Chapter 19 Guy
Guy
Watching Lina across the breakfast table with Gray on her lap has me smiling. She’s singing to him, her voice sweet, and Gray is giggling.
I’m glad I went to her last night. What she told me was horrific, but I needed to know everything before I made my choice.
Stay or go.
I’m fucking staying.
I love her. Despite my common sense, I do. I never expected this to happen, but I guess that’s how most great love stories go. Or maybe “twisted” is a better way to describe it.
“Morning Dad,” Ella says, taking a seat beside me, Asha on her lap. “Monty.”
Lina shakes her head. “Lina.”
Ella stares. “What?”
“My name is Lina,” Monty says, cuddling Gray and placing her chin on his head. “Call me that. Or Mum, depending on what you fancy.”
Ella gags. “Oh God, so you’re really both doing this?” She waves her hand between us. “You’re a couple?”
“Yep.” Lina grins at me.
“God save us all,” Gable says as he brings in two plates of breakfast and puts one in front of Ella, and one down for Lina. “Need a big meal today, Chief? Lots of sex last night, I imagine.”
Ella tosses her napkin at him and he laughs, winking at her before he heads back to the kitchen.
When he returns with a plate for each of us, we’re about to dig in when Asha speaks.
“Sex.”
Ella glares at her husband. “You see what you’ve done?”
“Shit,” he mumbles.
“Shit,” Gray says.
“Oh, my good God!” Ella cries.
I dig into my breakfast. “Don’t worry, your first word was ‘kill’.” The table falls quiet and I chew slowly, looking between everyone as they gape at me. “What? I talked about work a lot; she picked it up.”
I inhale my breakfast—Gable may be an ass, but he’s a great cook—and once I’m done, I take Gray from Lina so she can eat hers. Soon, I have both twins on my lap.
Lina smiles at me from across the table, her green eyes clear and bright, no sign of the shadows from last night.
Maybe she shared her darkness with me, and I hope it helps her.
I know having a plan will, and I’ve already sent messages to a few people in the bureau for more information on the Sinclairs.
There will be an ongoing investigation into them, I have no doubt about that, but I need to know how far along they are and if there’s any information Lina has that could help.
While Ella and Gable take the kids upstairs to get ready for swimming, Lina and I clean the kitchen and put away the dishes.
“I was thinking,” Lina says. “Maybe you could come to New York. Meet my friends out there.”
I close the dishwasher and straighten up. “Sure, I’d love that.”
“Good.” She smiles. “But I should tell you they’re not … law-abiding citizens.”
She slinks over to me, and I arch a brow. “More contract killers?”
“Not quite. But the less you know the better, right? Plausible deniability.” She places her hands on my chest. “You’ll like Alistair, though. He looked after me when I needed it. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.”
I brush her hair back. “Then it sounds like we’ll get along.”
She kisses me. Slow, passionate, her body pressed to mine. “If he tries to bribe you, he’s kidding.”
I scowl. “Is he?”
“No, but let’s pretend he is.” She spanks me on the behind and saunters away. “Are we swimming, Chief?”
Now that I know about what happened with the Sinclairs, Lina doesn’t hide her bandage beneath a T-shirt, but part of me wishes she would because I can’t stop staring at her. In a tiny white bikini, her body shining with water, her hair soaked and down her back, she looks like a goddamn dream.
It’s also really fucking nice being able to touch her, hold her hand, kiss her and not worry.
Ella covers her face every time and Gable cackles.
It’s a great afternoon. And when night falls and the kids are in bed, we sit on the patio furniture with the fire lit, and Lina has her legs on my lap.
With blankets over us, it’s a perfect setting, and one I never thought I’d experience.
“Are we gonna find out how this all happened?” Gable asks.
Ella is cuddled into his side, her smile small.
This trip has reminded me just how much they love each other.
Gable may tease her and complain, but he’s also totally and utterly obsessed with my daughter, and she’s the same with him.
They complement each other perfectly, her messiness and his perfections, his scowls and her easy grins.
“He seduced me,” Lina says.
Gable snorts. “Guy has never seduced a person in his life. Unless you count frowns and grunts as seduction.”
“That’s pretty much how you got me,” Ella reminds him, and he playfully pinches her side.
“I resent that comment. I also got you a Christmas tree.”
“True.” She grins up at him.
I smile. “Lina needed a place to stay. It went from there.”
“Well …” Gable takes a swig of his beer. “It’s almost like falling for a killer isn’t the worst thing in the world. Who’d have thought it?”
I glare at him. “Thank you for that.”
“Ex-killer,” Lina says. “I’m retired.”
Ella scoffs. “You literally killed a woman last night.”
“Okay, starting now!” Lina says and leans forward to snuggle into me. “I promised your dad I wouldn’t, so I won’t.” She smiles at me, and I can’t help kissing her. She climbs into my lap, cuddling into me.
Ella grimaces. “Can you not sit in my dad’s lap?”
“Consider yourself lucky that I’m not sitting on his face.”
Ella gets up. “Okay, that’s more than I ever needed to hear.”
“I second that.” Gable hops up and follows her. “Don’t have sex on the furniture. I want my deposit back.”
Lina and I spend a while just looking out across the lake, listening to the gentle lapping of the water against the patio. She pulls the blanket tighter over us, and I take the time just to hold her.
“There’s already an investigation into Sawyer,” I say quietly, and Lina sits up to look at me. “A friend in the bureau is going to send me what he knows. They’ve been looking into the Sinclairs for years, so it’ll be a lot of info to go through.”
“I’ve got time,” she says quickly. “We can do it together.”
I nod. “We will. And anything you have—”
“I still have the recording, and I’m sure Alistair could get some stuff together, too.”
“It has to be obtained legally, Lina,” I say. “Otherwise, it’s useless.”
She chews her lip. “Okay, I’ll see what he says when we get home.”
“Why don’t we fly out and see him this weekend?”
“What about Ella and the kids?”
I tuck her hair behind her ear. “I was thinking of organizing a babysitter for the weekend for them, anyway. Ella and Gable can have a few days to themselves; we can fly out to New York and get things moving. The sooner the better.”
She exhales, relief filling her eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. I’m retiring anyway, so I’ll see plenty of everyone. A few days won’t hurt.”
She kisses me, straddling my lap and draping her arms around my neck.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you so much.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” I rest my hands on her hips, looking up at her in the dark. She hasn’t said she loves me, but that’s okay. I can wait for the words, as long as I have her.
“We’re going to get them, aren’t we?” she asks, her voice stripped back, so vulnerable that I hope to God I can.
“Yes,” I say. “We are.”
As promised, I find a dogsitter for Motor and Fox and a babysitter for the kids.
I’ve never met Silence Silver, but I know the brothers X, Y and Z fairly well, so I contacted Z.
He can’t make it, apparently running the Organization is keeping him busy, so Y offered to bring his sister-in-law and be our babysitters.
It means Ella and Gable have all day Saturday and half the day to relax.
Ella looks nervous, but it’s their first time away from the kids, so I get it.
Lina and I fly to New York.
She’s a bundle of excitement the entire trip, talking quickly about the city, how much she loved it when she first got here and loves it, still.
I’m a little nervous to meet this Alistair character, but she seems sure we’ll get along.
If we keep the conversation focused on lighter topics, maybe we will.
We land a little after three and check into a fancy-as-hell hotel. Lina insists she won’t stay anywhere else, and they seem to know her, because waiting for us in the suite is a bottle of red wine, a box of chocolates, a bouquet of flowers, and a handwritten note welcoming her back.
“This is … a lot,” I say. “Are they scared of you?”
“All the smart people are,” she says, winking as she passes me, heading for the bathroom. I lean against the doorframe and watch as she puts out her things—makeup, skincare, hairbrush. She’s meticulous, and when she places our toothbrushes beside each other, I wrap my arms around her waist.
“Things have to be just right?”
She nods, adjusting them. “Yep. I like it that way.” I kiss her neck. “I like clean lines, and marble sinks, and fancy tubs.” She rests her head back against me. “I’m an expensive girl.”
“My house is hardly fancy.”
“Your house is perfect because you’re in it,” she says, and turns in my arms. “It’s perfect because it’s a home.”
She kisses me, slipping her tongue into my mouth. It’s a slow, passionate kiss, her body pressed to mine, and my dick hardens.
We haven’t had sex since we were in San Francisco together. I’ve revisited the memory of her more than once over the last six months, but nothing will ever compare to the feel of her.
“Remember how you worshipped me?” she whispers as I kiss down her throat, my hands roaming and gripping her ass. “We’re switching roles.”
I grin against her shoulder. “Are we?”
“Yep.” She palms my hard cock through my jeans, and I groan. “Shower and meet me in the bedroom.”
I do as I’m told, a little apprehensive about what she intends to do to me. I’ve always been the one to take control in the bedroom, but I knew with Lina that wouldn’t always be the case. Her personality doesn’t call for it. She might like taking commands, but I imagine she loves giving them.