He’d greeted me at the door and shook my hand. “You know what I like about you?” he asks.
“I used to think it was my ability to do my job, sir.”
“It still is,” he replies. “And at some point, if my daughter decides you’re a keeper, one day, when I’m no longer around, your job will be to protect her.”
This even as Ana grumbles, “I can take care of myself,” her stepfather’s eyes meet mine, a challenge in their depths, one it doesn’t take me long to accept.
I’d met Ana at a time in my life when I had no interest in forever and yet zero ability or desire to walk away from her. Funny how one person can change everything we think we know about ourselves and others. Kurt wasn’t a man I expected to invite me into his daughter’s life, but he’d done that and more.
Kasey had been a different story, and right out of the gate, he threw darts my way any chance he’d had.
He barely spoke to me, or anyone for that matter, during that first dinner at Kurt’s place, casting me condemning scowls. He was going to be a problem, I’d decided then and there. I just didn’t know how soon. I didn’t know it would be that very night when Kasey and I would have our first confrontation.
I turn us into the residential area of Cherry Creek, where restaurants, shopping, art galleries, and salons are all walkable. At this point, we’re a few blocks from the house, and it’s time to focus on delivering us to the safe house without any slime slithering along for the ride. The incessant nagging of the past and whatever it’s trying to tell me will have to wait.
When I’m certain we haven’t been followed, I pull us into the safe house, and thanks to Blake no doubt, the garage door opens automatically, allowing me to pull us inside. Once I’ve killed the engine, Ana and I sit there in the dark, the air heavy with history, our history as future husband and wife.
I can almost taste our first kiss. I can almost taste her right now. I want to kiss her so damn badly, it’s a physical burn.
“When we fuck, we’re fucking good,” I say. “When we’re not, we used to be just as good. Since we’ve both agreed we can’t fix what’s broken, we might as well just get naked and fuck like rabbits.” I glance over at her.
“That’s your answer to our problems? Just get naked and fuck?”
“Right now? Yes, it is.”
As if the universe wants to fuck over my plan to fuck, my cellphone rings and we both know I can’t ignore it the way I’d like to ignore our problems.
Chapter Five
LUKE
I don’t even bother to eye the caller ID. I know it’s Blake. “Yeah, boss,” I say, answering on speaker. “You’ve got me and Ana.”
“Parker never showed up at the airport. We can’t reach him.”
Parker was one of the men working with me that night in Egypt when I was forced to kill Kasey. They went after him, too, but unlike Jake, he got away alive.
My fingers curl on the steering wheel with this news.
He was a good man.
“He wouldn’t no-show,” I say tightly. “He was either forced to go off the radar or he’s dead, most likely dead. Where are Adam and Savage?”
“They’re following a vehicle I captured on the street feed. What do I need to know on your end?”
“Darius dropped a phone in Ana’s pocket. When it rang, I answered. It was the same bastard who killed Jake. He wants the package. I told him I want a payday. He was desperate enough to buy my story. Obviously, he’s beholden to someone he doesn’t want to disappoint. He gave me five days. The interesting part of this story, though, is where he wanted to meet up. He chose Ana’s property. Anyone who knows Ana’s father and the facility she inherited knows it’s booby-trapped out the ass.”
“Unless they were close enough to the family to know the traps,” Blake suggests. “Who would that be, Ana?”
“No one comes to mind,” she says, “but I also don’t know who my brother might have let in on the family secrets.”
Trevor, I think, considering he and Kasey were the ones running the dirty job behind my back. “Any word on Trevor’s present state of life or death, Blake?”
“As soon as you two stop getting in fucking trouble, I’ll finish looking for him. On that note, go rest. We’re now operating on a clock. By my estimation, we have four days and twenty-three hours until D-day.” He disconnects.
I reach for the door. Ana catches my arm, her touch burning through me, my cock instantly hard. I’m on edge and I know myself well enough to know I need to come down. I need an outlet. Just that fast, I want to pull her to me, to feel her warm and wet body squeezing my cock, right here in the car. I’m about to make it happen, to yank her across my lap, when she asks, “You think Parker is dead?”