“What are you doing?” Gus followed him, hot on his heels.
He was happy to toss her own words right back. “It’s none of your business. You go your way and I’ll go mine.”
But he would circle right back to her because he intended to discover whatever secrets she was keeping—one way or another. Gus would learn she couldn’t hide from him.
“Roman, stop.”
He paused mid-stride. He would give her a chance. One. She’d better tell him the damn truth or the gloves were coming off. He wasn’t taking risks where her safety—or their president—was concerned.
Brow raised, he turned and faced her, laying one hand on the railing to the stairs so she would understand fully that he was thisclose to walking away. “Yes, Augustine?”
Her face flushed to a pretty pink, and for a moment he could see the wheels of her brain working, trying desperately to find a way out of the trap he hadn’t meant to catch her in. Nevertheless, he’d keep the cage door shut tight. Her hands fisted at her sides. “Please, Roman. I think he did something that hurt a friend, and I’m investigating him. I’m asking you to drop this and let me handle the incident myself. Please. Just walk away.”
He moved into her space, looming over her. She was poking into the business of a highly trained killer, had walked into his room and attempted to search it. Gus made the crime against her friend sound more like a minor transgression against one of her girls, not a potential crime against his country. Roman wasn’t buying her tale. If he hadn’t come along, she would have been in the room all alone when Kemp unexpectedly strolled in and quietly plotted something insidious with an unknown caller. If she’d been caught, Kemp could have done anything at all to her. And no one would have been the wiser.
“Not on your life, baby. You’re involved in something incredibly dangerous. I’m taking over. I heard every word he said. He’s spying on Zack, and that means he’s mine.”
“Is he spying on Zack? Or working for him?”
He stared at her for a moment. “What do you mean? Of course he works for Zack, at least in theory. That’s why I have a problem with Kemp spying on him.” Some of what she’d said was beginning to sink in, but he still pressed her. “Who is the friend of yours Kemp hurt?”
“I told you, it’s none of your business.”
“If you want to play it that way, I’ll have Kemp arrested and find out myself.”
“What will it take to get you to back off, Roman?”
She didn’t understand him at all.
He stared down at her, letting one hand drift up to find the back of her neck. “There is nothing you can give me that could possibly make me walk away from you and potentially allow that asshole to hurt you. No amount of money. No amount of power. No amount of sex, even with you. I’m not walking away from this.”
“Tell me you didn’t have Mad killed.” Her voice sounded hoarse and low. Anguish twisted her face.
He felt his jaw drop. “What?”
Tears filled her eyes as she looked up at him. “I think I have proof that Matthew Kemp is the one who put the bomb on Mad’s plane. I need to prove it. I owe him that much. But I have to know if Zack made the call to take him out…and if you helped. So help me god, if you walk away from me and spill all of this to Zack before I get answers, I’ll never, ever forgive you. Do you understand me?”
Not that she ever had. Obviously, if she thought he was low enough to have had one of his best friends killed.
He could spill everything to Zack and do his job…or he could try to calm her down and make her believe that neither he nor Zack had anything to do with Mad’s murder. He didn’t like her threat, but he understood it.
Roman’s thoughts raced. How could he maintain his loyalty to Zack while not testing Augustine’s vow to cut him out of her life forever? The perfect, simple solution presented itself. Connor was already on full alert, and Roman hadn’t promised Gus that he wouldn’t give Connor a heads-up about Kemp’s possible plot. When Roman told Connor there might be a threat, he wouldn’t ask for explanations. He would simply protect his president and friend.
And all the while, he could also shield Gus by making certain that fucker Kemp understood he couldn’t use her for his own ends. “All right, but I have some demands of my own, and they aren’t negotiable.”
“I thought nothing would make you walk away,” she replied with a bitter laugh.
How little she knew. “Oh, I’m not about to walk away. That’s the first demand, baby. You’re stuck with me. You will stay with me, sleep in my room, act like my lover until we figure this thing out. You will not be alone with him, and if he asks, all you were trying to do with him was make me jealous. Is that understood?”
She shot him a cynical glance. “I thought I couldn’t buy you with sex.”
“You can’t, but I didn’t say you couldn’t rent me out for a while,” he shot back.
Damn it, this always happened. He ended up saying things he didn’t mean because she pushed him. “I didn’t say you had to have sex with me, but you will be in my bed tonight. I will be by your side for the remainder of this investigation, and you will obey me implicitly when it comes to anything I deem important to your safety. Do I make myself clear?”
“You make yourself into a massive asshole, Calder,” she hissed back. “What do I get out of this? Except being made to look like your complete doe-eyed idiot.”
“You get the privilege of not being in protective custody. Don’t think I can’t do it. You know I can, and I’ll have Dax on my side. I’ll tell your brother absolutely everything you’ve been doing, and I might even make some shit up, and he will believe me. He’ll cut his honeymoon short so he can protect you. I’ll call your mother, too. Fill her in on what’s happening. If that’s not enough, I’ll call every friend you have and either beg or threaten them—whichever works—not to enable you because I’m the man who’s desperate to save you. You won’t see the light of day for a long time, baby. It’s me or a lovely gilded cage.”
She shook her head. “We can be partners, but I won’t pretend to be your lover.”
The little shudder in her voice told Roman that he had her. A thrill wound through him. This was his in, how he got her. This was how he kept her for however long he could. “No one will believe that you and I can be in the same bedroom night after night without fucking our brains out. Not for a second. Besides, I don’t trust Kemp to keep his hands off you unless he understands that someone bigger and badder has dibs.”
“Don’t be juvenile.”
“I’m not. I’m being possessive, and he’ll understand that. Did you sneak away from him to come down here?” Suddenly, he could almost see her whole plan. She’d gone out the night before with the singular intent to get close to Kemp. She would have flirted and made it clear she was interested, and all to put herself in the position to be closer to him, maybe get into his room. She might have thought she could do something stupid like get a look at his phone. When that hadn’t panned out, she’d decided to search his room instead.
“Yes.” Her mouth flattened into a mulish line.
Still, she was so sexy in his eyes. She always had been.
“Think about what I’m doing.” He took her hand. “If you fight or double-cross me, I’ll have Kemp arrested and I’ll bring Zack up to speed on everything. That’s not a threat. But right now I’m choosing you, Gus. Over my best friend and my president, I’m choosing you. Do you understand?”
She scoffed as she followed him up the stairs. “You’re blackmailing me.”
He came to a grinding halt on the second floor landing when he heard some commotion above.
“And I need everything you have on the meeting tomorrow,” Zack was saying, his voice hard.
“I’ve already e-mailed it to you,” Liz shot back. “Mr. President.”
“I want you to personally review it with me.” Zack stomped his way down the stairs. He stopped and glared up at Kemp and Gates, who were peering down from the ra
iling. “And you two should find something better to do with your time.”
“My apologies. We had the evening off, as did Ms. Matthews and Ms. Spencer,” Kemp spoke. “We were simply spending it together, watching a movie.”
This was his moment. Roman leaned over and pulled Gus against his body, his arms wrapping around her tight. “Last chance, Gus. Don’t fight me.”
Her eyes widened and she gasped as she seemed to realize what he planned to do.
He slanted his lips over hers and kissed her long and hard. He hauled her against him and cupped her ass with his big hands. Roman wasn’t playing. He intended to leave Kemp—and everyone else—absolutely no question about what was happening between he and Gus. So he dominated her mouth, and the moment he felt her soften, he let his tongue surge inside.
God, she tasted like heaven, like something sweet and forbidden. Like precious memories he’d forgotten. Like perfection.
After a suspended moment, she lifted her arms and encircled his neck. Primal thrill filled him when she kissed him back with a hunger he hadn’t expected. And she melted into him with a soft sound of need.
From above, someone cleared his throat. Roman figured he’d made his point and released Gus. It was the last thing he wanted to do but if he kept drowning in her lips, he feared she would kill his resolve.
When Roman eased away from her, he saw with satisfaction that everyone had been watching them. Good. That had been the point of his display. Liz looked dumbstruck. Zack’s blank stare would have told anyone else absolutely nothing, but Roman knew the man’s minute expressions. Zack was wondering what the hell was going on; Roman had no doubt he’d have to dodge plenty of questions later.
But Roman had one far more specific target, and he found the blond hunk grilling him with a blue-eyed glare from the third floor landing. Roman merely smiled in return. “Special Agent Kemp, thank you for entertaining my girl while I was out, but I think we’re going to head to bed.”