to ridicule his brother.
Grant’s amusement vanished and the slight elevation of Brodie’s betrayed that the tables were turned. After being threatened so many times and caged for the last few months, Brodie was in no state to be cornered, he’d lash out like a terrorized animal, and it wouldn’t matter if the response was overkill or not. Brodie didn’t do half measures.
Trying to keep the peace, because she knew Grant had the upper hand here where he could call security to take Brodie down, Zara defended her love while trying to sound as balanced as she could. If this became an all-out war, Brodie would fight to take down as many security guys as possible before he surrendered. That might lead to the police being called, but if Kraft was around, they should be able to handle that. But she didn’t want them drawing that kind of attention to themselves when Sutcliffe was back on their radar. They had enough battles to fight already.
“In fairness, you wouldn’t be able to cross the threshold, Grant,” she said when Brodie took her fingers between his, indicating that he’d relaxed enough to shirk his violent temper. “You don’t have security clearance.”
It was Brodie’s turn to be calm and condescending. “So here I am in your camp when you don’t have a fucking hope of getting into mine,” Brodie said. “Now I understand your bitch fit.”
Grant was undeterred and widened a smug grin. “And what’s to stop Zara bringing me onto your territory as she’s done here today by bringing you onto mine. I assume she has clearance if she spends the night with you there.”
Zara hadn’t mentioned that she basically lived at the manor ninety percent of the time. “I—“
“I didn’t know you’d grown up to be such a comedian,” Brodie said, and the men got even closer, squaring off against one another.
“It’s possible,” Grant said.
“It’s not,” Brodie said, unthreatened, though he never was. “Now are you gonna fuck off so I can feed my girl? Her lunch break’s almost over.”
“You cooked?” Grant sneered, not believing the possibility for a second.
“She swallows,” Brodie said. Her jaw fell, but her shock was replaced by a smile when she read the slight tilt of Brodie’s lips, which made Grant draw back at the same time his own mouth fell open. Whatever he thought or wanted to say, he kept to himself and just glared at both of them before he turned and stormed out of the room. He obviously felt he couldn’t trump that declaration, and she would agree with him on that assumption, she had no come back either.
“You shouldn’t provoke him just because you can,” she said, watching her office door close.
Pulling her around to in front of him, he tugged the tie out of her hair to let her locks loose. “Who’s provoking?” he asked and released her hand to unbutton his jeans. “On your knees and open your mouth.”
“Here?” she asked, having never done anything sexual with anyone at work.
Brodie didn’t use words, the certainty was written on his face, he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. And because she was so proud of him for all the headway he’d made over the last day and night, she did as he requested and lowered herself onto her knees.
The thrill of being intimate with him here in her office was one she wouldn’t forget in a hurry. The fear of being caught was nothing in the face of the arousal this public intim
acy provoked. She smiled as she realized she enjoyed being an exhibitionist with Brodie McCormack. With him, she was always safe and they had to cherish these shared moments because there was no guarantee that there would be another of them.
After she swallowed what Brodie fed her, he slipped out without further discussion or drama, which was sort of odd because they hadn’t put a plan together and she wasn’t clear on what he’d done that morning. But there was still CI work to be done, so she put Kindred business to rest and got on with her day job. If they were having visitors tonight then that should mean there’d be forward momentum once they had all the information and ideas on the table.
It was nearly the end of the day when Grant returned to her office, he’d never been in here so frequently before. But he came in and stayed by the door. “I don’t want him in here again,” Grant said.
He was well within his rights to ask that, just as she was well within her rights to refuse him. But with tensions already stretched to breaking point, she wasn’t sure how much more her relationship with Grant could take, and the Kindred still needed someone on the inside.
Taking a cleansing breath, she closed her laptop. “You have to stop seeing him as your enemy,” she said without using Brodie’s name. If Grant could trust his brother then he could maybe be tempted into seeing things from the Kindred’s point of view. But after his earlier confession that he didn’t trust her, she couldn’t risk sharing any privileged information. “He’s a part of my life.”
“I told him that our father was a fool,” Grant said, strolling farther into the room. He retrieved a chair from the corner of her office and brought it over to put it in front of her desk. She didn’t often have visitors and when she did they were subordinate administrative staff. Her furniture wasn’t as luxurious as Grant’s, but he didn’t seem to care. “If you’re inviting Brodie into CI, I can only assume that your allegiance remains with him. So you have to understand the truth. Do you remember I told you that we argued, fifteen years ago?”
Swallow (Kindred Book 2) Page 12
