Chapter Two
Shane
I grab Talia before her knees give out and pick her up, carrying her to the reclining chairs where she can sit…and I can wrap myself in a towel. My dick is already reacting to having her in my arms, a warm, soft woman who smells damned good.
She isn’t passed out cold, she just collapsed due to falling adrenaline, something I’ve seen many times before on the force and in my work with security firms.
But why the fuck is she here now?
I sit her on the reclining chair, and she pushes herself up against the back, breathing in and out slowly.
The familiar ring of my phone catches my attention. I glance at the table where my cell sits… and see her brother is calling.
I pick up quickly. “Hey, man.”
“Where the hell have you been? I have an emergency.”
“I was in the shower. But if you’re calling about Talia,” I say, glancing over to catch her staring at me, wide-eyed behind her black-framed glasses, “package arrived safely.” I can’t stop myself from winking at her.
And her cheeks flush a pretty pink.
“She was supposed to let me know she was safe,” Tate grumbles. “She’s in trouble. She called from her lab and said someone was after her.”
I narrow my gaze, not liking the sound of that at all. “I’ll get to the bottom of it,” I promise, knowing my friend is in China and will be worried sick about his sister.
“Keep in touch,” Tate demands.
“Will do.” I disconnect the call and look at Talia.
A woman I haven’t seen since high school because, although I was good friends with her brother, Talia and I ran in different circles.
We always had.
A year younger, the little brainiac who tutored me in chemistry my senior year saved my ass and enabled me to graduate.
Too bad I was stupid enough to kiss her as a thank you, then shove my tongue down her throat and my hand up her shirt like she was a horny cheerleader and I was the football captain, copping a feel. Which I was.
But she wasn’t that kind of girl. She deserved better. No wonder she pushed me away and slammed the door in my face, avoiding me afterward. Then life took us our separate ways.
But now she needs me, and I find irony in that.
I wrap the towel around my waist and tuck the corner in to keep it in place. Folding my arms across my chest, I pin her with my most serious gaze.
“Tate says you’re in trouble. And I can’t help you unless I know the extent of it. So let’s hear it,” I say, getting down to what I do best.
Business.
Because if I keep staring at her porcelain skin, big brown doe eyes, and silky, chocolate-colored hair falling haphazardly and adorably out of a bun on the back of her head, my cock won’t go down, and this situation will remain embarrassing.
Apparently, she still makes me lose control just as she did years ago.
She pulls her jean-clad knees up to her chin, doing her best to keep her gaze on my chest and above, but she keeps glancing down at the towel. And my dick likes the attention and stands in awareness.
Shit.
“Situation?” I bark at her, in a tone my ex-wife would have shrunk back from. No matter that I’d never take my frustration out on her. She wasn’t the strong, silent type a cop needed for a wife.
Talia doesn’t flinch. “I’m working on a treatment for a congenital heart defect.
I found the answers, and today when I showed up at my lab, everything was gone.
Wiped clean. And a big, burly guy was talking into his cell phone about trapping me in the lab and asking for backup before I left the building. ”
My senses go on alert. Big pharma means big money. Those people don’t play around. “If whoever is after you now has all your work and research, why do they need you?” I ask.
She bites down on her full bottom lip. “It’s a long story.”
I can’t tear my stare from that puffy pink flesh. I want to draw it into my mouth for a taste. I frown at the direction of my thoughts.
If I am going to help her, I need to focus. “Were you followed here?” I ask.
“I don’t think so.” She shakes her head, fingering a locket around her neck nervously.
“Not good enough. Come on. I’ll get you something cold to drink, and I’ll get dressed.” I extend a hand, and she grasps it so I can pull her to her feet.
I didn’t anticipate the jolt of awareness on contact, and I clear my throat. “From there, we’ll go to my office and work out a game plan.”
I start for the kitchen, knowing I’ll have to call my boss and get some people in on the weekend to help out.
Ian Taggart, head of McKay-Taggart Security Services, is a solid guy…
who won’t appreciate being called away from his wife and kids on a weekend off.
That said, as soon as he hears the story and Talia’s connection to a man who is the closest thing I have to a brother, he’ll drop everything and offer up MT services to help.
After he busts my balls—because one look at Talia and me, and the bastard will figure out there was something between us.
Years ago or not, Ian will give me shit.
Taggart is that good at reading people. I wonder if I have time to stop and pick up a lemon-filled dessert from Ian’s brother Sean at his restaurant, Top.
Anything lemon would take the edge off Ian’s bite.
I glance over my shoulder at Talia. No, no time to stop. Getting her safely to MT, where we can assess and work out a plan of action, is my main priority at the moment.
“Before we go to your office, I have to stop at my apartment,” she says from behind me.
I opt to get us inside and lock the door behind us before I turn and scowl at her request. “Isn’t that the first place someone would go? If they’re looking for you?”
She nods. “But you know that long story I mentioned? It involves the research results and the way to reconstruct the treatment. And it’s in pieces. Whoever stole my lab equipment only got the last part that my assistant and I just finished. The second part is hidden in a safe at my house.”
I am afraid to ask where the first part is. I scrub a hand down my face. “Then I’ll take you to McKay-Taggart, where you’ll be safe, and I’ll go pick up the work product.”
“You can’t do that!”
I shake my head, not planning on giving in on this. Her safety comes first. “Now isn’t the time to get stubborn. I protect you. That’s my job.”
“It’s not being stubborn! My safe opens with my fingerprint.” She meets my gaze defiantly, hands on her sweet hips. “You need me with you. Or at least you need my finger and I’m pretty attached to it. In more ways than one.”
I grin, caught off guard that she can joke when she is also so afraid. I have to respect that about her. I don’t like it, but she has a point.
“Fine. We go to your house first but you do everything—and I mean everything—I say. Agreed?”
“Agreed. Now can you do me a favor?” she asks.
I nod. “Want that cold drink?”
She shakes her head. “I want you to put some clothes on.” Her cheeks burn as she speaks the words. But her point is clear.
She is as affected by me as I am by her. And we haven’t even had a chance to get reacquainted yet.
* * *
Talia
Shane Landon has a great ass. With my smarts and all the sudden insanity in my life, that is the main topic going through my mind. But as he walks away from me, towel low on his hips, his sexy ass is the best thing I can think about.
It is better than recalling how I collapsed against his naked body.
Not that I didn’t appreciate the feeling, and he smelled incredibly good, but it is another humiliating experience to add to the other mortifying incident with Shane.
And while he is upstairs getting dressed, I have nothing but time to recall the first moment in excruciating detail.
I spent spring of my junior, his senior year in high school, tutoring the hot jock in chemistry so he could graduate on time.
The guy I had an insane crush on, and also my brother’s best friend, was always surrounded by the prettiest, most popular girls in school.
There was no way he’d be interested in a science geek like me.
Even if he did tease me during our sessions, when his blue eyes would light up with laughter at my usually too complicated explanations before I dumbed things down for him, his words, not mine. I never thought he was dumb.
He would call me his little brainiac, or smarty-pants, and though if anyone else had said it, I’d think they were making fun of me, he always did it with a warm twinkle in his gaze and a little lift of his lips that I liked to think was just for me.
Hey, a girl could dream, and I knew that’s all I’d ever do about Shane Landon.
Especially since I was always uncomfortable and inevitably did something awkward around him.
Yes, there was something about Shane that brought out the awkward girl inside me, and clearly that hasn’t changed.
“I’m ready,” he says, striding back into the kitchen, where he left me, this time fully dressed. He wears a dark pair of jeans and a light black jacket, which no doubt covers his weapon.
“Great.” I swallow hard, as things have just gotten real. Nothing says reality like a man with a gun. He shuts off the music outside and the lights indoors.
I follow him to the garage, where he sets the alarm to the house and holds open the car door for me to climb inside his navy and khaki-colored Jeep Wrangler.
“What’s your address?” he asks, and I rattle off the condo information.
He takes off in his hot car. My nerves have returned. If I wasn’t so afraid, I’d enjoy the ride, but I can’t stop wondering just what I am up against and why.
When I finally pay attention to my surroundings, I realize he is driving us in circles and taking off-the-beaten-path roads.
“Why—”
“Just in case you had a tail,” he says, reading my mind before I can ask the question in full.
“Now here’s how it’s going to go. We get to your place, I go first. You stay behind me.
You pack up some clothes and necessities first. Five minutes, and we’re out of there.
Put everything in a brown paper bag or bland shopping bag and we’ll check it over at the office.
Then we go to the safe at your apartment.
We’ll grab your work and get the hell out,” he says, all sexy efficiency, his aviators covering his eyes as he glances my way.
“Yes, boss.” I salute him because I am actually calmed by his list of commands.
He frowns at me, and I shake my head, knowing he thinks I am being glib. “I’m serious. I’m not looking to get myself killed. I’ll listen.”
His shoulders ease down at my admission. “Where’s the safe?” he asks me.
I can’t help the self-satisfied smile that takes hold. “Beneath the shower. It’s waterproof.” I am rather proud of my hiding place.
“Nice,” he acknowledges, and I grin.
“Where are we going that I need clothes?” I ask.
“We’ll figure that out at McKay-Taggart, but obviously you can’t stay here,” he says as he pulls into the parking lot of her co-op. “Ready?” he asks.
I blow out a shallow breath. “As I’ll ever be. Let’s do it.”
He comes around to my side, and I follow him out of the car and into my apartment building.