by Avery Flynn
"We're going to the movies?"
"It's the last place Wolczyk will look." The parking lot was empty, with a nice pair of open spots right by the door. He steered his truck around back anyway and reversed into a spot not visible from the road. "It's dark, no one interacts with anyone else, and they serve food."
Downtime—even watchful downtime—always meant refueling, whether food or sleep. Another lesson Uncle Sam had imparted along with sixty ways to kill a man and the importance of shower shoes.
"And after the movie?" she asked, a touch of weariness forming lines around her eyes
"We'll figure out what step to take next." He got out and hustled around to her door so he could open it for her. He made it right it in time to see her hop down without his assistance.
The look she shot him was pure sass and triumph with more than a smidgen of fuck you mixed in for good measure. His cock twitched—another good reason for sitting in the dark for a while watching some shit blow up on the screen while his dick returned to its normal not-around-Tamara state.
Chapter 2
Isaac
Two hours and fourteen minutes later, Isaac wasn't sure he could walk without embarrassing himself.
Like an asshole, he hadn't even considered what the movie was so they'd sat down in a pair of recliners with a small table between, quickly loaded up with cheeseburgers, extra fries and a pair of Cokes bigger than his head, and watched the screen. It turned out to be a movie about a couple who banged...a lot. Sure they didn't show everything—it wasn't porn—and there was probably some other kind of plot to it, but all he could think about the whole time was how fucking hot it would be to reenact some of the scenes—especially the one where the guy fingered the girl to orgasm in a restaurant full of people and then had her suck his fingers clean.
His balls fucking ached. He snuck a quick glance at Tamara. Her gaze stayed on the screen as the credits rolled, her hands clasped in her lap and her back ramrod straight, which thrust her tits forward enough that he could make out how her hard nipples stood out firm against her clingy shirt. Was she turned on because of the movie or because she was thinking along the same lines as he was? Before he could decide, she stood up and smoothed her hands over her hips, easing her skirt back into place.
"Thank you again for helping me out," she said, each word enunciated a little too clearly. "But I'll get a cab from here back to my car."
"That's not smart with the bounty hunter still out there and you know it." Standing up, he took full advantage of the fact that he was tall enough at six feet, four inches to loom over her. "Come on, I'll give Marko a call. See if Wolczyk made a fuss at the party and we can figure out what happens next after that."
Her jaw tightened but she gave a small nod and started forward down the aisle. Letting his hand fall to the small of her back as they walked through the movie theater's exit was the gentlemanly thing to do. He'd had good home training. He knew the way to do things. That's all it was. It had nothing to do with giving in to the temptation to touch her and feel her move under his palm.
Your bullshit smells rank as carrion roasting on the highway, Camacho.
He helped her up into the truck before crossing around the cargo bed—scanning the area for movie-goers who looked a little too curious about them as he did—and sliding in behind the steering wheel. After a quick glance in the rearview mirror for anything out of place, his attention dropped to Tamara's reflection. Their gazes locked and he saw the same heated desire in her cool blue eyes as in his own. Subtlety wasn't his thing, didn't look like it was her either. They had that in common if nothing else.
"Your car's at the Corsair Club?" He turned the key in the ignition.
The question obviously caught her by surprise because she blinked a few times before looking away and answering. "The B-Squad garage. I caught a ride to the party."
"We'll head that way." He turned right out of the theater's parking lot and punched the Bluetooth connect button on the truck's steering wheel. "Call Mr. Chatty."
The phone rang twice before Marko Pike picked up. "Talk."
"Hello to you to," he drawled.
Silence filled the air, standard procedure for Marko, the B-Squad's demolitions expert who talked little and noticed everything.
Normally, Isaac would just let the dead air hang in an eternal test of wills between him and the closed-mouthed, muscle-bound enforcer. Today he didn't have the luxury of busting the other man's balls.
"Any excitement at the party?"
Marko snorted. "You mean besides you two sneaking off through the kitchen followed by an appearance by that jackass Wolczyk searching for someone named Tamara that none of us had seen in about a million years?"
"Where's he now?' Tamara asked, her voice tight.
"Poor guy tripped on his way out the door and messed up his wrist." Marko didn't sound the least bit sorry for the bounty hunter. Hell, he'd probably been the one to drop the guy. "He's at the ER getting it looked at."
She twisted the fabric in her skirt. "How do you know?"
"I have visual."
That was the B-Squad. They protected their own, even if the person in question had only recently joined their ranks.
Isaac turned onto the road leading to the Devil's Dip Gym building. It was half a city block big and held a below-ground secured parking garage, Taz's boxing gym on the main floor, and apartments for most of the team and the B-Squad headquarters. "Anything else I need to know?"
"Tons." Marko didn't elaborate.
Good thing Isaac didn't expect him to. "Good talk, Mr. Chatty."
"Fuck you." The line went dead.
"I've never heard Marko talk that much and I see him almost every day," Tamara said.
Isaac winked at her. "He likes me."
He pulled to a stop next to the keypad that would open the Devil's Dip Gym’s private garage and entered his code and put his thumb against the fingerprint scanner. After a short beep, the garage door rolled up. Inside it was like a car fanatics' wet dream. If there was a high-end, tricked-out vehicle on the market—or about to enter it—the men and women of the B-Squad had it. It wasn't a cherry custom paint job or the enviable chrome work that identified what had to be Tamara's car. It was the beige, slightly dented ordinariness of it.
"A Camry?"
She shrugged. "I paid for it in cash and it gets the job done."
Taking in her designer dress that had a few well-repaired frays, he figured the past few months had been the first time in her adult life she'd had to settle for something that just 'got the job done.' He parked behind it, blocking her car in, then put his hand down on her seatbelt latch and covered it so she couldn't unbuckle.
He'd sit here all night like this if he had to but there was no way he could let her go back to that house until Wolczyk had moved on to search greener cases. The fact that Fane had called in a local, and not a very good one, as opposed to sending his own minions meant there might be hope that he thought finding Essie or Tamara in Fort Worth was a long shot.
"You can't go home tonight. If Wolczyk found you at the party, he could still show up at your house."
The stubborn tilt of her jaw said she wanted to argue and he braced himself.
"Fine," she said, obviously not happy about it. "I'll stay here."
Stubborn but not reckless. Now that was a mark in her favor. Not to mention smart. As far as crash pads went, she could do a helluva lot worse than a building that made Fort Knox look like an open house. Getting into the training gym was easy. Accessing any other part of the building without a key code and the right biometrics? Practically impossible. Plus, it was roomy as hell. When she'd designed her company headquarters, Bianca had made sure to keep a few rooms open for the occasional willing and not so willing overnight guest, so there was definitely space.
"You want me to take you home so you can grab some stuff?" he asked.
She gave him that fake beauty queen smile again. Either she knew it pushed him off kilter and liked d
oing it or she didn't give a fuck what it did to him. Even odds on either possibility.
"That's okay, I have a go-bag in my car." She snuck her fingers underneath his, sending a shock of electricity straight to his cock, then pressed the seatbelt latch release.
"Always prepared, huh?"
"You know us beauty queens." She opened the passenger door and stepped out onto the running board and then hopped off. "We need to be ready for any possibility."
He was out of his door in a flash and standing between her and the trunk of her car so nondescript it should belong to the Feds. "Like the Marines, just prettier and without the combat?"
"Oh honey, you've obviously never been backstage." She used her key fob to pop the trunk.
"Got rough did it?" The image of Tamara in her underwear and a white satin Miss Idaho sash in the middle of an all-female pillow fight flashed in his head.
Reaching around him, she snagged a hot pink duffle with a designer name stitched across the top from the trunk. "You do not want to know the damage boob tape or a few drops of sour flavoring in Vaseline can do."
"Vaseline?" He shut the trunk for her.
"You wear it to keep lipstick from getting on your teeth. If it tasted gross, you were stuck with that for the entire competition."
Now that was devious. "I think I'm starting to like you."
"You already did." She swapped her bag from her left to her right hand and shook out the fingers on her free hand and sat back against the closed trunk.
"Why is that, do you think?" He reached for the bag.
She didn't release her hold on it. "I have a vagina and from what I hear you like anyone with one of those."
Damn. He wasn't that bad. "Are you B-Squad ladies talking about me during your staff meetings?"
He maneuvered his body so he stood in front of her, his legs on either side of her, relishing the way her breath caught.
She didn't move away. "More like laughing."
But she wasn't now. Nope. A flush had spread from the V of her cleavage up to her very kissable full lips that were slightly parted and begging to be tasted. He dipped his head lower and rested his finger tips on her hips—not enough to hold her there but enough to let her know he wanted to.
He stopped close enough that there was nothing between them but sparks of anticipation. "Really?"
She opened her mouth to retort and he took full advantage of the moment. It wasn't a sweet kiss because neither of them had more than an ounce of sugar in them. They were determined, assertive, demanding people who took what they wanted—and this was their kind of kiss. They devoured each other. She tasted of white wine, salty fries and the kind of dick-hardening trouble that had pre-come pooling on the swollen tip of his cock. The second her tongue slid against his, teasing him just as much as turning him harder than a steel door, he would have given up his soul to find out just how far they could take this kiss—even in the Devil's Dip Gym garage that was outfitted with more surveillance cameras than the typical bank.
Let the B-Squad team watch. He just wanted to touch.
But that wasn't to be.
Way too soon, Tamara pressed a hand against his chest and pushed him back, taking away her sweet mouth and all the sinful possibilities there were in how he wanted to have her use it.
It was a toss-up on which ached more—his hard-on or his lungs as he tried to catch his breath.
For a second they just stared at each other, lips kiss-swollen and desire thick in their veins. Oh yes. She wanted him just as much as he wanted her. Whatever it was about blondes with bad attitudes that did him in, she obviously had the same thing for swaggering former Marines.
She was the first one to speak. "That's not happening again."
"Why not?" Because he wanted to do it again. Now. And more. So much more.
"I know all the blood in your brain hasn't gone south." She snuck under his arm that had been blocking her in place and strutted away, putting a few feet of daylight between them. "I've got a megalomaniacal cult leader on my tail because I'm hiding his daughter so he doesn't sell her off under the guise of a dutiful marriage. I don't have time or energy to get off on anything other than my own fingers right now."
Without giving him a chance to respond, she turned and walked toward the private elevator that would whisk her up to the B-Squad’s main office. Her hips swayed a little more than normal as she strutted across the garage, her heels clicking on the pristine cement floor. The elevator opened as soon as she put her thumb on the scanner and she strolled inside.
He waited for the doors to close before taking his phone out of his front jeans pocket, a process made more difficult by the fact that his pants were a lot tighter than they'd been before he'd kissed Tamara. He hit the first contact number.
"Lash. Give me Tamara's home address. I need to go do a sweep and double-check your work, slackass."
* * *
Tamara
Tamara's palms were sweaty, her hair messed up, her pulse erratic and her hormones way out of control. As the elevator zipped up to B-Squad's headquarters on the second floor, she wiped her palms on her skirt, smoothed her hair, and told her hormones to shut the fuck up. She hadn't been lying to Isaac. She did not have time for romance of even the one-night, multiple-orgasm, boneless-satisfaction variety. By the time the elevator doors opened, she was back to her natural impermeable state of being.
Marching across the lobby and heading straight for her office, she laid out her priorities in a mental checklist. First, she needed to figure out how to touch base with Essie in Colorado without leading Jarrod and his bounty hunter straight to the teen who had a Mensa-sized brain and whose first taste of freedom outside her father's compound was inching toward the wild side. If it wasn't for the fact that her former beauty pageant mentor Albert Glad-Lovatt was keeping a close eye on the sixteen-year-old. The man had kept Tamara in line. Essie would be a cake walk.
Second, she had to find out how Archie Wolczyk had tracked her to the engagement party. Isaac was right. God, that sucked to even think silently to herself. Her house had to be off- limits until further notice. Her office had a couch that would work out perfectly. No one on the team would need to know that she was crashing here for a few days until things cooled down. The last thing she wanted—or needed—was to give Bianca an excuse to rethink hiring her after all Tamara had done to fuck things up between her new boss and her ex-husband.
"Going somewhere, or planning to haul out someone's head?"
Shit.
Tamara jerked to a stop. She schooled her face into a neutral mask before turning and greeting the brunette staring daggers at her. "Hi there."
Elisa Sharp leaned against the doorway of her office directly across from Tamara's. Elisa, the team's resident transformation artist and the daughter of one of Texas's most notorious con artists, was one of the last people Tamara wanted to run into right now. The woman could smell a lie a mile away and detect an evasion from space. It was what made her so damned good at her job—and not just a little bit scary.
"I'm couch-surfing here for a couple of days." Okay, that was the truth. Not all of it, but enough to pass the human lie detector.
Elisa didn't blink. "What's wrong with your place?"
She wasn't ready for a follow up and blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "An infestation."
"Of the bounty-hunter phylum?" Elisa strolled out into the hall in that controlled, predatory way of hers with her head cocked to the left as she eyeballed Tamara. "Wanted for breaking and entering, not to mention kidnapping? You didn't tell us the law was after you when you hightailed it out of Idaho with your niece to escape her dad."
When would she learn? The truth always caught up with her in the end. "Taz and Bianca knew." She let the heavy go-bag drop to the floor as she stood in the doorway to her office. "It's not what it looks like."
"That's disappointing. Rescuing your niece from a David Koresh wanna-be seemed pretty badass to me."
Tamara didn't kno
w what to do with that—compliments that weren't related to how she looked were as foreign as Jupiter—so she ignored it. "I need to call Essie and warn her."
"And your phone isn't going to work."
For once, Tamara appreciated the other woman's ability to ferret out the unspoken details that mattered.
"It's not in my name, but I can't take the chance that Wolczyk is running the numbers of the phones used to call or be called by the B-Squad office. My number is on that list about a billion times. It'll stick out like a sore thumb. I could lead Jarrod to Essie."
The other woman walked over to the supply alcove filled with the regular office must-haves along with the items unique to an organization like the B-Squad.
"What you need is a burner." Elisa swiped one of several phones and held it out to Tamara. "Here."
"I can't use this." She gulped. She was only here until Essie's eighteenth birthday. After that Essie would be safe from the threat of Jarrod winning custody of her. Tamara knew she didn't belong. She wasn't part of the team. "They're B-Squad’s."
A rare smile instead of Elisa's usual smirk. "So are you."
Again, there were no words, so she took the phone. As the other woman retreated into her office, Tamara called the number she'd memorized but had never written down. It rang once. She hung up and dialed again. This time she held on for two rings before disconnecting. She punched in the number a third time. One ring. Two rings.
It stopped ringing.
Her heart climbed up into her throat.
"Hey Aunt T." Essie's chipper almost-a-grown-up voice came over the line. "What's up?"
The breath she'd been holding escaped and her internal organs shifted back into their normal position. "You answered without waiting for the special ring."
"You're paranoid," she said in the dismissive know-it-all way that was the hallmark of every teenager, and with one as smart as Essie it was even worse.
Tamara pinched the bridge of her nose to ease the rush of loving frustration steaming her from the inside out. "No. I'm not. There was a bounty hunter here today. That means your dad hasn't given up."
