Chapter 15
Fifteen
After Lila got control of herself, she excused herself and went into the bathroom. Ian had been so worried about her, he had almost followed her. She didn’t need Mr. Big Bad Spy making her feel like even more of a loser.
She finished rinsing her face and grabbed a towel. Looking in the mirror as she dried her face, Lila was honest enough with herself to admit she looked like a hot mess. Her face was all splotchy and her eyes were red from all of her useless tears.
“Lila, love, I’m going to grab some water. Do you want a glass?”
A sob sat in the middle of her throat. She could not handle him being sweet. She cleared her throat.
“Please.”
“No worries.” But he still didn’t leave. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, Ian.”
Another hesitation before she heard his soft footsteps pad away.
The man usually didn’t make a sound when he walked, so she knew that he did that for her benefit.
Another rush of tears flooded her eyes. God, she needed to get her house in order.
She couldn’t be crying like a little baby all the time.
She splashed water on her face again, trying to get her mind back to where it needed to be and her emotions back under control.
With that thought and knowing that Ian was going to be gone at least for a little bit, she grabbed her burner out of the secret pocket in her bag.
She had been glad that Ian hadn’t discovered it.
L: In a safe spot.
G: You are lying to me.
Always. But it was only to protect her source.
L: No. I am safe.
G: I am giving you 72 hours.
L: Or what?
G: I will take matters into my own hands.
Panic spiked, sending her heartbeat galloping out of control. She could call and argue, but she knew it was a lost cause. Lila had never won an argument with her source.
L: Fine.
She would just figure out another way to stall. After slipping the device back into the secret compartment, she opened the door expecting to see Ian back in the room. He was nowhere to be found. She heard raised voices down the hall and headed in the direction of them.
“You need to keep your damned nose out of my business,” Ian said.
Who was being nosey?
“Lila is my business. We owe her my life, and let’s be honest, yours and Kap’s lives.”
She wanted to roll her eyes. At one time, El had been a fun guy.
Always off for some kind of secret adventure.
He’d been an adrenaline junkie. After the hours he had spent being tortured, he wasn’t the same man.
No one would be, but this man had some damned nerve.
Whatever she did with Ian was her own business.
“She stays here under cover,” Ian said.
“I agree, but she needs to help us with the search. You know that.”
Of course he did.
“Absolutely not.”
She blinked.
“She’s not going to like that, Ian.” That was Eden. She was the smartest one in the discussion.
“I agree with Eden,” Miko said. “She needs to help.”
Of course, the women had her back.
“I will not have it.”
What. The. Fuck.
Her temper was always slow to ignite, but once it did, she couldn’t control it. She stomped into the kitchen, settled her hands on her hips, and frowned.
“You are not in charge of me.”
No one had noticed her and they all turned to her in surprise. Wrong. All of them except Miko. Lila had an idea that the woman wasn’t surprised by much.
“You need to watch what you say around me right now, Lila.”
Oh, he did not.
“I’m saying the truth. I take your ideas into consideration, but in the end, I’m the one in charge of myself.”
His right eye twitched, making him look a little insane. Still sexy, but something was off.
“I can do more hunting online.”
“Absolutely not.”
She frowned at him. “Excuse me?”
“I said absolutely not. You would expose yourself.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Really? Because you definitely allowed someone to find you recently. You did end up stabbed.”
“The stabbing was no big deal,” she scoffed. Why was he acting like this? “Besides, Boston said the concussion was much worse.”
Oh, damn, that might have been the wrong thing to say. His jaw ticked as he stared at her. The silence grew awkward, but she refused to break eye contact. She would win this argument.
“Are we done here?” Ian asked without breaking eye contact.
For one second, it felt as if she had been stabbed in the heart. Then, she realized he wasn’t talking to her.
“For now,” Miko said. “I have more research to gather.”
Without another word, he grabbed her hand and dragged her out of the kitchen.
“Ian.”
It reminded her of the way he took over earlier when he insisted she sleep. And did she get any sleep? No. Well, not much. He needed to learn that he wasn’t in charge of her. She made decisions about her well-being. She had for years, and he needed to understand that.
“Ian!”
He pulled her into the bedroom, then slammed the door.
“You can’t just drag me out of any room whenever you feel like it.”
He stepped closer, his hands on his waist. There was an angry flush crawling up his neck to his face. Watching it fascinated her.
“I think I can because I just did.”
“Rude.”
He ignored her. “I keep having to point this out, but you called me. You are my responsibility.”
She stepped back from him as panic shot through her blood leaving her entire body cold. “I am not.”
He followed her, and she definitely felt as if she were being stalked. “You’d better think again.”
“This is a stupid argument.”
“I agree.”
“Then why are we having it?”
“Because you don’t seem to understand what kind of danger you’re in.”
She reared her head back. “Are you kidding me?”
“No. You just talked about getting online to do research. Even with the security we have here, including the computers, you could make yourself a target.”
She was so damned tired of pretending. Lila always made sure that other people didn’t know exactly what she was going through.
“I know exactly what kind of danger I’m in and I’m damned tired of you saying I don’t.”
“Do you?”
Was he that stupid? Well, he was a man.
“Let me see…do I understand the danger? Gee, I think the moment I watched my family home explode in front of me with my entire family in it sort of taught me about danger. Or maybe it was when I had to flee my comfy analyst job because someone had burned me.”
“Lila.”
“No. I am sick of everyone saying that I don’t take this seriously. I do. I understand just what’s at stake. I’m damned tired of it all.”
“Please, don’t cry again.” That same edge of panic she’d heard earlier entered his voice. He stepped closer and she had nowhere to go unless she climbed over the bed. He wrapped his arms around her and settled his forehead against hers.
“Then don’t say stupid things. We had this argument earlier.”
“It’s my fear, but I’ll deal with it.”
She frowned and leaned back from him. “Your fear? Why would you be afraid?”
He studied her, his gaze moving back and forth. “I don’t like you to be in danger.”
“Ian.”
“What?” he asked, but he was nibbling on her bottom lip. She wasn’t an experienced woman. She had only had two encounters before Ian, so she didn’t know what this was. And those two experiences hadn’t prepared her for Ian freaking Smith.
“We should be working with the others.”
“No. They aren’t really working, and they’re through asking you questions for tonight.”
“So, we should go to bed.”
“Oh, definitely,” he said, his voice deepening, rolling over the syllables in the sexiest way. Heat flared deep in her belly, her nipples tightened, and she curled her toes against the hard wood floor.
“Uhhh.”
It was the only thing she could say at the moment. Her brain shut down when he looked at her like that. It was as if she were some sort of a treat he wanted to devour.
“I think I need a shower.”
“Excellent idea.”
Before she could respond to that, he bent at the waist and lifted her into his arms again. She had never seen a man so willing to carry her around. It was bad enough that she’d brought danger into his life. Now he was acting as if he were her personal way to travel around.
He set her down on the vanity. “What’s wrong?”
“I brought danger to you. Probably to everyone I have ever tried to help.”
“It is not your fault. And let’s be honest, those early interventions when I was still with MI-6 had more to do with my job.” He brushed her hair away from her face with gentle hands.
“Ian.”
“You keep saying my name like that, we won’t make it to the shower.”
She almost said his name again, but she controlled herself.
“When are you going to understand that you can accept help? You don’t have to do this alone.”
“It’s bad enough I brought danger to you.”
He shook his head, then cupped her face, leaning forward to give her a soft kiss that had her heart turning over.
“I’ll stand between you and danger any day of the week.
” She opened her mouth to disagree, but he stopped her.
“You need to understand that no matter what you do, I will do that. You could run away, or try to because let’s be honest, you can’t get out of here without help.
Either way, I would hunt you down and fight every monster who’s after you. ”
She felt the blood drain out of her face even as her heart warmed. “No.”
He nodded.
“You don’t owe me, Ian.”
“Aw, Delilah, I’m not doing it because of that.”
“Then why?”
“Let’s talk about that later. I think we need a nice shower to clean off and rest easy.”
He reached over to the standing shower and turned it on. Without a moment of hesitation, he tugged his shirt off. With his back to her, she saw the bullet wound he got in Istanbul and the knife wound from Moscow. She had felt them earlier, but it was different seeing them like this.
She slipped off the vanity and wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her body against his.
He covered her hands with his. “I need you to take precautions, Lila. You have a whole team to help you.”
She knew that request took a lot of out of him, so she kissed the faded knife wound.