Chapter 10
CHAPTER 10
C assidy’s breath caught in her lungs. She’d felt crazy for the things she was feeling for her mystery man. Well, not so much of a mystery anymore. She should have seen a parade of red flags going by with a brass band on the news that he’d been following her for the past three years, but she knew it wasn’t like that. He wasn’t a stalker. He was a protector. He’d figured out she was a good person and he’d protected her like he couldn’t do for his parents.
Cassidy shifted in the darkness, throwing her leg over his hips. The slit from her gown spread open to accommodate her new position. She felt him grow hard beneath her as she shifted to lean down until her face was near his in the darkness. “I have feelings for you, too. I haven’t been able to stop thinking of you. No man my family has thrown at me tonight can dislodge you from my heart nor my mind.”
She felt him shaking his head. “I shouldn’t. Cassidy, you’re too good for me. I can’t give you anything. Hell, I technically don’t even exist. I’m a dead man.”
“There’s nothing dead about you.” She ground her hips down onto his and loved hearing him groan. “I’ve felt empty, invisible, lost. Not with you. From the moment you revealed yourself to me, I have felt seen, protected, and respected. I’m not turning my back nor my heart on you.”
Hawkins moved fast. He surged up, grasping her face in his hands and kissing her. It was wild, unchecked, and exactly what she wanted. Cassidy followed him onto the pillows, their lips never leaving each other. Her hands ripped his shirt, sending buttons flying into the darkness. Her fingers traced the ripped muscles of his chest and abs as his hands grabbed her ass, pressing her down onto his erection.
“Stop,” Cassidy suddenly gasped. Hawkins instantly stilled.
“Do you hear something?” he whispered.
Cassidy reached down her thigh and pulled the knife she’d had strapped there right as the window slowly opened.
Hawkins tossed her off him, reaching for the bedside as he sprang up.
Cassidy scrambled from the bed, grabbing his waistband as she heard the fight breaking out. The bedside lamp shattered and a body hit the floor.
“Hawkins?”
“Hold on, sweetheart. There’s more than one.”
She turned her back to his. “Let’s do this together. I’ve got your back.”
“And I’ve got yours.”
She heard him slam his hand into something hard as she felt movement to her right. She lashed out with her knife and let out a yell in triumph as it sank into someone.
“Shit, they have night vision,” Hawkins cursed as the second window was shoved open and she heard more men enter the room.
“I got this,” she told him before opening her mouth and screaming for all she was worth, while slashing out with her knife.
They moved as one, back to back, fighting off the men. She felt a hand grab her and yank her forward, but she stabbed the assailant right as Hawkins spun her back into his chest. She heard a crack as Hawkins slammed something hard against the man’s night vision.
Footfalls were heard in the hallway and she knew help had arrived.
The door handle turned, but then she cursed, remembering she’d locked it. She felt Hawkins hug her tight as he grunted in pain. At the same time someone kicked her door open.
Lights were turned on and she peeked under Hawkins’s raised arms. She saw Dylan and Abby leading the entirety of her family into her bedroom.
“What the hell are you doing in my little sister’s bedroom?” Dylan growled, shooting three men as Abby took care of just as many.
In a split second, it was over and Cassidy saw her brother advance with anger at the half-naked man holding her. Cassidy looked up at Hawkins’s face to gauge his reaction and lost her breath as if she’d taken a bullet.
“ Warrick? ”
Warrick Vidar stood holding a shocked Cassidy as her entire family filled the room. He didn’t know all of them. In fact, he only knew a couple by sight. They casually stepped over the injured and dead bodies as if it were nothing compared to the fact he was holding Cassidy in his arms.
He looked down at Cassidy’s stunned face.
“I don’t give a shit what his name is. I’m tired of coming into this room to find half-naked men, holding one of my sisters in one hand and massive dildos in the other. What the hell were you doing with my sister before you let her be attacked?”
Abby cleared her throat and smiled. “Babe, I think we know what they were doing. Why don’t we focus on the bodies on the ground?” Abby kicked one who reached out for her leg. He grunted and fell unconscious. Warrick would have been impressed if he wasn’t still fearful for his life.
“He’s holding a massive gold dildo and that’s my sister,” Dylan growled.
“To be fair,” a man with a British accent said, stepping forward, “We both know that Draven’s dildos make great weapons.”
The woman next to him was struggling not to laugh and it was then Cassidy noticed a knife sticking out of Warrick’s arm. “Warrick! You’ve been stabbed.”
“Don’t worry,” the man Warrick recognized as Cassidy’s brother, Jace, said, pushing through with his medical bag. “I’ll make it hurt,” he said, winking to Dylan who smiled in return.
“I think we need an explanation. Now!” Dylan yelled as Warrick focused solely on how quiet Cassidy was. She was worried about him, yet she also wasn’t looking him in the eyes.
“Sweetheart,” he whispered right as more people filled the room.
These people he recognized. They were the old ladies and the men who had surrounded him earlier. Then there was a bunch of women who must have been their wives.
Miss Violet grabbed his head and yanked him down into her bosom even as Jace ripped the knife from his arm. He screamed into Miss Violet’s bosom as she stroked his hair. “Not one word of knowing any of us, young man. Do you understand? You have no idea what I can do with a spatula.”
“ Hmph .”
“Good,” she whispered back. “Now, start groveling and get your girl back.”
She let him up for air and Warrick didn’t know which hurt more. The lack of oxygen or the knife having been yanked out.
“Hello, young man,” a woman who looked to be an older version of Cassidy said with a smile on her face. “I’m Tammy, Cassidy’s mother. Would you be so kind as to tell us who you are, why you’re in our daughter’s bedroom with a knife in your arm and a dildo in your hand, and if we need to call Father Ben?”
“Who is Father Ben?” Warrick asked. He thought Cassidy’s father was Pierce.
“I am,” a shirtless man in black shorts said. He was built just like Warrick. “Do you need me to hear your confession before they kill you?”
Warrick chuckled. “You expect me to believe you’re a priest.”
Cassidy moved to stand with several women, one of whom looked a lot like Cassidy, but taller and with Dylan’s coloring, so it must have been Cassidy’s sister. The one who had apparently also been caught in this room with a guy and a dildo. Warrick was having trouble keeping up, that’s for sure.
“Hi,” Warrick said to the whole group as men started tying up the living captures. “I’m Warrick Vidar. I work with Cassidy.”
Draven stormed in, clearly upset, with Addison right behind him. “Take them all to the dungeon,” he ordered before looking to Warrick and smiling. “It’s a very nice royal member, yes? Women and men love it. That’s why I’m such a popular leader.”
Then he took a seat as Addison went to stand with Cassidy who still hadn’t spoken.
“And what are you doing in Cassidy’s room since you’re clearly not invited? If you wanted to touch my royal member, all you had to do was buy one in the gift shop,” Draven told him.
“Like I said, I work with Cassidy. I knew she was in danger and wanted to protect her.”
Cassidy shook her head, her face carefully blank. “If you know anything about me, you know that I tell my family the truth.”
Warrick swallowed hard. It had been nearly a decade since he’d trusted anyone and tonight, he’d already opened up to Cassidy and now she was expecting him to open up to a roomful of strangers. This was a test. He knew it. And if he had any hope that she’d forgive him for lying to her about his identity, then he needed to trust them too. All of them. But... he turned to the old ladies and her father and uncles. They had to have known who he was and they’d told him to go after Cassidy. That meant they’d actually wanted him to be with her. They had accepted him. But did they know who he really was?
He guessed he’d find out right now. He took a deep breath as Jace worked to clean the knife wound. He might have been cleaning a little vigorously, but Warrick took it. He cleared his throat and went all in. “What I didn’t say is Warrick Vidar isn’t my real name. My real name is Warren Hawkins.”
“Bullshit,” Greer Abel spat. “Warren Hawkins is dead.”
“Who is Warren Hawkins?” Tammy asked.
“He, along with his parents, were killed in the Crusina embassy attack some eight or nine years ago,” Greer said, her eyes never leaving his.
Cassidy still didn’t say anything, so Warrick started at the beginning. He told them about his father, the night of the attack, going to Norway and assuming the name Warrick since he was going to war, and Vidar, the Norse god of revenge. He told them about training in special forces and he told them about finding out about Agent Naylor the same night he met Cassidy for the first time. He told how he then was “injured” and retired from special forces to take the desk job at the CIA where he worked his way onto Cassidy’s team so he could determine if she was with or against Naylor. He told them how he fell in love with Cassidy, how he respected the hell out of her, and how she was now in danger.
He never took his eyes off Cassidy as he told his story. He saw her bite her lip, which was a sign for trying to keep her emotions in check.
“Oh, Warrick!” Tammy hugged him tight. “Bless your heart. You’re one of us now. You’re not alone.”
Shit. Warrick held a woman who would be his mother’s age in his arms as she cried for him. The feeling rocked him like nothing had for years. Tears pressed against his eyes and he saw them silently roll down Cassidy’s cheeks as women all surrounded him, hugging him, including Cassidy’s grandmother and all her aunts and cousins.
“Wait a minute,” Dylan said, interrupting several women sniffling. “What do you mean, Cassidy is in danger?”