Gray Wolf Security: Back Home

by Glenna Sinclair

  That’s exactly what I wanted.

  I settled at the bar, arranging my skirt to cover as much of my legs as possible despite the position I was forced to sit in. I crossed my ankles, my knees firmly together, and lay my tiny purse on the bar and smiled as the bartender approached.

  “What can I get for you?”

  “White wine, please.”

  He immediately moved away to fulfill my request. When he came back with a frosted glass of chilled wine, he smiled.

  “I’ve never seen you in here before.”

  “I just started working at the insurance company across the street. Thought I’d come see what the big deal was.”

  “Welcome. We have happy hour every day from five to seven—half price draft beers and liquor on the board over there. And our hot wings are the best in town.”

  “Hot wings?”

  “Yeah. The owner’s from Texas. He doesn’t hold for all these kale chips and toasted nuts that other bars serve out here. The hot wings are a traditional, good ol’ Texas recipe.”

  “Sounds good, but I have dinner plans. Wouldn’t want to ruin my appetite.”

  “Fair enough.” He smiled again. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

  I watched him walk away as I picked up the glass and took a long sip. I wasn’t a big drinker, so the wine was slightly bitter on the tip of my tongue. But the cold liquid was nice and refreshing down my throat.

  I sat back and looked around the bar, pretending to be curious about the décor and the clientele, supporting my story of being new to the area. What I was really doing was checking out the exits and looking for any danger that might come from all corners of the area. I always wanted to be prepared in an unfamiliar situation. That wasn’t Gray Wolf training, though it had underscored what I already knew. That came from long years living with paranoia and irrational fear.

  And Navy training.

  Music played from some unseen source, low enough to encourage conversation but loud enough a woman on the other end of the bar was humming along. I crossed my legs and settled back, trying to make it appear that I was open to approach when I really just wanted to hunch down or, better yet, get the hell out of there.

  He strolled in almost twenty minutes after I arrived. He was taller than I anticipated, his shoulders broad. He looked like the kind of guy who spent a great deal of time at the gym actually working out rather than just flirting with the lonely women looking to change their bodies in response to a break up. But he probably spent time on the latter, too. He exuded this sort of arrogance that announced that he knew he was God’s gift to women, the sort of arrogance that normally sent me running for the door.

  Everything about this situation made me want to down my drink and get the hell out of there.

  His eyes moved over each female’s face in the room, lingering here and there. I looked away when he turned his attention my direction, not wanting to make this too easy for him. Eagerness might turn him off, while a sense of aloofness will make it more challenging. At least, that’s what I was counting on.

  But, again, it might make my job easier if he hit on one of these other women here in the bar. I’d still get the footage his wife needed without having to engage with him myself. It would be a win-win situation in my book.

  For a moment, I actually believed that was exactly what was going to happen. He took a seat at the bar just a stool or two away from the humming woman. She smiled brightly at the sight of him, sliding over a few seats before greeting him with a well-calculated nod.

  “How are you tonight?” she asked.

  “I’ve been better.” He lifted a hand to wave down the bartender. “Boss is being a real ass.”

  “Oh, I know how that can be. I’ve had corporate coming down on my head for weeks now.”

  “We never seem to do things the way they want it, do we?”

  “Never. But that’s just because we’re in the trenches. If they could walk a few miles in our shoes…”

  “Exactly.”

  The bartender came over and he ordered a whiskey sour, downing the first in just a couple of swallows. The bartender brought another before he asked, then paused in front of me, that charming smile back on his thin lips.

  “How are you? Do you need anything?”

  “I’m good,” I said softly, nearly choking over the two words.

  His smile widened, but he walked away, summoned down to the other end of the bar to tend to someone else’s drink needs.

  I lifted my wine to my lips, afraid of looking out of place with the full glass in front of me. As I set it down, I became aware of movement to my left. The target, his spicy cologne making itself known before the rest of him, took a seat beside me.

  “Hello,” he said politely, his deep voice like the rumble of a passing train.

  I bit the inside of my cheek, stealing the smallest look in his direction. “Hi.”

  There was this most charming smile on his full lips that revealed deep dimples low on his cheeks. I’ve always been somewhat fascinated by guys with dimples. They always seemed more harmless in some sort of way.

  “I’ve never seen you here.”

  “You come here a lot?”

  “More than I should.” He gestured with his shoulder. “I work across the street. Real estate.”

  “Sounds interesting.”

  “What about you?”

  “Insurance.”

  “Oh! Are you with Jameson?”

  “Just started this week.”

  “Isn’t that funny? We work in the same building, but it took coming in here for us to meet.”

  I tilted my head to look at him over my shoulder. Those dimples were out again. I found myself wondering what it would feel like to run my finger over one of them. And then I caught myself.

  He was a man. A cheater, at that. Why would I want to touch someone like him?

  He gestured to the bartender for another drink. The man came over, his eyes moving quickly over me with a sort of dismissive gesture as though he’d decided I was no longer worth the effort to flirt with if I was going to spend time with this guy. If it weren’t for the fact I was hardly interested in either man, I would have found it amusing. And very telling.

  This guy’s wife was on the right track.

  “I’m Stephen, by the way,” the target said, holding out a hand to me. “Stephen Walker.”

  “Tessie,” I lied. “Tessie Jones.”

  “Nice to meet you, Tessie.”

  We shook hands, his warm and slightly moist, mine dry and cool.

  I lifted my wine glass and took a fortifying sip. I could feel him watching me, could feel the heat of his eyes moving not only over my face, but along the split in my skirt that revealed my long thighs. Instinct told me to pull the skirt closed, to shut him down before he could get started. It wasn’t just instinct, really. It was this near paralyzing fear that rushed through me, a familiar fear that I’d learned to live with, but a real fear just the same. I didn’t want his eyes on me. I didn’t want any part of him on me. But the assignment required I let him look as much as he wanted. In fact, the more he looked, the better.

  I touched the teeny remote in my pocket that activated the camera. Time to get this show on the road.

  Slowly, I turned toward him.

  “What kind of real estate?”

  His eyebrows rose. “Excuse me?”

  “Commercial or residential?” I smiled sweetly. “The kind of real estate you sell.”

  “Commercial, mostly. We’ve been working to help renovate the east side of town where all those rundown warehouses sit.”

  “That’s interesting.”

  He shrugged a single shoulder. “It’s a living.”

  “What would you be doing if you could anything in the world?”

  That made him sit up a little taller, a light dancing in his eyes. “Anything?”

  “Sure.”

  “Living on a yacht, sailing around the world.”

  “You’
d prefer the playboy life.”

  He laughed softly. “Wouldn’t we all?”

  I turned away, my eyes moving down the bar to the woman he’d previously been talking to. She was watching me, daggers of jealousy flying from her eyes.

  “No. I think some would just like a good companion, a safe home, and a steady income.”

  “That’s boring.”

  I laughed, caught genuinely off guard by the derision in his voice. I looked over at him to find his expression twisted into something like a scowl. Even that was handsome on him.

  “You don’t believe in the American Dream?”

  “I do. But I believe the American Dream means to be as rich as possible with minimum effort expended.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s what the Founding Fathers intended.”

  “Who cares? The Founding Fathers lived ten lifetimes ago. We have new Founding Fathers now.”

  “Oh?”

  “Look at Donald Trump. The man declared bankruptcy a dozen times, yet he holds the highest office in the land. Talk about minimum effort…”

  I laughed again. This guy certainly had an entertaining outlook on life.

  “What about you? Are you the kind of girl who wants two or three kids and the perfect husband?”

  I shook my head. “Not really. I’m pretty happy living on my own. I like my independence.”

  “But doesn’t that get lonesome?”

  “I’m a big girl. I know where to find company when I want it.”

  His eyebrows rose. “You’re a one-night stand kind of girl? I never would have guessed.”

  “Why not?”

  He openly allowed his eyes to rake over my body, lingering on my bare thighs. “I don’t know. I can just see hands-off waves coming off you.”

  I turned toward him again, my knees practically pressed against the outer edge of his thigh. I touched his knee, letting my palm rest fully against the soft linen of his suit pants.

  “I seem hands-off to you? Maybe your radar is broken.”

  “Maybe.”

  He leaned close, his fingers brushing the lower curve of my jaw. I looked up at him, my heart pounding so hard I was afraid he could hear it. If he did, would he know it for what it was, or would he assume it was excitement? A guy like him? He’d probably think I was quivering in my shoes for his touch.

  “You are beautiful,” he said softly before running the tip of his tongue over his bottom lip. “A little too dangerous for me.”

  “How’s that?”

  He didn’t answer my question. Instead, he stood and dropped a handful of bills on the bar counter. His eyes skittered over me, once again lingering on my exposed thighs.

  “Want to share a cab?”

  I hadn’t anticipated this, but it made sense. He wouldn’t want to do anything nefarious in a place where there might be witnesses. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to be locked in a tight space with him, especially one that would be racing toward a potentially dangerous locale.

  But, again, I could take care of myself and I figured the Gray Wolf van would tail us.

  “Sure.”

  I stood as the bartender came over. I started to pull some bills out of my purse, but Stephen gestured to the money he’d left on the bar.

  “I’ve got you covered.”

  He slid his hand over the small of my back, my nerves crawling unpleasantly at the intimacy of the touch. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been touched that way, but I was pretty sure that guy ended up with a broken nose. I wasn’t good with touching. I wasn’t good with intimacy. And I definitely wasn’t good with going anywhere with a complete stranger. I had to keep reminding myself that this was a case, a job. This was my new career.

  Suck it up, buttercup!

  A taxi seemed to come out of nowhere, stopping on the busy street just as we stepped through the bar’s doors. Stephen opened the back door and gestured for me to climb inside first. He made a point of glancing around suspiciously before he followed, sliding close to me as he tugged the door closed. The driver waited for an address, which Stephen offered—an address uptown I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t the one his wife had given as their home address.

  As the taxi pulled away from the curb, I glanced out the back window and watched as Gray Wolf’s surveillance van pulled out right behind us as I had hoped. Despite the fact that I knew I could take care of myself, it was nice to know I had back up if I needed it.

  “Is there somewhere I can have him drop you?” Stephen asked, moving close to me, his lips so close to the edge of my ear that I could feel the heat of his breath moving the teeny hairs there.

  “I’m good with wherever you’re going.”

  He smiled, a pleased sigh slipping from between his lips. “You are quite the confident woman, aren’t you? What makes you think I want your company tonight?”

  “What makes you think I’m interested in company? Pleasure doesn’t necessarily require conversation.”

  He chuckled. “You’re just my kind of woman.”

  He drew my jaw toward him, his lips just barely brushing mine. He pulled back just enough to look into my eyes, something new in his. There was a second when I was convinced that he could see through me, that he could see the horror that I spread through me deep inside. But then his thumb moved over my bottom lip and he tugged me close, his mouth capturing mine.

  I wondered if he’d be shocked to know I’d never been kissed like this before.

  For a moment, a fiery panic washed over me, this sense that I was suffocating. I pressed my hands against his chest, prepared to push him away. It didn’t make sense to me, this kissing thing. Why did people do this? And how was this going to prove anything to the man’s wife? The camera probably wasn’t getting anything of this part of the exchange except a close up of his shirt. But then he pulled back just slightly, his breathing rough, and nibbled at my bottom lip.

  Why would he…but, oh, that felt nice!

  I’d never really understood the intimacies that take place between lovers. It wasn’t that I didn’t have drives. I did, much to my personal shame. But my only experience with intimacy was violent. Shameful. Why would someone seek that out?

  But this…he ran the tip of his tongue over my upper lip and then moved close again, pressing his lips against mine. I could feel him urging me to open for him and I resisted for a moment. But my body was responding before my head could send out its warnings. My lips parted in response and he touched me, touched the roof of my mouth, danced with my tongue, and it was…it was really nice.

  If I’d known all along it could be like this…it sure explained a few things!

  He was a hell of a kisser and I was happy to indulge for a few minutes.

  No one could have been as surprised by that as me.

  He pressed me back against the car seat, his hands softly carressing my face, my jaw. He pushed his fingers into my short hair, tugging my head around to where he wanted it. That was shockingly okay because it came with the pleasure of all the incredible things he was doing with his mouth. But then he had to ruin it all by slipping one hand under the slit in my skirt.

  “Stop,” I mumbled, pushing his hand away.

  “Why? You shouldn’t hide that perfect, silky skin.”

  His hand began to move up my thigh again. I grabbed his wrist a little harder than I probably should have, keeping his hand still where it rested just above my knee.

  “Not too fast, tiger.”

  He pulled back, a smile on his slightly swollen lips that didn’t quite reach his eyes. His eyes were filled with something like annoyance. Or maybe frustration.

  It was a look I was familiar with and it woke something deep inside of me. I slid back away from him, done with this little experiment. There had to be enough on the camera to get the wife what she wanted, anyway. What more could they possibly need?

  “Stop at the next corner, please!”

  The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror, question in his eyes as
he turned his focus to Stephen. After a second he gave a mild nod.

  “I need permission to get out of the car?” My tone was filled with the outrage I was feeling. “What are you, my father?”

  “We still live in a male oriented society, my love.”

  “Do we? Is that why they’ve recently began allowing women to attend Navy SEAL training?”

  “They’re just trying to shut up those of you who scream injustice at the top of your lungs.”

  I smiled ironically. “You sound just like our illustrious president.”

  He groaned. “That’s a low blow.”

  I rolled my shoulders, reaching for the door handle as the taxi slowed. He grabbed my upper arm, sending a shiver of panic through me. I jerked away, turning in preparation of defending myself. He held up his hands, his eyes widened a little by shock.

  “Hey! Didn’t mean any harm. But I thought we were going to spend a little time together.”

  “Changed my mind.”

  I pushed open the door and stepped out. I saw him watching me through the rear window, but he didn’t seem shocked or disappointed. He seemed…curious.

  I walked with confidence, relieved to be out of his space. But I had to admit that it hadn’t been what I’d expected. He was a really good kisser. I was glad to have that information. And he’d been quite charming.

  Maybe if he wasn’t a cheating scumbag….

  ***

  “Case completed,” I said, setting the button camera on Jules’ desk.

  She looked up, a harried expression on her face. “Thanks.”

  “Should I head out to the Matthews’ place?”

  “Not tonight. Johnny had to take some personal time, so I need you on Carrington tomorrow. Report to the house about seven?”

  “Perfect.”

  I headed home, checking all the security camera footage on the place more out of habit than anything else before I turned the corner. Everything was quiet.

  After indulging in my normal routine, I crawled into bed, and my last thought before I fell into an unusually restful sleep was the taste of that man’s kiss.