The tempo had slowed down, and he wouldn’t let her change it back.
It was maddening.
Crazy.
Frustrating.
Even while hurt, he was making her want to break free and take everything he had to offer.
“I want to watch you fall, baby. Then, you can go nuts and ride me like it’s the end of the world.”
She loved how giving Quinn was in bed. So, instead of fighting it, Callie did just that. The mating was slow, silky, and drawn out. As the tip of him touched so very deep into her body, they both fought to stay in control.
Quinn filled her, making it hard to not unravel at the seams. She desperately wanted to take them both over. Leaning over him, she yanked the shirt from her body, giving him the perfect view.
He watched her like a starving man at a buffet. It was like he couldn’t decide what to take in first. There were her breasts, the silky-smooth skin, and the junction at which she was accepting him into her body.
It was all too much to take. When Callie began vibrating around him, Quinn knew he’d lied. There was no way he’s survive this. She was breaking his control just by being his wife.
With one last slide down, Callie shouted his name and brought her mouth down to his to swallow his guttural shout. As tongues tangled, they fell as one.
The heat exploded around them as they both held on.
Callie began surfacing first, pushing up through the wild waves of desire. When she stared down at him, Quinn’s face was awash with so much pleasure.
When his eyes finally opened, he began to apologize. “I’m sorry. I just…”
She placed her fingers over his lips. “Never say you’re sorry for falling with me. Just never leave me alone.”
He knew she wasn’t talking about sex.
Staring up into her blue eyes, he made the vow. “I’m never leaving you, Callista. I promise.”
It was good enough. Callie knew his word was gold.
“I love you, Quinton.”
“You’re my heart.”
With that, they curled together and fell into sleep. Grateful for what they survived that day, even as they prayed tomorrow would be better.
It had to be.
They both needed to live. Not for themselves, but for each other.
Chapter Twenty- Four
Sunday One A.M.
H is blood and heart pounded in his ears. The breath escaped his body in a slow steady release as he fought to work his way through the darkness of the woods. The main road wasn’t far ahead.
He’d been on it before.
Now that his truck was submerged in the chilly lake water, he had no choice but to rush through the trees.
The cold water had nearly killed him.
Death almost claimed him in victory.
Had it not been for his training, he wouldn’t have made it out alive. His only remorse was for his old truck.
He loved it like it was a living, breathing extension of his life.
Yet, he was still alive, so thank God for his boot camp days.
Captain Jayson Woods looked down frantically at his phone, trying to get a signal.
His only hope now was to find one and send the message. Hopefully his boss would get it. Then she would send out the alert, warning the team.
Finally, as he escaped the thick brush, his cell had two bars. While he wished he had military equipment, this would have to do.
Typing in the message, he kept it short and sweet. Major Gaines would understand. She would see that they were compromised and take control.
He had to hope she would.
After all, she was the leader.
A chill swept his cold body, and he shivered. Pushing the send button, the message was on its way. Now, all Jayson could hope was that Maura would get it.
And take control.
Their lives all depended on it.
He continued his trek across the busy highway to a safe spot he knew about. For now, he would go under and wait for her command.
Then, and only then, he would move.
Being a soldier had its advantages.
But being a ghost had so many more.
* * * C a r t e r C h r o n i c l e s * * *
The beep of her phone signaled an incoming message. Maura knew it well. She’d trained her body to wake at the tone. It could mean a mission that they were heading out on or something more.
In this case, she knew it would be the latter.
Pulling away from sleep, she realized that she must have passed out. Her body was being cradled lovingly against Luke’s. When she glanced up, he was watching her.
His baby blue eyes were filled with worry.
It made her feel unsettled. He sensed something was going on with the incoming message.
She could see it.
If anything, she’d learned over the last few days that Lucas Mars was really good at feeling a situation out. In fact, he was incredibly astute. It was one of the skills that she found made Marines great.
They just knew when the shit was about to hit the fan.
Apparently, they had so much more in common.
“Hey,” he said softly, brushing some of the golden-brown strands of hair from her cheek.
“I must have fallen asleep.”
He smiled gently. “We both did. I hope we didn't burn out the cell battery.”
“Thank you for holding me, Luke.”
He stopped her before she could say anything more. “Maura, honey, I’ll hold you for the rest of our lives, if you’d let me.”
She knew he would. The man was worth his weight in gold, and his word was worth even more.
Maura needed to get off his body so that she could focus on the thing that had pulled her from sleep. There was a text message, and it might be important.
Luke stared at the screen and didn't have a clue what was going on. The code was foreign to him.
“It has to be from one of your men. It’s in military-ese.” Handing it to her, he already felt bereft when she moved off his body. He had enjoyed Maura sleeping on him the last few hours. Every time she would move, a part of him would wake, longing to have that contact once more.
From her breath on his chest.
To her fingers on his abs.
He never wanted it to stop.
Yet, he had that feeling something bad was coming. It reminded him of the time he and Nate were out in the field. By the time it was over, the suspect was dead, Luke had been shot, and Nate nearly lost his job.
Yeah, this felt just like that--hauntingly so.
And it already had dread filling his body.
Handing it to her, Luke waited for the translation. From the look on her face, it wasn’t going to be good.
Maura grabbed the notepad lying on the coffee table and began working out the code. She sat there scribbling the message.
“Well, shit,” she muttered, glancing up at him.
“What does it say?”
Maura handed him the notepad and let him read it for himself.
Ghost One we’ve been compromised. The betrayer nearly got me. My truck is in Marshwood Pond. Trust no one, including FBI. I’m going off the grid. Warn Red. I’ll text you when I’m safe.
~JW.
Luke had to read it a couple of times. Here was where the fear had come from. Her own teammate was telling her run from them.
From him.
Maura was being told by one of her men not to trust the safety she was surrounded by. It made his gut clench in fear and anger.
After all, he’d proven that he was trustworthy.
Hadn’t he?
Already the seeds of doubt had been planted. He could clearly see the worry on her face, and how she was already moving away from him. It was as if Maura was taking a defensive position in case her man had been right.
It tore at his heart.
The woman he loved didn't have faith in him.
Now, the hell was about to begin.
“We be
tter call Quinn,” she stated, watching him with a very blank look on her face.
“Yeah, we probably should. It seems that we have a very big problem.”
The shrill ring of his phone woke them up. When Quinn went to move, he was in pain. It was his groan that signaled to Callie that she needed to answer the call.
Grabbing it, she handed it over.
“Hello?” he muttered. It wasn’t like he wasn’t accustomed to getting these kinds of calls at night, but it didn't mean he liked them. Right now, he wanted to heal and sleep beside his very naked wife.
“Quinton, I need you.”
It was all she had to say. Quinn was upright in bed and waiting to hear more from his baby sister. Putting the phone on speaker, he wanted his wife to be privy to everything.
“What’s wrong?”
“I just got a text from Jayson Woods. Someone tried to kill him.”
“What happened?”
She read him the text. At the part where she recited the ‘don’t trust the FBI’, she could hear his audible hiss of breath. Maura was trained to be suspicious, but there was one man she knew wouldn’t ever hurt her.
Then, she glanced up at Luke.
Okay, make that two.
Callie heard the details and was up out of bed in a flash. She began scribbling the name of the pond down, in case they needed to track the man. It gave them his last known location.
“It’s got to be bad, Quinn. He wouldn’t tell me to not trust the Feds unless he knew something. Could we have a leak?”
Quinn thought about all the people who knew Jayson’s location. There were only a handful, and for a reason. He could count on his one hand the number of people who were privy to the information.
That was it.
If there was a leak, he didn't see how. They’d never told anyone about the team going under.
Quinn looked over at the FBI tablet sitting on the table. “Callie, honey, could that be hacked?”
She wasn’t sure. “Luke is more the one who knows things like that,” she stated.
Quinn needed to know. “Maura, I need to talk to Luke.” He waited until the man’s voice came over the phone. “I need a quick answer.”
“Shoot.”
“Can your tablets be hacked? We were using them and placed the information on them.”
“I don’t see how. If they were, it’s traceable. You just need to get someone high up to run the search and see if our files were compromised.”
Quinn would make sure they did. He wasn’t buying the hacking thing, but he couldn’t be sure.
At that point, they needed to peruse every option.
“You need to pull his truck out of the pond,” Luke said. “It might give us some evidence. Maybe the vehicle that ran him off the road will have a specific paint color, or something that the tech team can use to find an owner. It could narrow the suspect list down for us.”
“Yeah, we’re going to have the Feds do it. Is my sister listening?”
“No. Why?” At that moment, Maura was pacing erratically around the room, trying to find a way to make a break for it.
Luke could see it.
“Do you think someone leaked the locations?”
He couldn’t be sure, but if they had, someone would have found them by now. Maura was the bait. She would be the one the killer would want most of all. After all, she was a woman running a man’s team.
She was the personification of sin to the killer.
“No, or we would be compromised too. It’s quiet here.”
That’s what Quinn wanted to hear. “I’m trusting you with my sister, Luke. You keep her safe no matter what.”
“I will,” he stated, “with my life.”
“Thank you. I trust you. Now, put me on speaker. I need to talk to my sister, and you should hear it too.”
He did what he was told.
“Maura, have you heard from Redmond Churchill yet?” Quinn asked
“No, but I can contact him.”
Quinn thought about it. “We don’t want to spook him if he’s safe. Let’s call in some of the big guns and go from there,” Quinn offered.
“Not the military,” Callie stated. “Our killer has to be on the inside. It’s the only way Jayson could be compromised.”
“Okay,” stated Maura nervously. Her team was in danger, and instinctually she wanted to save them. The only reason she wasn’t losing her mind was that she trusted her brother and sister-in-law.
Family always stuck.
“Since we can’t trust the military, I know who we can call,” Callie added. “I have to call the Blackhawks. Elizabeth will know what to do.”
There was no choice.
They were in over their heads.
It was time to get back-up.
Before making the call, Callie headed into her brother’s bedroom. When she lightly tapped, she could hear his voice.
“Come in.”
Pushing the door open, Callie entered.
When he saw his sister, he immediately sat upright. “What’s wrong? Is Quinn okay?” he asked, pulling the sheet around his lower body.
“We’re good, but we have a huge problem,” she said, sitting beside him on the bed.
“What’s wrong?”
Callie proceeded to tell him all about text from Jayson Woods and how Maura was in potential danger.
“I don’t think the FBI compromised her,” he stated. “We didn't tell anyone where they were. In fact, I didn't write it down.”
That made her relax a little more. “Me either. So, there’s no need to check if our systems were hacked?”
Nate thought about it. “We can check, but I don’t think they were. When I searched Oracle, it was flagged. I’d bet a million bucks that the Blackhawks already did the same thing to any files we have.”
That helped alleviate her fears.
“I’ll let you get dressed. We’re meeting downstairs in the kitchen to discuss what we’re going to do.”
Nate was good with that.
“I’ll be right down.”
* * * C a r t e r C h r o n i c l e s * * *
When he finally arrived downstairs, both Callie and Quinn were sitting at the table drinking coffee. The looks on their faces said it all.
In all honesty, he was feeling it too. Nate knew that the next step was to notify their bosses, and he hated doing that this early in the morning.
It always felt like he failed when he had to wake and advise them when something had gone wrong.
“We were just talking about Quinn’s injury,” Callie stated. “I know he didn't want to tell his sister to freak her out, but we need them to be aware of what’s going on. Keeping them in the dark isn't going to help them out.”
Nate glanced over at the man. He could see the battle brewing across his features. “I think we need to.”
Quinn sighed, knowing that he’d been outvoted on this one. They had a point, but it still irritated the shit out of him. “Fine.”
“How about we handle that first?” Callie suggested. “Then I’ll call the Blackhawks.”
Nate was relieved. Technically, he outranked his sister and should be taking one for the team, making the call, BUT if she wanted to deal with them, so be it.
He was grateful.
“I agree,” he said, pulling out his phone. Purposely, he called Luke’s number, hoping the man’s phone was on.
On the third ring, his voice came over the line. “What’s up, Nate?” he asked.
“Are you okay, partner?”
Luke knew Maura was right there beside him, listening to everything he was saying. It was time to use a little code of their own. Something that only his partner would get and understand.
“Remember the Denver slayings?” he asked.
How could Nate forget? His partner had been shot, the perp had been killed, and Nate nearly lost his job.
“Yeah, I do.”
“It feels like that,” he stated.
Nate understood.
There was a clusterfuck coming, and they were in the path of destruction. “We need to talk to you, and there’s a chance that Maura is going to lose it.”
“Gee, I love odds like that,” he stated, trying to be funny. If he didn't find humor at the moment, he was going to lose his mind. If Nathaniel Carter sounded rattled, it was going to be epic.
And not in a good way.
“Put us on speaker and hang on for dear life, my friend.”
Yep, Luke didn't like the way that sounded.
At all.
“We’re both here,” he said, patting the couch beside him. Maura immediately slid closer to him.
“Yesterday, the killer escalated further,” Nate said, glancing over at Quinn. The man looked harried that his sister was going to find out the truth.
They all knew Maura was gung-ho. Now, it was all going to be on Luke’s shoulders to contain the situation.
And it was going to be one hell of a job.
“What happened?” Maura asked.
Quinn took over, since he was the one who was targeted, and it was his sister in danger.
“We headed to a club. Two of your men, Private Westerly and Gunnery Sergeant Mclead, partied there.”
She was waiting for it.
“It’s a gay club.”
She gasped. “What?”
Quinn continued, “They were gay and a couple.”
While that didn't bother her in the least, Maura kept getting tripped up on one thing. They were her men and she didn't even suspect. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” they all said together.
“I can’t believe I missed it. What else didn't I see?”
“We wish you could tell us what secrets Jayson and Redmond have,” Callie stated. “Did you notice anything odd?”
Maura had to think about it. “Not really. Redmond is very quiet. He’s the kind of Marine that doesn’t stand out. He’s laid back and stable. We call him the fence. He usually holds back all the wildness with his calm nature.”
“What about Jayson?” Nate asked. “Anything?”
Sinner Realized Page 36
