“I’m not exactly a virgin. I have done this before.”
He heard the laughter on her words. Teasing him, like she had so many damned times before. He brushed his lips against hers again. “You know what I mean.”
“I’m not asking for a lifetime commitment here. I don’t know why you seem so freaked out. You’re not a virgin, are you?”
He snorted. “Hardly. But you’ve said before, you wouldn’t get this close to me if someone paid you to.”
“I don’t think I ever had in mind this kind of close.” She ran her hands over his shoulders. “This is pretty crazy.”
“It’s stupid.”
“I’m not in the habit of making stupid mistakes.”
“Then why are we doing this?”
“I don’t know. I guess because…it feels right. And isn’t that what matters? Going with what feels right?” Her uncertainty was in her eyes. Indecision warred within him. Hell yeah, he wanted her. Probably had for a long, long while.
But that didn’t mean he had to act on it. He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers. “We shouldn’t do this. It would be stupid and change things too much between us. I don’t want that, and neither do you.”
“It’s not like things between us were all that great to begin with.”
God, he wanted the woman in his arms. Mick spread his fingers over her back, struck again by how deceptively delicate she felt beneath his hand. She was tall and strong, but somehow she didn’t seem that way when he touched her.
Or maybe it was because he felt so big and ham-handed next to her. Like an oaf—or a clumsy young boy trying to get a girl’s attention for the first time. “You have a point. For some damned reason, all I want to do is have you naked and beneath me. Above me, whatever and whichever way I can get you. And I know that will not be the right decision to make. So, damn it, keep away before I forget all of my resolve.”
Instead of snapping at him, like he honestly expected, she laughed softly. Laid her head on his shoulder next to the worst of the bullet and surgical scars. “Even this changes things, doesn’t it? I don’t think I’ll be able to look at you the same again.”
“How did you look at me before? Or do I really need to ask?”
“I think we both know that neither of us was exactly fond of the other. Hopefully we can move past that.”
“Oh, I think we can.”
They dove at each other. And it was more than just one kiss. And it didn’t end there.
Chapter 36
Mick woke first, and grabbed the phone on the bedside table when it beeped. He checked the display, then cursed loud enough to wake the woman sleeping up against him.
“Mick? What is it?”
He held up a hand, as he answered the call. He listened, and knew it would do damned little good to protest.
Mick got the details “I need three days.”
He wasn’t going to get it, and he knew it. “Then come and get me yourselves.”
Mick disconnected. Paige was looking at him.
“I have something to tell you.”
“What?” Her eyes turned immediately wary.
He’d wanted to wake her gently, and hold her against him for a while before they had to face the day. But that wasn’t going to happen. “The trial for Mara’s killer begins in three days. I’m going to have to go soon. And it will be totally sequestered until the verdict and sentencing are read. I’m sorry. So terribly sorry.”
Her expression cleared. “I get it, Mick. And like I said, it’s not like this changes anything between us, right? It was just a one-time thing…”
Mick yanked her over him. Was that what she really thought? Didn’t she realize that he wasn’t the type for such shit? He had been with her because he cared about her. More than anybody else, he cared about this woman in his arms. “Hardly, one time isn’t what I’d call it. This isn’t finished. We’re going to find this killer, I’ll deal with this trial, and then we’ll talk about what’s changed between the two of us. And Paige, it definitely has.”
Maybe he was a bit more like his brother than he’d thought after all. “Get up. Get dressed. We need to get to PAVAD.”
“Yes, sir.” She smirked at him, her hair spread over her shoulders. She wore nothing else.
Mick checked the lock, and then said screw it. He’d take advantage of her just one more time.
Because he didn’t know when he’d get the chance to again.
If Wilcox—the prosecutor in the murder trial—showed up today, Mick wasn’t sure he’d have a choice in what happened next.
Chapter 37
Cam stepped out of his hotel room, his heart heavy at the news he’d have to deliver to the woman he was half starting to like. Paige Daviess had had some serious knocks the day before, and now he was about to heap one more thing on her.
It fucking sucked doing this job sometimes.
He zipped his coat against the October wind, and started down the stairs toward his rental car. He’d grab some breakfast, then meet Daviess and that prick Brockman at their PAVAD building.
He’d thought about her most of the night. Something about her had stuck with him; twelve years ago and yesterday. By the time the day had ended yesterday it was obvious she was hurting. Both physically and more than that.
Brockman, though, was determined to protect her. Did the guy realize that what he was feeling about the girl showed so openly? Cam somehow doubted that. And the way she kept looking at Brockman when she thought no one was looking?
Cam couldn’t remember a real woman ever looking at him like that. Did he miss that? Regret it?
He spent all of his free time looking for his sister. Somehow it had become his driving force, and he spread that force over into doing the same damned thing in his working life.
Had to be something more to that, didn’t it? He’d met Brockman’s sister yesterday. And his brother and sister-in-law. Not to mention the sister’s fiancé. Lots of connections. He’d even met Paige Daviess’ sister-in-law. Also Ariella’s sister-in-law, when he thought about it.
Cam had never seen so many family connections within a single field office in his entire career. But…most of the people within the PAVAD directorate were of a similar age group. And they were intelligent, attractive, and dedicated to their jobs. They put in long hours, in highly stressful situations. He got it—high running emotions, attractive available people, sex would naturally follow for some.
And if the director of said directorate had no problem with it, the little bunnies in the coop would definitely start to act like, well…rabbits.
It would surely suck if any of the couples got transferred and their spouse didn’t. Talk about a great big ouch for that couple.
He was almost to the bottom of the stairs when he saw the kid.
Skinny. Dark eyes and hair. A world-weary expression on a face so like his sister’s.
“Agent Lake?”
A rush of relief hit Cam. He’d spent most of the night worried that whomever had killed the boy’s mother had killed him, too. Or that the kid had been the one to wield the knife. “Simon, what in hell are you doing here?”
“Someone came into our apartment. And they killed her.” The boy was about ready to cry. Cam studied the kid, and real quick. There wasn’t any blood on the boy, or even a mark or bruise. “I went out the window.”
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know. But he wanted me. I heard him ask my mom where I was. Then she told him to get out. That he wasn’t going to find me. She tried to stop him, but he killed her. He killed her.”
Cam pulled the boy to his chest when the kid broke down.
He’d not thought there was any love between Denise Daviess and her kid—any of her kids, really—but the boy had just told him something different.
Had Denise died protecting her youngest son?
“Simon, why did you come here? How did you know where to find me?” He pulled back from the kid when the boy was finished crying.
Twelve years old, alone in the world, with the only relatives he had either dead or missing. Or inside the PAVAD building, not knowing the kid existed. “Get in the car.”
He waited until the boy was buckled into the passenger side. “Tell me, how did you know I was here?”
“Slipped another phone in your bag. It has GPS. I figured you’d be looking for my sister.”
Smart kid. “So you tracked me. Good for you. Illegal, but it worked. The local police are probably looking for you.”
“I didn’t stop to think about them. I don’t want to go to a foster home. My mom said those were horrible.”
He thought about what Agent Daviess had let slip about her time in the system. He couldn’t say he blamed the kid. In his experience, most foster homes were decent places. People who genuinely wanted to help. But there was always going to be that percentage who saw the kids as nothing but easy money. “We’ll need to contact the Dallas police. Let them know you are safe. And what you saw.”
“And they’ll stick me in a foster home. Or juvenile detention. No thanks. I’m not saying anything until I have someplace to go.” Kid had a stubborn expression on his face Cam had seen before.
“I got some place to take you.”
The blow he was about to deal to Paige Daviess was about to get doubly shitty.
He hoped she was ready—she was about to inherit a kid.
Chapter 38
They walked into the PAVAD bullpen at fifteen minutes past nine a.m. She’d managed to grab some sleep, curled against his chest. His absolutely perfect chest, even though there were four rather nasty looking scars marring the surface. She’d traced each mark with a finger after the man had fallen asleep.
He’d been through a hell of a lot, hadn’t he?
No wonder he’d held her so tightly. She smiled, thinking of what they’d done. She’d never loved someone like that before. Not even Leo. Not that open, with that kind of trust between them.
They were stopped just as they came off the elevators. Toni, the head of the support staff stepped into Paige’s path. “You have a visitor. Same guy as yesterday. Sent him to your office, Agent Brockman. Figured you would want the privacy.”
“Thanks, Toni,” Paige said. “We’ll take care of it.”
“Figured you would. How’s the head?”
“Sore. But it’s better today.”
“It’s because the head is as hard as a rock on you, sweetie. And Carrie? The wee baby?”
“She’s beautiful.” Paige pulled up the baby’s photo on her phone. “Look at her. Carrie’s face, Sebastian’s hair.” She’d never seen a more beautiful baby girl.
“That’s going to be one pretty child, that’s for sure. Give my best when you see her next.”
“I’ll do that.” Paige looked back at Mick. “I’m assuming it’s Lake in your office.”
“I’ll meet him. You’ll want to hit your desk for messages and such, I assume?” His expression was especially mild for him. But his eyes burned when he looked at her.
In a way far different than they ever had before. She felt an answering tingle in her stomach. Lower.
Now she knew what was beneath that suit, that cold exterior. Man burned hotter than any flame she’d ever touched. She wasn’t quite sure what she was going to do about that. They hadn’t spoken of the future. Or even anything more than last night. She hadn’t been able to figure out what he’d thought about that, and she wasn’t about to mention it. Not yet.
Not until they were back to a normal kind of world.
“Of course. The rest of the team will be here soon.”
“Good. Then I’ll meet you in half an hour. Probably with Lake in tow. And Paige? Stay close. I want eyes on you at all times.”
“You think there is cause for it?”
“I think more than anything your ass needs to be doubly cautious. Something’s going on, and you’re right in the middle of it. Again. I’ve called in Teams One and Two.”
“They’re all available?”
“Word came this morning. Mal tied up his case yesterday. Hellbrook’s team was on stand down. Ed’s pulling them both to assist us on this. Because of the threat to you. And because the teams are all practically cannibalized with the Lorcans out and with us now covering three locations.”
“I see.” She wasn’t sure she wanted the entire division involved in whatever this was. Not with it involving her and possibly Carrie. She didn’t want the details of some of the darkest times in her life coming out in front of her colleagues and friends. “Mick…”
“We don’t have to share everything, Paige. And we understand, anyway. We all have secrets, remember. That doesn’t mean we have to let them all out there for the CCU to see.”
She nodded. “You’d better get up there to your office. I have a feeling Lake is the kind to mess with your desk just to mess with your head.”
“No kidding. I mean it. You do not leave the bullpen without me knowing it. And you for damned sure do not step outside this building.”
“I can’t hide forever, Mick.” And she wasn’t about to hide and let the big, strong man protect her from the monsters of the past. That wasn’t the kind of person she was.
She was the kind who did the protecting. Not the kind who needed it.
“No. But you don’t need to be stupid, either. Someone out there has killed multiple times. At my last count we’re up to fifteen, with the Beck shooter’s siblings. That’s fifteen people who didn’t know to hide. Can’t forget that fact.”
He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Just stay where I can see you, please? After what happened to Mara I am not sure I can take it again if someone I cared about—the woman I care about—gets killed.”
There was a vulnerability in his words that shocked her to her very core. She found herself nodding. “I’ll stay here.”
“Promise.”
“At most I’ll go downstairs to Jules. That’s it. Just to check on her.” The expression on his face had her knees shaking.
He cared enough about her to worry. What was she supposed to do about that?
“See that you do. I’ll bring Lake down in a minute. Right now I need to find out why the guy is still in St. Louis. He was supposed to take a flight out this morning.”
“Keep me up to date.”
Paige watched him as he headed up the stairs to the office at the end of the bullpen. He was close to the CCU but not an actual part of it. Always just on the outside, while Mal and Alessandra were right in the middle of everything. She understood how that would make him feel.
She’d never look at him as the odd Brockman again, never look at him as anything less than the deep down good person that he was.
Funny how perception could change so quickly. With just the right shift in attitude, everything was different.
She hurried toward her desk. She’d check her messages, wait for her teammates, and see if forensics or anyone else had found something they could use. They had ID’d three of the girls, now. Three victims out of thirteen. That still left ten to go. There had to be something that connected them together besides being dead in that warehouse.
Maybe she should fax their photos over to her friend at the Bright Star Haven shelter—the one she and Carrie had funded when first coming to St. Louis. Only about a tenth of the city’s runaways filtered through the shelter, but maybe there was something Calista—the head of the shelter—would recognize. Some type of connection could be made. These girls had to come from somewhere.
She’d concentrate most of her morning on combing through the Texas missing persons cases that she’d had Hernandez compile for her. There were connections. And she’d find them. If it took her all day, or even all week. She’d find them.
She’d been at her desk ten minutes when she heard shouting from by the elevators.
That had her looking up. Whenever there was shouting in the bullpen, something bad was going down. Definitely.
She stood.
A dark-hea
ded kid was running down the hall from the elevator. The security agents were behind him.
How on earth had a kid managed to slip into the CCU bullpen? It wasn’t someplace that was easy to access. There was the main security checkpoint in the lobby. And the support staff had offices between the elevator and the main bullpen. People didn’t get into the CCU without a secure escort. How had a kid managed it?
The boy headed right toward the center of the CCU.
Security was hot on his heels. The kid could run, she could definitely give him that.
But the CCU was no place for an unclaimed kid.
Paige stepped right into his path.
He slammed into her with such force he almost took them both down.
***
Mick studied Lake the minute he entered his office. “Thought you’d be leaving town this morning.”
“Was planning on it. Until I got a phone call about two hours ago.”
“And?”
“Denise Daviess was killed last night.”
“I see.” Was this Fate’s idea of some kind of sick joke? “Details?”
“Someone broke into her apartment. She fought him, but he stabbed her. Sixteen times. She bled out before the fourteenth. I wanted to break the news to Agent Daviess myself.”
“Any idea who?”
“None. There’s more.”
“What more could there be?”
“The killer wasn’t after Denise.”
“Then who?”
“Her thirteen-year-old son Simon. Apparently she stepped up as a mother for once and got between the boy and the killer.”
“Dear God. The boy?” Mick closed his eyes for a moment. What was this going to do to her? If the kid was dead, what would she think? How much would it hurt her? He knew she’d worried about the sister she’d never met. Had driven herself to the point of exhaustion the night before pouring over Lake’s case file—after they’d ended up in bed together. The file had been so pitifully thin. Nothing about this was easy, was it? “Where is he?”
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