Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
ELI
Sylvie shifted against me, her cheek warm on my shoulder, her long cinnamon hair loosely braided and draped across her back.
If I stroked my hand down it, I’d feel silk, but I didn’t want to move and risk waking her.
I glanced at the clock. We needed to get up soon, and for the first time in ages, I didn’t want to go anywhere.
Most days, I woke up ready to hit it—work, the gym, whatever. I couldn’t remember when I’d last felt like lying around in bed. But with Sylvie tucked into my side, I didn’t want to go anywhere. I didn’t want her to go anywhere.
Was this what home felt like?
The concept of home had dissolved when my parents and Annie had died. The military was structure, but it wasn’t the same. And the family Silas had given me with the Creed Global team was something else—closer than the military had been, but still not what I had before.
Weirdly, I thought this might be exactly what home was meant to feel like.
Here, lying in this bed that wasn’t mine, tangled with this woman who also wasn’t mine, I felt wrapped in a memory of something solid and real. I was anchored, for the first time in years. Because of her.
Sylvie, with her curiosity and her courage.
Sylvie, who was smart, who liked to unravel a puzzle as much as I did, who I could talk to and be quiet with.
Who had that rosebud mouth, a yard of silken hair, and was fucking spectacular in bed.
Now that I’d gotten my hands on her, I couldn’t look at her without remembering what it felt like to hold her, to sink into her slick heat and be as connected as two people could be.
We’d only known each other a few days, and yet, it felt like a lifetime.
When I thought about what would happen when we left the safe house, I saw Sylvie staying with me, coming back to “the barracks,” and moving into my room there.
The barracks was the current name for a building Sinclair Security had purchased with the idea of turning it into employee lodgings or off-site meeting space.
Cooper said a friend had told him about the place, originally renovated by a team of real estate flippers who thought to turn it into a kind of hostel/boarding house/short-term rental.
For whatever reason, it hadn’t worked out, and they’d put it back on the market.
Located only a few blocks from the Sinclair Security building, it made for a perfect secondary location for lodging, storage, meeting space, or whatever.
The Sinclairs had been debating how to use it.
Then the Creed Global team had relocated as a unit to Atlanta without anywhere to stay, and the ten bedrooms and large central living space had been exactly what we needed.
I hadn’t been there long enough to really settle in.
None of us had. But suddenly I could see Sylvie sharing my space.
Turning one of the unused rooms into an office.
Maybe moving somewhere else with me. I stared at the curve of her shoulder, fighting the urge to run my hand down her side and curl my fingers around her ass.
Yeah, we’d need privacy. We could find our own place once things settled down a little.
I could imagine her building a new van, me riding shotgun now and then when she went on the road to investigate. Meeting her parents.
The only thing I couldn’t see was Sylvie moving on without me.
It should have scared me, this sudden attachment to a woman I’d wanted to ditch only days before.
It wasn’t like me. There had been plenty of women over the years, but I didn’t get attached.
I was up front: I was around for a night but not looking for anything more.
The women I hooked up with knew what they were getting into.
None of that applied to Sylvie.
Now that I had her in bed, her sweet body pressed to mine, I wanted more. Absolutely. I wanted to bar the door and spend days naked with her. But this was so much more than fucking.
I reached to tangle my fingers with the end of her braid, but I didn’t want to wake her up. Not yet. She needed sleep. Needed to let her nervous system reset after the insanity of the past few days.
I didn’t have to ask how she felt in order to know we weren’t on the same page with what was happening between us.
I was ready to start putting up picket fences, and she was still trying to catch her breath.
Her home had blown up. Someone was trying to kill her.
She’d been locked out of her socials, her bank account, her career put on hold.
It wasn’t the time to spring forever on her.
I could be patient. We’d find the guy who blew up her van and killed Emily Shaw, get her banking issues sorted out, and get her back into her socials.
Then she could take a breath, and I could fill her in on how things were going to go—i.e.
, I was keeping her—and by then I’d make sure she wanted to keep me just as much.
Great plan, a little voice in the back of my head piped up. But when are you going to tell her about Silas, who he is to you, and what this investigation is really about? She still thinks you’re working for a client.
I’d been dodging that question since the first day.
It wasn’t that I wanted to lie. And really, I wasn’t lying. She’d signed an NDA. She knew we weren’t telling her everything. We’d openly talked about it, so it wasn’t really that big a deal.
At least that was what I’d been telling myself.
I had a brief flash about how pissed off she would be when she found out I wasn’t keeping secrets for a client. That they were my secrets, and Emily Shaw was my case. It wasn’t about work. It was about family.
I looked at her again. The right time would come, but it wasn’t now. Sylvie didn’t need that stress right now. The truth could wait just a little longer.
My phone chirped with a text.
Sylvie shifted against me, the sound penetrating her slumber. I reached over her, trying not to jostle her sleeping body, and tilted the screen of my phone just enough for me to read Maddox’s name.
Fuck. Probably important.
Sylvie’s eyes fluttered open, and I rolled her to her back, leaning over her to snag my phone off the bedside table. I shot a quick glance at the full text.
Emmett needs Sylvie when you get here. He thinks he can get her accounts opened up.
I tossed the phone behind me on the mattress. Important, but not an emergency.
“We have to go?” Sylvie asked, her eyelids hovering open a few millimeters, her voice foggy with sleep.
“Not yet,” I said, reaching down to brush a strand of hair off her cheek. “In a little bit.”
“Okay,” she said, lifting her knee to hook a leg over my hip.
As she turned into me, I gave in to the temptation to kiss her, sinking into her lush, soft, warm body, taking my time—stroking her skin, absorbing every shiver, every moan.
For now, Sylvie was all mine. And by the time this was all tied up, I was going to make sure she wouldn’t be able to imagine leaving my side any more than I could picture her going on without me.
When we finally got out of bed, I steered her to the shower. I hogged the hot water, promising her, “Let me clean up first, and then you can take your time while I make us breakfast.”
She grinned up at me, leaned back against the wall, and watched as I scrubbed shampoo through my hair. “Sounds like a good deal to me. What are we having?”
Her hazel eyes were hot as they studied my body with open interest. I’d come less than five minutes ago, and still, that look in her eyes had me wishing I was still a teenager. Later. Maybe a long lunch break…
“Ham and cheese omelets and toast,” I said after I finished rinsing my hair, shifting to give her the hot water. I had to get out of the shower before her naked body and hungry eyes convinced me to make us late.
I had breakfast on the table by the time she finished showering and dressing. We headed down to the Sinclair offices, stopping long enough to say hi to Alice before making our way back to Hacker Central to see what Emmett and Maddox had for us.
I’d warned Sylvie that Emmett needed her for some banking-related thing, so she wasn’t surprised when he pulled her aside as soon as we got there, saying, “I commandeered an office. I’ve got most of the flags down.
I want you to call, and I’ll coach you through what to say, and we’ll see if we can’t get them to unfreeze your accounts. ”
“You think it’ll be that easy?” Sylvie asked, hope visibly brightening her face.
“It could,” Emmett said. “Whoever got in there did this by putting security flags on your accounts. Then the bank just did what the bank does when that happens and froze the accounts. Same for the credit cards.”
“So, you, what? Took the flags away?” Sylvie asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Something like that,” Emmett said. “Now you push, and when they look, they shouldn’t see any reason not to unfreeze the accounts.”
“All right, I’m game. Wish me luck,” Sylvie said, grinning up at me.
“I’m not sure you need luck,” I said. “You have Emmett.”
Sylvie laughed and followed him down the hall. I turned to see Maddox and Wren watching me, Wren’s arms crossed over her chest, one eyebrow raised.
“Hey,” I said. “How was your time off? You and Shade get into any trouble?”
“None we’re telling you about,” she said with a smirk. She let the teasing expression fade, her mouth curving into a genuine smile. “Actually, I called Quinn Sawyer to ask if she could recommend a good overnight hike, and she ended up inviting us out her way.”
“Did she go with you?” I asked. I’d met Quinn, along with the rest of the Sawyers, a few months ago when we’d helped stop the killer who’d targeted them after their father’s murder.
They weren’t what I’d expected for a family of billionaires.
The head of the family used to be on Cooper’s team at Sinclair Security, and Quinn’s husband Hawk had worked here with him.
I’d noticed Wren and Quinn in conversation when they ran into each other when we were there.