Chapter 20 Macy #2
Everything is running like a well-oiled machine, then Grayson’s voice crackles through the comms hugging my ears, his tone tense and frustrated. “Two agents haven’t checked in for the four-thirty class.”
I check the roster, my heart sinking when I realize it is one of the locations we added to the list only this morning. There’s no block-wide surveillance for that location since it is a mainly unoccupied industrial estate. The two agents were being sent in blind.
After ensuring this mishap isn’t an administration error—a.k.a.
my mistake—I tell Grayson, “I sent the coordinates for that class to Agents Perez and Donatello after their last sting. They confirmed their placement before announcing they were going to grab a quick bite to eat between assignments.” I lock eyes with a pair as equally concerned as mine.
“They should have arrived by now. Last contact was over two hours ago.”
Grayson drags his hand over his hair, spiking it as Brandon jumps back into the operation—as he has many times today.
“There was a crash on the I-5 forty minutes ago. Agents Perez and Donatello sustained minor injuries, but because their car is totaled, they will need a brief hospital admission. They won’t make it to their afternoon assignment. ”
I sling my eyes to Grayson as an imaginary bulb illuminates above his head. “I’ll get Cartwright.” My panic recedes when he grumbles, “If she attended the same driving school as you, we will make it to the class with thirty minutes to spare.”
Minutes pass before Grayson returns, his expression grim. “She’s unwell. She can’t go. She can’t leave the fucking bathroom.”
His statements convey both frustration and guilt. Adeline ate lunch with us, and as much as Grayson jokes that the extra fiber he laces my meals with will make stool softeners unnecessary, it’s not necessarily a joke. I’ve never been more regular.
While pacing the narrow hallway, Grayson makes a call. Even though his phone isn’t using the speaker function, I hear the answer to his demand—cold and final. “There are no spare agents. You’ll have to wait until next month.”
Grayson’s jaw tightens as anger flashes through his eyes.
“We can’t wait. This is the only chance we have to get eyes on someone in this unit.
” He looks at me, his gaze heavy with desperation as he takes in my swollen midsection.
“Give me someone. Anyone. I’ll even take your grandmother if that’s all I can get. ”
“There’s no one. I’m sorry, Agent Rogers, but my team has exceeded its capabilities.”
When Markwell disconnects their call, Grayson fights not to slam his phone to the ground with as much fury as Markwell’s tone. Markwell is furious because Grayson’s sting against Thompson eliminated half his team, but I also believe he has nothing left to give.
Since Grayson believes the same, he maintains his cool—barely. He can feel what I feel. Something mammoth is about to be unearthed, and he doesn’t want to give it up for anything.
When his eyes return to me, I stand with my back straight and my hands steady. He will never ask me to place myself in a dangerous situation, not even before I was pregnant, so I have to force the narrative. “I can do this.”
He hesitates, torn between duty and fear, but since time is not in our favor, he folds remarkably fast. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I answer, nodding robotically. “I wouldn’t put my hand up if I didn’t believe we would come out of this safely.” “We” centers on more than just the baby and me. It includes Grayson as well.
After a short deliberation that adds depth to the deep groove between his brows, he mumbles, “All right.” Under the cautious eye of Brandon, who watches our exchange from the television fixed on the far wall, he grabs a roll of medical tape from the hallway table. “But on one condition.”
He waves the medical tape in the air, letting it speak on his behalf.
In the privacy of our cramped bathroom, Grayson prepares to wrap my stomach. He wants to secure it like a bit of tape will stop preterm labor better than bed rest, but a gleam in his eyes also announces that he wants to make me as comfortable as possible before we make our commute into town.
The tension hissing in the air is electric, though more than sexual attraction fuels it. It’s like we’re finally on the right track, that we are on the cusp of greatness.
He tears a strip of tape with his teeth before he moves it toward my stomach. Despite his steady hands, his back molars are so friendly that an occasional grind sounds over my pounding pulse.
He’s nervous.
I am too, but I won’t show it. I don’t want him regretting giving me so much faith before I’ve proven it was the right decision.
“Can you lift your shirt a little?” Grayson’s tone is gentle but edged with worry.
I do as asked, exposing more of the rock-hard lump keeping us at a safe distance.
Faint lines mark the stretched skin on my stomach, showing the evidence of the life growing inside me, and reminding me that no woman deserves to have her child cruelly stripped away from her like the victims we’re endeavoring to protect.
Although I should feel exposed, Grayson’s tenderness when he kneels before me won’t allow such a pitiful response to surface. He is so gentle and attentive that I forget the seriousness of our day and what we still have to face.
After ensuring the waistband of my panties won’t interfere with the stickiness of the tape, Grayson smooths a large piece across the lower half of my stomach.
His hands are warm, though a shiver still courses through me.
His mouth is mere inches from a region of my body I’ve severely neglected over the past thirteen years.
Mercifully, his breaths are frequent enough to give me the perfect excuse to brush off any dampness as condensation.
Like the day he shaved my legs, he starts low before working his way up. The tape feels foreign at first, but as it melds with my skin, the weirdness wears off. It is a snug, supportive hold, though not constricting. I like how it reduces the load on my pelvis and how it’s like protective armor.
Only one thing could top it.
Grayson’s hands taking their place.
I bite back a giggle when Grayson’s fingers brush the side of my stomach. I had no clue that region of my body was a sensitive zone for me, and it takes everything I have not to squirm.
When Grayson peers up at me, seeking a reason for my wiggles, anticipation sparks in the air, thick and electric. Even though he feels frustrated and worried, his appreciation for how my body responds to his touch lessens their impact.
After a handful more minutes, Grayson asks, “Is that okay? Not too tight?”
I swallow to ensure my reply comes out clearly. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”
He acknowledges my praise without words, but his hands don’t move away from my stomach, nor does he stand. Instead, he rests his hands on my hips, grounding me. The turmoil of our day fades, and another, more tangible emotion takes hold.
As his thumb strokes a stretch mark on my left hip, his eyes search mine for any deceit his following words may conjure up. “Promise me you’ll stay close. That if anything feels wrong, you will pull out immediately. No arguments.”
The sheer fear in his voice makes a fresh lump lodge in my throat, and I immediately obey his command as if I weren’t trained for undercover operatives exactly like this. “No arguments. I promise.”
A hint of relief relaxes his stern expression, and a faint, almost ghostly smile appears on his lips. After standing, he presses his lips to my forehead, and then we head out, the air thick with anticipation.
When Grayson guides me to the underground lot, I spot Adeline through the lace curtain covering the front window of her apartment. She’s pale and shaky, and her eyes are brimming with silent apologies.
A mix of emotions bombards me when Grayson latches my belt a second after assisting me into the passenger seat of my bureau-issued vehicle.
He makes sure the belt tucks safely under my belly, as all the mommy forums state, before he jogs to the driver’s side, slips behind the steering wheel, and then fires up the ignition to begin our short commute across town.
The accident site is chaos, with flashing lights, shattered glass, and witnesses talking to the police. A handful of commuters are also milling about, filming the scene.
Grayson slows to a snail’s pace when we reach the official crash site. Authorities moved the impacted vehicles off the freeway, but traffic remains gridlocked due to rubberneckers.
After taking in the crumpled remains of a bureau-assigned car, Grayson slings his eyes to me. Though silent, his pores exude discomfort. It is as rancid from my half of the cab.
The angle of impact is off, suggesting that someone rammed the agents off the road rather than an accidental collision caused by a motorist who didn’t check their blind spot before merging lanes.
I snatch up my phone and set a reminder.
“I’ll gather any data uploaded to social media sites for evaluation after we’ve returned from our sting.
” I don’t need to be solely cautious of extra hormones and blood flow making me more daring than usual.
I also have to watch out for the dangerous fog of baby brain.
Grayson murmurs his thanks before he seeks an opening in the sea of traffic in front of us. The gridlock is dense, but Grayson’s friendliness with the gas pedal and apparent racetrack driving skills enable us to arrive at the class with almost a minute to spare.
“Thank you,” I murmur when Grayson helps me out of the car like it’s a low-riding sports car instead of a standard sedan.
My heart stutters with more than adrenaline when he doesn’t immediately remove his hand from mine.
He keeps our fingers interlocked as we pace toward the building where the class is being held.
As we enter the warehouse-like building, I spot a face I know all too well. Samuel is standing by a vending machine. While buying a drink, his eyes dart around, as if he’s the spotter I mentioned earlier. His shoulders are rigid and square, and his gaze is calculating.
If he’s not on the job, my hands are solely sweaty because of the above-average temperatures for this time of the year.
Without a word leaving his lips, Grayson pulls me into a hallway and then crowds me against the scratchy brickwork that borders almost every solid wall of this building. “He can’t see us here.”
I nod, adrenaline surging as I survey the area.
I can’t see much. Grayson’s face is an inch from mine, his lips even closer.
A tremble shakes my thighs. Grayson’s eyes are fierce and protective, though they’re not solely to blame for the odd response of my body.
I’ve lived for this type of rush for the past ten years.
The fear, the anticipation, and the thrill I can only get from my job until my sister is home safe are addictive, and they make me feel alive.
Though it has nothing on what happens next.
After a brief swallow, Grayson’s eyes snap to me, and then he presses his mouth against mine. I’m shocked for barely a second before a wave of euphoria parts my lips. My body acts like the lashes of his tongue are authentic, like he can’t wait a second longer to discover how I taste.
A moan rolls up my chest when his tongue pierces between my lips barely a second later, and he drags it along the roof of my mouth.
He tastes minty and fresh, and he doesn’t have an excessive amount of saliva like almost every man I’ve dated.
It is a scrumptious palate that has me forgetting that I’m undercover.
For a minute, I get carried away. I dance my tongue with Grayson’s while clinging to the rigid planes of his body and savoring his warmth. I kiss the living hell out of him, giving it my all as if I know this could be my only opportunity—because it very well could be.
It is an urgent and desperate embrace, full of both silent promises and equally panicked warnings. It makes my knees wobble while flooding my heart with so much blood that it skips more than one beat.
I relish every nip, lick, and moan until the fantasy is cruelly stripped away from me.
Grayson’s sudden wish to lock lips dawns on me a second later when a gruff voice breaks through the rapid pounding of my heart echoing in my ears.
Samuel still hasn’t learned to take personal calls in private.
He’s in the hallway Grayson dragged me down only minutes ago, talking on a cell phone.
How do I know this? His conversation is one-sided, and it supports our theory that Agents Perez and Donatello were targeted during their commute to this assignment.
“No one’s here. I told him I’d taken care of it. Traffic is still backed up for miles, so even if they wanted to send other agents to this location, they’d never make it in time.”
My eyes pop open when the shuffling of a man fifty pounds heavier than Grayson can bench bounces down the hallway.
Samuel is mere feet from us, but since Grayson’s large frame swamps mine, and his hands are as explorative as his tongue, we appear more like a walking billboard on teen pregnancies than two thirty-something-year-old agents seeking a perp.
Either something Samuel’s caller says pisses him off, or our hot-and-heavy make-out session amuses him.
He grunts before his boots click against the tiles separating the hallway from the entrance.
“I’m heading out.” His voice becomes distant during his next sentence.
“If she has an issue with my decision, she can tell me so herself.”
It takes three seconds for Grayson’s tongue to stop lashing mine, then another three seconds for him to remove it from my mouth. I’d question his implied reluctance if every word he speaks next weren’t gospel. “We’re at the right location.”