Seeking PAVAD

by Calle J. Brookes

  Max nodded. “One hell of a woman. And agent. What she did back there was...impressive.”

  Ezra nodded. “You don’t know the half of it. Those sonsofbitches were going to kill us as soon as they were finished with her. We both knew that. Yet she played them.”

  “We found them. And when you get a chance, I’d like to hear anything you want to tell me. I’m one hell of a listener. A pretty decent profiler, too. Or so I’ve been told.”

  Ezra would take it as the opportunity it was. Max was second in command to his team leader. And CCU5 was assigned to this case. There was no reason the two men couldn’t discuss everything they knew. At least then Ezra would feel like he was actually doing something. Besides being babysat by the big doofus next to him.

  JAC JONES was sitting next to Shannon’s bed, her weapon visible and a magazine in her hands. She looked up at the two men when they entered. There had been an additional guard on each of their rooms. They’d been introduced as agents from the Little Rock field office. Ezra appreciated it.

  He looked at the woman in the bed.

  “She fell asleep a few minutes ago,” Jac said quietly. “After she ate.”

  “They gave her a sandwich. Day before, I think. That was it.” After she’d helped them first log on to what they—and he—had thought was the real PAVAD interface.

  But Shannon had been the ultimate winner. She’d outplayed those bastards at their own game.

  “And you?”

  “I just had oatmeal. And eggs. I think they were eggs.” They had been food. That had been all that mattered. “She say anything about what happened?”

  Jac shook her head. “No, just that she was going to sleep for a week. I’m sorry I couldn’t get you help sooner.”

  Max snorted from where he stood inside the door. “You were inside within ninety seconds, Jac. Quit it. We found them when we were supposed to.”

  “We found them because Shannon accessed the dummy mainframe and triggered warnings. We all got lucky. None of us will forget that.”

  “No.” Leave it to the quiet Jac to say what they were all thinking. She never hid the truth. “We won’t. And there is at least one more man out there. Calling the shots.”

  “Do you think it was PAVAD or the FBI in general that was the target?” Jac asked. “It would help us figure out why the two buildings were targeted. And if there are going to be more out there.”

  “There will be more. It wasn’t just four idiots trying to get back at the St. Louis branches of the bureau. It was more than that,” Ezra said as he stepped closer to the bed. Shannon had changed into a hospital gown of soft yellow. She was curled up on her side, one small hand curved beneath her cheek. Her other cheek was bruised. Her lower lip was swollen. She might have a black eye, but he couldn’t tell in the low light.

  He didn’t want to stand over her, staring. But at that moment he just couldn’t look away. He counted her breaths for a quick moment. Just proving to himself she was alive.

  “She’s ok, Ezra. Just bruises. Her wrist is sprained. She’ll be fine in a few days,” Jac said, quietly. “Go. Get some rest of your own. We’ll do the questions first thing in the morning, I’m sure. Worry about yourself tonight.”

  He looked at her. Jac had a way of seeing through people at times. He nodded.

  There wasn’t much else he could say.

  TWENTY-THREE

  THEY KEPT HER for a full twenty-four hours, longer than Shannon had expected. No doubt Kyra had seen to that. Kyra was sneaky that way. She honestly didn’t remember most of it—. Whatever they’d given her had made her relaxed and sleepy. So she did just that. When she’d opened her eyes, Kyra, Leina, Jac, and Mia were in the room with her. She blinked and sat up. “I’m pretty certain no more than two people are supposed to be in a room at any one time.”

  “We pulled some strings,” Mia said, waddling closer to the bed. Shannon felt a pinch of guilt—Mia didn’t need to be this far from home right now. “How do you feel?”

  “Like I just took a really good nap? And like someone used me as a punching bag.”

  “I think that’s a given.” Mia leaned over as much as she could and stared into Shannon’s eyes. Shannon knew what her friend was doing.

  What they were all doing.

  Hovering.

  She’d done the same thing to Kyra when she’d been hurt, too. “What day is it?”

  “Tuesday. You’re being discharged as soon as the doctor signs off. We figured you’d want to get dressed first,” Leina said, putting a bag on the foot of the bed. “I had Cody grab you some things out of your room. You’re apartment’s now a crime scene.”

  “How badly did they tear it up?” That blanket would always remind her of what happened. But she was not letting them win. Letting them do that to her.

  If she had to lock it in a closet somewhere, she’d do it.

  “It’s in bad shape. They did some damage. But nothing we can’t clean up. We’re just waiting for you to give us the word.”

  Shannon nodded. She didn’t know how she felt about that; she probably wouldn’t until she was home. Dealing with it face to face.

  “You can stay in my old place until you’re ready to deal with it,” Kyra said. “It’s still available. I haven’t found a tenant yet.”

  “I might just take you up on that.” She didn’t want to be a coward, but those jerks had been in her home. She wasn’t ready to deal with that knowledge just yet. “So what’s our next step?”

  “Hotel. For you, anyway. They want to keep you and Ezra where they can see you. The hotel is an hour away. I’m the getaway driver,” Cam said from the door. Shannon jerked. She hadn’t heard him come up behind Kyra. “We’re not disclosing where we’re putting you for a while.”

  Shannon got it. “I’m good. Give me ten minutes to change clothes. I so want some actual clothes.”

  “Yellow looks good on you,” Cam said, leering.

  Shannon laughed, but it was weak—and she knew it.

  She wasn’t certain what she was supposed to do next.

  They stayed with her for several hours. Until Sebastian Lorcan called and stated that a fifth man had been arrested.

  They believed any threat to Shannon was now over.

  It was the incentive she needed to send Leina and the rest away.

  She needed some serious time to think.

  To break down, alone.

  Shannon called her mother and father and let them know she was safe and relatively unharmed. Leina had told her that her parents had been informed of the abduction that first morning after. A representative from the Cleveland field office had been sitting with them.

  By the end of that call, Shannon was a wreck. Her mother was the strongest woman she had ever known. Her father had told her he was glad she was ok and asked when she was moving home.

  Shannon wasn’t ready for that conversation.

  After she disconnected, she curled up on the hotel bed and tried to think.

  She stayed there until a knock on the door had her practically jumping out of her skin. It terrified her, made her want to curl up in the closet until the knocker went away.

  Which was exactly why she forced herself to do the exact opposite.

  She grabbed her phone and stepped to the peephole.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  SHANNON LOOKED AT the man standing at her door and didn’t know what to say. “Hahn...Ez... What are you doing here?”

  “Checking on you.” He stepped closer. “I tried to go to sleep.”

  What did that have to do with her? “So? I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say. I’m not exactly a sleeping pill.”

  He stepped into her room and closed the door behind him.

  “Ezra?” She stared at him, her breath backing up in her throat. The rain on the hotel room windows increased, echoing the beating of her heart. “What are you doing in here? Cam—”

  “Is wrapped around Kyra right now. Just like Ken is around Leina, and Stephenson is wrapped
around his wife—as much as he can, anyway. This is between you and me.”

  His tone was quiet, but his eyes... They burned when they looked at her. So many emotions were there, Shannon didn’t even know where to begin to identify them.

  There was a bruise on his cheek. They were a mess. Both of them. But Mia had checked her out before she’d left. Deemed her fit for duty, in modified capacity. No doubt, the same had been done for Ezra.

  At least physically.

  It was going to take Shannon a long time to forget.

  It wasn’t the bruises on her own body that hurt so badly. It was what her failure would have cost them.

  She’d literally held the lives of every single being at the PAVAD building in her hands not even thirty-six hours ago. Every friend, every colleague, every one of those four hundred people in that building had been endangered.

  Thank God Carrie Lorcan had had the presence of mind to anticipate one of the computer forensic agents being taken. Her preparation had enabled Shannon. Their paranoia had paid off.

  It wasn’t Shannon that had saved PAVAD. It was Carrie.

  She felt like a complete fraud. A coward who’d just gotten lucky.

  And this man staring at her no doubt knew it. “What do you want, Ezra? I need—”

  Hard hands went around her waist and lifted her until her eyes looked into his. “I need.”

  Ezra pulled her closer. Shannon’s hands closed around his shirt and instead of pushing him away—she pulled. Pulled him closer. And then he was pressing his lips to hers.

  Shannon didn’t push him away.

  She just couldn’t let him go.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  EZRA KNEW HE was being a damned idiot. He had no business kissing Shannon Toliver. She was the last thing he needed in his life right now, and he was for damned sure not what a woman like her needed.

  But that didn’t matter one bit. What mattered was the feel of that tight little body pressed up against his, the scent of her in his lungs, and the taste of her on his lips.

  She tasted so alive. He wasn’t certain he’d ever get to see her that way again.

  He wouldn’t have been able to stand seeing her dead. Not her. Not her.

  He wanted to fight it. Fight against her with everything he had. But he couldn’t.

  Not tonight. Not after being convinced those sonsofbitches were going to kill her the instant she’d given them what they wanted.

  He hadn’t given a damn what they did to him, but he would never forget the fear when she’d looked at him for help. To save her.

  To just fucking make everything right for her again.

  He hadn’t. She’d saved them both.

  With those small hands of hers and her wits. Pure guts. It had taken guts to pull one over on four armed abductors, but she had done it.

  And now she was in his arms. And–for the love of all that was wrong with the world–kissing him back.

  Those clever hands of hers dug into his shoulders, her lips were hungry on his own.

  Ezra deepened the kiss until they were both pressed up against the wall next to the hotel window, barely able to breathe without tasting the other.

  But that wasn’t enough for him. He tightened his hold on her—Shannon didn’t weigh enough to stop him—and twisted.

  They were in a damned hotel room. There was a bed right there.

  Within seconds, he was lowering her down onto it. Her clever, little hands tugged at him.

  Then there was no going back. For either of them.

  TWENTY-SIX

  THAT WAS THE stupidest mistake she had ever made in her almost-thirty-one years.

  That was the first coherent thought in her head after her heart slowed down to a normal human rate.

  The second thought she had was that Ezra Hahn gave new meaning to the expression “still waters run deep”. The man had been practically starved. She was experienced enough—she was almost thirty, after all—to know when a man was hungry for a woman.

  But this was the last place she had ever expected to find herself. With him.

  They’d barely taken off their clothes first. They’d just gone at each other like they’d been starving.

  Embarrassment hit her when he pulled away and she realized her hands still clung to those broad shoulders. Ezra was put together very well.

  She had firsthand, visible proof of that.

  And now she was supposed to say something, wasn’t she?

  She’d never done something so stupid in her entire life. “I—”

  “Made a mistake.” He rolled away from her, putting more space between them.

  Shannon yanked the blanket up to cover herself—he’d ripped it from the bed when his foot had gotten tangled on it during a moment of more physicality than she’d expected—and stared at him.

  She wished he was easier to read. “I—”

  “Get it. This shouldn’t have happened. Birth control?”

  Her eyes widened. Why did he have to be so abrupt? “Of course. For a few years now. No worries in that direction.”

  “I’m sorry, for what it’s worth. I didn’t come to your room for this to happen.”

  “Why did you come here?” Shannon wasn’t about to get out of the bed. Her clothes were somewhere near the window, and she was not going to give him another show.

  That was a bit like locking the barn well after the llama had escaped, but Shannon would take what she could get.

  Had she been so bad that he regretted it almost before he’d climbed off her? “I’ve had worse, too, ya know.”

  She tried to keep the tears out of her voice, but she knew she sucked at it. She always had been a crier. When she was angry or hurt. She felt a mix of both at the moment.

  Hard hands yanked her—again—over an equally hard chest.

  Shannon stared down at him, clueless what to say next. “Ezra?”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  WORSE? HELL. ONCE again, he’d opened his damned mouth and hurt her. He hadn’t meant that. At all. “Nothing worse about it. It was just a stupid mistake we can’t repeat. I’m not the guy you want. We both know that.”

  He was the last kind of man a woman like Shannon Toliver needed. She annoyed the hell out of him most times, she had an attitude of snark that drove him up the wall, and sometimes, her mere presence was enough to annoy the shit out of him. But she was intelligent, loyal to a fault, and so damned special his hands shook just looking at her.

  Ezra hadn’t always thought so. She’d gotten under his skin like a damned burr and scratched until he’d found himself bloodied and raw.

  But after the last few days, he’d never doubt that ever again.

  He couldn’t let her lie there with that hurt in her eyes. “I’m not the kind of guy you need.”

  “No kidding. You’re the last guy I need in my life. You’re everything I don’t want. I want—”

  He braced himself for a blow he had no doubt was coming. Girls like her didn’t want guys like him permanently. He knew that.

  Shannon Toliver was far too good for him. All anyone had to do was look at the two of them together to see that. “Yeah, and just what kind of guy do you want?”

  “One who is stable. Who doesn’t do excitement like we do.” Her words were quiet, and he almost missed them. “One who can be there every night, even when I can’t. Not someone who jets all over the country, gone for days at a time.”

  “Hell, Toliver, in case you missed it, you’re gone for days at a time.”

  “I know. And I’ve lived the child version of it. I don’t want it. And...you and I? So many reasons why this so wouldn’t work.” She clutched the blanket tighter to her breasts—breasts that were as perfect as he had known they would be. When he’d thought of her late at night. Or early in the morning. Or just whenever she’d pop into his mind. “This will never happen again.”

  “I know.” Damn, did he know. He stared at her for a long moment, wishing he had the right to touch her again. Just one more time. “
It was stupid.”

  “Stupid.”

  He reached over her and grabbed for his boxers. When he turned, there were less than six inches between them. Light brown eyes stared into darker brown. Before he even realized his hand had gotten even stupider, his fingers cupped her cheek.

  Shannon had a line of freckles that ran over her nose and cheeks. Six on her left cheek, two on her nose, and four on her right. Like the Maker had gotten her just a little lopsided. A little uneven in a few places.

  Not quite beautiful.

  But still so perfect.

  For any other kind of guy than him. But Ezra couldn’t tell himself to back away from her again. Not now. “Toliver...Shannon...it was stupid. We both know that.”

  She wet her lips, but—damn her—she didn’t pull away. “What are you doing?”

  “Something far stupider than I should.” His finger slipped over those lips of hers. They were perfect, too. The top was a bit too wide, the bottom a bit too thin. But they were perfect. He leaned closer.

  He had to taste her just one more time. He wasn’t ready to leave her just yet. Not just yet.

  Ezra wanted to hold her for just a little longer. “We might be stupid, but there’s no reason we can’t finish tonight, is there?”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  SHE SHOULD HAVE known he’d be gone when she woke the next morning. Men like Ezra Hahn were good at being gone in the light of day. Shannon had learned that lesson long ago. But she could still smell him in her room.

  Shannon opened the window. Hopefully, there would be a breeze or something to blow the scent of her mistake away.

  She had not just spent—she checked the bedside clock quickly—more than eight hours sleeping with Ezra Hahn.

  That was the craziest, dumbest, most ridiculous thing she had ever done.

  She so needed help.