by India Kells
“Damn, I need that bloody blanket. It’s the only good one I have.”
Dylan put a hand on his shoulder. “Calm down, Bear. I’m sure those teenagers were not here to steal your blanket but only to taunt you. I wouldn’t be surprised if they threw it away when they fled.”
Bear harrumphed and Dylan looked around. Then, bending behind a dumpster, she retrieved the worn gray blanket.
Owen stood in the opening, examining the alley, but she was quite certain none of Bear’s attackers had remained in the vicinity.
Dylan gave the old man his sandwich and coffee and tucked the blanket more tightly around his body. “Are you sure you wouldn’t be better in a shelter tonight? What if those idiots come around again?”
His mouth full, Bear shook his head. “No shelter. And if these twits are in for another round, I’m game.”
Bear was getting stronger by the minute, and feisty, too. It was now Dylan’s turn to shake her head.
“Don’t do anything you would regret. Eat your sandwich and rest.”
The man grumbled something unintelligible at her and focused back on his food. There was nothing more she could say or do to make the man budge, so she decided to leave him alone for now.
Owen followed her as they exited the alley into the crisp fresh air of the street. The area was nearly empty. Only late-nighters were hurriedly going back home, ignoring anybody else in their path. She took a deep lungful of air, trying to get rid of the anger simmering inside of her, about stupid teenagers attacking a helpless man. She had to remind herself that she wasn’t a cop anymore and it was impossible to protect everybody, but responsibility weighed heavily on her shoulders … even if that responsibility wasn’t her own to carry. And now the only thing she wanted was to get rid of Owen.
“So? Now that you have dutifully accompanied me and protected me on the dangerous mission of delivering sandwiches and coffee, are you going back to your security duties?”
Owen gave her a sideways glance. “Let me remind you that I’m independently employed.”
“So am I, and I’m returning to work.”
Owen nodded. “Very well. Let me—”
Dylan turned to him, cutting him mid-sentence. “Thank you, but no thanks. I don’t need a bodyguard, I never did. And right now, I want to return home, alone.”
Owen’s face was perfectly blank before he nodded. “Then, it’s a good night, Dylan.”
Dylan winced. “Sorry about me being a bitch right now. I’m tired. Sincerely, thank you for helping with Bear, and accompanying me.”
She smiled and stepped to him to give him a quick hug. The first thing that surprised her was the missing discomfort that normally came when she was in contact with human beings, and everything she guessed was confirmed when she wrapped her arms around his middle; there was nothing soft about him. She released him before he could return the hug. As she stepped back, she waved and kept walking. “Good-bye, Owen. See you around.”
He stood there, stunned and confused, his arms in midair, as if about to hug her while she was already gone. Dylan smiled to herself and continued walking as she pocketed his wallet, disappearing around the next corner.
It was easy to take a few detours to make sure she wasn’t followed. Once back in her apartment, she put the wallet on her work table. Quickly opening a few pages on her computer, she entered the name found on his identity cards, and let an automated program of hers do the research.
After a quick shower, Dylan secured her apartment, clicking on her white noise machine, and slid between the cool sheets of her bed. Her eyes closed, her body relaxed, but her mind whirled, continually going back to Owen. Dee was right, there was something about him, drawing her to him. And it was difficult to forget the heat through his clothing, the hard muscles she had felt against her body. How long since she ached for human contact? Preferable not to remember. The control she had rebuilt, one painful brick at the time, didn’t include such emotions. But beyond the control, lust couldn’t be denied. It insinuated itself in her belly, heating her flesh. Her hands rubbed her thighs, and decided there wasn’t anything wrong about fantasizing on a handsome, mysterious man, with the bluest eyes she had ever seen. The honed body she could guess underneath his clothes fanned that flame, and that’s when she decided there would be no shut eye for her until she took care of the man stirring desire in her mind.
She cupped her breasts, playing with her nipples as she imagined the tall, muscled man towering her, his unique lopsided smile discernible underneath his golden beard. How would his pelted cheeks feel against her skin, her neck, her breasts? How would he look, naked, his body covering hers, his mouth gliding a wet trail from her ear to the crook of her neck, in between her breasts? Mimicking the images in her head, her hands lingered on her most sensitive spots.
Avoiding her scars, forcing herself to imagine her body as it was a long time ago, she evaded the puckered patterns letting her hand drift between her legs. Pushing her thighs apart, enough so the wide shoulders of Owen could fit between her legs, Dylan contoured her sex with a finger. Would the golden god do the same? Touch her as she dreamed. Or tease her mercilessly as she secretly longed?
Her breath accelerated, as she teased herself, too—denying her pleasure, advancing and retreating, her body tensing.
Dylan imagined Owen, his mouth glistening with her arousal, leaving her frustrated and wanting as he looked up at her, a wolfish gleam in his eyes. In her mind, she could see him clearly, his golden skin within her reach under the pale moonlight filtering through the window. He was kneeling between her legs now, a tight grasp on his impressive erection. At the thought, Dylan smiled behind her closed lids. After all, she could imagine his anatomy as she wished, as big and as large as she wanted him to be. As she ached for him to be.
As he stroked himself, it was to his face that Dylan’s mind wandered. In her fantasy, his entire face would be consumed by lust for her. Only for her. He wouldn’t be able to help himself.
Undone, he would push himself inside of her, slowly, the friction untenable between them. As she imagined him filling her, Dylan let her slick fingers slide against her clit, softly at first, as her hips started to move to the rhythm of her secret fantasy. But she quickly intensified the touch; it had been too long since she had such an intense lust flooding her veins. Now frantic, she touched herself with the only goal of orgasm, as quickly and as skillfully as possible. Sweat misted her skin, and she imagined Owen, as breathless as she was, his hardened body glowing with the effort, in his own pursuit of ecstasy.
When pleasure exploded inside of her, making her cry out, the only voice she heard was the groans and shouts of Owen in her make-believe world, as he lost himself inside of her.
Chapter 4
When she woke up later the day after, it took only thirty seconds to find out who Owen Sorenson was and who had probably sent him to find her. However, it took Dylan more than an hour to regain some sort of controlled calm before being able to call the traitor.
“Dylan? Are you all right?”
She ignored the worry in Beatrice’s voice at her unexpected call. “I’m fine, but one of your agents will soon cease to breathe if you don’t call him off my tail!”
The silence at the other end of the line was telling. “How could you, Beatrice! There are good reasons why nobody must know my identity! You of all people know that! How dare you send one of your dogs after me without my consent?”
“I didn’t tell Owen who you were. I only asked him to try to find one of our agents and protect him. That’s all. To be honest, I’m impressed that he had found you at all.”
“He didn’t.”
Another silence on the other end of the line. “Care to explain that sentence?”
Dylan exhaled though her teeth. “He was close, though. He approached me, and let it slip that he was searching for someone called Dogberry.”
“And how did you find out his real name?”
“He presented himself as Owen. I ju
st had to steal his wallet to find out the rest.”
“Sorry to disappoint, my dear, but Owen Sorenson is a Navy SEAL and shadow operative. He doesn’t slip information unless he decides to.”
Dylan resisted the urge to bang her head against the wall. She had been so stupid. And because of a pretty face. The only time she decided to fling her caution and instinct to the wind was the one time she had been wrong.
“So he knew all along …”
“I only told him to protect Dogberry. No more information. And to be discreet about it. I didn’t tell him who you were or even that you were a woman. I didn’t want to send any signal that someone was searching for you.”
“And I walked right into that trap.” Dylan checked out her window, half-expecting Owen Sorenson to be there on the sidewalk, a gloating smile on his face.
“I didn’t send anybody to protect you. He’s one of the best men of James’, and my husband had the courtesy of lending him to us.”
Dylan scoffed at that. Admiral James Feander, a.k.a. Mr. Beatrice Dante, was as stubborn and cunning as his wife, and it wasn’t out of courtesy that he did anything. Which meant that both of them were set on pinning her with a watchdog, despite everything she could say in the matter.
“You know that I can pack my bags and be gone before your dumb operative can sneeze, right?”
“We had another attack.”
That stopped Dylan from spitting an acidic remark. Instead, worry tugged hard.
“What was attacked? What did they access?”
“Nothing it seems, but we’re still searching. Instead, they left us something. A picture.”
Dylan waited a beat, her throat swallowing reflexively as numbness started to spread across her body. That couldn’t be.
“I don’t know where it came from, it’s the first time I’ve seen this one in particular. It’s like from another angle. Also, you seem to be unconscious in it.”
“Enough!” Bile rose, and it took every ounce of control she had to remain calm and not crack down into a full-fledged panic attack. Instead, Dylan planted her feet solidly on the floor and fought the dizziness creeping into the back of her mind. “I’m coming to you, Bea. Tonight.”
“No. Bad idea. I think that whoever is attempting to reach you expects exactly that. They want you to reappear into the light, to come here. Stay put … for now at least.”
“I can try to remotely track the attack back to its origin point. But it will take me a lot more time.”
“Don’t do anything that might reveal your location.” Even with her calm tone, Dylan could still detect a hint of worry.
“I thought about that. That’s why it would take me more time than usual. And I will need to prepare for it. And not tonight. I will require the logs and everything our team has found so far. Don’t send anything by email. I’m closing my accounts and reopening new ones. I’ll safeguard all my Internet accesses. Put everything in our secured cloud account.”
“Consider it done. But, I want something from you, Dylan. Keep Owen close. Especially when you’re working. I know you. Involved as you are in your work, you can become a target if not careful enough.”
“Beatrice …”
“Do it for me, okay? I trust Owen with my life and I know I can trust him with yours, too. I wouldn’t ask this of you, if I wasn’t concerned. Very concerned.”
It wasn’t the words less than the voice that forced Dylan to agree with her terms. Beatrice wasn’t shaken easily. And this attack cut deeper than any mission she had worked on. It was deeply personal. For both of them.
“All right. I promise I will keep your watchdog close. Until we find out more about what’s going on.”
“Thank you. I’ll give you Owen’s number.”
“I already have it. And yes, his scrambled phone, too … with all his addresses and account numbers.”
“I tend to forget how dangerous you are, Dylan.”
“Well, I hope you gave that tidbit of information to Owen Sorenson. I’ll let you call him. And tell him to meet me at the same place as last night, same time tonight. He will know. In the meantime, I will start setting my place up, be ready for what you will send me.”
“Be careful, Dylan. I have a creepy feeling about this.”
“Me too. But what I know is that the monster is dead … and if he had spawned, we will take care of it as before. Together.”
Chapter 5
Dylan was tempted to stop walking right now, retrace her steps and go to her apartment to pack and disappear. Again. This had been her modus operandi for so long now, she was unable to even remember when it started. No. It was impossible to lie to herself. She knew very well when it started. It was easy to remember the place, the time of day, and the tremendous hole inside of her, the one she was so close to fall into, or to allow to swallow her whole.
And now, for the first time in many years, she was forced to stay. Even worse, she had promised a friend, one of very few, to let a complete stranger help her out. Protect her. Not so long ago, the mere thought of letting a man protect her would have made her burst in laughter. Her finger itched for her side arm, to touch the badge she had for so long at her belt. She was more than capable of defending herself, and her accepting this situation was for Beatrice’s benefit only. She owed the woman so much. She owed Beatrice her life. Unconsciously, her hand traced her ribs and felt the ridges there, hidden under thick cotton. A constant reminder heightened by increased nausea. One of many proofs telling her that sometimes even the greatest skills, intelligence, and determination couldn’t do anything against evil, or destiny, or the weakness of her own body. She had to believe that. Otherwise, all her pain and suffering, all that she had left behind would have been for nothing.
Dylan hitched her backpack higher on her shoulders when she pushed the door of Dee’s Café.
“Hey! Finally, you’re here!!”
She barely had the time to brace before the small bundle of energy jumped into her arms, squeezing her tight. Dylan shivered in discomfort, but didn’t push her away, sensing something was wrong.
“Adelia, are you all right?” Dylan rubbed her back, feeling her friend shivering.
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Her eyes were rimmed and red; she had cried. “It’s about Bear.”
Dylan squeezed her friend’s arms as her heart sank at her words. “What about Bear?”
Fresh tears started to run down Dee’s cheeks. “He’s dead. I’m so sorry, Dylan.”
“What happened?” Her voice sounded calm but her heart constricted painfully in her chest.
“The police came here this morning, they had found him in an alley, stabbed, several times.”
Dylan closed her eyes. “Oh no. Did they say anything about the attack? Why he was stabbed?”
Dee shook her head. “They’re thinking that it was a random kill, probably a gang, or someone he may have antagonized. They said that as he was a homeless person, there could have been many reasons. It was probably going to be a cold case.”
“Why did the police come here? How did they know?”
“They said that they found wrappings from the café near him. They asked if I knew if someone was giving him food, and I told them it was me.”
“Oh, Dee. You didn’t have to lie …”
Smiling weakly, the tiny woman laid a hand on her cheek. “I didn’t want to involve you. And it was a simple lie by omission. I didn’t want you to be bothered.”
Dylan didn’t know what to say, moved by her gesture. “Thank you.”
Dee nodded, and returned to the counter. “Well, I hope they find the murderer. That poor man deserves justice. He liked my food, so he couldn’t be all that bad.”
Dylan smiled. “I couldn’t agree more.”
The brunette shook her head. “And if we’re lucky, the night won’t be a total waste and that cute bearded blond will be back.”
As the image of Owen flashed in her mind, Dylan turned to confirm that he hadn’t arrived yet.
/>
“So, do you want something to eat?”
“Just one big ass coffee, please.”
Dee sniffled before giving her a quick wink as she walked back behind the counter. Dylan sat at the same booth as she did yesterday and grabbed her laptop. Her system at home was already hard at work, preparing for Beatrice’s information to come through. It should arrive tomorrow morning at the latest, giving her enough time to setup her shields. Whoever was trying to send her a message would have a nasty surprise when they found out who they were really dealing with.
Her laptop booted up as Dee came with her coffee. While she waited for Owen, Dylan hacked police files, trying to see if there was anything about Bear’s murder yet. She doubted it. And right as rain, nothing was to be found. Writing up reports was the bane of a cop’s existence, and they all tended to leave that for the very end. Herself included. She would have to check later tonight.
