Jason (Kings of Guardian #4)

by Kris Michaels

  Faith lifted away from him, her eyes huge as she stared at him. “Oh my God!” Reece shifted in his hold. Faith slapped her hand over her mouth and closed her eyes. He watched as she paled and began to shake her head back and forth.

  “You took my phone call when you didn’t know… you could have died?” Her rasped question carried to Lima team. They shifted uncomfortably or pretended they didn’t hear.

  “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “This is not funny!” Faith hissed out.

  “I never said it was.” He pulled her back toward him and kissed the top of her head.

  “What is happening? Are we going to be okay?” Faith’s whisper lingered on the air.

  “We don’t know what is going on yet, but you’re safe.” He answered honestly.

  “I’m scared.” Her hand lifted to wipe away a tear.

  “I know. I’ve got you.” He kissed her hair again.

  “We’re going home?” He loved the sound of that word and the hope in her voice when she said it. Home.

  “We are. I’ll have to go into work tomorrow. Gabriel’s wife was run off the road. Her security team got her out of the situation before anything could happen. We’ve put a safety net on everyone in key positions and their families. As a precaution, Christian is on lockdown at the house, too. He’ll stay in the main house with us until we can be sure he isn’t in jeopardy.”

  “Okay.” Faith snuggled closer and put her hand over his as he held Reece. “He asked me today if I thought it was okay for him to call you Daddy.”

  He smiled and ran his thumb over the top of her hand. “He called me that when you were on the phone.”

  “Did he?” Faith lifted her head off his chest and smiled up at him, her huge chocolate brown eyes dark pools of emotion.

  “He did. I’m honored to have him call me his daddy, and I promise I will do everything I can to help you raise him to be a good man.”

  “If he turns out anything like you, I’ll be the happiest mom in the world.” Faith leaned up for a kiss and he obliged but kept it abbreviated because of the audience.

  The plane’s altitude changed, drawing Jason’s eyes to the landscape. They were about twenty minutes out from landing. A motorcade would be waiting. With the plane sequestered in a secure area, the risk of transferring from the aircraft to the vehicle was minimal, unless there was someone out there with a sniper rifle.

  Jason glanced over at Elliot and nodded toward the cabinet that held the protective armor. The team leader lifted from the soft leather chair and started the task of handing out the Kevlar. He dropped two vests beside Jason and then focused his attention on his team. The men smelled like they’d been in the field for weeks and looked just as rough, but Jason was damn glad to have the warriors on his six. The plane banked and descended. Jason had Faith put on her vest and then moved the sleeping child to her arms before he donned his own. When the plane taxied to the secure hangar, they were ready. He waited until the team deployed and gave him the all-clear before he led Faith off the aircraft. He was one hell of a big target, and he made damn sure if anyone was going to get hit, it would be him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Is he sleeping?” Faith came out of the bathroom wrapped in a bath sheet. Her long brown hair was towel dried and hung against her shoulders. Jason took a deep breath and made it a point to thank God once again that she was in his life.

  “Yeah. He and Christian are holed up in the bedroom at the end of the hall. Chris volunteered to sleep in the same room with him in case Reece woke up afraid. Chris seemed to think we needed a couple hours to ourselves.”

  “He’s a smart man. Right now I do need some time with you. I need you to hold me, to make me forget, to help me stop being afraid.” Her towel dropped as she walked toward him. The sensuous curves of her body and the swell of her breasts called to him. Caught in her magic, he was powerless to do anything but love her.

  His gaze traveled over her. Just the thought that she could have been killed filled him with a cold emptiness that he hadn’t felt since his father had died. Under his hands, her warm, sweet-smelling skin forced him back to the present. She hadn’t been injured. She was safe, and he’d make sure nobody would ever have the opportunity to hurt her again. The necessary meetings were scheduled. The security was in place. The intelligence gathering was in full force… but those thoughts were for another time. Tonight he needed his woman as much as she needed him.

  He pulled her into him and held her tight, the overwhelming desire to be inside her stronger than his self-discipline. He’d nearly lost her, lost his family before they could even begin. Her luscious body formed to his chest. His hands traveled to her waist and then the curve of her ass. Faith moaned into his mouth and the last lingering sense of control snapped. Not only for him but for her, too. Their kiss became primal. His hands roved her bare skin as her hands fought his clothing. Her impatient sound registered long enough for him to pull his button-down over his head and toe off his shoes. Her hand unfastened his belt and his slacks and boxers hit the ground.

  Sweet Jesus! Faith dropped to her knees and enveloped half of his dick in her hot, soft mouth. He grabbed her damp hair and held her head. His thighs shook as he controlled the urge to ram his cock deep in her throat. He wouldn’t do that to her. Couldn’t, but damn it, she was pushing his boundaries. Her tongue swirled over the head of his dick. She mixed the soft caresses with moments of intense suction, bringing him almost to the point of pain before she deep-throated him again.

  He carefully pulled her away and looked down at those beautiful brown eyes filled with desire. He needed to be in her when he came, but first things first. He bent down and lifted her off her knees, carrying her to the bed. He pushed her into the middle and lay down between her legs, his mouth salivating for a taste of her sweet juices. He shouldered open her legs. He grasped both of her hands, interlaced her fingers with his, and lowered to take what he wanted.

  He blew on her heated center and watched gooseflesh rise on her skin. Her hips lifted, undulating with need, and he used their joined hands to hold her hips down as he took his first lingering taste. His tongue split her folds and lapped at her clit. Her immediate jolt and startled gasp drove his desire higher. His world centered on her and he feasted. Her muffled cries exacerbated his raging need to make her come from his mouth’s assault.

  Her body tightened, clenched and then released. She trembled against his tongue and her hands pulled at his hair, demanding he cease the assault. He kissed his way from his sweet repast to the seam of her thigh and hip. His kissed each side before he traveled north. He detoured to the beautiful swell of her breasts on the way to her mouth. Jason chuckled when her hands held him against her hardened nipple. He obliged her need and worried both peaks with his tongue, teeth and lips until she released her hold.

  He claimed her lips. The passion and raw instinctual need for each other became an overwhelming force. He lifted her leg and pushed the head of his weeping cock into her. She was perfect, hot, soft and gripping. As her body demanded, his responded.

  “More. Jason, please… I need you harder. Please.” Her words floated on their shared breath. Lifting off her, he settled on his knees and pulled her hips toward him. Her legs splayed open over his thighs. He couldn’t resist running his hands over her body laid so seductively in front of him.

  “Jason…” Faith pleaded.

  “Are you sure, baby?” He could hurt her. That was a fact. He had accidently hurt a lover years ago. He’d never let himself go since.

  “Take me. Take me hard. Make me yours. I won’t break. I want it. I want you.” Faith grabbed his hand and sucked two fingers into her mouth, swirling them with her tongue. His vision faded as he fell over her. He slid his hands under her back, grabbed her shoulders and thrust. Her whispered “yes” was all it took. Animal instinct and a need so real it became a living beast echoed throughout every fiber of his body. The bed groaned, or fuck… it could have been him… wh
o knew?

  He kept his eyes on his woman. Her flushed face and parted lips were the beautiful canvas he couldn’t stop admiring. Their combined sweat-slicked bodies slid together in urgent collisions. Each time he slammed home into the body of the woman he loved, her whimpered encouragement drove him to go harder, deeper and faster, the way she demanded. Lost in the sensation of uninhibited sex, he was shocked by her clutching climax. Her body’s tight grip pushed him over and his hips stuttered against his will. The pool of electricity at the base of his spine erupted through his cock and his vision whited out.

  The realization he was crushing Faith came seconds, or perhaps minutes, later. Her shallow pants registered, and he pushed off her. He pulled her into his side and smoothed her hair away from her face.

  “I love you, Superman,” she said as she snuggled into his chest.

  “I love you, too.” Superman? He wasn’t today. He’d failed to keep her safe. Granted he hadn’t been warned of any threat, but that wasn’t the point. The point was he needed to find out what in the hell was going on and take steps to eradicate any threat to his loved ones. His hand continued to stroke through her hair of its own accord. The repeated touch soothed the thoughts that slammed back into his mind.

  “Stop it, Jason. I can sense where your mind is going. You weren’t responsible for my trailer blowing up. When you found out what happened, you made sure we were safe until you could come for us. You are my hero. You always will be.” Faith’s fingers threaded through the hair on his chest.

  He chuffed a lungful of air and kissed the top of her head. She somehow always knew what he was thinking. “I’ll never allow you to be in that position again.”

  “I know. You’ll protect us. I could never doubt that.”

  “You do realize that the two weeks’ notice you wanted to give isn’t going to happen, right?” He smiled at the small giggle his comment elicited.

  “Yeah. I’ll send Max an email and explain.”

  Jason drew a deep breath before he spoke again. “I am going to assign a full-time security detail to you and Reece. You are far too valuable to me to leave anything to chance.”

  “I can live with that.” Faith yawned and sank deeper against him. Her body relaxed and her breath evened. He kissed the top of her head again and stared at the darkened ceiling. Who had the reach to coordinate an attack on the CEOs of Guardian and their loved ones? He closed his eyes. Far too many to count.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jason leaned back in his chair as Gabriel continued to review several folders he’d passed to him. Jacob and Jared sat across the conference room table, talking low between themselves. Jewell was late. Again. It was nothing new for the woman. It was only because she was a genius at the IT shit that Gabriel put up with her tardiness—that, and she usually brought food to the meetings. Nobody would admit it, but he and his brothers would probably eat junk food 24/7 if they could get away with it. So food was always a good way to start a meeting, especially now that Tori had Jacob eating healthy—at least when she was looking. His brother had an insane sweet tooth and the workout regimen to ensure he never gained an ounce, but his wife had gotten it into her mind that they needed to eat healthy for the kid’s sake.

  Jason would have laughed at that two months ago. Now? He could see her point. He wanted to be around in thirty or forty years. Seeing Reece and any brother or sisters he may have grow up, build a life, and start their own family. Suddenly, that was pretty damn important.

  He flicked a glance out the glass wall to see his sister running down the hall, a couple of bags in one hand, her tablet in the other.

  She burst into the conference room. “Sorry! But I think I may have something.” Jewell grabbed a tray from the side table, emptied two bags of cookies onto it and unceremoniously slid it in front of Gabriel. The man grabbed three cookies and leaned back in his chair.

  Jason grabbed one and mimicked his boss’s actions, as did Jared and Jacob. “Alright, what do you have?”

  “Wait… first, what did I miss?” Jewell grabbed a cookie and shoved half of it into her mouth. Her words were barely discernable as she continued, “I always miss stuff.”

  “If you weren’t twenty minutes late to every meeting you’ve ever attended you wouldn’t,” Jacob chided his older sister.

  Jewell shrugged in acknowledgment of the reprimand. She swallowed and stood, going to the side table for a bottle of water. Speaking over her shoulder, she asked again, “So?”

  Jared repeated his people’s findings for Jewell. “The Boeing had a device rigged to the altimeter. Thanks to Jacob’s warning, we diverted before we reached our cruising altitude. There was enough C4 to blast a hole in the bulkhead. The plane would have torn itself apart with little likelihood of finding the device or us. We are tracing the chemical compound of the C4 to the manufacturer and then starting a trail on the lot it would have come from.”

  She sat down and tapped the screen of her tablet. “What about the detonation device? Do you have anything?”

  Jared shook his head. “Forensics has it now. I don’t have the results of any tests at this time.”

  “Tell them to check for any DNA under any of the computer chips, diodes or converters in the device itself. Most common place to injure yourself while making a board is while installing the chips.”

  Jared chuckled. “You would know. They’re the best team we have, Jewell.” He lifted a hand at her almost immediate objection. “I’ll tell them.”

  “Thank you. Jacob, have you had any indication in movement or chatter from Europe?”

  Jason and Gabriel leaned forward as one man. His brothers across the table immediately came to attention at their simultaneous motion.

  “Why do you ask, Jewell?” He leveled a stare at his sister. Sometimes her scattered genius brain worked faster than the human element Guardian employed.

  “Huh?” Jewell grabbed a cookie and looked at him in complete confusion. He wanted to bash his head against the table. The woman is brilliant. You can’t strangle her.

  “Why did you ask if there was any European involvement?” Jason’s eye twitched. His sister could wind him up fast.

  “Sorry, I’ll be more precise, Russian involvement. Remember the incident over Afghanistan that downed your transport?” She didn’t look up and tapped away at her tablet.

  Jason blinked to reboot his brain at her question. “I’m not likely to forget it. Two of my men were killed in that incident.”

  Her eyes darted to his. Her mouth formed an O and she looked at the other three men at the table. “Jase, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think.”

  “You rarely do when you’re interacting with people, Jewell. What is your point?” Jason lifted an eyebrow and waited impatiently. One hell of a lot of anger suddenly strummed through his veins.

  “I, ah… well, I mean… I think someone hacked us again. I’ve been running an algorithm on over a hundred million lines of script from the time surrounding that… situation. Anyway, when Jacob put us on alert last night, I immediately implemented the same algorithm to determine if any of the script I had analyzed in the first situation had repeated itself in the second suspected breach. It did. The code ran something similar to a Trojan, but more modern and practically undetectable. The activation mechanism is sublime and can ride any standard transmission as long as the person who is sending the communication maintains his access here at Guardian.”

  Jason held up a hand. “He? You said as long as his access here at Guardian. Do you know whose transmission was used?”

  Jewell nodded. “Both times. Yuri Malentikov. The script propagated as a virus that was immediately isolated by my anti-virus programs, which is precisely what the creator wanted to happen. Once in the isolation vault, the script morphed and rode the email notification out of the program. It gained immediate access to everyone and everything Yuri’s clearance was allowed to see.”

  “Who created it?” Jason and Jacob asked at the same time.

  “Don’
t know, but I want to meet that crazy son of a bitch. He’s beyond brilliant.” Jewell’s eyes lit up in admiration.

  “He?”

  “Definitely a man’s touch.”

  “Did you contain the virus?”

  “What? Of course I did. Deleted Malentikov’s account and neutralized the program to useless gibberish which is being eradicated by my program as we speak. I was able to trace the scripts origin.”

  “To Malentikov?” Jared asked.

  “Huh? No! Jeez, Jared, would you please keep up? He’s not the villain. Didn’t I say that?” Jewell looked at Jacob, who lifted his eyebrows and shook his head.

  “Honestly, I have no idea what ninety-nine percent of what you just said means, Jewell.”

  “Uggg… okay, for the ones who don’t speak English… he’s been compromised but he hasn’t done anything wrong. The bad guy is somewhere in the Ukraine, or at least that is as far as I could track him. My last ping off Yuri’s messages has him holding a position near Las Vegas. Malentikov’s messages were all done within established protocols. I was able to determine that the program hopped on through the Ukraine’s governmental data systems. Apparently our agent has been made and targeted specifically for this very purpose because the man has only made two contacts to this organization in the last two and a half years. The hacker’s script hopped on both, so obviously they know he is our asset. Whatever you have him working on is probably compromised too.”

  “Jewell, this is excellent work. Jason and I need a report on our desk by the end of the day to include recommendations on how to safeguard against this type of attack in the future.”

  Jewell nodded and stood as she grabbed a handful of cookies and glanced at her watch. “This is probably dinner.” She smiled and waltzed out of the room.

  Gabriel glanced at Jason and nodded. He blew out a lungful of air and looked at his brothers. He threw his Mont Blanc pen on the file in front of him and leaned in on his elbows.