I steal a look at her in the backseat. She’s turned some in her seat and her leg is hooked over Ford’s knee. His hand grips her thigh in a possessive way that makes me want to take her other knee and spread her sweet thighs open for us. Her skirt has ridden up and in the dark of the vehicle, I can make out the white flash of her lace panties beneath her skirt. It’s not a pencil skirt like earlier since that one got dirtied up after the incident. Instead, she’s changed into one with a loose fabric that rides up her legs with every movement she makes. My cock thickens, causing me to re-adjust myself.
“Don’t,” Zac mutters only for me to hear.
He means stop fucking obsessing. But I can’t. I’ve gotten drunk a few times over the past four years and spilled my woes to him. How if life were different, I’d make a girl like her mine. Once, I went as far as to detail out every single thing I’d do to her tight cunt. All with my tongue. He left with a hard-on and told me to get in line. If she couldn’t be his—theirs—then she couldn’t be mine, so to let it go.
But I can’t.
I fucking can’t.
“I wish one of us from IDS could have stayed,” Zac grumbles. “I don’t trust those bastards from Advanced Security.”
“Those Advanced guys are every bit as trained and capable as the four of us. They will do their job just as you would. Quit your bitching,” I grumble.
None of us would have wanted to stay knowing the others got to disappear with Clo.
I steal another look at her. Her soft, dark brown hair hangs in silky waves in front of her shoulders and her plump lips are parted as she sleeps. Fuck, what I wouldn’t give to suck on her bottom lip.
“She’s fine.” Ford rolls his eyes.
I twist further in my seat to get a good look at him. I don’t like the smug look on his stupid face as he caresses her thigh. He’s leaned back, his legs parted, in an easy way that suggests cuddling with Clo is a common situation. And for as often as he takes her out to do errands and stuff, I wouldn’t be surprised if he managed to sneak in some closeness with her. With his narrowed hazel eyes on me, he delicately inches his fingers up along her bare thigh.
My hands fist and my nostrils flare. “Watch it,” I warn.
He smirks. “She likes it.”
“I will fucking kill you,” I whisper through gritted teeth. If I don’t get to touch her neither should he.
Ford lifts a brow and continues his lazy teasing on her skin. Even in the dark, I can tell his erection is about to burst from his slacks. There’s no fucking way I can drive five hours with this prick pushing my buttons when it comes to her. He’s letting me know things have changed. No more dancing around the fact things are different, she’s different. She’s not a job, she’s our girl. One we all protect, take care of, and someone we want to be with. Some prick tried to take her from us. It changes a person—the situation. Feelings, when you nearly lose the one thing you realize you’ve been living for, become more. They become real, present, and need to be explored.
Who are we without her?
I don’t fucking know anymore.
It’s been too long. Everything, for the past six years, has revolved around her. She started as a job, but from the first tear I swiped from her apple red cheek, she ensnared us all. Enchanted us with her need for our protection. She needed us more than anyone ever has, and in more ways than we’ve ever allowed ourselves to admit. We belong to her and she to us.
“What’s the plan?” Zac asks, distracting me from imagining all the ways I’m going to skin Ford alive. I want to be the one caressing her thigh or at least be close enough to watch her chest rise and fall as he does it.
I twist back in my seat and stare ahead at the lonely black highway. “Just get us there alive. Secure the property. Keep her safe.”
“And then?”
“Then we wait. You know the drill.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
I must have faded out and fallen asleep because I wake to someone carrying me in the dark. At first, I panic until I realize it’s Leo carrying me from the Tahoe into a small cabin-like house. Everything is pitch-black aside from the moon shining through the thick trees, so it’s hard to make it out properly.
“It’s secure,” Ford says. “Place is fucking small as hell, though.”
Leo walks past him and up a set of rickety steps that creak under our weight. His feet thud against wood as we enter a darker space. It smells musty and old. Nothing like my expensive home back in the city.