Raven (Kindred #1) (25 page)

They pulled up behind her apartment, between the dumpsters where he’d parked before. Brodie turned off the bike and dismounted. Her legs were wobbling after he lifted her off the bike, probably because of the vibration and the adrenaline. Pulling off her helmet, he curled a hand around the back of her neck to steady her, and retrieved her purse before he guided her upstairs.

She unlocked her apartment and went inside, but he didn’t come in behind her, causing her to stop and look around for what the problem was, only she couldn’t see one.

“This is all gonna be over soon,” he said, loitering on her threshold. “Once Grant finds out about Quebec, I’d guess he’ll cancel your date.”

“It’s not a date,” she said, putting her purse and helmet on the dining table. “Are you going to come in?”

He spread his hands to opposite sides of the doorframe. “Work to do, baby.”

“If you weren’t planning on coming in, why did you bring me home?”

“It’s what’s done, right?” he said. “Didn’t other guys bring you home after…?”

Trying not to let him see her eye roll, she dumped her house keys next to her purse and went back to him. “Do you see any of those guys around here?” she asked and his narrowed eyes darted to the side as he tried to figure out what she meant. “If I wanted to be with a guy who acted in a traditional way, do you think I would’ve let you kiss me in the first place?”

Leaning further into her apartment, he took a breath and she pinched his tee shirt between her thumb and forefinger. “I don’t want you to be anything that you’re not, Brodie. I know there will be times when you’ll have to be in other places doing other things. I’m not going to throw a tantrum if I have to get a cab once in a while.”

Squinting at her, he didn’t sound pleased. “That sounds like the future talking.”

Moving closer still, she liked that he was hanging into her apartment in the way he was, because it gave her the opportunity to talk within a few millimeters of his lips. Letting their breath merge, she kept her voice to a whisper, though her smile probably wasn’t coy.

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” she asked, dipping her body closer, letting her head tilt one way while his went the other. It was as though they were kissing without erasing that last tiny space between their lips.

“You’re something special, Zara Bandini,” he said, mirroring her murmuring tone.

Feigning coyness that she knew he would identify as a tease, she flirted with him. “I’m your something special, Brodie.” Raising her brows, she asked for confirmation. “Aren’t I?”

The genuine sorrow on his face made her breath stick in her throat. “I wish you could be, baby, I really do.” He tried to lean in to kiss her, but she backed off and erased their intimate flirtation.

“What are you saying?” she asked, fearing his implication.

His pity faded to let his mask of indifference rise, making it clear he didn’t want to be having this conversation. “Last night, I think I got… caught up in, you know… you were in my house, that’s never happened before and… it was nice, to live the dream for a night.”

“Live the dream?” she asked almost unable to believe what he was saying.

“Come on,” he said, releasing a hand from the doorframe to reach for her wrist, but she curved it out of his reach. “I can blow through here when I’m in town if you need a ride. And if there’s ever a boyfriend giving you shit… I’ll take care of him for you.”

Her brows rose. “If I…” Folding her arms, she told herself to calm down before she spoke, but it wasn’t easy. “I should slap you in the face, you know that?”

He opened his arms. “For a guy like me that’s practically a marriage proposal,” he said, but she wasn’t taking humor as his honest response.

“Tuck manages to maintain a normal relationship,” she said.

His head bobbed in concession. “If normal is seeing her three times a year, then yeah, I guess he does. Recently, he’s different about it… He knows he has to end it soon. He’s strung that girl along for like… I don’t know, five years or something.”

“Why does he have to end it?”

He stepped just over the threshold and bent his knees to come to her height. “Because guys like us don’t have normal.”

“Did you ever stop to ask whether or not I wanted normal?” she asked him. “Huh?”

This made him falter and he straightened up. “Well, what do you want?”

“I want you,” she said without wavering. This time yesterday, she might not have been quite so definitive in her answer. But spending the night with him had concreted her feelings and they ran far deeper than the physical.

“Baby, I’m not for sale.” He was trying to build his walls, trying to be the untouchable outlaw, but he couldn’t quite disguise his regret.

“Damn right you’re not,” she said. Grabbing his tee shirt, she twisted it in her fist, and he let her pull him forward so she could close the door of her apartment. Her confidence in the face of his letdown intrigued him enough that he let her say more. “You, Brodie McCormack”—she pushed up onto her tiptoes to bring her face as close to his as she could—“belong to me now.”

The curl of his lips was trying to contain a laugh, but she could tell he was sort of impressed by her assertiveness too. Few people would get away with taking control of any situation he was a player in. He could snap her neck in a heartbeat and she would have no way to fight him off if he chose to turn on her. To him, she was an amusing amnesty from the intensity of his life, that she thought she could coerce him into anything against his will was laughable, and she knew that.

But she was sure of her desire to explore him and their relationship further. Zara had to prove her dedication by fighting for her place at his side. Not content that she’d made the ferocity of her certainty clear, Zara let her hand trail down to his belt buckle. Seizing it in her fist, she spun around and made for her bedroom, dragging him along behind her. That he came along with her at all was proof that he wasn’t done with her yet.

“I didn’t have time for that,” Brodie said a while later.

They were on her bed, both lying on their chests, but he was about halfway down the mattress so his face was in line with her ass. His fingertip trailed up and down the arch of the globe and then across to the other one before he gave her a hard smack.

“I couldn’t let you walk away. If I did, I’d probably never see you again,” she said, enjoying the tingle his hit had caused. Turning her face in the pillow, she looked down at him, and whispered the truth. “I’m not ready to lose you.”

Taking his focus from her ass, he contorted to look up at her while maintaining his lying position. “You don’t understand what my world is and you can’t compare me to Tuck. He doesn’t have mortal enemies… I do.”

“You’re worried about Caine?” she asked. Lifting her head onto her hand, she balled the pillow inside the crook of her elbow. “You wanted to dump me because you think some guy might try to hurt me?”

“I don’t do well with being out of control,” he said, returning his focus to her ass.

She cast her eyes to the ceiling and almost laughed. “I never would’ve guessed.” Parting her legs to run her toe up his leg, she was disappointed by the denim barrier between their fleshes. “What would we have to do to make this place secure enough that you could relax?”

“I can relax here,” he said, giving one of her ass cheeks a squeeze.

“Relax enough to get naked, I mean.”

“Ah,” he said with a smile in his voice. “That won’t happen, baby.”

His hot breath cascaded over her flesh making her hypersensitive. But he slid up the bed and pushed her onto her back to kiss her. “You have to leave?” she asked and he nodded on his way to kiss her again. “You’ll be careful?” He nodded again and seemed unable to take his eyes from her mouth. “Brodie…” Maybe it was the quiver in her voice, but his gaze flicked up to hers. “Will you come over? Tonight? When you’re done?”

“I don’t know when I’ll be back,” he said, drawing a circle around her nipple with his fingertip.

Trying not to seem desperate, she did want to convey how determined she was that he should visit her. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I know that you can get in here, you’ve done it plenty of times before… There’s a spare key in the kitchen drawer. Whatever time it is—”

“You’re not worried about Grant?”

Preoccupied by her stroking fingertips that enjoyed the plains of his chest, she inhaled. “You’re right that he’ll probably cancel when everything goes wrong for him tonight.”

“Ok,” he said. “If I get back in time and there are no hitches… I’ll come over.”

Stretching her arms around him, she crossed them and jabbed her nails into his shoulders. “And wake me up?”

“How would you like me to do that?” he asked and she was amazed at the power his vague smile had on her.

“Surprise me,” she whispered and he exhaled a laugh into her mouth before kissing her once more.

The phone beside her bed began to ring and as much as she wanted to ignore it, Zara knew that Brodie had to leave anyway. With a final kiss, he sat up, picked up the receiver, and handed it over to her.

“Hello?” she asked, watching Brodie stretch his back when he rose from her bed.

The sinew of his muscles begged to be touched and she pulled up her knees when moisture began to gather between her thighs. One of her hands fell to her center. Brodie turned around and he registered her positioning after a double take.

His intrigued expression was punctuated by a head tilt and he moved to the end of the bed to pick up his tee shirt from the floor, while keeping his eyes pinned to her hand.

Yanking his tee shirt over his head, he put the backs of his hands together and gestured for her to open her legs further. She arched into her laugh and it was then she heard something on the other end of the phone.

“Hello? Zara?” When she recognized the harassed tone, she sat up, and crossed her legs, zooming all focus onto the phone line and away from Brodie’s stimulating form.

“Grant?” she asked and Brodie stopped buckling his belt. “Are you ok?”

“There’s been an accident,” Grant said. “At the Quebec plant where my men were working to perfect the product.”

“What kind of accident?” she asked and gestured for Brodie to come over. When he sat on the bed, she hung over his shoulder and tipped the phone so they could both hear.

“There was an explosion. Our men are dead.”

“Oh my God, that’s awful,” she said, making sideways eye contact with Brodie. “How did it happen? What does this mean?”

The agitation in his voice made her feel sorry for the man she was supposed to be wary of. “That there could be a delay in delivery and that might upset our buyer… I was going to go into the Sutcliffe meeting alone. But I… I might need your support. Would you be able to meet me at the hotel, upstairs, before the event? I need to tell you some things.”

So she wasn’t going to be an innocent bystander, he wanted her face to face with the terrorists. Despite what Brodie and Art had told her about these men following her, somehow knowing they would get a close look at her face made her uneasy, but she couldn’t think of an excuse that would get her out of going to the event. “Sure,” she said. Brodie pulled away enough to turn and shake his head. She looked away, but his fingertips touched her cheekbone and he forced her to look at him.

“At the Grand, same time, ten o’clock.”

“Sure,” she said. “I’ll meet you there.”

“Thank you,” Grant said. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Of course.”

Grant hung up and she pressed the red button on her phone then leaned over to hang it up. “Are you fucking insane?” Brodie demanded before her hand had even left the handset.

She turned back to him. “I panicked,” she exclaimed. “He’s my boss, I’ve always followed his orders. He’d have been more suspicious if I refused. It’s a public place, what can happen?”

His anger was visceral, one of his hands went to the back of his head. “It’s a public building, not a public place. There are conference rooms and bedrooms. Plenty of places inside where he can get you alone with terrorists. Terrorists, Zara, do you understand that?”

Considering his distress, she brought her legs around so she could sit on the edge of the bed to examine his stance. “On the bright side, you don’t have to kill anyone tonight.”

“Don’t bet your pretty ass on that yet, baby,” he said. Coming forward, he sat on the bed beside her. “Can you call the Grand for me and find out what Grant has booked? Find out if it’s a bedroom or a conference room? What time is it now?”

“Almost four,” she said, peeking at the bedside clock.

“Ok.” He ran his hand up and down through his hair at the back of his head. “Six hours. That’s enough time to scout the location… I don’t like that we don’t have the routine down, but Tuck can spot me. I’ll grab Maverick and—”

“Maverick?” she asked, noting that wasn’t a bird alias like the rest of them.

Concentrating on developing his plan, he muttered his response. “My rifle.”

He’d named his gun. Her eyes drifted south as she speculated on what else he might have named. “I don’t understand. What’s your plan?”

“You’re gonna find out where that room is and if it’s not at the front of the building, you need to change the reservation, ok? You’re his assistant. You can come up with a reason why you’d need to do that, right?”

“Sure,” she said, taking his wrist to pull his hand down from his hair. “But I don’t…” Clarity hardened her own expression. “You’re going to… you’re going to shoot them.”

“I’m gonna do whatever it takes to keep you safe,” he said, touching both her cheekbones and sweeping his hands downward to cup her head. “You trust me, don’t you?”

Her furious nod didn’t hesitate. “Of course I do,” she said.

“All you have to do is stay out of my line of sight. That’s all you have to worry about,” he said. “I can do all the rest if you just ensure I’ve got a clear shot. Make sure you’ve got a drink before they arrive, and if something happens while they’re in there that makes you uncomfortable—drop the glass.”

“Then what happens?” she asked.

“I’ll clear the room.”

Twisting closer, she brought her other hand to his wrist. “You would kill everyone in the room without further explanation because I drop a glass?”

He was a weapon at her disposal. Empowered and awe struck, her anxiety lessened. With the Kindred watching her back, she had nothing to fear.

“Dropping the glass gives you the excuse to hit the deck,” he said. “Trust has to work both ways. You’ll be on the inside and it will be the responsibility of the rest of us to keep you safe. We don’t stop to ask why when we get a signal from a partner.”

“What about Grant?” she asked. “How can you make sure he—”

“The only person whose safety I will guarantee is yours,” he said. “Any other collateral damage is acceptable.”

“Brodie,” she exhaled and searched his eyes for a few seconds.

Nothing in her experience with other men was comparable to how sexy this man’s determined gaze was and it was fixated on her. Sliding her hands onto his shoulders, Zara climbed over to straddle his lap and seized his mouth with hers again. Now that he wasn’t going to Canada to take down the lab, he had some free time and she intended to take full advantage of this opening in his calendar.

“I don’t like this,” Brodie said through the earpiece Tuck had given her to wear before she left her apartment. It was so tiny that she worried it would be stuck in her ear canal for good. But he had assured her that it wouldn’t. With her hair down to conceal it from anyone who got too close, she was confident it would remain discreet.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Art’s voice came through too.

Zara kept walking along the sidewalk towards the Grand Hotel. It was dark and those who were in town at this time were dressed up for dates and functions. Given her mission, the gold, scoop neck, silk dress she wore was activity appropriate, but it didn’t match her mood. Seeing so much sparkle was unsettling when she knew there were criminals loitering around who might be tempted by the jewels.

She herself was wearing a sparkling necklace, provided by Tuck, with a tiny camera secreted somewhere behind the diamonds, but a mugger wouldn’t know that it was a spy gadget. If they decided they wanted the piece, they could take it from her and would probably beat her to a pulp in the process.

She tried her best not to move her lips and kept her volume low. “I hope I don’t get mugged,” she said, touching the necklace.

“It would be the worst night of his life if a mugger touched you,” Tuck said. All three voices could come down the one line into her ear. “Rave’s got you in his sight.”

Horrified by the prospect of an accident, she reminded herself not to gasp. “You better not be pointing your gun at me,” she said, smiling at a couple who passed her and may have heard her talking to herself.

“My gun is always pointing at you, baby,” his voice rumbled through her ear to the back of her neck and she suppressed a shiver.

Clearing her throat and her smile, she held the chain strap of her purse and went through the Grand’s revolving door and into the lobby. The marble floors gave way to a sumptuous carpet that led to the elevators. She called one and wondered if she’d lose her connection with the guys when she went inside the shaft.

The elevator came, so she stepped in and selected the fourth floor where Grant was set up in a business suite. The doors closed and she was thankful for the minute she had to herself before facing possible death.

“You should’ve called up,” Brodie said and she got her answer about whether or not she would lose them. “Going straight up surprises him. That might make him nervous… he might have come down to the lobby and public is better.”

“You’re just worried she’ll walk in on him jerking off,” Art said.

“We’ve got him in sight and he’s alone,” Brodie said, sounding more like he was ignoring Art than answering him. The elevator doors opened and she inhaled before she exited to bolster herself for what was to come. “Remember what I said, baby. I’m right there with you.”

Reaching the door, she knocked and then turned the handle to go straight in. If this were a business meeting, as she was supposed to assume it was, then there would be no reason to wait for a response.

Grant was already there and was pacing in front of the window. He didn’t look up when she came in, so she closed the door and went to a decanter in the corner. Taking her purse off her arm, Zara laid it down and poured two measures.

It wasn’t until she took the drinks over and stepped into Grant’s path that he stopped and actually saw her. “Zara,” he said and took the glass she held up toward him.

“You look like you need a drink,” she said, wearing a warm smile meant to comfort. He took the glass and gulped the liquid without attempting to disguise the trepidation of his mood with a traditional toast. She sipped from her own glass and watched him drink.

“Watch it with the hard liquor,” Art said through her earpiece. “That’s enough.”