by Katie Reus
“Sorry,” she muttered, swiping at her cheeks when a few tears leaked out. “Thank you, guys, more than you’ll ever know. Like I said, my will has Martina listed as Valencia’s guardian but I’m guessing Gage can work some magic and tweak it to add you guys? Or just create a whole new one?” She’d grabbed all her important papers when she’d left her house. It seemed a lifetime ago instead of less than twenty-four hours. “I can sign something and he can use my signature later if necessary.”
Skye snorted and stood. “Yeah, he’ll take care of it. We’re not going to need it though. Because we’ve got your back and we’re going to find Martina—and Savage is going to be with you the entire time.”
“Thank you. For everything.” A simple thank you seemed pathetic to describe how grateful she was.
“No thanks needed. This is what we do—and you’re family now.” Skye wrapped an arm around her shoulders and that simple act made Olivia feel as if she might actually be able to do what needed to be done.
* * *
Savage stood still in the hallway, not feeling an ounce of guilt at eavesdropping on Olivia’s conversation with Skye and Colt. He hadn’t been intending to eavesdrop, but it had happened. Hearing Olivia planning for her death made him respect her even more. She was right—she’d made some stupid choices when she’d been younger, but who hadn’t? Now she was looking out for her daughter in case she died.
Which wasn’t going to happen. Not on his watch.
Making enough noise that he’d be overheard, he then stepped into the kitchen to find Olivia swiping at her cheeks. She quickly looked away from him and cleared her throat. Her profile was elegant—everything about her was elegant. And sexy as fuck.
Her long, inky hair fell down her back and around her shoulders and all he could think about was threading his fingers through the thick waves. Which was stupid. They were going to be working a job together. He’d be playing a role. Nothing more. And he didn’t do more than one-night stands.
“Before we head out, I need a few minutes alone with Olivia.” He kept his voice steady, neutral, even though being in her presence unsettled him. Especially considering what he needed to say to her.
“We’ll be with Gage. Come find us,” Colt said, clapping him on the shoulder as he left with Skye.
“It’s time to go?” Olivia wrapped her arms around herself, looking a little lost and a lot sexy.
He replayed in his head the steady way she’d asked Skye and Colt to take care of her daughter if she didn’t come back. This had to be killing her but she was holding up like a champ. God, this woman could easily get under his skin. “Almost. Look, we’re going to be posing as lovers for Neely, so we’re going to have to act like it.” Which wasn’t going to be an issue for him. It was easy to pretend he was into her.
She nodded. “I know.”
Did she? “If I touch your lower back or put my arm around your shoulders, you can’t jump. You have to act like you’re comfortable with my touch—as if you’re used to it. As if you’ve seen every inch of me naked.”
“Oh…oh, right.” He could see the moment when she realized where he was going.
“We’ll need to kiss before we meet with Neely so we get a feel for each other. Because of the role I’m playing, I’m possessive and obsessed with you. I’m going to at least have my arm around you in Neely’s presence. Or a hand on you. So we can kiss now, or on the plane. Or when we land. But we need to do it soon. Because our first kiss can’t be in front of him and we have to be prepared for anything.” He might not have done much undercover work—he was almost always in the shadows—but he’d done enough contract jobs and worked with enough spooks to understand how things worked. For this job, they had to take their roles seriously. There was no room for error. They would become the people they were supposed to be to get the job done.
“Now’s…fine.” Though her body language said differently. Her shoulders were stiff and stress lines bracketed her mouth.
Which, okay, made him feel like shit. He wanted her, yeah, but he didn’t want her this way. “We can wait.”
“No, I want to get this over with.”
His lips kicked up. “You’re really good for my ego.”
Her eyes widened slightly as she realized what she’d said. “I just meant—”
“It’s okay.” He took a step forward, closing the distance between them, and the heat he’d seen in her dark eyes earlier that afternoon was back. It was subtle, but there nonetheless. Slowly, giving her time to back out of this, he reached out and placed one of his hands on her hip. He wanted her to get used to his touch. He’d have to start slow, work up to their kiss. Which was what he would have done even if they weren’t playing a role. He wouldn’t just pounce. No, there was no fun in that.
She shifted into his hold as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Okay, maybe this would work after all.
“Something else you need to know about me,” he murmured, bringing his other hand up slowly to cup her cheek. Her skin was smooth, soft. Her eyes went heavy-lidded and he bit back a groan. Leaning down, he ran his nose along her ear as she braced her hands against his chest. That subtle vanilla scent teased him. When her fingers curled into his shirt and she pulled him closer, his brain threatened to short circuit. “I like to be in control. Always. So when we’re in front of Neely, I’ll be taking charge. I need you to be okay with that.” He nipped her ear gently, and when she shuddered he couldn’t stop his physical reaction to her.
Hell, he couldn’t stop that regardless. Just touching her like this was making all of his possessive instincts flare up. When they were in Miami, he wouldn’t be acting around her.
“Okay,” she whispered.
He skimmed his nose along her cheek until his mouth skated over hers. Their lips barely touched, but the way she jolted told him she was as affected as he was. Her fingers dug into his shirt even harder as he covered her mouth with his.
And when she let out a soft moan, he nearly lost it. He slid his hand from her hip to her back and pulled her flush against him. She had to feel his erection—he couldn’t hide it. Instead of pulling back, she arched harder into him and slid her hands up his chest and around the back of his neck.
He teased his tongue against hers, just little strokes as they learned each other’s taste, touch. Her taste was perfection. And the way she fit snugly up against him—it was as if she’d been made for him. When he slid his hand up the back of her shirt, touching her bare skin, she moaned again. And his cock kicked against his pants. Well too damn bad, because this was definitely stopping at kissing.
Unfortunately.
She arched into him again and he grabbed her hips, hoisting her up onto the nearest counter. The move was swift and unplanned. Tasting her, touching her could easily become an addiction. One he didn’t have time for. One he didn’t want, period. This would be good for the job though. That was what he told himself anyway.
“Oh shit.” The sound of Brooks’s voice made him pull back.
Olivia looked at Brooks with a dazed expression—which quickly morphed into one of horror as she hastily slid off the counter.
Just great.
Without looking at him, she adjusted her shirt and, cheeks crimson, muttered something about finding her daughter before she practically raced from the room.
Her reaction shouldn’t bother him, but hell. “What do you want?” he growled at Brooks.
His best friend just grinned at him. A shit-eating grin that made Zac want to punch him. “Just checking on you guys. Gage and I are ready to roll out when you are.”
Damn, his blood was still racing, Olivia’s taste on his tongue. “I’m ready.” He and his gear were packed and ready to go.
“I took Olivia’s bags down to the SUV.” Brooks’s smile was still fully in place as he watched him.
For some reason he found himself annoyed that Brooks had gotten her stuff. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to analyze why. He wasn’t her boyfriend or lover. Sti
ll, he should have been the one to do that. “You want a cookie?” he muttered.
Brooks just laughed. “Another one bites the dust.”
“Shut the hell up,” he muttered. He and Brooks were tight. More so than he was with any of the others. They’d been best friends since Zac moved to Redemption Harbor at the age of twelve.
But his friend was wrong.
Zac wasn’t going to correct him, however. “We were just preparing for the job. That’s it.”
“Whatever you’ve gotta tell yourself, man.”
Zac didn’t answer him.
This was just a job. So what if he was attracted to Olivia? Nothing would ever come of it. He’d only ever done one-night stands—though not for a long time. Well, that wasn’t changing for Olivia. It wasn’t changing for any woman. The house, dog, kid, and white picket fence bullshit wasn’t in his future.
That was for other people.
Chapter 6
—Sometimes those little moments aren’t little at all.—
Mercer hated it when his wife Mary Grace was unhappy—so thankfully she was just fine right now. But he also hated it when any of the women in his life were sad.
So looking at the glum expression of six-year-old Valencia Carter—a little girl who’d stolen the hearts of all of them—who was staring at the cartoon playing on the movie screen as if she couldn’t care less, he wanted to “fix things.” Something Mary Grace told him he shouldn’t do. “Women just want someone to listen to them, not fix everything” was something he’d heard more than once.
Well, apparently he hadn’t learned, because he had to do something. And besides, this situation was different. “I’m opening one of my restaurants tomorrow morning and I need help,” he said, causing three sets of eyes to look at him: Mary Grace, Skye and Valencia—who was desperately missing her mother who’d left about an hour ago. “You think you’d be up to helping me?” he asked Valencia. He hadn’t learned ASL fully yet, but he was trying.
Her dark eyes widened. “Me?”
“Yeah, you. You can help me make some of the dough—and you can make your own pizza. Any way you like it. If it’s up to muster, I might even consider adding a new pizza to the menu—and letting you name it.”
“For real?”
“Yep. And, if we ask nicely I bet Mary Grace and Mia will come too.” At this point he would give her anything to make her smile again.
Mary Grace nodded as she shifted their sleeping daughter in her arms. Since having Mia she’d taken time off from work, which meant she and their daughter were at one of the restaurants all the time. He loved every minute of it. “We love hanging out at the restaurants on Sundays, so we’ll be there if you are, Valencia.”
Valencia tapped her chin as if seriously contemplating it. “Can I play the new arcade game?”
“Anything you want.” He’d just installed an arcade machine with sixty old-school games pre-loaded. Or retro games they were now called, as his wife had informed him. The thing was a hit too. With kids and their parents alike. He was going to have another one installed in his other restaurant in the next couple weeks.
“Okay, sounds like fun.” Valencia grinned at him, her smile so open. Nothing like the shy girl they’d met months ago. Ever since she’d started coming to Redemption Harbor with her mother, everyone had started to think of Valencia and Olivia as family. And right now their job was to keep Valencia happy and her thoughts off her mom’s absence.
“You want to hold Mia for a few minutes?” Mary Grace asked, shifting slightly.
Skye immediately tensed, going into what he thought of as her super-overprotective mode. She was like that with pretty much anyone she considered family or in need of protection. And since the woman had rescued his wife from a cartel kidnapping over seven months ago when everyone else had thought she was dead, he didn’t care how protective she was—even if it drove Mary Grace nuts.
Mary Grace snorted as she set their daughter oh so gently in Valencia’s small arms. “Skye, you want to wrap them both in bubble wrap? Or cotton?” she asked as she sat back.
“I would if you’d let me,” Skye muttered. “And as soon as she’s old enough, Mia’s getting self-defense training. Green Berets will have nothing on her by the time she’s eighteen.”
“Sweet baby pandas,” Mary Grace muttered right back. “You’ve got to ease up. You’re gonna give yourself an aneurysm.”
“Not happening anytime soon. And if you think I’m kidding about that training…” Grinning, Skye just shrugged.
Mercer figured she was completely serious—and he was more than okay with it.
Valencia giggled as the two women bantered back and forth, the movie playing more like background noise than anything else. “She’s so small,” she whispered, looking at Mia’s perfect face.
God, he still couldn’t believe he was a father. That he had his wife back and they had a family now. Hell, their family was bigger than just the three of them. It encompassed everyone in this house and everyone on the plane down to Miami at the moment. He just hoped Olivia didn’t fall for Savage. He loved the man like a brother, but Savage didn’t want the family thing. Or more likely, thought he didn’t deserve it—at least that was what Mary Grace had suggested once. And his wife was intuitive when it came to people.
Mercer stretched out an arm along the back of the couch, wrapping it around his wife and pulling her close. When their baby had first been born he’d been a little crazy, not wanting anyone to hold her. And okay, he was still crazy when it came to his girl, but he’d eased up a bit. Barely.
It didn’t matter that he knew his wife was capable, a survivor; he was probably always going to be overprotective of her and their daughter. And everyone in his life.
* * *
Stretched out in the plush, cream-colored leather seat of Brooks’s Gulfstream—that his dad had won in some kind of bet with another billionaire—Zac scanned the next page on his tablet as he went over the details he and Olivia had come up with for their cover. He was staying mostly true to who he was and his skills. It only made sense. It was a hell of a lot easier to remember a cover if there was truth in it.
His name was simply Savage—which would be easy for Olivia to remember. He wasn’t going to hand out his information to Neely because that would be even more suspicious. He was here for one reason: because of Olivia and his “obsession” with her. That didn’t mean he’d just roll over for Neely. No, he’d make the guy work for any information he got on him. It would all be fake, thanks to the backstory Gage had already started building. But Neely would believe it more if he had to work for it.
Zac rolled his shoulders once as he scrolled to another page. The history he and Olivia had built was simple. They’d met after her ex-husband split, had gotten hot and heavy, then she’d ended things when he wanted to get serious. Then they’d filled in the innocuous details like exactly where they’d met, how long they’d been together, how they took their coffee. Enough things that made it clear they had a past and were intimate. It would work. It had to. He’d never failed a mission and didn’t plan to start now. He just had to remind himself that she was a mission. Nothing more. Certainly not a woman who made him think of a different future than the one he knew he deserved.
Thankfully Gage was building a file on Neely, and Leighton was already on the ground in Miami with eyes on the hotel Neely was at. There was little chance Martina was there—keeping a kidnap victim at a hotel was beyond stupid. Not with maids and other staff about at all hours of the day and night. But if the job was in Miami, Zac was hoping her friend was too. Because once they rescued her, they were gone. He’d personally take care of this Neely asshole to keep Olivia safe. But not until her friend was free.
Against his will, he looked to his right where Olivia was dozing next to him. Instead of putting distance between them when they’d boarded the plane he’d chosen a seat right next to her—and ignored Brooks’s grin when he’d passed by them. Zac just wanted to get used to being ar
ound her. For the job.
Wearing a light sweater, Olivia had it pulled tight around her. Her smooth leather seat was leaned back and she should be comfortable. Her expression was tense, however, so even in sleep he knew she wasn’t truly resting. Her long, thick eyelashes flickered as she shifted again.
Frowning, he glanced behind him and saw Brooks sleeping in one of the single recliner seats—of course, that man could sleep anywhere. And Gage was tapping away on his laptop at one of the polished built-in tables. Like usual. Thank God for his skills too. Zac had worked with some of the best government analysts and he’d never found anyone like Gage. The man had some scary abilities—and he was proficient in martial arts. If he wanted to destroy someone’s world, he could do it physically or via a computer.
When he shifted back in his seat he found Olivia watching him. “Hey.” He kept his voice low.
“Hey,” she murmured, moving her seat up as she rubbed her eyes. “Didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
“You need it. And you’ll have time to rest before meeting with Neely.” They’d secured a hotel under a cover ID, but eventually they’d let Neely figure out where they were staying.
Because Gage would have the hotel room under his own security. From there they’d be able to follow anyone who tried to check out the room. Maybe they’d get lucky and track someone back to Martina.
“How long was I out?” Olivia stretched, slightly arching her back, and all he could think of was the way she’d arched against him during that kiss.
A kiss that he was still replaying in his head—and he wanted more of it. “Just an hour.”
“God, I felt so bad leaving.” There was a lot of self-recrimination in her voice.
He frowned, not liking it. “You’re doing what needs to be done.” For her friend and her daughter. Despite his stupid original snap judgment, it was clear she was a damn good mother.
She snorted. “Yeah. Too bad I feel like the shittiest mom in the world.” Her jaw clenched tight as she reached for the tablet Gage had given her earlier.
