I HAD to admit that it was impressive how quickly Blaze could dig up information, not that I’d ever tell him as much. The last thing he needed was me swelling his head even bigger.
So when I finally let myself come over to join the group discussion after he’d dug up Dess’s former trainer at a third Malik rally, I watched him replay the clips without any overt reaction. My gaze slid to Dess instinctively. She was good at hiding her emotions, nearly as good as I was if not better, but even she couldn’t stop the tension from showing through right now. Didn’t the other guys see it?
Maybe they did and they were just giving her the space to work through her emotions on her own. Why did her response have to itch at me so strongly?
As I refocused on the laptop’s screen, Dess shifted on her feet. “How could this Malik guy be connected to the household? Does he have some kind of stance that’s friendly to criminals?”
I couldn’t help snorting at that suggestion. When she gave me a baleful look, I shook my head. “Couldn’t be more obvious how out of touch you’ve been, sweetheart. Anyone who knows anything has heard about how strict Malik is on crime.”
Blaze nodded. “He’s constantly pushing for harsher sentencing, as well as increased funding and authority for law enforcement.”
Dess frowned. “Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a guy who’d support kidnapping toddlers and murder for hire. Maybe he was a potential target.”
I shrugged, still studying the video recording. It was hard to make out much of this Noelle woman’s body language in the mass of the crowd, but she wasn’t giving anything away with what I could see. Other than her brief glance backward, she was simply watching the stage where Malik must have been speaking. Was she preparing for some kind of gambit? Standing guard?
I couldn’t tell with so little to work with.
“You don’t know much about how politics work,” I reminded Dess. “People can be total hypocrites, and I’d say that’s twice as likely when it comes to our dutiful representatives.”
“He’s kept a pretty consistent façade if it is one,” Julius remarked.
Blaze tapped at the keyboard of his own initiative and brought up a recent news clip of Malik answering questions at a press conference. A twinge of apprehension ran through me. Whenever I saw the guy with his implacable face and his gray hair slicked back impeccably straight, he set off warning bells in my head. That face was a mask—I’d have bet all the money I had in the bank on it.
Of course, every politician wore a mask, just as much as I did. But I couldn’t remember ever seeing Malik’s so much as waver. It was as complete and unshakeable as those silvery strands smoothed over his skull. Either he didn’t have much to hide anyway… or he was so used to hiding that he could do it effortlessly by now.
In my experience, the second possibility was way more likely.
“There’s got to be some connection, right?” Dess said. “We’ve found Noelle at three different rallies now, all in different states. And we haven’t found her image at any other rallies. Just his.”
I arched an eyebrow at her. “Maybe she was just a big fan.”
Dess glowered at me again. “Of a guy who’d want nothing more than to shove her behind bars for the rest of her life?”
I couldn’t hold back a smirk. “Hey, some weirdos get off on that kind of thing.”
Dess let out a huff, but the upward twitch of the corners of her mouth suggested she wasn’t completely impervious to the joke. “I guess it takes one to know one,” she shot back, and it was my turn to restrain a laugh.
As irritating as I sometimes found her ability to snark back at me, I had to admit I kind of enjoyed it as well. She knew how to give as good as she got, and she never got her back up too much about it the way Blaze sometimes did. I wouldn’t have dared to say some of the jabs I’d aimed her way at Julius or Talon for fear of my life.
Maybe she did bring something a little bit refreshing into the honed dynamic the four of us had formed.
That thought brought a flash of memory to the front of my mind: her mouth colliding with mine, our brief crash of passion on the rooftop deck. I wet my lips instinctively, lust unfurling in my groin imagining her tongue flicking over the same terrain.
She could bring as much heat to her touch as to her banter. Even looking at her gorgeous face and the curves of her slim but powerful frame stirred my dick. Fuck.
I clamped down on those sensations as hard as I could and shoved them away. The fact that I couldn’t completely erase the flare of attraction set my teeth on edge. She shouldn’t have been able to get under my skin like this. Any emotional pull I couldn’t shut off was a weakness.
While I’d been grappling with my dick’s desires, the gears had obviously been turning in Blaze’s head. “I’ll start searching for the other people we’ve found with Noelle in the photos. That’ll help us get a fuller sense of the big picture.”
Julius nodded and gave him a brisk pat on the shoulder. “Get to it. And let us know as soon as you find any leads that the rest of us can follow up on.”
I inhaled deeply and found my nerves were still jangling too much for comfort. I needed to gather myself and get my head on straight again before I could get back in my element. There were a couple of things that could help with that.
I moved to the kitchen, flicked the kettle on, and grabbed one of my favorite instant cocoas from the cupboard. Just looking at the spread of boxes and tins sent a twinge of nostalgia through my chest that was reassuring despite the pang of homesickness mixed in.
Mixing up a mug of hot cocoa had always been my mom’s favorite way of unwinding after a stressful day, and she’d never minded sharing. I liked thinking that every flavor and brand I sampled was in her honor, as if she wasn’t missing out on them after all.
“I’ll be on the rooftop thinking deep thoughts if anyone needs me,” I informed the others, shaking off those remnants of the past.
Dess’s gaze had followed my movements. At the sight of the mug, her eyes lit up. She glanced toward the stairs that led to the deck with unusual hesitance and asked, “Do you mind if I join you?”
Did I ask for company? I thought automatically, but I caught the acidic reply before it fell off my tongue. She was grappling with a hell of a lot more than I was. It was a big deck. I could still get my space—and maybe a little more banter with her would bring me back to myself better than solitude. I just had to keep my mind on what mattered.
“As long as you keep your paws off my telescope this time,” I said, and grabbed another mug.
By necessity, I’d gotten a very efficient kettle. It was singing in less than a minute, and I filled both of the mugs with a practiced stir to dissolve all the powder and a dollop of cream in mine. I’d noticed Dess preferred hers as unadulterated in its chocolatey-ness as possible. Not that I’d been taking notes or anything.
When I nudged the mug across the island toward her, she scooped it up with an expression of childlike delight. The gleeful glow in her face contrasted with the hardened killer I knew her to be so completely that it tugged at something in my chest. I couldn’t tell whether I was relieved or regretting that I’d agreed to include her.
I opened the door and let her climb the stairs to the deck ahead of me, definitely not ogling her pert ass in those well-fitted jeans. When we came out into the cool evening air, Dess stepped off to the side. She gazed up at the moon as she took another sip, and then closed her eyes with a smile of absolute bliss that made me want to lick the cocoa right off her mouth.
“I never thought I’d find someone who enjoys this stuff as much as I do,” I said, to stop myself from simply standing there drooling over her. “Somehow you’ve got me beat.”
“I’ve been chocolate-deprived,” Dess replied. “Got to make up for lost time.” She took a gulp followed by a pleased hum that went straight to my groin and then fixed her dark gray eyes on me with a glimmer of mischief. “I assume this cup isn’t going to knock me out?”
I winced inwardly. I’d never admitted to drugging her first drink with us, but it wasn’t surprising that she’d clued in. “You were hiding a lot from us back then,” I reminded her. “We were taking necessary precautions.”
“Well, at least those precautions came with a whole lot of chocolate-y goodness, so I guess I’ll forgive you that one transgression.”
“Thank you so very much,” I muttered. “If I’d known we were dealing with the Ghost, I might have spiked it with something stronger.”
She laughed. “I’m an assassin, not an elephant.”
The humor in her voice set me at ease again. “Are you sure?” I asked. “We do know you a lot better now, but I’m not assuming there aren’t a few things you’re still hiding.”
“If I decide to take off my human suit, you’ll be the first to know.” She paused, breathing in the steam from the mug and returning her gaze to the sky. The amusement faded from her face. “I didn’t even know how much I was hiding from you back then. I had no idea how complicated my situation was.”
The trace of anguish in her voice made my chest constrict. “We’ll figure out the truth,” I assured her. “There’s nothing Blaze can’t ferret out. Just don’t tell him I gave him that vote of confidence.”
This time, the joke didn’t budge her pensiveness. She swiped her hand across her mouth. “I know. It’s just…weird. I feel like I’ve been playing a role all this time without even realizing it—and I have no idea who I really am beyond that role. I want to be someone real, not just what Noelle and her associates sculpted me into. But I don’t know where to start finding that person.”
Most people would never understand the desire to stop pretending and start being herself. Most. Her words struck a chord deep inside me, somewhere that I hadn’t been affected in far too long.
I’d built my life around playing roles and being the person my crew and my clients expected me to be. Being real—yeah, that was the tricky part.
But I could tell she was talking genuinely with me right now, offering more honesty than I was sure I’d earned.
“You’re getting there,” I said, with the urge to match her openness with my own. “The real you is clearly a chocolate addict.”
Her smile came back, a minor victory. “Okay, I’ll give you that.”
“And simply recognizing that you feel a little lost—that’s something real too.”
Her attention settled on me, and I had the impression she was evaluating my own motives. “Do you really think so?” she asked. “Or are you just trying to get me to open up about my secret elephant nature?”
A chuckle tumbled out of me. “I guess you’ll never know.”
She grimaced. “I’m not sure I can even tell with myself. Putting on a front has become so automatic.”
I knew what she meant there too. Her candor loosened my tongue more than before. The question fell out before I could second-guess the impulse. “Were you being real when you kissed me up here before?”
Dess considered me intently enough that heat washed over my skin without her even moving. “It was strategic,” she said finally. “I was using the kiss to get something I wanted. But if it makes you feel better about it, I did like it too.” The corner of her mouth quirked upward. “Didn’t you?”
From that coy smile, I had to assume she’d been able to tell how much I had. But I hadn’t expected her to answer so honestly on that subject either. For a second, I lost my voice.
“I don’t know,” I heard myself saying, with the same automatic defensiveness she’d admitted to in herself. “It was over awfully fast.”
The sly gleam came back into Dess’s eyes. She set her mug down on the nearest table and stepped toward me. “Well, I guess there’s one easy way to confirm.”
Then she grasped my shirt by the collar and bobbed up to capture my mouth with hers.
I’d been lying when I’d said I didn’t remember whether I liked the last kiss, and this one brought that lie into sharp relief in an instant. I liked this—hell yes, I did.
I ran my fingers along her jaw and tugged her just a little closer to deepen the kiss, savoring the tart sweetness of her mouth the way she’d reveled in her drink. Her arms wound around the back of my neck, and I couldn’t resist bringing my other hand to her hips and pulling her flush against me.
She let out a little growl that electrified me from head to toe. When she ground her groin against mine, I just about spontaneously combusted.
Holy hell, this was some woman. Why had I wanted to avoid getting tangled up in her again?
My cock had hardened in an instant, straining against the fly of my jeans. I kissed Dess harder, flicking my tongue between her lips to duel with hers. Her fingers curled against my scalp with a flurry of sparks, and I nudged her backward so she was pinned between me and the wall. The way her body molded against mine, somehow soft and tough all at once, had my nerves clanging with need.
Just how long could I wait before I buried myself right inside her?
No sooner had that question crossed my mind than footsteps thumped on the steps leading to the deck. With a mumbled curse, I tore myself away from Dess. I jerked my shirt straight and willed the flush on my skin to cool just as Talon appeared at the top of the stairs.
He looked from me to Dess, who’d propped herself against the wooden wall with her arms folded over her chest as if nothing at all unusual had been going on. The moonlight shone off his shaved head. His icy blue eyes gave no sign of suspicion, but Talon might not have cared even if he could guess what we’d been up to.
“Dinner’s here,” he said. “Steffie brought takeout from that Greek place down the street.”
Dess straightened up. “Great. I’m starving.”
Talon nodded and headed back down. Dess started after him, but as she passed me, she brushed her hand across mine.
“So,” she murmured. “Do we have a verdict?”
It took a second for my brain to catch up. My cocky attitude snapped back into place over the walls I’d dropped for just a moment.
“I liked it just as much as you did,” I replied dryly, and ignored the pang of longing that resonated through me at the flash of her smile before I watched her graceful form move down the stairs ahead of me.
Maybe even more. And that right there still felt like a problem.
