Chapter 6
Devon set up his weapons just as he did in every motel room he stayed in, with his SIG within arm’s reach and his KABAR in the nightstand, and a variety of other mean-and-nasties strategically placed throughout the small space.
His phone had been silent since he’d activated it a handful of hours ago, and he reached out to palm the thing, tapping in Kellan’s number from memory.
“Tell me you two are holed up someplace safe,” his buddy said by way of greeting, and oooookay, so much for pleasantries.
Which was cool, because Devon wasn’t exactly a tea and crumpets kind of guy. “Copy. You got anything on this douche bag yet?”
Kellan’s pause spoke of nothing even remotely good.
“Xavier Fagan, also known as the X Man, is on no less than a dozen wanted lists from Wyoming to Mississippi. Priors for possession with the intent to distribute, weapons charges, assault, and he’s been ID’ed as the main player in a Wyoming-based heroin ring the size of Yankee Stadium. ”
“And he’s still on the street how?” No way a guy who was in it that deep wasn’t at the top of the FBI’s dance card.
“Because he’s not blowing smoke about being well connected,” Kellan said.
“Fagan seems to have a gift for sniffing out bad police, the higher up the food chain, the better, and he’s old school.
Does all his business face to face, and all his dirty work himself.
Word on the street is that he even murdered his own brother because he thought the guy was ratting him out to the cops. ”
Devon sank into the timeworn chair across from the foot of his bed.
“So the Feds who aren’t in his pocket want him, they just can’t make anything stick because their witnesses always end up in body bags.
” Fucking fantastic. “You turn up anything by way of assistance from your contact at the Remington PD?”
“Isabella Moreno,” Kellan said, his voice shifting slightly enough that if Devon didn’t have noticing every last detail branded into his DNA, he’d have missed it. Kellan cleared his throat, back to business. “The rundown I just gave you is courtesy of her.”
Interesting. Devon filed that little nugget away to pursue when his personal safety wasn’t twisting in the wind. “She have any higher-ups you can trust? I can keep Kylie safe for a while, Walker, but the longer we play cat and mouse, the harder it’s gonna get. We need an end game here.”
“Detective Moreno works in Remington’s Intelligence Unit, and she’s a good cop. But getting jurisdiction is easier said than done. She’s on it, though. Hard.”
Devon had no doubt that Kellan would be a four-foot thorn in the woman’s side until she came up with a solution. “Copy. For now, I’ll keep moving toward your location.”
“Thanks,” Kellan said, pulling in an audible breath over the phone line. “I really owe you, Dev.”
“You owe me nothing, Walker. I’ll check back in at twenty-one-hundred your time. Call me if you get anything from Moreno.”
Devon disconnected the call, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. Although he knew Kellan would have both hands full getting the X’s and O’s into place to get Fagan snatched up, Devon wasn’t concerned about whether or not his buddy would make that happen.
What did worry him was that Kylie had now been in the bathroom for forty-five minutes, and despite the fact that there were no windows in the tiny room and he could hear her moving around, Devon had a bone-deep feeling she was far from all systems go.
He pushed himself out of the creaky bedside chair. While he wasn’t exactly Mr. Congeniality, or even a nice guy for that matter, she’d been through a shit-slide of emotions in the last day. A quick hey-how-are-ya couldn’t hurt.
But before Devon could make it halfway across the carpet, the bathroom door pushed open, and Kylie stepped silently over the threshold.
“Hey. I was just coming to—”
Devon’s words tripped to a halt in his throat.
Kylie stood barely three steps away, wearing a thin white tank top and his borrowed sweatpants that she’d had to roll over her hips twice to even get them close to staying up.
But her unconventional apparel wasn’t what had frozen him into place from lips to legs.
“You cut your hair,” he finally managed, and Christ, nobody would ever accuse him of being suave.
But come on. She’d gone into the bathroom with a long, hot-pink-and-black ponytail and now she was sporting a head full of chin-length, caramel-colored hair that looked just tousled enough to be hot as fuck.
“Yeah, I…” Kylie broke off, taking a steady breath that outlined the press of her breasts against her tank top. “You were right. The pink was really obvious. I knew hiding it wasn’t going to work in the long run, and anyway, it’s just hair. So, I cut it.”
“It looks…” Do not say wildly sexy, do not say wildly sexy, do not say… “You know. Pretty.”
Kylie’s laugh rode out on a soft puff of humorless breath, and man, she was a fighter. “I don’t know about all that, but I guess it’s not terrible. There were a few pieces in the back I couldn’t reach, though.”
She extended the scissors in her hand just far enough to hammer home her request, and Devon’s chin snapped up in shock.
“You want me to cut the rest of your hair?”
“Well, yeah. It’ll be pretty obvious if I leave it like this, won’t it?” she asked, gesturing to the handful of thick strands still cascading down her back.
Damn, she had a point. Still… “Cutting your hair is a little outside my wheelhouse, is all.”
Okay, so the words were a massive fucking understatement. Devon could dismantle an AR-15 with one hand chained to a radiator, but cutting Kylie’s hair?
Unless she handed over a pair of clippers and asked for a standard issue crew cut, he didn’t have clue one what to do.
But Kylie just served him with a no-nonsense stare. “This whole thing is outside my wheelhouse, Devon. But I trust you with my life. My hair is kind of the least of our worries, don’t you think?”
“You trust me with your life.” The words echoed in Devon’s ears as he repeated them, and her brows tugged downward.
“Of course. I mean, I’m here with you right now, hiding from Fagan.”
“Oh. Yeah, sure.” He took the scissors from her, suddenly needing something to focus on other than her wide-open honesty.
Of course, Devon had known she trusted him to a point.
Her brother had sent him to keep her safe, and she damn well needed protecting—both truths that Kylie clearly couldn’t ignore.
But trusting him because she was in over her head was a whole lot different than trusting him instinctively, and he only needed a glimpse at her bright blue stare to know that she meant what she’d said in spades.
Kylie trusted him without question. Just as her brother had in Afghanistan.
When he shouldn’t have.
Hot, dust-choked air…sweat running down his back beneath his gear…turning to give Kellan the all clear…
If you move, I will kill your friend.
Devon cleared his throat, although the gesture did nothing to ease the tightness log-jamming his vocal cords.
Sliding his thumb and forefinger through the scissor loops, he waited for Kylie to turn around before threading his opposite hand through her hair.
She smelled sweet and clean, like flowers and fresh bedsheets, and even though he didn’t need to, Devon ran his fingers all the way to the ends of her hair twice, because that’s the sort of bastard he was.
To his total surprise, Kylie melted into his touch.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice notched down to a throaty whisper that made his dick stir behind the fly of his jeans.
Christ, he needed to concentrate. He angled the scissors over a strand of her hair, opening and closing them in a precise cut. “For what?”
“For coming to the motel when Kellan called you. For keeping me from getting killed. For staying so calm when I’m not. Take your pick.”
Devon was tempted to tell her all of that was part of the job, that he owed her brother a thousand favors that would get him shot at and chased across the country. That he wasn’t calm so much as he simply hadn’t allowed himself to feel anything for the last four years.
But instead, he stuck with a gruff “You’re welcome,” making another cut with the scissors, then a few more still before adding, “You know, not staying calm in situations like these doesn’t mean you’re not tough. In fact, all that emotion is a good sign you’re normal.”
Kylie’s shoulders tightened slightly, although her chin stayed on the level. “Yeah. I’m sure all my pure-terror panic is really helpful in keeping me safe.”
“It’s normal,” Devon reiterated. “Plus, you’re doing just fine. I’ve seen guys twice your size cry like babies at the slightest whiff of danger.”
“Really?”
“Really.” He moved around to Kylie’s side, reaching for the last long lock of uncut hair. His fingers accidentally brushed the bare skin on her shoulder, just above the strap of her tank top, and damn, how could she be so soft when he was so loaded with rough edges?
She turned her chin, looking up at him from over her shoulder. “Are all the emotions normal? Even the ones caused by the adrenaline, like you said?”
The glint in her eyes did nothing to make his cock stand down, and Devon swallowed hard. Kylie was off-limits. Forbidden. Way too good for a guy like him.
Also, quite possibly the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen in his life, who was currently looking at him with unmistakable hunger he wanted nothing more than to sate, again and again and again.
“Kylie.” Fuck, even her name was like sin in his mouth. “Listen, what you’re feeling right now is—”
“Want,” she said, the flush on her face looking as if it had damn little to do with being bashful. “I don’t care if it’s the adrenaline making me feel this way. The truth is, today could be the last day I’ve got.”
“It’s not.”
Although Devon met her stare with equal intensity, trying like hell to fight the heat tearing through his veins, Kylie still turned all the way around.