Puck: Alpha One Security Book 4

by Jasinda Wilder

  Colbie and I followed the butler junior or whatever he was up to the third floor, down a long hallway, and into a distant wing of the house. He gestured at a door near the end of the hallway. “Sir, madam.”

  I pushed open the door, but Colbie was hesitating again, so I stopped. “Hey man, you wanna give us a moment to talk? Thanks.” I put my back to the frame of the open door as the staff kid moved a good fifty paces away and stood at attention. “Okay, so listen, babe. You want a separate room, just say so. I suppose I did kinda make some assumptions, but I hope you’ll feel free to correct as needed.”

  She showed her poker face again, the one that gave away absolutely nothing of what she felt or thought. “So if I said I wanted my own room, and then to go home—alone—in the morning, you wouldn’t be upset?”

  I shoved my hands in my pockets. “I’ll never bullshit you, Colbie, so here’s the truth. You say that’s what you want, then fine. Will I be upset? Well, yeah, no shit. I like you. A lot. I was hoping to get more time with you, and I don’t just mean gettin’ busy, either. I like talking to you, being around you. I’d love a chance to watch Loony Tunes in our underwear eating my special homemade pancakes. But if I’ve read you and this situation wrong, and you’re not feeling it, and you just wanna go home, then I’ll head into this room and close the door and that’ll be that.”

  I took my hands out of my pockets and stood upright to face her, only a few inches separating us. “But Colbie, honey, there’s a fine line between playing hard to get and actually running away. You want me to chase you, I’ll chase you. You want me to make you give over control, I can do that. But if you don’t actually want this, then you gotta be honest and say so. Don’t play fucking head games. I’m not saying you are, but you’ve got your poker face on, and you’re hesitating and acting like you’re not sure if I’d want you in this room with me.”

  She closed her eyes slowly, left them closed for a long moment, her chest rising and falling as she took several deep breaths. “Puck, I—I don’t know.” She breathed in sharply. “I’m just so tired, and I don’t know . . . I don’t know”

  I stepped closer, but didn’t touch her. “What don’t you know, sweetheart?”

  “This. You. Me. Us. What if what we did on the plane was just . . . adrenaline and hormones and stuff? I’m not saying I regret it, because I don’t, but . . . this”— she gestured at the open door and the lavish room beyond—“is different. A lot different, and I’m having . . . doubts. I don’t know what I want, and I don’t know what I feel, and I don’t know what this is,” Colbie said, her voice low and tense and miserable. “I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been bored and scared, and I’ve watched people get shot and stabbed, and I’ve met you and Layla and all the other women, and I’m so fucking tired I can’t think straight, and I’m still scared those guys are gonna show up, and I’ve been keeping my emotions all bottled up because if I let it all out it won’t go back in, and I know I act tough, and I am, I swear, but this has all been scary and I’m—I’m just—”

  I could see her eyes watering, and it was obvious she was fighting it, hard. I gathered her close, wrapped my arms around her. “Colbie, baby, you’re not deciding your entire future in this single moment. This isn’t a make or break, now or never, do or die moment. You wanna come in, come in, you wanna be alone, be alone. If you wanna come in but just hang out, eat, get some rest, whatever, keep it platonic so to speak, that’s fine too. There’s no pressure.”

  She didn’t respond for a moment. Then she heaved a soft, slow, shuddering sigh. “Let’s just get something to eat, have a drink, and go from there.” She turned her eyes to mine. “Better yet, can we just crash, right now? I’m so tired I’m not even hungry. I just want to sleep.”

  She pushed past me and angled directly for the bedroom, crawled onto the high four-poster bed, and closed her eyes, fully clothed, shoes on. She was asleep within seconds.

  And I couldn’t resist . . . I paused to rip off my boots, and then I climbed up onto the bed with her, spooned up behind her, and closed my own eyes.

  I didn’t think it was thirty seconds before I fell into a dead sleep.

  I woke up several hours later—a glance at the minimalist digital clock on the nightstand told me it was nearly one in the morning. Colbie was absent from the bed, and I heard a shower going, the bathroom door closed.

  My stomach made a growling noise, and I wasn’t sure how long I’d slept, or what time it had been when we’d arrived here. I’d been in a fog; it was all a blur. We’d dozed on the flight over the Atlantic, but upright airplane sleep doesn’t really count, not like a deep sleep in a real bed.

  Point was, it was the middle of the night and I was wide awake and ravenous. I dialed the kitchen on the room phone, got a real person on the other end who seemed a little too eager to send up Scotch and pizza. Colbie took her time in the shower, a luxury she’d sure as hell earned. Even after the shower shut off, the door stayed closed. While she was in the bathroom, a knock on the door finally roused me out of the bed.

  I answered the door to find an older woman in a shin-length black dress with a white apron, her hair done in a high, severe bun, wearing sensible sturdy black clogs, the kind chefs and servers wear. She had a food service cart, on which was an absolutely humongous thin-crust margherita pizza, steaming hot and smelling delicious. Also on the tray was a bottle of Yamazaki Scotch, two crystal tumblers, and a silver bucket of ice.

  “Thanks,” I said, pulling the tray into the room.

  She gave the same shallow upper body bow the other guy had given me and backed away a step. “Is there anything else I can bring you, sir?” she asked, her voice containing a faint Scottish accent.

  “No, thanks.” I tilted my head. “You know, a lifetime of living out of hotels has me feeling like I should tip you, but I’m not sure how this whole thing works, here.”

  The woman frowned. “I would be insulted if you tried, sir. Mr. Roth pays us handsomely.”

  “Oh, well, okay then.” I gestured at the Scotch. “You want a tipple?”

  She let out a hint of a smile. “Oh, no, sir. I couldn’t, I’m working. And really, Scotch isn’t to my taste anyway.” She pointed at the bottle. “That’s a gift from Mr. Roth to you, as a matter of fact.”

  She lifted it by the neck and presented it to me, sommelier style. “It’s the Yamazaki Fifty-year, two-thousand-five release.”

  I eyed the label in disbelief. “No fucking way.”

  She handed it to me. “Indeed, sir.” She backed away another step, bowing again. “If that’s all, I shall leave you to it. A good evening to you, Mr. Lawson.”

  And then she was gone, and I pulled the cart into the room, cradling the bottle of Scotch in the nook of my arm like it was a baby.

  Colbie came out of the bathroom at that moment, her hair damp and brushed back over her head, wrapped up in a thick, plush robe.

  She eyed the way I was cradling the booze. “You must really love Scotch,” she said, a laugh in her voice.

  “Damn straight,” I answered, “especially when Roth sends me a ridiculously expensive bottle as a thank you.”

  She eyed the pizza. “You read my mind. I woke up hungry.”

  I guided Colbie to the nearest seating option, a deep, plush, burnt velvet couch arranged in front of a marble fireplace, with matching chairs on either side. She sank into the couch with a grateful sigh, and immediately went after the pizza. I followed suit, sitting down beside her, close but not touching her, pouring us both a glass of Scotch. We devoured the entire pizza in what must have been record time, and we each finished a full glass of Scotch, and we did so without a damn word passing between us, the silence comfortable.

  When we were both done eating, we wiped our hands on napkins and sank back into the couch with the glasses of Scotch, sipping, and enjoying not having to be in action or under stress.

  Colbie’s eyes were closed, and she squeezed them shut, then blinked them open rapidly, darting her gaze away
from me, her chest rising sharply as she sucked in a breath.

  Reality was catching up to her, I’d guess.

  I shifted a little closer. “Wanna talk about it?” I asked.

  Comforting weepy females wasn’t really in my repertoire of skills, but the situation was the situation, and I had to do what I could, even if it was just sit here and pat her back awkwardly like some hapless teenage doofus.

  She shook her head, and stared into space for a minute. And then with a sigh, she leaned forward and set the glass down so she could bury her face in her hands.

  She stayed in that position for a long time, and I sat beside her, content to wait and just be there. After a couple minutes of near total silence, except for our breathing and the ticking of a clock somewhere in the room, I heard a sniffle from beneath her hands. And then her shoulders shook a little. And then a little harder, and she sniffled again.

  I tentatively slid my arm over her shoulders. “Hey, listen, there’s no shame in letting it out, babe. You went through a hell of a hard time, and you’re allowed to let it out. Now’s as good a time as any. You’re safe, we’re safe. For one thing, I’m here, and ain’t nobody getting within twenty feet of you while I’m breathin’. And for another thing, this place belongs to the one and only Valentine Roth. Nobody is getting close to us, not here, not tonight. And you will be taken care of in the future, okay? You’re on a very short list of people for whom Nicholas Harris and Valentine Roth will provide personal security service free of charge for as long as it’s needed, and that’s no joke. Harris and Roth are among the most powerful people on the planet, and that’s no bullshit. Roth could get a goddamn Apache if he wanted one, and Harris could fly it.”

  I pulled her closer.

  “Shit, I’m rambling,” I said. “I don’t know how to be the sweet, comforting kinda guy, Colbie. But I’m here. And if you need a shoulder, mine are plenty big.”

  Colbie sniffled again, but it was laced with laughter. “Why would anyone need an attack helicopter, Puck?”

  “You’d be surprised, babe.” I laughed. “You never know when a few dozen Hellfire rockets are just what the doctor ordered.”

  She laughed again, and then let out a sigh, and her shoulders shook. “I just can’t shake it. I keep—I keep reliving the moment they took me, over and over and over again. I thought sleeping would help, but it’s . . . I’m—”

  “Talk it out. It helps.” I held her against me. “Tell me what happened.”

  She swallowed hard. “It was after work. I’d actually left early because I’d gotten everything done, and it was Wednesday, and my favorite sushi bar has really good happy hour specials on Philadelphia rolls, which are my favorite, and I just wanted to get some sushi and go home and relax. I’d been busting ass trying to nail down a really big order, and I’d finally gotten it, so sushi was my little celebration. I walked out of the building, hit the sidewalk, started walking toward the sushi place, just a couple blocks down.” She shuddered all over. “This plain white van with some generic company name on the side pulled a stop on the curb ahead of me. The doors flew open and four big men in worker’s coveralls jumped out in front of me. One grabbed my feet, one grabbed my shoulders, one put a bag over my head, and then they all tossed me into the van. I heard the doors close, felt the van start to move. My hands were yanked behind my back and tied off with something cold and hard, zip ties probably. None of them even said a word. I never had a chance to even scream—it just happened so fast. Literally, I had the bag over my head and was tied up in the back of the van in under fifteen seconds.”

  I blew out a breath. “Shit, that’s pro, man. I mean, to pull off a snatch that smooth, that fast, in broad daylight in the middle of Manhattan? They must’ve done it a thousand times.”

  “I know, I had the same thought. I knew I was being kidnapped, and since there’s no one to pay ransom, it was obvious what they were going to sell me for.” She trembled, sniffed, and now I heard the tears in her voice, even though she was still bent over, face in her hands, hair obscuring her features. “There wasn’t anything I could do. Not a damn thing. The zip ties were too tight, I couldn’t see, and—I started talking, asking what they wanted, begging them to let me go, which I knew was as stupid as struggling, but I couldn’t just lie there and accept it, you know? But then they stuck a needle in my arm, and I passed out. Next thing I knew, I was sitting in that old airliner, still tied up, all woozy, surrounded by a bunch of other women, some tied up, some sleeping, some awake and not tied up.”

  “And then the flight to Kiev.”

  She nodded. “I had no idea where we were going, obviously. And there were guards on the flight, ten or twelve of them, armed with machine guns. They sat in every other row and if anyone tried to move or talk, we’d get a gun shoved in our faces. No talking, no moving.” She sucked in a breath, held it, let it out slowly. “I felt like there wasn’t much chance they’d actually shoot us, since we were only valuable alive as a commodity, but . . .”

  She sniffed. “I was scared. I thought about trying to . . . I don’t know. Do something. But I didn’t—I didn’t want to die.” Her voice broke.

  I felt her shaking again, and I realized she was still fighting the urge to cry. I pulled her closer, and she nuzzled against my chest, like she wanted to burrow into me, so I lifted her onto my lap and twisted on the couch to lay her on my chest. “Let it out, Colbie. Just let it out.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know how.”

  I ran my hand up and down her back, over her shoulders, smoothed my fingers through her silky auburn hair, sticking to comforting, non-erogenous touches. I felt the tension slowly bleed out of her, felt her melt against me. I wanted to say something to her, but I wasn’t sure what. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay? That was bullshit. It wasn’t okay, and it didn’t have to be okay, which was the entire point—if it was okay, why would she be crying? Shushing her? She wasn’t a baby to shush and rock and shit. What else was there to say? I’m here? Duh, obviously I was there; she was lying on top of me, ergo . . . I was there.

  What other comfort could I offer her? Not fuckin’ much. Words wouldn’t fix the hurt or the fear or the trauma. All I really had to offer was my presence. So that’s what I gave her, my hands roaming her back and shoulders and combing through her hair, not trying to cop some kind of feel, not pushing her, not demanding anything from her.

  And, apparently, that’s what broke through. She didn’t shake, didn’t sob or howl or wail or do any of that shit. She just . . . cried. Softly, quietly. I felt her tears wet my shirt, heard her sniffle now and again, felt her body wrack now and again, and I just kept doing what I’d been doing, gliding my hands in circles around her back, massaging her shoulders, teasing my fingers through the mass of her hair.

  And then I was seized by some mushy, fuckin’ stupid-ass impulse—I kissed the top of her head.

  I hoped she’d let it go, just accept it and not make a big deal of it.

  But Colbie wouldn’t be Colbie if she weren’t a ballbuster.

  Her crying paused, and she twisted her head to meet my gaze; her eyes were red and damp, and curious, and . . . I wasn’t sure what else. “Did you . . . did you just . . . kiss my head?”

  I rolled a shoulder in a not-quite-a-shrug movement thing. “Yeah, I’m not sure what came over me.”

  She did a weird thing where she sniffled and tears slipped down her cheek, but she also smiled at me and laughed. “It was sweet.”

  I swallowed hard. “It was weird. It’s like my mouth was possessed or something.”

  She wriggled and somehow ended up closer to my face, and it took a shitload of focus to not make it sexual, to not let my dick do the deciding.

  “I liked it,” she whispered.

  “Yeah?”

  She nodded, her hands resting on my chest, now. “It was sweet. You should do it again.”

  She didn’t tip her head forward or lay it on my chest, so I improvised—I kissed her forehead. Like
before, it was a slow, soft, hesitant thing, entirely outside my realm of experience. But if she liked it, I was willing to go with it.

  Colbie’s smile spread and brightened, and she wriggled farther up my body again, and it was harder to stop myself from ripping her robe off and doing some serious ravaging. I was glad I didn’t, though, because what Colbie did next blew my mind. She kissed me on the cheek. Her lips were tender and sweet as sugar and warm and wet, and the slow, delicate kiss to my cheek above my beard made my heart thump and hammer and pitter-patter like the bunny rabbit from that stupid Disney movie about the orphaned deer baby.

  My adrenaline gland was, like, broken. Skydiving, firefights, car chases . . . my pulse stayed flat. Physical exertion got it pumping, of course, but that was different. Women, well . . . they never made me sweat, much less made my heart go pitter-fuckin’-patter.

  I thought I stopped breathing when Colbie Danvers kissed my cheek.

  “Wow,” I breathed. “Never been kissed like that before.”

  She frowned. “Never? By anyone? Not even your mom?”

  I managed an approximation of a casual shrug. “Nah. Ma was a hooker, and she vanished when I was like three or some shit. I don’t remember her, and she sure as shit wasn’t the type to kiss my face.”

  “And Raquel—”

  “Wasn’t like that.”

  “How about another one, then, to make up for lost time?” She slid closer and ever so gingerly touched her lips to the other cheek, and my eyes fluttered closed and my heart clanged and pounded like I was suffering from cardiac arrhythmia. My other heart—the nonphysical one—did all sorts of weird shit, feeling things I didn’t have words for or the emotional understanding to quantify. My dick was screaming GET SOME, MOTHERFUCKER! and my hands were twitching with the need to grab on and never let go, and my mouth was . . .

  Stupid.

  My mouth was stupid.

  I kissed her cheek. A gentle touch, a brush of my lips against her velvet skin.