Jasper? Here? It didn’t make sense. Her brain was still floating somewhere outside her body, tossed out by the climax that had so thoroughly rocked her world. Then reality crashed through with the force of her brother’s pounding fists. Jasper was here. Lucas had gotten her brother here.
“You were the one who wanted him on Fare Island, so you better find a way to control him before he fucks up this entire mission,” Lucas said, his voice a harsh whisper. “I won’t let that happen. Do you understand?”
All of the post-orgasmic haze evaporated in an instant as the reality of where she was and exactly whom she was with blasted through her. What had she been thinking?
Her brother pounded on the door again. “I will break this damn thing down, Ruby.”
“Shut up, Jasper!” she hollered. “I’m coming.”
“We’re coming.” Lucas held up his arm, dragging hers up with it thanks to the chain connecting them.
She glared at him and scooted out of the bed, leaving behind twisted sheets that smelled of sex, but not the man who’d helped her make them that way. The sooner she figured out how to do that, the better, because an attraction like the one between them was nothing but trouble.
Chapter Seven
Answering the door with a barely covered hard-on while chained to the woman whose taste lingered on his lips wasn’t exactly the way Lucas had imagined this part of the mission going down. Then again, nothing had gone according to plan since he’d set eyes on Ruby Macintosh. He should be used to it by now, but it still made him twitch. A man had to stick to the plan, otherwise everything turned to shit.
Ruby grabbed her robe from the armoire, shoved her free arm through the sleeve and then tied it closed toga style so her chained arm remained outside of it. Then, she gave him an appraising look. As soon as her gaze dropped below his waistband, her cheeks went pink and her attention jumped back to his face. “Do you have anything you can put on?”
“I’m not a silk robe kinda guy.”
Her lips twitched, but instead of the smile he expected, she let out a huff of frustration. “You have to put something on.”
Considering the fact that her brother was already in mid-meltdown, it was solid advice. He scooped up his suit pants from where they hung over the armoire’s open door and awkwardly tugged them on with his free hand. Tucking his protesting cock down one pant leg and zipping them shut took a bit of work, but he managed. Confident he looked completely ridiculous in slacks and a bare chest, even if slightly more appropriate, he opened the door.
Ruby’s brother stormed through the opening, followed by Sgt. Talia Clausen, who looked as pissed as Jasper had sounded when he’d bellowed through the door. He was a big guy and had that whole crazed, mad-dog-ferociousness vibe going on. Lucas stepped in front of Ruby before Jasper could get within arm’s reach, blocking her from a possible—if improbable, going on the siblings’ history—attack. The move put his chained arm behind his back, but he wouldn’t need both arms to kick Jasper’s ass if it came to that. The guy was as tall and bulky as his sister was petite, but it would take someone a helluva lot bigger to get through Lucas to hurt Ruby.
The woman in question, however, had other plans. With a swift shove from behind, she moved in alongside of him. Jasper glanced down at the thin silver chain connecting Lucas’s and Ruby’s wrists and muttered a few choice curses before letting out with something much, much louder. “What in the hell are you thinking, Ruby?”
“That my baby brother needs to remember how to use his inside voice.”
“Really?” he asked, his voice dropping a few decibels. “We’re ten months apart, so you can stop the baby brother shit, especially when you’re the one acting like an idiot. Do you even know who he is? He’s with the—”
Lucas moved to smack the words right out of the other man’s big mouth, but before he was even halfway to the target, Jasper grimaced and his whole body jolted straight for a second before slouching back to normal.
Jasper slapped his hand over the brand-new, small red welt on the side of his neck and glared at Clausen. “You have got to stop doing that.”
Clausen, who stood only a few inches shy of Jasper’s six-foot, two-inch frame, didn’t back down. “It’s set to the lowest voltage rating, and it was only for a second.” She pocketed the Silver Knight’s prototype stun gun, disguised as a flashlight, that she’d just used to shock him. “Anyway, I warned you what would happen when you wouldn’t stop ranting on the jet.”
“And I told you what would happen if you zapped me again.”
“She’s done this before?” Ruby took a threatening step toward Clausen, had more than half a foot of height on her, not to mention some of the best fighting skills of the Silver Knights.
Lucas raised an arm to put a roadblock in Ruby’s path at the same time Jasper sidestepped in front of the tall, redheaded Silver Knight. It was probably to protect Ruby, but Lucas’s sixth sense said otherwise. Yet another thing he’d have to have a word about with one of his best agents.
“Who are you?” Ruby asked while pushing against the barrier of his forearm.
Like a good agent, the other woman remained cool. “Clausen. I’m with him.” She nodded toward Lucas.
Before Ruby could ask any of the 482 questions he could practically see rolling through her head, Lucas held a finger to his lips. He’d swept the room for listening devices before dinner, but hadn’t since they’d returned. Clausen closed her mouth immediately. Jasper and Ruby wore matching outraged expressions but didn’t utter a word.
He crossed the room with Ruby in tow, the silver chain taut between them, stopping at the armoire and taking out his shave kit from the shelf above the hanging rod. “Look, Jasper, I know I’m not the guy you expected your sister to fall for. I’m sure that like your dad, you’d hoped she’d pick Joey.”
He took out what looked like a smartphone, but was actually an RF signal detector that could detect any listening devices and most wireless cameras. He continued to ramble on about how he and Ruby were perfect for each other as he and his intended circled the room checking for bugs. Finally, when no alerts popped up on the screen, he laid the device down on the vanity table. Now they could get down to it.
“Bring me up to speed, Clausen.”
“Do you want to go somewhere more secure?” She looked pointedly at Ruby.