Chapter 9 #2
She took a moment to study the ripple of abdominal muscles, which tightened for a moment as if he’d taken a gut punch in a UFC ring.
“Something’s wrong,” she said softly. “What else happened during your mission?”
He set his drink down and stared at the floor for a long minute. “A friend of mine, well, he used to be a friend, died.”
Her chest caved in at his words. At another loss he had to endure. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s complicated,” he said, his voice deep, eyes back on her. “And I didn’t expect to be quite so fucked up about it, but I guess I am. I came here to get my head on straight.” Grief and pain hollowed out his words, dragging his husky voice even lower.
“Want me to go?”
He shook his head but strode past her into the living room to stand in front of the fireplace. She slowly eased up beside him, glancing over to see his focus lost to the burning logs.
Her gaze whipped to his bandaged arm, and guilt punched her in the chest, knocking the wind out of her. If he had gotten killed going after the man she’d been chasing, she would’ve never been able to live with herself.
“Do you want to talk about your friend?” she offered, keeping her voice as soft as possible.
She used to be better at this—sharing emotions, comforting a friend—but she’d begun to harden over the years.
The missions, the losses, they’d started to take their toll on her no matter how much she’d resisted.
He slowly turned to the side, the glow of the fire throwing a shadow on his profile. “I wouldn’t normally want to talk, but something about you—”
“Has you opening up?”
He huffed out a deep breath. “When I left London at eighteen, I also left everyone behind, including a good friend of mine. My best mate.”
She wrung her hands together in front of her, trying to work up the courage to be the ear, the shoulder, the whatever he needed at this moment. If this tough man was prepared to open up to her, she wanted to be there for him.
When she’d done her research and checked up on him—and she refused to call it stalking because her job was all about intelligence gathering, so it was totally in the realm of normal—she’d learned he’d changed his name to Pierson.
He’d shed his English nobility before becoming a Teamguy.
The why hadn’t been hard to come up with.
He’d get a lot of shit for that kind of name as an operator. But was there more to it?
She relaxed her shoulders, took a breath so she didn’t faint from locking the oxygen in her lungs for so long, then moved to stand before his muscular frame. “What happened?”
He lifted his eyes to the high ceiling, his chest rising in the process. Upon an exhale, he said, “I slept with his fiancée.”
His words should’ve had her backing away from him, but the guilt in his tone was so heavy, so strong, it was clear it was tearing him up, especially now that this friend of his was most likely the one who’d died.
He faced the fire again, and she took a moment to observe him.
His hair had been chopped since she’d seen him last. Close-cut and tapered at the sides, a bit longer on the top and purposefully messy—or maybe he’d been clawing at it.
His full beard was gone. More like a week’s worth of new growth, the beginning of a beard if he didn’t shave soon.
His nose appeared to have been broken once or twice in his life. Not perfectly straight, but it fit him.
He was ruggedly sexy with his ink and his muscles. Nothing like the British aristocrats she’d seen on TV or in movies.
She crossed one arm over her chest and braced the bicep of her other arm, patiently waiting for him to open up more, to reveal whatever it was he wanted to get off his chest.
“Clara is the only person who knows everything that happened before I left England. And to be honest, I’m more upset at how I handled the aftermath than I am ashamed of what I did.
” He cupped his mouth for a brief moment.
“Arthur and I grew up together. Got into trouble together. We had plans to move to California at eighteen. Applied to unis there.”
He strode to the couch and dropped down. He leaned forward and brought his elbows to his knees, maintaining eye contact with the fire as if it made the truth easier to disclose.
She sat next to him and contemplated whether or not to reach out to him. A hand on his knee. A touch on his arm. Something to let him know she was there, that it was okay. That this big Teamguy could be honest without judgment.
“Arthur suddenly got nervous. Too scared to walk away from everything. The title. Money. His father got into his ear. Plus, he began to fall for the woman his parents wanted him to marry.” He peered over at her, and her hand went to the top of his thigh.
He paused for a moment, his gaze moving to her touch, before continuing, “I wasn’t sure if he truly loved her because he was sleeping around a lot.
But when Charlotte, also a friend of mine, showed up at my door crying about his cheating .
. . I was piss drunk, and we ended up sleeping together.
At the time, I didn’t realize she was using me to make him jealous, to try and get him to stop screwing around with their wedding approaching. ”
“Oh.” The tiny sound popped free from her mouth. As far as she was concerned, what Wyatt did wasn’t all that bad.
“Arthur was upset. Attacked me in public. Came at me swinging. Guess he really had loved her.” He shook his head.
“But let’s just say, the only scandal the nobility despise is a scandal about themselves.
My father, sure as fuck, was angry at me.
We fought as well, then I decided to drop the news on him I was going to San Diego.
I’d said I was done with the life, with being his son.
” His fingers tore lines through his hair.
“I was never cut out for being some bloody lord, anyway.”
She replayed his words in her head, then whispered, “From the sound of it, I can’t say that I blame you for what happened.”
“Arthur fired me as best man at his wedding, a wedding that had to be scheduled sooner than planned because Charlotte got pregnant. And Arthur had every right to hate my bloody guts for sleeping with his fiancée.”
“How’d he die?” Death was such a regular occurrence in her life now. She resented that fact, but in her line of work, she’d been naive to think she could go unscathed, remain untainted by the things she’d witnessed, the criminals she’d failed to stop.
“Cancer, and I should’ve visited him before he died.
Made amends, I don’t know. I can be stubborn, too.
But I did go to the funeral, and seeing everyone there, well, it was harder than I thought it would be.
I got the, uh, hypothetical call about Romania at the wake, and I guess I just didn’t have time to process his death until now. ”
Was she crowding his space? His need to mourn?
“It’s been a crazy year. Crazy few years.” He stiffened. “I’m not sure if you remember Liam, but he almost died this past summer. And I wouldn’t have survived that. None of us would’ve—losing another guy . . .”
“Marcus,” she whispered, remembering the teammate he’d mentioned losing before. “I was happy to learn the men who were responsible for Marcus’s death were finally taken out.”
“How’d you know?”
“CIA intel provided the location of the terrorists who killed him. I wasn’t involved, though.”
He looked to the wood floors beneath his bare feet. “And I also heard about what happened to some of your team members last year.” Regret carried through his words. “I’m so sorry.”
“How’d you know about that?” She removed her hand. “I mean, I’m not surprised given who you are, but the true details were buried deep. Cover stories were fabricated for the public.”
To the world, the men and women who were assassinated by hired mercenaries were regular people living their everyday lives. The stars were on the wall at Langley to honor them, but as far as the media was concerned, the deaths were unrelated.
Hit-and-run. Wrong-place-wrong-time robbery. Home invasion. Suicide.
The only commonalities? All of the murders happened at the same hour on the same day, and to people who worked with her on the case chasing the most wanted hacker in history.
“I have high-level security clearance.” His answer didn’t quite cut it, but she didn’t feel like pushing for more information.
“I think my heart stopped when I heard about it, and I was also so damn relieved you were okay. If your father hadn’t assigned pretty much every serviceman stateside to keep an eye on you afterward, I would’ve dropped in to see you, to look out for you.
” He gripped the skin at his throat. “I should’ve called, though.
I should’ve reached out. I keep fucking up.
” His hand slipped around to the back of his neck, and he squeezed.
Unease crossed his face and moved into every line of his body.
“I, uh, thought it’d be better if I kept an eye out on you from afar. ”
“And why is that?” She knew the answer, though. She remembered their conversation in Ibiza. How could she forget? He didn’t believe he could love.
Was he worried she’d fall under his spell, and he’d break her heart?
It was possible it would happen, too. Sex was one thing, but would sex with this man turn her feelings into something more?
His eyes shifted to the floor, and a beat of silence the length of the Rockies stretched between them before he said, “Maybe we save this conversation for the next time we bump into each other?”
Her eyes wandered to his chest down to his navel, to the slight trail of hair leading beneath the top of his jeans. “Not sure if this qualifies as much of a bump,” she joked, hoping to somewhat lighten their exchange before they said their goodbyes, which she could feel was about to come.
He angled his head, his eyes darkening to a midnight blue-gray when he’d caught her checking him out. “Or maybe we should stick to the status quo of our run-ins, where I put my tongue in your mouth and feel you up? Well, until someone interrupts us, at least.”
“Like a bear?” She couldn’t stop the grin on her face. “And is sex really on our minds right now?” Somehow, it was for her.
Her desire for him had been present since before he even opened the door, it’d only been placed aside because of her pursuit of the truth about the op in Romania.
He shot her a crooked smile, and her heart squeezed. “It’s always on my mind. I’m good at two things. Shooting and sex.”
A pulse of need surged between her legs, and she swallowed before choking out, “I’m sure you’re good at more than that.”
He inched closer, invading her personal space, and when she sucked in a breath, his cologne met her nose.
Strong hints of spice. A touch of pine. Something else there she couldn’t quite put her finger on, too absorbed by the closeness of his naked chest. “There are so many reasons why I shouldn’t touch you right now. ”
Tendrils of desire continued to spin tight inside of her at his closeness, at the husky depth of his tone. The raw and intense beat of pressure that had been building between them since they first met. Well, it had for her, at least.
“I was prepared to be yours the night of the wedding,” she admitted. “And that morning in Ibiza.”
“We were kept apart both of those times,” he said, his voice still deep as ever. “Was it for a reason?”
She tipped her chin up, wishing she could open her mouth and offer him a taste, but would it be too dangerous?
And when she moved her hand to gently touch the bandage on his arm, and the realization he could’ve died going after her target struck her, it had her desire dialing down, replaced by guilt.
“I guess.” He was suffering a loss, and she was reeling from the mish-mash of facts about the Romania op . . . perhaps those were more than sufficient enough roadblocks to prevent anything from happening between them tonight.
He continued to stare at her, unblinking. The passion still kindling.
“The spare bedroom is out of the question, right?” she teased, because why wouldn’t she make a joke right now? The real her could be awkward and rambly compared to covers she donned. There was no CIA glam on the inside.
“If you stay here, you know what will happen,” he responded as if he hadn’t caught on it’d been a joke.
But he was right. If she stayed, she’d forget their roadblocks, and she wouldn’t be able to resist having his hands trace every line and curve of her body before his mouth did the same.
And the next day she’d want to do it again, but she had a job to do, and so did he. An entanglement with this man would be messy.
“I should go, but I hate leaving you here alone.”
“It’s the way I should be.”
Her shoulders sagged. “No one should be alone.” She squeezed his good arm. “Thank you for everything.”
“Thank you for what?” He held her eyes as she continued to maintain a grip on his bicep.
“For Romania,” she said softly. “And for looking out for me last year, even if from afar. It’s nice to know you have my back.”
“Well, that’s something I can promise I’ll always do.”
She smiled and forced herself to let go of him to grab her phone to order an Uber.
“I can drive you to a hotel,” he offered.
“I think it’s best if I just catch a ride.” Any more time with him and . . .
He remained quiet as she put in the request for a vehicle, then she stowed her phone in her purse and lifted her eyes to find him studying her.
“What’s the name of this hacker anyway—his handle or whatever he calls himself, I mean—the one who may or may not be dead?”
“They didn’t tell you?”
He held his palms in the air. “It was need to know.”
“He goes by The Knight,” she said, removing the guilt from her voice at sharing classified intel.
“The Knight? Any idea why?”
“He treats his hacks like a game of chess. Each move is strategic and calculated. And his goal is—”
“Checkmate,” he finished for her with a nod, and an eerie feeling crept up the back of her neck, spelling out in vivid letters that The Knight’s game was far from over.