His eyes softened as they flicked to hers. “Want me to change it?”
Her heart thumped, that was an almost inadvertent admission on how he felt about her. Keeping the sparkle in her smile, she chose an indirect route. “Your dad loved her.”
“Yeah,” he exhaled, and his hand drifted to the door where he fingered the gun then let it go to crack his knuckles. “Why are we here, Zar?”
His impatience and irritation made him edgy, but she didn’t see his intoxication anymore so she took his hand and leaned over to guide his face around to her. “Because I want to know you from the beginning, beau. There’s nothing I don’t want to hear.”
He still looked pissed, so she knew she’d pushed him far enough tonight, and she didn’t want him to rebel by pushing her away. So, unbuttoning her coat, she pushed him back into his seat and climbed over to straddle his lap.
The discomfort vanished from his face and he grew cocky. “Now we get to the real reason why you wanted out of the house. You got a thing for screwing outdoors?” he asked, scooping his hands inside her jacket and parting it wide to expose her naked form as he curled his hands around her narrow waist. “You should’ve told me. The estate’s your playground, don’t ever forget it.”
And he was her playmate. “This is for you,” she said, sweeping her hair out of the way then pushing his forehead back and to the side so she could close her lips around his throat.
Undulating her hips against his fly, he grew to a solid mass under her stimulation with little time. “This fucking body’s for me,” he said, skimming his hands up to cradle her breasts.
“Yes, it is,” she said, tracing her lips up to suck hard on his neck.
He hissed and snatched her wrists to thrust her back against the dash. “Leaving your mark, baby?” he snarled, wearing a glare reminiscent of the wild beast he’d claimed to be.
His arousal was her goal and she was getting him to a full steam fast. “You didn’t get the full high school experience,” she said. He didn’t let go of her wrists, but let her lean forward to splay her hands on his chest and kiss his neck again. She nuzzled her way up to his ear. “You get a girl in your car, drive somewhere private… far out of town, all alone… and take advantage of her…”
“Is this my fantasy or yours?” he asked and she laughed while she continued kissing his neck.
“Naked under the overcoat,” she said, guiding his hands onto her breasts. “I’m a walking fantasy.”
“Yes, you are,” he said, toying with a nipple while the other moved south to finger her. “Am I supposed to pretend you’re a lily-white little virgin? Under the spell of the star football player?”
“If that’s your fantasy,” she whispered, riding his hand.
“That not how high school went for you?”
Grinning, she brushed her mouth over his. “I lost my virginity to the class outcast,” she said, running her tongue over his lower lip then tracing her lips to his ear. “He smoked cigarettes and shoplifted. He jacked cars, drove a beat up Camaro, and dropped out of school. When he gave me his leather jacket, I fell head over heels.”
“I’m stunned,” he said without expression, suggesting he was anything but. Given where she was, what she was doing, and that she loved him, an assassin, it couldn’t be much of a surprise to him that she was attracted to bad boys with questionable morals. Brodie took hold of her waist again, she loved the strength of his rough hands that gripped her and moved her at his whim. “How long were you with this guy before you decided you could do better?”
That was quite the question. Brodie didn’t want to know about high school, he wanted to know if he was on a clock. Somehow, she was learning how to read between the lines because Brodie’s questions—just like his movements—always had a purpose. If she could get bored of the high school dropout and move on when his rebellious nature became tiresome, then Brodie had to be thinking she would eventually tire of him.
Ironic that she’d been thinking not so long ago that Brodie may tire of her. Knowing her own heart and with full confidence in her staying power, she was happy to answer the question because her honest answer should reassure him.
“I never did,” she said, kissing his neck and pulling up his tee shirt so she could explore his physique. “I put out then he traded me in for a younger model and my heart was broken.”
It was so long ago, at the time she’d believed she would never recover. Looking back, she almost laughed at how invested she was, her high school boyfriend beguiled her and it took her years to get over losing him.
Wearing a frown, he was intrigued by her statement, but torn toward being distracted by her body. “A younger model?” he asked, running his hands over her, up under her coat to her ass and higher then back down over her hips.
Being more specific was easy, Zara wanted him to know everything about her. “She was a D-cup,” she said, rising on her knees to give herself space to loosen his jeans.
His eyes were drawn to her breasts, so she arched to optimize the view. “You have great cans, baby,” he said, cupping and shaking them then giving each a kiss.
She’d never been so proud of her breasts before they gained his seal of approval. “You wouldn’t trade them in?” she asked, tightening her fingers around his dick.
“Not for nothing,” he said.
Brodie was a serious person, but with a naked woman on his lap he became a typical man willing to say anything in order to get some. Still, she appreciated that he took the time to compliment and reassure her because it was satisfying to know that he’d noticed. At the same time, she didn’t need him to be anything that he wasn’t.
Stroking her hands up to his naked chest, his tee shirt gathered at her wrists. “You know that I don’t need words, beau. You give me everything I need. I’m crazy in love with you. You’re my world and I’m so grateful for you.”
Slanting her mouth over his, there was no time to sink into their kiss because he opened his fingers on her cheeks and eased her back. Keeping his fingers wide apart, he stroked his hands up to push her hair back from her face with his calloused palms. “I’m an asshole,” he said.
“I know.”
He lost his gaze in hers. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
Leaning forward, her lips brushed his. “I know that too,” she whispered and dipped her tongue into his mouth.
FIFTEEN
Yawning, Zara stretched out her body on their vast bed at the manor and smiled into the light cascading around her. Brodie slept with the blackout blinds closed, it was her who liked to wake up with the light. So if Brodie was here, there shouldn’t be any sunlight, she should be waking up to a room so devoid of sunlight that a vampire would be happy to reside here.
Flattening her arm on the mattress to search behind her, she found no body in the bed with her. Sitting upright, Zara scanned their bedroom. He wasn’t here. Leaping from the bed, she knew better than to look for a note or some other token of affection.
She ran to the closet, jumped into her underwear, and snatched one of Brodie’s button down shirts from the hanger because it was closest to hand. Buttoning the shirt as she ran down the stairway, she first checked the kitchen. It was empty. But the cups next to the sink were still dripping, so she took that as a sign they hadn’t been washed too long ago.
On her dash downstairs to the garage, she fastened the remaining shirt buttons. When she burst through the doorway, the first thing she heard was a vehicle starting up. Panic ebbed when she saw the steel grey pick-up by the open garage door with Tuck, Thad, and Brodie there beside it.
Her sudden entrance drew their attention. “Morning, Zara!” Thad said, grinning at her legs, though the shirt hung to her knees, so she wasn’t concerned about revealing too much skin.
Brodie shoved Thad’s head and Tuck laughed, but Brodie was already on his way over to her.
Touching his oblique’s, she walked backwards at Brodie’s urging when he took her shoulders. “You were going to
leave without saying goodbye?” she panted.
With his eyes focused over her head, he kept walking forward. “Hush,” he murmured and turned her around to crowd her back into the stairwell.
He turned her around to face him again when the door closed. “Were you?” she asked.
Lowering his focus to meet hers, he grazed her cheekbone with his fingertips. “You should’ve stayed in bed.”
After making out like teenagers in the car at White Falls and returning to the manor to canoodle again before falling asleep, she hadn’t had time to get specifics on the trip’s itinerary. “How long will you be gone?”
“A few days, a week, maybe more,” he said. “We’ll stay until we get what we need.”
She nodded and inhaled, Art had told her that Brodie worked away a lot, so she’d known she would have to prepare to be without him. He hadn’t even left the building and she was already worried. But Brodie, as Raven, had done jobs far more complicated than this one and riskier too. Loving a man in his line of work meant accepting the risks, but that didn’t mean she had to be happy about them.
Without even a glimmer of a hangover, his expression was keen and his body hard. He could do this, she had faith in him, and he didn’t show the slightest hint of doubt or fear. “We’re gonna stakeout Sutcliffe and his army. There’s a guy out there, he’s doing background for Sutcliffe. His name’s Rigor, we’ve worked with him before, he’s a game player, and a crazy megalomaniac. But if we can get ahold of the information he’s delivering to Sutcliffe…”
Brodie had been doing this for most of his life. She couldn’t imagine there was anyone out there he hadn’t worked with. Anyone worth working with anyway. “You can know what he knows,” she said and nodded. “Ok.”
Brodie shook his head, though she didn’t know what he was disagreeing with, he didn’t appear too happy. “I don’t want you involved in that. Two things Rigor loves more than power: women and cards. He only gets to set eyes on you when he absolutely has to. You get me?”
Keeping her away from the assignment wasn’t a power play; he was trying to protect her. Brodie was using Raven to put distance between her and danger. Raven had a job to do and he had to keep his head clear to do it. But for three months, Brodie had locked himself up here in the manor, and although she’d been worried for him, she hadn’t realized that he’d become her crutch. Knowing where he was reassured her and now she was losing that assurance.
“Ok, you’re the chief,” she said, averting her gaze when her inhale sounded ragged. With his fingertips on her cheekbone, he made her look at him. In her desire to alleviate the concern etched on his face, she smiled. “Do you guys have time to drop me off at home? I can get changed in—“
He caught her when she tried to retreat backwards to the stairs. “I want you to stay here,” he said with nothing but determination. “Don’t go back to your apartment, stay here.”
She had never been in this house alone before. Sometimes it felt like she was because Brodie was brooding somewhere in private. But his assertion that she should reside in his private space while no one else was here surprised her. “But you could be gone for weeks and—“
She tried to take her hand back, but he yanked her body to his. “Tuck showed you how to use all the systems, right?” She nodded. “You remember what I told you about this house? Tell me.”
On the first night she’d come to visit, he’d invited her to stay and alleviated her apprehension before she’d voiced it. “That if I trust you I have nothing to fear in this house.”
Pride colored him and she did enjoy pleasing him. “Atta girl,” he said, brushing his thumb over the front of her chin.
He took a step back, and it was her turn to get ahold of him because she wasn’t ready to lose him yet. Once he walked out of here, she’d lose the invisible cord that bonded them. More importantly, Brodie would lose it and he still needed a touchstone. “Why weren’t you going to say goodbye?”
He loosened, thought for half a second, then shrugged. “I’ve never said goodbye,” he said. “I always just… go.”
No, he hadn’t. Even during their first encounters, he had just slipped away—here one minute, gone the next. He hadn’t said goodbye to Art, he just buried him without ceremony. Keeping himself detached was probably good for business, but not acknowledging his feelings could lead to major meltdowns as had been recently proven. And as his girlfriend, she wanted more from him than a standard colleague relationship, which was pretty much all he’d had with others until now.
Getting personal, she reminded him of their connection. “You might have enjoyed saying goodbye to me in bed.” Pushing her chest to his torso, her lips curled into a tease.
This fish wasn’t for biting. “No one comes into this house,” he said, coiling a strand of her hair around his index finger, watching his hand instead of her face. “Check the security log every morning and you know the lockout code?”
Guessing he was getting himself into the zone he needed to be in to do his job, she surrendered. “Treble one, zero, one.”
Stroking his fingers down her face, he swept them through her hair until he had ahold of her neck with her hair tangled between his digits. He might not be using words, but his actions were intimate and she took solace in that. “If anything happens, if we disappear from radar, go to the top floor of the south tower,” he said. “You’ll find what you need in there.”
Under other circumstances, she would probably have gone straight to that location to snoop. But she didn’t dare think of a time when she might need that information. So although she heard him, she didn’t ask questions and immediately filed that detail into her brain but chose to otherwise ignore it.
“Beau,” she said, sliding her hands up to his neck when he squeezed the back of hers, she dug her nails into him. “I love you.”
Watching the words coming out of her mouth, he narrowed his eyes and there were three clear beats of silence. “And no other guys. Be on the end of the phone when I call.”
He pulled her close and kissed her hard, then turned to walk away. She didn’t expect sonnets or a dozen roses on her doorstep, but she couldn’t figure out why he wouldn’t reciprocate her words when his actions suggested his feelings were as deep as hers. Maybe it was just too much for him to consider when there were so many other things on the table.
It didn’t matter that she was disappointed. She would keep on trying, keep on reminding him of how she felt until he returned the gesture or shut her down. Coaxing Brodie into something he didn’t want to do was no easy feat, but she was committed to her man and to the love she had for him.
One day became another and all she could do was guess that the Kindred were safe because there was no communication from them. She stayed in the manor, as requested, and only went back to her apartment to pick up more of her stuff as she needed it.
Moving into the manor was inevitable given that it was Brodie’s wish; he knew how to get what he wanted. But she found it easier and more discreet to pick up a few of her things at a time rather than taking a bunch at once.
Maintaining a normal routine was her responsibility, so she went to work at CI, did her job, and came home again. Sitting at her desk, she was counting down the seconds until she could leave to check the manor systems for signs of communication.
The intercom on her phone buzzed. “Can you come through to my office for a minute?” Grant asked through the speaker.
Zara rose and left her office to enter her boss’s. He didn’t usually summon her this late in the day, but she was at his disposal whenever he needed her. She drew comfort from the normality of their professional life, especially being that their personal lives were so chaotic.
She expected to go into his office to receive instructions. What she didn’t expect to see was Griffin Caine, yet there he was, seated at Grant’s desk like he had every right in the world to be there.
Grant stood up, wearing a smile, but she stormed over with an arm outstretched in Cai
ne’s direction. “What the hell is he doing here?” she demanded of Grant, filled with horror and anger.
“This is Mr. Caine,” Grant said with faltering glee.
Switching her glare onto Caine, she was reviled to see his pleasure. “Miss Bandini, what a pleasure to see you again,” he said.
He got up as if to shake her hand, but she recoiled from his reach. “Don’t you dare think about touching me,” she hissed.
Caine was still relaxed and that brought a foul taste to her mouth. “I’m just being polite,” he said, but she wasn’t fooled by his sinister smile.
Leaning toward him, she recalled their first meeting and the bruise Brodie had sported on his jaw before his departure. “Just give him the excuse,” she snarled, trying to burn her hatred into him. This man wanted to hurt the person she loved the most in this world. Nothing he could say would endear her to him, just being in his presence made her feel sick. “You touch me and I’ll give him that excuse.”
“Zara,” Grant chastised and came around the desk to grasp her shoulder. “Mr. Caine heard about what happened at Purdy’s and he got in touch with me. He has extensive experience in the security industry and he is especially interested in ensuring—“
“He’s interested in ensuring his own interests,” she said, lifting her arm away from Grant. “You didn’t think it was rather convenient that this lunatic security agent called you up and made himself available?”
“I think it’s necessary for us to protect ourselves,” Grant said, closing in on her while Caine lowered into his seat, smugger than ever. “I think it’s my responsibility to—“
“I’m not your responsibility,” she said, furious with Grant. “If Sutcliffe wants to hurt me because I hurt him then let him. He can’t get to me. I think I proved the other night that I can take care of myself.”
Grant was adamant to the point of insulting her. “I am not willing to risk your safety. I don’t care what you tell me about your boyfriend. He’s too busy wallowing in his own self—“
Swallow (Kindred Book 2) Page 17
