Chapter 10
Ethan
Jenkins answered on the second ring. Agreed to meet. I told him nothing about Lyra and he didn’t ask for details. Good man.
Lyra sat next to me in the white SUV we borrowed from the garage. She’d been quiet on the drive.
Too quiet.
She was keeping something from me, and it was making me nuts.
Of course she’s keeping secrets. She’s fucking CIA, you dumb ass.
Cold, hard logic. Unfortunately, my body didn’t listen well.
Hadn’t since the moment I saw her. Now that I’d held her in my arms, tasted every inch of her body, lost myself in her?
I was doomed. My heart didn’t care who she was or who she worked for.
Right now, she was mine to protect. I wasn’t going into an alien shootout without backup. And she wasn’t fucking going alone.
I reached across the center console and wrapped my hand around hers, nearly sighed with relief when she accepted the touch and squeezed back.
My heart was already arguing with my head, trying to convince me everything was going to be fine. Things would work out in the end. We’d go on this CIA raid with the aliens—fucking Atlan Warlords—and then it would be over. Done.
After that, Lyra could be mine. Whatever that meant.
Knew even as I thought about it, this thing between us would never work. I wasn’t going to stop being a cop. She wasn’t going to stop being a spook. A white picket fence and a couple children wasn’t in the cards for either of us.
“Are you sure your partner won’t tell anyone about this?” Lyra stared out the window, her dark hair pulled back in a braid, the delicate line of her jaw begging to be kissed. “One word and the whole operation could be blown.”
“I’m sure.”
“You trust Jenkins that much?”
“I trust him with my life.”
“And mine? And the lives of everyone else going on this raid?”
“Yes.” We were closer than brothers, tormented by shared trauma and a common need to avenge the people we loved. “If we’re going after the assholes that killed his family, he will do whatever is necessary to see it done. I promise you.”
She turned away from the scenery flying by to study me, her dark blue eyes solemn.
Haunted. “I’ve been trying to find these bastards for a long time, Ethan.
Years. If I think this isn’t going to work, if I get a bad feeling from him, he’s not going to be involved.
I can’t risk losing this opportunity. If I’m not one hundred percent sure about him, he’s out. ”
She didn’t say she wasn’t sure about me. I’d take it. For now. “Jenkins will convince you. You’ll see.”
As if the conversation exhausted her very soul, she sighed and turned to stare out the window once more. We were taking a slight detour, stopping to meet with Jenkins on the way to the Atlan Warlords’ compound I’d just found out about an hour ago.
God damn aliens had set up a secure compound right here in Miami and I didn’t know about it. How the fuck was that possible? Every police station within a hundred-mile radius should have been notified.
One more failure of the Feds. One more betrayal to add to their ever-increasing tally. One more secret.
I couldn’t listen to one more lie out of an FBI agent’s mouth.
Not one more. I never turned on the so-called “news” these days, other than to watch the weather forecast. Every single word out of the news anchors’ mouths sounded like pure bullshit to me.
Didn’t matter what they were talking about.
Crime. Politics. The next fake pandemic or local scandal.
It was all bad and on screen every minute of every day.
We pulled off the freeway. A few minutes later I rolled the SUV to a smooth stop under a crumbling overpass Jenkins and I had scouted months ago. No satellite coverage. No surveillance cameras for several blocks. A dead zone.
Jenkins was parked in front of us in his boring white sedan. He exited his vehicle and walked around to stand in front of the SUV, waiting for me, staring at her.
She sat, unmoving in the front passenger seat and stared right back. “I don’t like this, Ethan.”
“It’ll be all right. Trust me.” I gave her hand one more squeeze and got out of the vehicle. When she didn’t follow, I walked to her side of the SUV and opened the door for her, relieved when she took the hand I offered and stepped down onto the pavement.
“I’m taking a huge risk. You don’t understand.” She lifted her chin and looked me in the eye, unflinching. Feminine. Powerful. My worn-out dick went to half-wood at her nearness, and that was before I kissed her.
I wasn’t gentle. I held her in place for my assault, deepened the kiss when she melted into me.
Kissed me back with matching fire. What I’d intended to be an assurance for Lyra, a comfort, became more as I claimed her mouth, explored her with my tongue, wrapped my arms around her and pulled her to me as if trying to mold us together.
A dark, primal part of me wanted Jenkins to know she was mine, under my protection.
I needed to mark her, make a statement he would understand.
I needed him to fully comprehend what she meant to me, that I would—and already had—taken a bullet for her.
Since that moment in the morgue, nothing had changed.
My obsession had only grown stronger the last two days, my need for her more intense.
I had jumped off the proverbial cliff when it came to this woman and there was no going back.
When I finally tore my mouth from my woman, Jenkins was leaning against the trunk of his car, arms crossed, a bored look on his face. “You going to introduce us?”
I wrapped my arm around Lyra’s waist and walked her to stand in front of Jenkins. “Jenkins, this is Lyra Smith. She’s CIA. She’s working this case, has been tracking the assholes who killed the doc. Lyra, this is my friend, Detective Kevin Jenkins.”
Jenkins was enough of a gentleman that he straightened up and held out his hand in greeting. Lyra reached for him, but I grabbed her wrist before she could touch him.
I expected a scowl. Instead, she leaned into me, accepting of my jealous behavior even as I wondered what the actual fuck I was doing.
“Nice to meet you, Kevin.” Her voice was smooth as silk.
Sexy. I wanted those lips wrapped around my dick.
Again. Right now. I’d watch her fuck me with her mouth, then throw her down on the bed, hold her in place and take her from behind until she exploded all over my hard length, taking me with her.
I blinked. Shoved the erotic images to the back of my mind, tried to focus with the smell of her skin sinking into me like sunlight warming my skin.
Jenkins looked me in the eye and laughed. “That’s how it is, huh?”
“Yes. Sorry. That’s how it is.” Fucking insane and I couldn’t control myself. I didn’t want her touching him. I didn’t wany any man touching her soft skin. Only me.
“That’s how what is?” Lyra asked.
Jenkins and I both ignored the question.
Still looking me in the eye, Jenkins dipped his chin in acknowledgment and the feral part of me relaxed. “All right.” He knew she was mine. I could breathe.
Turning around, he reached into a duffel bag he’d placed on top of the closed trunk and pulled out a tablet. Turned back around and handed it to me. “I found some footage. I think it’s our bad guys. Can you confirm?”
The video was pre-loaded on the screen. Grainy. Black and white. Looked like low-quality shit from a convenience store or gas station camera. I pressed the small triangle on the screen to play the recording, Lyra leaning in close to get a better look.
She stiffened when the cyborg leader walked out of an unmarked building. A large, black SUV pulled to stop in front of him. The other two aliens from the morgue were sitting in the front seats. The leader opened the rear door, got in the back, and the vehicle pulled away from the curb.
“That was about twenty minutes before the security system went down at the morgue,” Jenkins said.
“You get the license plate?” I asked.
Jenkins snorted like I was an idiot. “Of course. Stolen.”
“Shit.” One more dead end. “And the building? Where is this camera?”
Jenkins rattled off an address, then added the pertinent information. “It’s about three blocks from the abandoned warehouse where we found our dead cyborg.”
My instincts told me the unmarked building in the video was most likely the location of their base of operations. “I don’t believe in coincidence.”
“Neither do I.” Jenkins studied Lyra’s every move as she gently removed the tablet from my hands and played the video again. She watched every second of it without blinking, then rubbed the side of her head, just below her ear, as if something was hurting her.
“Are you all right?” I asked her.
Her attention leapt to my face and she shoved the tablet back into my hands. “Yes. Sorry.”
She must be upset, seeing the thugs who nearly killed us. Apparently, Jenkins came to the same conclusion.
“So, those are our perps? The guys who killed Doctor Pearson?” Jenkins asked.
Lyra turned to answer him, her voice calm, soft, but firmly in command. “Yes. They have murdered many people, Kevin. So many.” She looked into my eyes, and I forgot to breathe. “They have to be stopped.”
“I agree,” I assured her.
“If these are the bastards who killed my wife, I’m not sitting here while you two go play World War III with the aliens.
” Jenkins didn’t bother looking at me as he spoke but stared directly at Lyra.
I’d explained as much of the situation to him as I could on the phone.
“Please. Let me at these motherfuckers.”
Only Lyra knew the address of the Atlan compound. Her operation. It was her call.
“All right. But I can’t guarantee your safety.” She glanced from Jenkins to me. “Either of you. If you choose to come on this raid, you could be killed.”
We both ignored her and walked toward the SUV I’d been driving. Before I could get back into the driver’s seat, Lyra’s hand settled on my shoulder. I stopped and turned to her as Jenkins climbed into the back.
Lyra held out her hand for the key fob. “We’re going to have to get past their security. I’m driving.”