A Loaded Question Read online

  He swallowed another drink, this time slower and more deliberate, letting the strawberry and moss flavors of the wine melt into his tongue. “Honestly, I knew your father had two daughters, but I didn’t know much about you. Just the basics. And you can believe he didn’t mention that you were working for the Bureau.”

  “Would it have made a difference if he had?” she asked.

  He paused, thinking for a moment. “No. I don’t think it would have. Normally, a corporate owner’s family plays no role in my investigation unless they work for the company involved.”

  “I know you probably don’t want to tell me, but you know I have to ask...”

  He sighed, knowing the question even before it slipped from her lips. Didn’t she know he was struggling in his attempt to stay quiet? “You know I can’t tell you what I was hired to look into or why. That is between my company and your father and his board. But I can say that I don’t think your father is looking for trouble. If anything, quite the opposite.” Was that why she’d let him in, been acting so friendly—just to get this info?

  She reached over and put her hand on his knee as a softness came over her features. “Thank you.”

  He stared down at her hand before he put his hand atop hers and gave it a light squeeze. “You’re welcome. I can only imagine what you are going through right now, but you are taking all this like a champ. I’m impressed. I know it’s hard when you are forced to face drama that surrounds your family, especially when it has the potential to affect your job and your standing in it.”

  “You’re the strong one,” she said. “You stood out there, under fire, and instead of running, you moved to cover the innocent.”

  He felt many things, especially with his hand on hers, but strength wasn’t even close to the top of the list... In fact, all he could think about were his many weaknesses.

  “I’m not strong. I’m well trained and it’s my job to protect those who can’t protect themselves.” He pulled his hand from hers, regretting it as soon as her face fell.

  Was it possible that she was as confused as he was? He veered from thinking she was interested in him to thinking she was interested only in what he could tell her about his work for her father.

  They hadn’t known each other long enough or well enough to find themselves in the situation they were in, but there was no denying there was something moving between them—and not the freak-in-the-sheet kind of thing. No, there was a deeper feeling than just mutual attraction. It was more like a deep understanding and respect.

  Yeah, she was going to be dangerous to have in his life in any capacity.

  He stood up and refilled their glasses, draining his and then filling it again, emptying the bottle. Though drinking wasn’t their best option, when he was feeling the way he was toward her, staying sober was entirely too stressful. The last thing he wanted to do was be even more awkward than he already was.

  Hopefully she had a thing for goofy dudes, dudes who didn’t quite fit into any box and constantly found themselves at least three steps from normal.

  “How deep does this thing with my father run? Are there people in the Department of Defense involved in his stuff, or is your involvement just a preventative sort of thing?”

  He sucked on his teeth for a moment before he finally decided to answer. Maybe it was the slight buzz he was starting to feel or being near her, but he had to give her something she could work with—the more she knew, the more she’d be able to stay safe. “Preventative. Your father is doing what he can to take steps to keep anything from becoming a larger-scale problem.”

  “So, you’re saying that he thinks there is someone in his company who is spying?” she asked, not bothering to beat around the bush.

  He liked that she just jumped on his olive branch and tried to make it into a spear. “It’s not about what he thinks or doesn’t think—it’s about what my team and I are able to prove. Zoey’s digging deeper into the cyber side of things, but we’re trying to find where the strong and weak points are in the organization.”

  She sent him a pointed smile. “You know, it would have been a lot easier if you had just told me all this from the beginning instead of making me pry it out of you.” She took a sip of wine, and as she did, he could have sworn a faint redness took to her cheeks. “If I had to guess, your not wanting to tell me had more to do with the fact that you wanted to see me again than it did with your need for secrecy.”

  “Come on—you know I have to protect my company’s secrets. It can literally come down to life and death.” As he spoke, the heady warmth of the wine slipped through him, filling him with reckless bravado. She wanted truth? He’d give it to her. “But I have to say, holding out until you and I have found ourselves here... It definitely was an added benefit. If I was a smarter man, I would have planned this out instead of merely falling ass first into it.”

  “You mean when I caught you lurking outside?” She paused for a split second. “And you can be as self-deprecating as you like, but we both know you’re not a stupid man. If you were, you’d have had a damn short shelf life in the contracting world. Zoey doesn’t allow for anything or anyone but the best.”

  “Zoey is tough.” He gave her a sly grin as he reached over and took her hand. She didn’t pull away and instead laced her fingers between his. This was all...so fast, and yet it felt so perfect. “And as for lurking, ouch, that’s a little harsh. Don’t ya think? I just wanted to make sure you had the highest level of security—call it tactical protection.”

  She leaned close, her breath caressing the side of his face as she whispered into his ear. “You can call it what you like, but I know why you are doing what you’re doing. I know what you’re feeling.” She pressed her cheek against his.

  In that moment, nothing else in the world mattered. There was only her and the way she felt pressed against him and how, with this oh-so-complicated touch, his world expanded.

  Chapter Nine

  Troy smelled like the inside of his car, an aroma of bar soap, protein bars and his clean-scented cologne. If someone had told Kate that this mixture of scents would be the greatest aphrodisiac she had ever experienced, she would have called them crazy. And yet here she was...her face pressed against his as she worked through all the feelings inside of her and how most were in direct competition with all the things she wanted to do with him and to his body.

  Confused, there was only one thing that moved to the front of her mind, one thought, one need, one desire... She had to kiss him. To feel his lips pressed against hers. To hear the sound he made when her tongue skipped over the subtle ridges and valleys of his lips.

  She grazed her thumb over the back of his, imagining what it would feel like to have his hands travel down her body as she kissed him. Would he know what she liked? Or was he the kind of lover who needed to be told what to do, to be trained in the art of pleasing her?

  Troy seemed like the kind of man who was a bit uncomfortable around women, but that could have been the residual effects of his lonely job. And she wasn’t one to judge when it came to sexual acumen. Sure, she’d been with a few men, but that didn’t mean she was a sex expert.

  She chuckled.

  “Something funny?” he asked, leaning back and away from her touch.

  The place where their skin had touched started to chill.

  Why did I have to laugh?

  One stupid thought and the greatest feeling she’d had in months had been stripped away from her. Why did she have to be such an idiot sometimes? Why couldn’t she have played this whole thing with suave coolness?

  Oh wait—she was a normal woman, that was why.

  She sighed.

  “You don’t want to know what I was thinking,” she said with a light chuckle.

  If he knew the random thoughts that passed through her mind, he would probably head back out to his car, leaving only dust motes in his wake.
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  “If it makes you feel better, you and I were probably thinking about the same damn thing,” he said, looking her square in the eye.

  He had the most seductive green eyes, and gazing into them was like standing in the heart of a Texas prairie in the middle of spring. There were so many different levels of the color, many she could have never imagined to be real.

  She reached up and ran her hand over the stubble on his chin, her mind wandering from his words and settling back onto his features...the strong line of his jaw and the near ninety-degree line at its edge. Even his ears were in perfect proportion to the rest of his face... Her gaze drifted downward, toward his chest.

  Before she could stop herself, her fingers twisted from his face, grazing over the soft cotton of his T-shirt and stopping just over his heart. It pulsed against her fingers. She put her palm down, feeling the quickening rumble as her hand cupped his perfect round pecs.

  He flexed, smiling at her. “Do you like my moobs?” he teased.

  She didn’t just like them. “Given the right amount of invitation mixed with the correct amount of loosened inhibitions, and you know I would motorboat those things.” She laughed, throwing her head back in joy.

  He smirked. “Invitation? Hmm... I can’t say that I’ve ever been asked if another person could motorboat my chest.” He tapped his finger on his chin as if he was seriously contemplating the idea. “I’m flummoxed.”

  “Oh, did you just say flummoxed?” She laughed harder, her belly starting to ache. “You are cut off from any more wine.”

  “Don’t be such a hater. There is nothing wrong with the word flummoxed. My grandfather loved that word.”

  “The fact that your grandfather loved it should be reason enough for you to leave that one in the past.” She giggled, looking up at him from under her eyelashes.

  He reached up and took her hand, which was still resting over his heart. “I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time,” he said. Lifting her hand to his lips, he gave her fingers a soft, tender kiss.

  She could have died in that moment and considered her life well lived.

  Of course, as if she had called down the wrath of the karma gods, her phone rang. It vibrated on the table in front of the couch just inches from their knees, repeating its angry buzzing like it was a hornet stuck behind a piece of glass.

  He let go of her, and her hand drifted to her lap.

  “You probably need to answer that,” he said, motioning to her phone but seeming to respect her privacy enough not to grab it and hand it over to her.

  The simple action, or inaction, made her think about what they would be like if they were a couple. She could almost imagine a Friday night, him going out to take down a company while she dug into crime-scene photos and tried to develop timelines for murders.

  “Probably a robocall. Get lots of those.”

  The phone stopped its hornet dance and she relaxed back into the couch, hoping that they could pick up where they had left off, but not knowing exactly how she should start again.

  “So, tell me more about your family. I know you said you have brothers...” she started.

  The cute little smirk of his, the one that always seemed to appear when she did something slightly inept, reappeared. “I’m one of six kids. I’m the third in line to the throne, right ahead of Mike.”

  She was a bit surprised that he hadn’t tried to put her off when she’d asked about his private life. “All boys?”

  He shook his head. “Nah, five boys and a girl.” He shrugged. “My parents were saints and possibly highly confused. I can’t imagine raising six kids, not to mention six highly energetic and trouble-seeking children. We were the worst.”

  “I can only imagine. I am one of two girls and we were bad...but six... Ouch.”

  He chuckled. “Both my parents worked full-time, which meant we were all on our own, for the most part. AJ, my oldest brother, tried to keep us in line, but most of the time he was the ringleader more than anything else.”

  “Oh yeah?” she asked, not wanting to stand in his way of opening up to her.

  “Christmas was when we seemed to all be at our finest. There was nothing more fun than lining up the glass bulb ornaments and pinging them off with a BB gun.” He laughed as he spoke, the words spilling out between chuckles. “I’m telling you, our parents should have quit at one... But my mother was an angel, seriously. She never mentioned a damn thing about all the missing ornaments. And I’m sure, though we tried to clean and hide the evidence after our target practices, she had to have known what we were up to when she had to buy new ornaments each and every year.”

  She laughed, but it was just as much at him and the joy in his face as it was for the craziness she was sure had taken place within his family. “I bet they got cheaper over time. You’re lucky she didn’t start buying the unbreakable plastic ones just to mess with you guys.”

  “If they would have been a thing back then, I’m sure she would have.” He was laughing, but there was a whisper of sadness in the sound. “She was a great woman. Both of my parents were.”

  Kate stopped laughing. “I’m so sorry. How long have they been gone?”

  “They’ve both been gone a couple of years now. They died on Christmas Eve in a car accident.” He ran his finger over the glass. “They lived in Renton, near Seattle—where we all grew up. They were coming to Montana to spend the Christmas with me, Mike and Elle. We were all just starting our jobs with STEALTH. They were hit by a semi on Snoqualmie Pass. Died instantly.”

  “Holy crap, Troy... I can’t even... I’m so, so very sorry.” She couldn’t even imagine the pain that must have come with that kind of traumatic event. She had thought dealing with her mother’s breast cancer had been hard, but thankfully her mother had survived.

  She didn’t have the corner on the market when it came to hardship and suffering. If anything, his history was hands down more heart wrenching. All of a sudden, she felt entirely too sober, but she was grateful that he was finally giving her a piece of himself. He was starting to make a bit more sense.

  But not why he had chosen to go into governmental contracting work. It wasn’t a job that most could do. It was a job that was often not regulated, which made it like the Wild West and him a cowboy.

  “Why did you choose to become a contractor? Was it because of the loss of your parents?”

  “No, that happened after I was already training for STEALTH. I had been working as a contractor for a few other companies before that. I liked the work. I guess I got into the work because I was such a free-flying kid. We all went into contracting. In fact, my siblings and I all work for STEALTH.”

  That was amazing. One contractor in a family could be hard on the entire dynamic, thanks to the secrets, the going black and the disappearances out into the world for sometimes years...but six? Damn.

  Maybe it worked better because they all lived in the same world and all worked for the same company. It had to allow them more candor when it came to the work they did. Maybe it was the best way to keep a family together.

  “I haven’t heard of a whole lot of female contractors. Especially when it comes to working out in the Sandbox. How does your sister like it?”

  “She is far tougher than I am.”

  She nibbled at the corner of her lip. “What about the sexism?” Her thoughts moved to Agent Peahen...and all the work that would be waiting for her in the morning. It still rankled that her father had urged her to work with the man. She knew her dad had a lot of connections, and his reference to Peahen meant the agent had probably complained about her to her father. How petty.

  She tried to ignore the gnaw of guilt that fluttered through her as she considered all the things she needed to do, but for once she could take a night for herself. It was terrible, but it had been entirely too long since she’d had a man in her house, not to mention edging in on her feel
ings.

  “My sister doesn’t open up to me a lot about the way men treat her, but I know it can’t be easy. There aren’t many women who get into contracting, for a reason. And as much as I would love to support having women in every role in the different teams, it would be really hard. There are places in the world where they just can’t do what I do. They would end up dead.”

  She bristled. “Are you saying that you don’t think women should be contractors?”

  He shook his head, hard. “That’s not what I’m saying. There are certainly jobs they are better at than men. Women can get into places that I can’t. Females are an asset...and a detriment... But the same can be said about men. It’s just about using the right people for the right job. And when a higher-up gets it wrong...it can be a real problem. Or if they get a team that doesn’t work cohesively together... Yeah, no. It’s bad news.” There was a strangled sound to his words, a noise between deep anger and heartache, as though he was trying to hold back emotions that threatened to break through his stoic dam and flood into his voice.

  There was something there, something that rested right below the surface, but she wasn’t sure whether or not she should push him for answers. It was better to have things happen naturally, if they were meant to happen at all.

  “I quit the Sandbox a couple of years ago, you know...after an attack. I had broken the rules. It cost me.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t do anything that bad. You seem like such a good man,” she said, gripping his hand with hers.

  “It wasn’t about me being a good man...or a bad man. It was about me making the wrong decisions.” He paused and slipped his hand from hers, patting it as he stood up and moved away from her. “I got into a relationship that was ill-advised. I loved her... And it was that love, our relationship, that ended up costing her the ultimate price.”

  She didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry” seemed too feeble a response to the pain he was so clearly feeling when he spoke about the woman he had loved. So, she said nothing in hopes that it would respect whatever it was that was going on inside of him.