Own (Command Force Alpha #1) (24 page)

There weren’t words for the way his expression tensed. It wasn’t anger, but it sure as hell wasn’t confusion. “Why didn’t you accept?”

“You don’t marry the first man you date,” she said with a little smile. “And it’s generally a bad idea to get collar-bound by the first man you call
Sir
.” She dropped her hand from his ear and tugged his arm. “Come on. Balloon animals.”

He didn’t budge. His expression intensified—if that was possible. Her gaze caught on his thick throat, which worked on a swallow. “Call me Sir,” he ordered hoarsely.

But they weren’t there yet, to that place where all the danger was gone and love was forever.

She lifted on her toes, laying her lips against the ear where Evan would be the only one to hear her reply. “No, Sir.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

The minute they stepped out of the leather goods store, Evan knew something was wrong. He had no words for the feeling that crept across his back. He never did. There was no obvious source of his discomfort, until Gabe Perrine’s high-class English voice sounded in his ear.

“Tail at ten o’clock, Evan. Caught you at the acrobats.”

“Description,” he said, mock-casually scanning the faces to his left.

“Dark hair. Thick beard. Black ink under the cuffs of a red plaid shirt.”

“He looks more lumberjack than spy,” came Snow’s input.

Evan was almost reluctant to burst the bubble of Kat’s happiness. She had to know, on a deep level, that they were still part of a larger plan—a trap, really. But she’d set that aside in favor of enjoying the day and letting her belief in him guide the afternoon. She looked gorgeous walking at his side, especially with such a cheeky, happy smile etched on her perky mouth.

My life for hers.

The realization was so strong and humbling that he shuddered and swallowed harshly. It was a truth as deep as marrow and as timeless as the seas.

“Be ready,” was all he said to her.

Instantly, she darted wide eyes up to meet his gaze, then began scanning the crowd.

He edged her into a slightly protected alcove between two shops. “Keep smiling, Kat. Look at the windows. Look at anything. Just not people. Got it?”

She made a noise in her throat that was acquiescence with a heavy dose of startled nerves. Part of him knew—the hard-ass bastard part of him—knew she hadn’t truly understood the magnitude of what they had set in motion. He hoped that she still didn’t, and he prayed that her belief in him wasn’t misplaced.

With a hand curved around her waist, he twisted so that she was more fully behind the wall. He looked above her dark head and over the crowd. He spotted the lumberjack, who appeared to be considering a display of mannequins dressed in leather pants.

He leaned nearer to Kat’s temple as if nuzzling her there. “Gabe, someone, tell me you’ve got his head between your crosshairs.”

“You got it, boss man.” There was a smile in Snow’s voice.

“You’re overreacting,” Gabe said. “Fletch needs him alive. Evan, you’re jumping scared because of Kitty-Kat. Kneecaps, not cranium.”

Evan exhaled. “Agreed. I’ll disarm him. Get your people down here as backup.”

Kat was watching him. “What do we do?”

Evan’s favorite choice would be to circle back so surreptitiously that he’d get the drop on the man and yank him into a shaded alley. A quick shakedown might solve this entire situation. That would mean leaving Katsu unguarded.

No way.

“Follow my lead.”

He stepped out of their small shelter and abruptly turned back toward their observer. With his quarry staring straight at him, the man held still and tried to play himself off as a tourist. As he pulled a guidebook from his pocket and made to scan through it, Evan caught the unmistakable tug of a weapon underneath the plaid shirt.

“Get down!” He gave Kat a shove, and was gratified to see her somersault into a defensive crouch beneath a vendor’s table.

Evan slammed the man shoulder to shoulder. Any doubt that he might be a tourist dissipated when the lumberjack snarled and reached for his weapon. Evan swung a punch to the man’s solar plexus. He doubled over, gasping for breath.

Evan was about to kick the agent’s feet out from under him when the man dropped to the ground. Bullets traveled faster than sound, which meant that Evan saw two bloodied kneecaps before he heard the echo of a long-distance rifle.

“Gun! He has a gun!” he shouted.

The crowd exploded with screams. Evan used a leftover donut napkin from his pocket to strip the man of a Sig 9mm. With the weapon stowed in his coat, he slammed the lumberjack hard in the balls and landed another swift pair of kicks to his gut. For good measure. Zip ties pulled from Evan’s back pocket secured the man at the ankles and wrists. Moving fast enough that he wouldn’t be pinned down by any bystanders, Evan searched him for concealed weapons. Nothing.

He instantly turned his attention back to Kat, who was practically invisible amid the flurry of scattering feet. He ducked beneath the vendor table and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“Someone tell me he’s the only one,” Evan said to his colleagues.

“Checking.” That from Gabe.

“My people are at your two o’clock,” said Snow. “A pair of Harajuku girls, and Heinrich, who looks like Roger Moore.”

“You’re insane—”

But she interrupted Gabe. “They need two minutes to get that knee-impaired scumbag to a mysterious black car bound for Fletcher’s tender mercies.”

Evan found the trio before letting his gaze slide away. “Gabe?”

“No activity to suggest he had an accomplice.”

“Lone gunman for the win,” said Snow. “You two scram. We’ll cover your exit.”

Without hesitation, Evan pulled Kat to her feet and walked as quickly as possible without running. Running gained attention. He didn’t want any more than he’d already rained down on the market.

It took only five seconds for him to make the first of two phone calls. The first was to Travis Phan, CFA’s king of personnel.

“We need clean-up at Quincy.”

“Got it,” came the man’s blasé reply. Phan always sounded like he didn’t know what he was doing, but he sure as hell did. “Although, really, Snow and Gabe should know how to clean up their own messes.”

“Gabe can go chameleon in four seconds, but I don’t trust Snow anywhere near the BPD.” And the Boston Police Department didn’t trust her either. She had a rap sheet the length of a table laid out with a Thanksgiving dinner for ten.

The second call was to Fletcher. “You have incoming.”

That was all the man needed to know.

Evan wove Kat through the crowds, back toward the Infiniti—but they didn’t get in. He retrieved their bags from the trunk and a laptop from under the cushion of the backseat. If necessary, he’d have secure access to any agent in the world.

In the meantime, he and Kat needed another safe house. A close one. Luckily, the best in the city was around the corner. They walked in silence to the Boston Harbor Hotel and checked in under one of Evan’s dozen aliases, complete with an ID and credit card taken from the overnight bag he’d retrieved from the YMCA.

Kat trailed behind him, doing her damnedest to look like a gawking tourist. She still carried her treasures from Quincy, including the Coach bag she hadn’t stopped hugging. She could’ve been a little girl holding a teddy bear for reassurance, but at least she was alert and following his cues to a tee.

In the elevator, she said simply, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.”

“Because you took care of it.”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Evan opened the door to their suite, which featured a stunning view of the harbor where they’d just escaped what could’ve been much worse. Even with the trap in place and Katsu as the bait, he had nearly let his guard down. He had been having such a good time. His senses had picked up on the tail, not his working brain. She was the biggest blind spot in history, which made him value his team even more.

And made him question his judgment, over and over, even more now than when he’d decided on the plan. What if there had been more than one man? What if, like Snow and Gabe, someone else had been perched on the Quincy rooftops, ready to fire? He’d taken the ultimate gamble…with Katsu’s safety.

That she’d done so willingly was no relief. She was so desperate to keep up with him and her dad and every other member of CFA. He’d used that against her, gently, like a dare.

The colonel would never forgive him, but that was fine. Evan doubted he’d be able to forgive himself.

No one deserved to wield that much power over another person.

After an appreciative whistle, with her fingers trailing along the back of a polished redwood settee, she glanced back at him. “You can afford this? Really?”

“Thank your dad, not me.” He dropped their bags on the carpet by the door.

“And I thought Youngman Street had the best towels. I’ll have to remember this one for the next time I’m on the run in my own hometown.” She sat on the bed and hooked her elbows on her knees, which were shaking visibly. “Now what?”

He needed to calm down.

“I’m taking a shower.”

Trust Phan and Snow and Fletcher. Trust the whole operation.
He and Kat were safe now. He took the Sig 9mm from his pocket, and using a Kleenex, he wrapped it in the plastic bag intended to drop off dry cleaning. Then he stowed it in his duffle.

“Fingerprints?” Kat asked, her voice a ghost of her regular self. “But CFA has him in custody now.”

“His prints might not be the only ones on it. Hopefully it was kept in a weapons storeroom and will give us several prints.” He exhaled and ran his hands through his hair. He wanted to pull his scalp off. Maybe he’d burn it off if he got the water hot enough. “Shower.”

He walked toward the decadent bathroom without looking back at Kat.

“I’m not joining you,” she called. “If that’s what you’re hinting at.”

He shucked his shirt and turned in the doorway. Gratification wasn’t a strong enough word when her jaw dropped and her eyes widened. Yeah, there was no denying it. He loved being strong for her. He loved that his body could turn her beautiful, smart-aleck face slack with desire. He loved that no matter how graceless or ill-conceived, he’d been able to get her here, to safety, to where they could take a night’s refuge with one another.

He needed to clear that shit from his head before he could make the best of their time alone together.

“I don’t hint,” he said tersely. He unbuckled his belt. He could stare at her without reservation because her eyes were riveted to his every move. “If I wanted your company, I’d demand it.”

“No skin off my nose. I don’t shower with cranky men. Besides…” She looked at him with a surprising sheen of tears in her eyes. “You said that if I went with you… If we did…
that
… You promised you’d make it up to me.”

Evan exhaled deeply, slowly, but Kat’s words were what he needed to calm down. Because she was right. He’d promised.

“So what
do
you do with cranky men?”

“When it comes to you…” She inhaled sharply when he slid the belt out of the pants loops. The leather sounded like a whip in their quiet, expensive sanctuary. Was she thinking about the leather shop they’d visited there at Quincy? Those collars and cuffs had fucked with his heart’s ability to pump blood.

Kat was breathing faster. She maintained that same tightly held pose on the bed. She cleared her throat. “When it comes to you, I’d do anything you want.”

“You wouldn’t call me Sir.” He hadn’t meant to say that. Not yet.

“That was a command, pure and simple.
Call me Sir.
I’ve been doing a lot of obeying lately, and you know why.” Her words were still strong. This wasn’t going to be easy, because Katsu Stafford didn’t give an inch she didn’t want to give. “It’s either been because I’ve needed to or because I’ve wanted to. That… That answer was the best I could do.”

“A compromise.” Only in the field had he heard himself say such succinct words. He was shocked at how little he liked hearing Katsu attach
compromise
to him for any reason. “That’s the best you can do?”

“For now,” she said in a whisper.

Frustrated, Evan stalked around the hotel suite, his strides tight, as he snuffed out every camera. Fourteen in all. It was a big place. Then he took one last call from Phan. The suspect was in custody. The site was scrubbed, everyone got away cleanly, and someone would be around first thing to fetch the weapon Evan had retrieved. He set up the computer to alert him of any emergency, then ignored Phan’s parting comment.

“Fletch says to mention those cameras…”

“Sommers out.”

Evan sighed, but his tension refused to relent. He would’ve liked to better enjoy the hotel with Kat—the sheer decadence of it—but that wasn’t likely. The best he hoped for was a détente where sex was still on the table. Otherwise, that shower was all the night had to offer.

Returning to the bedroom, he found Kat sitting up. Barely. Her elbows were still tenuously propped on her knees. The curve of her lithe back and the alluring striations of feminine muscle along her shoulders and arms were proof of her petite strength. Evan was stronger, but right now she had him fracturing into pieces.