14 Weeks (Investigators Book 2), page 14
Maybe, as the waves of sleep were pulling me under, I had the distinct feeling of comfort, of rightness, of feeling like I was exactly where I was meant to be.
But luckily I fell asleep before those thoughts could take root and sprout.
Because they were completely insane.
TEN
Tig
I had been up for almost an hour. A part of me wanted to get out of bed, locate my phone, get it on a charger, and check in on what everyone had come up with. I needed to get Cass back. Part of it was for personal reasons, not able to handle shit like that happening to a woman without doing everything I could to get her out of that situation. The other part was because Kenz needed her back. She needed her back because she was her best friend, she loved her, this was eating away at her. But I also needed her back because the decision was made last night, once and for all. Me and Kenz, we were happening. Case closed.
But we couldn't do that right until she had her girl back.
So all that was on my mind, laced intermittently with flashes of her from the night before: her eyes filled with need, her perfect goddamn body bare to me, the taste of her sweet pussy, the way she screamed my name when she came.
As much as I knew I needed to get back to work, there wasn't a force on fucking earth that was going to make me get up. Why? Because Kenzi was asleep on me. No, not resting on my chest. Not with an arm thrown over me. No, she had somehow in her sleep completely climbed on top of me and was stretched over me like a very warm, very soft, very sweet blanket. Her face was pressed into the side of my neck, her breath warm. One of her hands was curled into a fist and resting on my shoulder. The other, inexplicably, because it couldn't have been a comfortable position, was on my stomach.
I wasn't fucking up the moment.
Kenz was sweet and giving in my arms, of course; she had been open and unreserved. But in general, she had her guards. They weren't exactly impenetrable, and they were likely only in place because she dated one too many of the wrong kind of fucking guy. I would get permanently underneath them eventually. But for the time being, the only way she was completely soft was when I was inside her or when she was asleep.
I was going to enjoy it while it lasted.
That was until there was a pounding on the door downstairs, the noise carrying since the floor below was such an open space, making Kenzi's entire body jolt hard as she pushed up, instantly awake, but eyes uncomprehending for a moment.
"Someone's at the door, honey," I offered, making her sleep-hazy eyes clear as she gave me a tight nod, dropping off to my side, reaching up to wipe at her eyes with her hands.
I felt sad for the loss, but the pounding continued, so I dragged my ass out of the bed, grabbing a pair of jeans and a tee and going into the bathroom.
I reemerged a minute later to find her almost as I left her, still completely naked and unconcerned with it, knees to her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs.
I walked over to the bed, still pulling my shirt down, leaning down to kiss her temple. "I'll be right back. I left a toothbrush on the counter for you."
Her head turned, ducked slightly to the side, with a look in her eyes I wanted to understand. It was something deep. I wanted to ask what put it there, understand it, but the pounding was still going on, so I didn't have the time.
With a sigh, I moved off toward the stairs and down to find Brock at the door, leaning on the doorjamb, knocking half-heartedly with the other hand.
His face was scruffy, and his clothes wrinkled from all night in the car, but other than that, he looked fresh as a daisy. I knew from experience that he genuinely could go three or four days straight without sleep and never lose his sharpness.
"You know the code," I answered, pulling the door open and watching him step inside.
He turned back to me, lips tipped up into his trademark smirk. "Figured if you weren't answering it was because there was something going on that I maybe didn't want to walk in on. Love you like a brother, man, but I would be a happy man if we can maintain the kind of relationship where neither of us has seen the other's cock."
I closed and locked the door, resetting the alarm. "Why would you think..."
"Oh, fuck off with that," he said, laughing. "Swear to Christ you had to drag that lower lip off the floor when she came into the office slinging her attitude around. You have a type, Tig, and Kenz fits it to a T. That and she's fucking gorgeous and I'd be questioning your sexual orientation if you didn't want to get up in there. Besides, you had your hands all over her at the office, and you were obviously coming back from dinner. Don't need to be a PI to put this shit together, y'know?" He was talking as he walked toward the hidden staircase, reaching in, and plugging in the code. He yanked the door open and yelled up the stairs. "Oh, Kenz! I am coming up. I hope you're decent. Well, actually I wouldn't mind it if you weren't, but you get what I mean."
And then he was jogging up the stairs, leaving me to follow behind, resetting the lock. I was being overly paranoid, but I wasn't taking one single chance with her until the psycho was in a cage or grave.
I walked in to find Brock walking toward the kitchen where the strong scent of coffee was already wafting through the air and Kenz was standing.
But not in her dress from the night before.
Oh, no.
She was in one of my tees.
Granted, I was tall as fuck, but she was long and leggy herself, so the dark blue hem fell only barely to mid-thigh. Her hair was pulled back and her feet bare.
Fucking gorgeous even without all her usual adornments.
And not the least bit insecure at being seen without them, which was even sexier.
"Oh, you're making me breakfast?" Brock asked, eyes lighting up, all charm as usual. "I'm famished."
I moved closer and found that, sure enough, she had already located pans and had two on the stove. She went toward the fridge pulling it open. "What's the matter, Brock, can't find a woman who wants to put up with you for long enough to cook for you?"
"Not one who will kick me in the balls while she does so, like you," he said, raising a brow at her, making her turn over her shoulder, giving him a fake-stern look for a second before smiling big, open.
"Stop being such a horndog and I will stop picking at you."
"Hey, not every guy is as lucky as Sawyer and Tig, Kenz. And if I am going to be single, I am going to enjoy the fuck out of it."
"Well," she said, setting a big bowl and a carton of eggs on the counter, shrugging, "I can't really fault that logic."
"So what are you making me? I want a double serving for sitting in that car all night."
"Eggs and pancakes," she said, shrugging, moving around and looking inside all my cabinets until she found all the ingredients she wanted, piling everything on the counter. "I would make breakfast potatoes, but someone only keeps sweet potatoes in the house. Like some health freak," she said, sending me a look with a curled lip. "He also doesn't have any blueberry syrup for coffee. Which is a sacrilege."
She was making requests.
It was a roundabout way of doing it, but she was doing it. She wanted me to get some of the stuff she liked in my place. Because she planned on being around.
I fucking liked that.
And blueberry syrup and white potatoes were top of my list the next time I got to the food store.
She moved toward me, going for the drawer where I kept the spatulas and shit. And I didn't give a fuck that we had company. I grabbed her, pressed her back against the counter, and crashed my lips down on hers. It wasn't short either. It was long and deep and hot enough for her to melt into me, to make a low, throaty whimper against my lips.
When I pulled back, her eyes fluttered open, looking both turned-on and a bit confused.
"Didn't get to say good morning before," I explained and she lit the fuck up. Her smile stretched wide enough to make her eyes crinkle.
"Well, good morning," she said, her voice almost shy for a second. Then, as if maybe sensing that was exactly how it sounded, the next words out of her mouth were pure Kenzi. "Now get the hell out of my kitchen, so I can make love to this beautiful thing you call a stove."
I chuckled, grabbing the coffee pot and pouring cups for Brock and me, jerking my head toward the living room, and he followed.
"I've known Kenz a long time," he said, taking the mug from me.
"Yeah, I got that."
"What I'm saying is, I've seen all the sides of her. Sloppy drunk, sobbing over some schmuck who broke her trust, teasing, smartass, ball-busting. And I have never seen her smile like that."
I moved off toward the bedroom, grabbing my cell out of my pants and coming back to plug it in next my office desk. "She's a good woman. I plan to keep that look there as much as possible."
"Out of curiosity," he said, looking devilish, "are Paine and Enzo aware you are fucking their little sister?"
Yeah, that was another talk I needed to have.
I didn't know Enzo much, but I knew Paine well enough, and it was disrespectful for him to not get the news from me. I didn't need his permission or his approval, but I did need him to know that he could trust his kid sister with me. I imagined that, after the string of assholes she seemed to date, he wouldn't exactly be pissed about the development. I had a dark past, sure, but I had cleaned up my life. I lived mostly on the right side of the law. I made good money, not that she would want to be taken care of, but Paine had taken on not only the brotherly role but the fatherly role as well, and he would know I could provide for her. I could keep her safer than any average Joe could. And because the thing I liked best about her was her smart mouth, he would know I didn't want to change all those things that made her such a unique woman.
"You ever meet Gina?" Brock asked, grinning.
"Kenzi's mom?" I clarified. At his nod, I shrugged. "No."
"You got to prove yourself to Paine and Enzo, but if you fuck that girl over, you should be shitting yourself over Gina, not them. You want to know where Kenz got her independent, confident streak? That is pure Gina."
I had a lot of fucking conversations to have once the situation was finally handled.
"What did I miss? How far did everyone get last night?"
"The IP has been wall after wall, so they are focusing more on the Bitcoin angle."
Which, though I didn't know much about such a thing, I knew enough to know was maybe even harder to get. Especially in a twenty-four-hour window. It usually took teams of hackers days to be able to get inside a site like that, one that was dedicated to protecting the anonymity of its users.
But if there was any team that could be up for the job, it was Jstorm, Barrett, L, and Alex.
"It's early still," Brock said, seeming to think I need comfort. "They have the whole day. Really, they have two. But Sawyer said that if they have nothing by nightfall, we'll have Kenz wire the money. It's not worth the risk."
"Even if he gets the money, it's still a risk."
In fact, the money in no way lessened the risk. It just gave him means. It didn't guarantee that Cassie would be released. But to not send the money would only increase the chance of something happening to her.
The best bet was to have either our team or the guys the cops hired to track down the guy before or directly after the transfer.
Then it would be a race between us and the cops to see who could get to her first, get her out, get the guy. The cops would lock the bastard up. Us? Well, that was up to Sawyer at the end of the day. If it were up to me, he'd be turning his wasted body into something useful. Fertilizer. I hadn't killed someone for longer than I even knew, since before Xander stopped me on the street that night. And it wasn't something I took lightly anymore. But men who took their strength and used it against women? Yeah, those mother fuckers deserved to die. And I knew Sawyer knew that was where my head was at which was why he was pulling the boss card on it.
"Hey Brock," Kenz called, making us both start.
"Yeah, babe?"
"Set the... um... coffee table," she demanded, not even bothering to look over her shoulder as she flipped pancakes.
Never really having had much company, I never even thought about not having a dining table. I guess I had to add that to the list of shit I needed to pick up. Because if I was with Kenz, I knew Reese was always around. Where Reese was, Paine, Elsie, Gina, and maybe even the aunts I heard about would be as well. Plus whatever squad she had going on friend-wise.
At my brow raise, he shook his head with a smile. "If you've ever been to Gina's for dinner, you would understand this. Kenzi gets kitchen-bossy. I have a table to set," he said, moving off to do just that.
"Tig?"
I turned back, smile already in place, seeing her standing there with a pan in one hand and spatula in the other. I got the vivid image she had put in my mind the night before, of her standing there in nothing but those red bottom heels of hers, the picture sending a rush of desire through my body.
"Mind out of the gutter and on telling me where the syrup is."
"It's in the cabinet," I said, but walked toward her to find it.
"Maple syrup isn't honey; it spoils. It should be in the fridge."
"Yep," I agreed, pulling the bottle down. "But only after it's been opened," I added, pulling the tab off and twisting the top back on. "Need anything else from me?" Her eyes heated and I felt my smile curve upward. "I'll give you that as soon as we are alone."
"I, ah." She shook her head, clearing it. "Butter."
So then she stacked plates, mine and Brock's stacks of pancakes enough to feed two men each, but we weren't complaining. The conversation was kept light, mostly thanks to Brock and his ability to bullshit about anything. It was why, when we had a job that involved getting some inside intel, Sawyer threw Brock at it. Didn't matter what the situation- interrogating the girls at a strip club to find a missing pole dancer, pretending to be a dom at a fetish club to find the guy who was targeting the female members, throwing back whiskey with Russian traffickers, trying to find the daughter of a rival cartel. You put him into a situation, the smooth fucker fit in and talked his way out of it.
"I'm going to go shower," she announced after we had all sat sipping our coffee for a few minutes, right after declaring that cooks don't clean and sticking that on us.
As soon as she was gone, Brock collected the plates. "Takes five minutes to load that massive dishwasher of yours. I will be out of here before I can even accidentally overhear anything," he said, jerking his chin toward the hallway.
I waited until I knew he was on his way out before I moved into my bedroom and through to the bath where the hot air from her shower was snaking around the room.
Suddenly, I thanked my younger self for choosing the floor-to-ceiling glass shower enclosure.
Because there was nothing keeping her perfect body from view.
I pulled off my shirt, the movement catching her attention because she turned suddenly, a small smile playing with her lips as I reached to slip out of my pants. As soon as I was naked, she reached for the door and pushed it open.
"Brock gone?"
"Mhmm," I agreed, stepping in, and reaching for her immediately.
Her nipples were hardened from the gust of cooler air when she opened the enclosure, and the feeling of them pressing into my chest sent a shot of desire to my cock.
And because she was being all soft and accommodating, her hands sliding over the scars on my chest, I went ahead and asked.
"What was on your mind this morning?"
"Hm?" she asked, looking up from where her eyes had been looking at my shoulder, seeing maybe for the first time, the faded ink there.
"Right before I left to let Brock in, you had a look. What were you thinking of?"
Maybe I didn't know her completely yet, but I knew her enough to know she wouldn't do some bullshit like deny she was thinking anything. That wasn't her style. No, in fact, her MO was to deflect, change topics, be snarky, put it on you instead. She wasn't a liar. She was an evader.
So it shocked the shit out of me when she didn't do that, when she opened that sweet mouth of hers and gave me the truth.
"I'm not a wishy-washy type of girl," she started, and I refrained from saying 'no shit' because I thought it might ruin the moment. "I date and I even feel things for guys at times, but I don't think I have ever caught feelings before."
It was vague, but I got it regardless.
"You caught feelings for me, did you?"
"I know it's, ah, too soon. And I know that we haven't even known each other all that long, let alone been involved, but I've always been someone who knows her mind. And mine is inclined to follow my ah..." she trailed off there, not willing to say 'heart', either because she wasn't ready to feel that way yet or because she thought it was too soon to admit that she was.
"Feelings," I supplied for her.
"Yeah," she rushed to agree.
"So you aren't going to pull the chickenshit card and try to push me away?"
"I don't think anyone who has met me would call me chickenshit." She smiled, looking proud of that fact, as she should be. "But no, I'm not pushing you away. I know this is new and maybe you don't want to hear that yet. And it literally couldn't be worse timing..."
"Alright," I cut her off. "I'm glad you're not pushing me away. It might be new, but that doesn't mean we don't both know this is going somewhere. And, I have found maybe too often in life, the most important shit almost always comes at the most inopportune times."
I watched as that sank in, as she mulled it over, picked it apart. "Think I'm important, huh?"
"Right about now, I can't think of anything more important."
Then there was the smile again.
The only problem was, it didn't last.
Because my phone rang. Then stopped. Then rang again.
Both of us knew that anything, literally any small bit of news was potentially life-changing. So, cock hard, disappointment a clawing thing, I climbed out, grabbed a towel, and made my way back into my living room. Behind me, I could hear Kenzi shutting off the water and climbing out as well.
