The Messenger (Professionals Book 3)

by Jessica Gadziala

And while I was fine with being someone that felt good to her, I didn't want to be the regret afterward, the realization that she had acted on impulse instead of actual desire.

  Summoning a self-control I didn't know I could possess when it would mean giving up everything I had ever wanted, my lips pulled from hers, my forehead pressing against hers as I struggled to even out my breathing.

  "Kia, please," Jules' voice whimpers, hands raking down the skin of my back, sending another jolt of need through my system.

  "I'm trying to be the good guy here, Jules," I told her, my voice rough even to my own ears.

  Her lips found my neck, her warm breath moving over the skin. "Just this once, don't be the good guy." I was considering it for a split second before she finished the thought. "Be someone else."

  My eyes slammed shut as my air rushed out of me much like a sigh because, well, that was what it was.

  Because she was just solidifying the sneaking, niggling suspicion that had made me pull away in the first place.

  This wasn't about me.

  This was about her.

  About her pain.

  Her disappointment.

  Her need to escape.

  She would have found that with any man.

  It had nothing to do with me.

  And my pride could take a lot.

  It had taken hit after hit after hit since the first time I met Jules.

  But it couldn't take this.

  I couldn't let myself be nothing more than catharsis for her when this... this was going to mean a lot to me. It was going to mean everything to me.

  And I knew, like I knew the sun would rise in the morning that she would never look at me the same after, once she had gotten a chance to think it through, to analyze it with a clear mind. She would never let me near her again. Partly because she thought it was being kind, not leading me on. And maybe even in part because she was resentful that I took advantage of a weak moment.

  Better to deal with her disappointment now than deal with her anger for years to come.

  "Unfortunately, Jules, I can't be someone else. I'm just me. And I can't take advantage of the fact that you're acting on hard feelings."

  Against me, her body stiffened.

  Her hands moved away from my skin, sliding out of my shirt touching only the material of it as her body pulled backward. She took the couple centimeters behind her body and the wall to make sure our foreheads were no longer touching.

  "Okay."

  Her voice was ice.

  Frigid.

  A sound I had only heard once or twice before when she and Gunner were going at it.

  Pure disdain.

  Toward me.

  The realization was a punch to my gut even as she slid away from me, rolling her neck.

  "Jules..." I tried, voice soft as I attempted to grab her wrist.

  She yanked almost violently away.

  "It's fine."

  "Clearly, it's not," I countered.

  "I'm a grown woman, Kai. If I say something is fine, it's fine. Let it go."

  "Where are you going?" I asked as she grabbed her purse.

  "I'm getting coffee," she declared, storming out before I could stop her.

  I didn't realize it at the time, but I should have followed her.

  Because she never came back.

  -

  Flashback - 24 months before -

  She wasn't blind.

  People could accuse her - and often did - of being a lot of things. Stubborn. Detached. Ambitious. But no one would ever accuse her of being unobservant.

  She saw everything.

  She saw the heavy lids on Smith's eyes, indicating another night of restlessness, nightmares horrific enough to keep him from even trying to sleep.

  She saw Finn's bloody fingernails, the way the pads of his fingertips were pruned even after getting to work, suggesting he'd been awake for hours with his hands in bleachy water, scrubbing things that were already clean enough.

  She saw the wrinkled mess of Lincoln's shirt, knowing that he had likely crashed on the couch at work instead of at home because he and whichever girl he was dating at the time were on the outs.

  She saw the way Miller stiffened when someone mentioned foreign concepts to this crew like family. And love.

  She saw everything inside the office that had become like a second home to her.

  She wasn't blind.

  To it.

  To him.

  To the way he was overly attentive, the way he noticed things most didn't.

  Without her even having to explain them, he seemed to get her moods, the triggers for them, how to help her overcome them.

  If she hadn't noticed those things after working with him for as long as she had, you'd have to call her dumb.

  She'd noticed.

  But she'd also noticed him coming in with bags of foil-wrapped burritos for him and Miller, with cardboard carriers full of coffee from She's Bean Around despite not drinking coffee himself. She'd noticed him picking up mail at the PO box for Quin, picking up Lincoln when he needed a designated driver, grocery shopping for Ranger to bring him things that he could not get from the land in the Barrens where he lived.

  Kai, she had concluded a long time ago, was just that kind of guy. Kind. Selfless. Attentive. Able to predict what others might want or need.

  It would have been weird if he did all those things for others and did nothing at all for her.

  "Come on, cut out of here early," Miller demanded, leaning on the edge of her desk. "It's been a long ass week. I don't think any of us have been able to leave this place for more than an hour or two at a time. I am suffocating on the testosterone. You must be too. Let's head out, get some drinks, talk about girl things." She paused there, looking off over Jules' shoulder, brows drawn together. "What are girls things again? I vaguely remember things like nail polish and waxing horror stories."

  "I have a mountain of work to do," Jules told her, waving a hand at the files that needed scanning, the loose leaf paper that needed transcribing.

  "You always have a mountain of paperwork to do. Besides, it will still be there for you in the morning if you go out for a drink with me now."

  "Miller... I..."

  She fumbled for the words, to explain the borderline compulsive need she had to prove herself, to deserve everything she had gotten, everything Quin had offered to her.

  She'd been green as could be when she walked into the office and all but insisted on the job.

  He had given it to her.

  Then he had paid her handsomely.

  So handsomely, in fact, that people had things to say about it. About how normal secretaries and personal assistants didn't get paid half or even a third of what she was paid, about how there was no way she got the salary she got simply because she came in early and stayed late.

  The implication had always been there.

  You're clearly sleeping with your boss.

  It was insulting, obviously. Even if Quin was great looking and successful. She never would sleep her way to the top of anything.

  She would never sleep around at work, period.

  It never worked out.

  And, without fail, if things went down in flames - as they invariably were sure to do - it was always the lowest man - or, let's face it, woman - on the totem pole who paid for it, who found herself out on her ass for it, without a good reference, without a solid way to get another well-paying job.

  She wouldn't risk that.

  Even the rumors of it.

  Not for anything.

  So she kept everyone at a distance.

  She worked herself into exhaustion to feel like she'd earned every penny of her income.

  Cutting out early was out of the question.

  Even if she had been pulling nearly eighteen-hour days all week like everyone else.

  Leaving things to be dealt with in the morning was inexcusable unless she was sick.

  "I appreciate the offer, but I am going to c
atch up. I don't want anything else to pile up on top of this mountain."

  "Fiiiine. Suit yourself, workaholic. I hear lack of fun ages you, though. Worry lines and all that."

  "I've invested in a good eye cream," Jules informed her, smile pulling at her lips. "See, there was some girl talk."

  "I guess it will have to do. Maybe Lincoln will go with me. Even if I know he will ditch me for some short skirt at the bar."

  "Lincoln headed out already. I think only Kai is left."

  "Psh, I'd have better luck convincing a preacher to go out and get trashed with me. Alright. Solo date it is. But if I end up dead in a ditch because I had no one out with me, I expect you to feel guilty as hell."

  "It's a deal," Jules agreed, lips twitching as Miller made her way out the door, locking her back in.

  An hour later, she was finally finishing up the transcriptions of the ridiculously bad handwriting of none other than Gunner, who she had a sneaking suspicion just wrote so badly to vex her.

  She'd just lifted her head from where it had been tucked down near her chest to see her screen, feeling a blindingly sharp pain shoot from between her shoulder blades and up the back of her neck, making an audible hiss escape her as she automatically reached back toward it, trying to ease the scissor-sharp sensation that simply kept rolling instead of easing.

  "Got a knot?" Kai's voice asked, soft like it so often was, making her gaze shoot to where he was moving out of the hallway of offices, head dipped to the side as he approached.

  "I think someone snuck up and stabbed me in the back," she told him dramatically, smile a little wobbly even as he started to move behind her.

  "May I?" he asked, pressing his fingers to her hand that was doing absolutely nothing.

  Since her useless hands could do nothing and the pain was starting to make her wonder if maybe she should go and get a scan or something, she figured there was nothing to lose, and moved her hand away, curling both of them into each other on her lap as Kai's hands came down on her shoulders, one staying as an anchor on the side not bothering her, the other searching, searching, intent on a destination she knew nothing about until he found it, making her whole body lurch, trying to get away from the pressure.

  "This is gonna hurt, honey, before it gets better."

  The words were laced with apology, enough that she almost forgave him as he doubled down on the pressure, sinking fingers into the sore spot, working them in a circle that made pricks of pain shoot off in half a dozen directions, making her hands clasp each other until the skin went white.

  But then, slowly, as promised, the pain eased, the pressure became less of a punishment... and became something more.

  Something good.

  Something that made her breathing deepen, but somehow become more erratic, as his second hand started moving too, sinking in, finding all the sore bits and working them out with deftness, without her having to say a thing about them in the first place.

  Soon, the relief deepened, heated, became something else entirely, building in such a way - slowly, gently - that she couldn't see the signs pointing to what they were until a stab of something that was decidedly not pain shot between her thighs, making her breath catch, her heart stutter into overdrive, her breasts get heavy, nipples hardening, lips parting on a silent moan.

  A tremble moved through her, and she wasn't sure if it was just internally, or if Kai could feel it as well.

  If he did, he made no show of responding to it as his fingers kept working their magic, making a forbidden thought course through her brain.

  What else could he do with those fingers?

  The shock of that made her stiffen, trying to steady herself with a deep breath. "That's so much better, thanks," she told him, hoping her breath didn't come out as airy as it felt, and stifling a surge of primal disappointment when his hands moved to her shoulders, gave a small squeeze, then dropped away completely.

  "Glad I could help," he told her, meaning it, because he always meant what he said. He was one of those people, the ones who were impeccable with their words. And even pure enough to be so with the motivation behind them.

  Unless he was on a job, she supposed.

  "Are you heading out?"

  "Not until you do," he declared, moving off toward the hall as she just sat there, chaos pulsing between her thighs under her desk. "I'm gonna walk you out," he added, leaving before she could object.

  Alone, she sucked in a deep breath, looking for composure, forcing her legs to hold her weight as she stood, hands gripping the edge of her desk as she realized there was no stopping the sensation inside, that she couldn't think straight.

  Cold water.

  She just needed a little cold water.

  On that thought, she let herself into the bathroom, locking the door, moistening a paper towel with icy water, placing it at the back of her neck, body shuddering at the contact, but finding no relief from the pressure in her lower stomach, the insistent aching in her core.

  Unable to think of anything else, convinced she wouldn't be able to without some relief, her hand found the hem of her skirt, sliding the tight material up until her hand could slip between her thighs.

  Her fingers met the wet material of her panties - proof of her aching desire - pressing down into her clit.

  By the third circle of the swollen bud, she felt the orgasm rip through her body, making her teeth nip into her lip to keep from crying out, her hitched breath loud enough as it was against the hollow tiled room. Her hand slammed down on the cold, unbending porcelain of the sink as the waves crashed and crashed, threatening to pull her under completely, to refuse to let her surface before she finally managed to pull in a gasping breath, pulling herself back onto solid ground.

  She wasn't sure how long she stood there, trying to bring calm back to her frazzled nerve endings.

  But when her eyes met her reflection, she saw it there still.

  Desire.

  Hell, need.

  Raw.

  Undiluted.

  In its purest form.

  For Kai.

  No.

  She shook her head at herself as if to shake the thought free.

  No.

  It wasn't Kai.

  Not really.

  It was the touch, the good feelings.

  It had been so long since she'd been touched.

  Her body had simply reacted, had done what it was designed to do when flooded with feel-good sensations.

  It was a response.

  Like a knee jerk.

  Like a sneeze.

  Just a body working as it should when faced with the right stimuli.

  That was it.

  At least that was what she stood there and convinced herself of for the next fifteen minutes.

  And that was what she told herself every time the memory of that night flashed across her mind in rare, quiet moments. In bed. In the shower.

  It wasn't Kai.

  It couldn't be Kai.

  SIX

  Jules

  I paced the snack area of the lobby for ten minutes, knowing I looked like a lunatic doing so in my bare feet, but allowing myself not to care. Just this once.

  There were other things on my mind for a change than how other people might perceive me.

  Kai.

  Kai was on my mind.

  More specifically, making out with Kai was on my mind.

  I didn't plan on it.

  I'd gone into that room in my sour mood because there was simply nowhere else for me to go. Had I brought my car with me, I'd have gone for a drive, music blaring, trying to shake the anger and guilt and disgust before someone else had to deal with me.

  But I didn't have that luxury.

  And I didn't want to spend any more time in the lobby area with the employees watching me like I was some kind of lunatic while I talked to my mom and sister in occasionally hushed, then manically loud tones.

  "Just... forget about him, Julie-Bean," my mother had told me as we were saying
our goodbyes. "Lay on that beach, get some much-needed vitamin D, drink, read, look at half-naked men. And don't think about him."

  Don't think about him.

  I was sure she was out of her mind as I made my way back to the room.

  I mean how could I forget about him when my little sister - the sister I was supposed to protect, the sister who was supposed to look up to me - had been cornered and made uncomfortable by the man I had chosen to marry? And then that situation had forced a wall of a lie between us.

  How could I forget him?

  But then I had gone back in the room, had started unloading on poor Kai yet again.

  And he moved behind me.

  He put an arm around me.

  He rested his head on my shoulder.

  He just kept giving, giving, giving.

  Like his well was bottomless.

  And I had given him, well, nothing.

  The question had burst from me without thought, something I had apparently needed to ask for a long time, but had never let myself do so.

  And his answer had done something to me, had thawed the ice I felt building inside, little bits that had been there for years, for decades, but also the glaciers that had formed since the morning of my wedding.

  He melted me.

  And, suddenly, something that had never been an option, something that I wouldn't even allow myself to think about seemed oddly possible. Seemed almost necessary.

  The need overcame me in an instant.

  And the second his lips pressed to mine, I knew that I had never wanted anything more, had never needed someone so much.

  It overwhelmed me completely, my body nothing but overly sensitive nerve endings just begging for touch.

  And all I wanted was more.

  Everything.

  And then he had stopped it, refused to bend.

  Maybe it wasn't fair, maybe it was selfish of me, but all I felt as I walked out of that room was complete and utter rejection.

  It was a somewhat new sensation for me.

  I had never been someone to initiate anything, so I had never needed to learn how to cope with what it felt like to be turned down.

  It was an ugly thing, a gray cloud that worked its way through my system, choking out anything with any light until everything within me felt dark.