by Lexi Blake
She was worried about that? “Oh, make no mistake, they will be mine. They will be ours. Biology does not make a family.”
It didn’t. The revelation hit him like a ton of bricks. He loved his mom and dad, but his brothers had always been distant. Ian and Sean were his real brothers, the ones he could always count on. They didn’t need some mystical blood connection to build a family. They only needed each other and open hearts, and a will to dedicate themselves to their kids. Family, he’d discovered, was in the people a man collected along the way, the people who shared his life, like his precious wife.
“We can still have it, angel. We can still build a family.”
Her hand came back, covering his. “Do you really think so, Alex?”
“I know it. I will make it happen. I won’t ever give up.”
He pressed in, pushing his cock past the muscles that tried to keep him out.
“I love you, Alex. I never stopped loving you.” Eve pressed back against him. “And I missed this. I won’t give up either.”
He slid inside, her tight hole gripping him as he teared up. Just a little. Just enough to make the world hazy and beautiful and fresh again. She was here, really here with him. She was his partner.
He fucked into her, unable to hold back a second longer.
She called out his name as he dragged his cock out. The same muscles that fought to keep him out sucked at him, desperate to keep him inside.
So good. It was different from her pussy, the heat, the drag, the fight. Eve pushed back against him, gripping the headboard now. His sweet sub wasn’t so submissive now. She fought for her pleasure, and he was more than willing to give it to her.
His balls drew up. A shiver went over his spine. She was too tight, too fucking good. He wouldn’t last, but he would take her with him.
He let his hand slide forward, his thumb finding her clit. It was still slippery wet. He ground his palm against her as he went balls deep, his come shooting up from his testicles.
Eve clenched around him, her breath pounding from her lungs as she worked his cock and pressed her clit against his hand.
He filled her, fucking in and out until he had nothing left to give.
He fell forward, his cock slipping out.
Eve turned, catching his lips with hers. “My sweet Master.”
He kissed her back. She was his everything, and he would never let her go again.
Chapter Thirteen
Eve stretched and glanced at the clock. Two a.m. Alex turned in his sleep, his big body moving as he reached for her pillow and slid an arm around it as though he was clutching her.
What the hell was she going to do with him? Could they really make it work this time? A million questions floated through her head, making it difficult to sleep. She grabbed her robe and slid it on before taking the file folders and walking out of the bedroom. She made her way to the kitchen and the gorgeous granite bar.
Which was already occupied.
“Can’t sleep?” Sean asked. “I kind of thought you would be exhausted.”
She groaned. She should have known they could hear. And it wasn’t like they would be shy. “Tell me y’all didn’t turn it into an event.”
Adam snorted a little as he walked in from the balcony. “Sean made snacks and everything. Kristen found us and tried to get us to stop, but then she heard that little sizzling sound and she just shut up and asked for a beer. She resented the fact that she had to go back to the club.”
“He brought a violet wand with him?” Sean asked.
She was pretty sure every cell in her body flushed with embarrassment. After the first round, Alex had been eager to play and he had, in fact, brought along a small, not too powerful violet wand. It emitted a little electrical charge against the skin that she happened to love, especially on her nipples. Alex had tied her down and tortured her, and apparently she’d been a little loud. “Alex likes to be prepared.”
“A BDSM boy scout,” Adam said with a grin. He looked off toward the back bedrooms, and his voice went low. “She knew exactly what she was hearing. Did you see that, Sean? Most people would think Taser, but no, her eyes actually dilated the minute she heard that sound. She was aroused by it.”
Sean leaned in. “She’s trained. I used my Dom voice on her a couple of times and I swear, she nearly went to her knees.”
Eve placed the stack of files on the bar. “What does it matter if she’s trained? And I thought you were starting to like her, Sean.”
Sean’s hands came up as though trying to stop an oncoming lecture. “I do like her. I actually think she’s really cool, but sometimes I catch her watching me. I think she might be falling for me, and while it’s perfectly understandable, I love my wife. I’ve made that very clear. I think what that girl is really longing for is a Dom.”
“You don’t know that she doesn’t have one,” Adam said. “But he’s right. I’ve caught her staring at Sean for long periods of time. We really don’t know a damn thing about her except that she’s funny and can drink me under a table. Seriously, the girl can chug.”
Sean shook his head. “Well, if she has a Dom, he’s a crappy one because there’s no way he would let her pull this shit alone. She nearly got caught earlier today. I had to step in or Chazz would have seen her sneaking into his office. As it was, she had to hide until he walked by. It’s obvious to me that she’s getting very impatient. I actually don’t like the fact that she’s back out there by herself. She believes in her own abilities too much.”
“I don’t know about that. Maybe she’s not so great with the sneaky thing, but have you noticed how she moves?” Adam asked.
Eve had. “She’s had some training.”
“She’s had a lot of training.” Sean sighed and took a long tug off his beer. “But then again, she’s written a lot of stories about the military. If I was in her position, I would take some Krav Maga classes, too.”
“I’ve had self-defense,” Eve added. “But I don’t move like Kristen. She’s very quiet.”
“She’s also got a couple of bullet wounds.” Adam shrugged a little. “We share a bathroom. She doesn’t lock it when she takes a shower. Her boobs are actually quite nice. Hey, Serena would appreciate them, too. I already told her I saw them and did not get an erection. Little Adam only responds to Serena now.”
“I’m really fucking glad to hear that, asshole,” Sean growled back.
God, she hoped she wasn’t going to have to play referee. When Sean and his wife, Grace, had first gotten together, Adam had let it be known that he thought Grace would fit perfectly between him and Jake. Sean had not taken it well. But they had to be over that.
Adam gave Sean what she liked to think of as his “sad puppy” face. Adam sighed. “Did I ever mention how sorry I was to try to steal your woman? Cause I am. It would have been a huge mistake. Luckily, Grace has horrible taste in men.”
Sean snorted. “I’m going to kill him, Eve.”
She put a hand out. She needed to distract them and quickly. “Both of you stop. Sean, I’ve just had crazy, wild reunion sex with my husband for four hours. I’m hungry.”
Sean smiled and his hand came out, covering hers. “You just called Alex your husband.”
She hadn’t even thought about it. “Yeah, well, he claims that the minute we land back in Dallas, I’m supposed to marry him, and we all know I’m a very good submissive.”
Sean sighed, relief plain on his face. He hauled her off the chair and gave her a bone-cracking bear hug. “I’m so happy, Evie. I can’t tell you how happy I am. He won’t fuck up again. Ian and I will make damn sure of it.”
She couldn’t let him think she didn’t know the score. “Well, it was my fault, too.”
Sean settled her back into her chair and gave her a wink. “Absolutely, and your Master should have punished you for it. Lucky for you, I am not your Master, so I will feed you instead.” He frowned. “I’m sure she’s got some salad around here somewhere. Kristen actually seems more lik
e a carnivore, though. I swear she’s got a ton of meat in her freezer.”
The last thing she needed was a salad. “Can you do a grilled cheese? Maybe with some ham. And if Kris has chocolate, I would love some.”
Sex was hard work. She’d earned a little comfort food.
“Hallelujah! I think I saw some prosciutto.” Sean strode to the fridge and started prepping.
“I’ll take one, too,” Adam said.
Sean never turned around, just flashed his middle finger as he went about his work. Adam ignored the rude gesture.
“He’ll forgive me sometime,” Adam said, staring down at the files. “So, whatcha looking at?”
She put a hand on the files. “This is the case the feds have against Evans.”
And somewhere in there was a nice, fat report on her. She took a long breath. It wouldn’t hurt to read through it. She needed to do a whole new profile on the man. So much time had gone by that she needed to look through everything.
“I think he’s in New York.” Adam’s quiet words sent a shiver up her spine.
“Think?”
He grabbed his computer and brought it up to the bar, his fingers flying across the keys in an instant. “I’ve been tracking the GPS you placed. Nice call on the shoe, by the way. Alex wouldn’t think of the whole ‘dry cleaning’ thing. Does he wear anything that needs to be dry cleaned?”
Since he’d left the FBI, he really had reverted to his former jock wardrobe. “No. T-shirts, sweatpants, and jeans don’t normally require much care. So my guy got to New York. What makes you think he’s meeting with Evans?”
“This.” He hit a key and a grainy picture came up. “When I realized he was walking on some of the busier streets, I thought I might be able to hack into the CCTV feeds there. Sure enough, this was caught as he was walking past one of the banks in midtown.”
She stared at the screen. There was a crowd of people walking in the late-afternoon light, but she recognized one of the men from earlier in the day. His face was to the camera, but the man beside him was only in profile.
Closing her eyes against the wave of nausea she got, Eve was nearly transported back in time. Michael Evans. He was older, had cut most of his hair, but she knew that profile. She saw it in her nightmares. “That’s him.”
“Shit,” Sean said. “I’ll go wake up Alex.”
Eve shook her head. “No. Give him a couple of hours. We can’t do anything tonight. Let’s see what Kristen finds out.”
Sean stared at the screen, his hands on the bar. “He’s really alive. Fuck. I hoped he’d managed to get himself horrifically murdered somewhere along the way.”
There was a ding and the door opened. Kristen walked in, her red hair rumpled and a streak of blood on her face.
“What the hell?” Adam asked, standing up from his computer screen.
Kristen staggered to the couch. “It’s nothing to worry about. I got into a little fight.”
Eve rushed to the kitchen and wrapped some ice in a towel. She hurried back. Kristen was pulling back her hair. There was a nice knot on her forehead. “Is your cover blown?”
She took the towel. “I don’t think so, but I have a dead bouncer in my trunk. He caught me coming out of Chazz’s office. He thought I was trying to steal something. He made an offer to not turn me in.”
Eve could guess what that had been. “So you jumped him when he got you alone for sex?”
“Is anything broken?” Sean asked.
Kristen shook her head. “I don’t think so. He was a heavy fucker. I had to stuff him out a window so no one could see. It was really only my innate knowledge of pulleys and levers that saved my ass. Well, that, and a perfectly placed stiletto through his eye socket.”
Adam’s eyes widened. “You killed him with your heel?”
“No, dummy. I was talking about a knife. I told him I would do him in one of the private rooms. I have weapons hidden all over that club.” She held the ice to her forehead. “Damn it. I promised myself I wouldn’t kill anyone again. Jerk-faced asshole couldn’t respect my fake need for vagina. No, he had to prove what a man he was. He promised he would turn me straight.”
Sean smiled knowingly at her. “Which agency do you work for? Look, I’ve got my smiley face on so I’m not angry at all. But if you’re trying to tell me you’re a mild-mannered journalist who just happens to be able to shove a thin blade in precisely the right way and with the right amount of force to kill a man, then you don’t have much respect for my intelligence. Are you domestic or foreign?”
Kristen closed her eyes. “Sean, I’m not what you think I am.”
“He thinks you’re Agency. I kind of do, too,” Adam agreed.
“I am not a spy. I am no one’s operative,” Kristen said in a low voice. “I am not now, nor have I ever belonged to, any government agency and certainly not the CIA.”
Eve kind of believed her. There was more than one reason to learn how to really defend oneself. “But you’ve been hurt before.”
Kristen’s eyes found hers. “Yes, in ways you can’t imagine. I learned how to defend myself at a very young age. I had to. I don’t hide weapons because some CIA handbook taught me to. I hide them because growing up I knew if I didn’t have a way to defend myself, I would very likely not see another birthday, at least not one where I was whole. Can we move past my shitastic childhood and talk about what I found?”
Sean’s jaw was a stubborn line. “Fine, but I’ll figure you out and I probably won’t be wearing my smiley face when I do. And I swear to god, if you hurt anyone on this team, I will make sure you pay.”
“I’m sure your brother would be right behind you,” she said absently.
“You know he would. Think about that before you make your next move.” Sean had gone positively arctic.
“You think I don’t think about it every fucking day?”
Eve needed to chill them out before Sean and Kristen went after each other. Despite the fact that she didn’t know a damn thing about the woman, she trusted Kristen. “What did you learn, sweetie?”
Kristen’s eyebrows rose, and she turned to Eve. It was so easy to see the eager puppy on her face. She wanted to be one of the girls. She so deeply wanted friends. Eve watched as Kristen stopped herself, drawing her hands together and folding them on her lap. If Eve had to bet, she would say Kristen had wanted to reach out, to hold Eve’s hand. “I got into Chazz’s office. I knew I wouldn’t have long. I got in. I looked at his calendar. I got out.”
Eve moved toward her, offering her the affection she so clearly longed for. She held out her hand. “And what did you find?”
Kristen leaned forward, reaching for Eve’s hand. “He’s got the day after tomorrow circled. It says he’s meeting with Mikey. We can get him, Eve. I’ll help you. I’ll be right there beside you.”
Nothing in her eyes made Eve think she was lying. Eve threaded their fingers together. This was what Kristen so deeply desired, a sisterhood, a family. “All right. We’ll wake Alex up early and let him know. We’ll be ready for him.”
She had a day to profile him, to figure out how best to go after him. She wouldn’t sleep. It wasn’t her job to be the avenger. It was her job to give Alex and Sean every bit of information they needed to know.
And Kristen. She just knew it. Kristen would be a warrior. Kristen needed to help.
Sean frowned. “All right then. Are you hungry?”
Kristen shrugged. “I could eat.”
Sean shook his head and walked back into the kitchen.
Adam yelled after him. “Hey, you’re willing to cook for the woman who won’t tell us who she really is but not me?”
Sean didn’t look back, just started buttering bread. “She didn’t try to sleep with my wife.”
Kristen shrugged. “I haven’t seen her. Who knows? I might.”
Sean just chuckled.
Kristen leaned in, whispering. “I really wouldn’t. I really do still love the man I lost. I can’t…I can’t think of an
yone else.”
Eve smiled, squeezing her hand. “It’s okay. You did…good.” She gave Kristen’s words back to her. She looked down at the file folders. “And thank you for these. I’m not looking forward to staring at the seventeen bombing victims, but I think it will be helpful.”
Kristen frowned. “What do you mean seventeen? There were only sixteen folders.”
Eve looked down at the folders in front of her, quickly counting them. Kristen was right. Sixteen folders. There were seventeen victims. Why did the FBI only have sixteen folders?
She moved back to the bar. “You didn’t get them all.”
Kristen was mistaken.
The redhead sat up, letting the ice pack down. “I took everything they had. If the FBI had a file, I hacked it.”
“I know this case. There were seventeen dead. If you count my kidnapping, there should actually be twenty, but my folder that includes Leon and Tommy is considered ancillary.”
“You’re in there,” Kristen said. “I just didn’t count you among the dead. According to the FBI, there are sixteen dead from the bombings, two murdered agents and one rape and kidnapping victim. You.”
Adam moved to his computer. “I’m on it.”
She knew this case like the back of her hand. She knew the victims by heart. She played through them in her head. Brewer, Davies, Duncan, Foster, Clemmons, Johnson, Wilcox, Schroeder, Flynn, Betts, Gale, Hardison, Garcia, Kapoor, Ellig, Gilliland, and Foster.
The names were tattooed on her brain. Though she couldn’t remember everything about each victim, she knew their names. Who was missing?
“There were only sixteen files.” Kristen stood behind her, peering over her shoulder. “I pulled everything I could. Did I miss something?”
Garcia. There was no file for Garcia. “Uhm, I think you missed Carmen Garcia’s file. She died in the last bombing. The one in DC.”
It had been the bombing that forced Alex to make that fated move. Evans had bombed a free clinic that offered women healthcare. Four people had died in that bombing including a doctor who worked for nothing to make sure the women in the neighborhood had routine checkups and prenatal care. Dr. Kapoor’s file was here. Where was Carmen Garcia’s?
