Sins and Scarlet Lace (13 page)

“I’ve got plenty of backup here if we need it. My best advice is to not tell her what’s going on.”

“So speaks the man who isn’t married,” Brant said, dryly. “I’ll tell her what’s going on, but I’ll make sure we go under.”

“Be safe and lock down the information you extracted from the office. I don’t want any incoming information on my personal computer.”

Dec hung up the phone just as the doorbell rang. “It looks like Shane’s timing has improved. You’re going to need to make more sandwiches.”

A week passed by, and the feeling in Declan’s gut only grew stronger. Strong enough that he’d convinced the women and children to take a vacation into Canada for a few days, just to be safe. The original MacKenzie land was pretty far removed from where he’d set up his own stead, but he wasn’t willing to take chances with the life of his family.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t had the same luck getting rid of his brothers and cousins. Or his parents, who’d flown in unexpectedly a few days before. Dane had left with the women, but that was only because he needed to be with Charlie in case she went into labor, but he hadn’t been happy about leaving them all behind. And Riley and his family had gone back to the other home they had in Washington State.

Despite the feeling of dread he felt, he enjoyed every moment of the time he spent with Sophia. He realized his home hadn’t really felt like a home until she’d walked through the door, and now it seemed as if she’d always been there. He loved curling around her in the middle of the night or the way she looked first thing in the morning, when her cheeks were still flushed with sleep and her hair tousled.

It was the picture of the future he’d always wanted for them, and he’d never take it for granted again.

“Maybe sometime we could do this in a bed,” Sophia said. Her heart pounded wildly against his chest and he hoped the spots in his vision were temporary.

A picnic down by the lake had turned into more than just lunch by the time they’d finished eating, and he’d never been more thankful for the isolated area he’d chosen for his home, though he was pretty sure Sophia’s screams could be heard up in the mountains.

“I thought you wanted to be spontaneous.”

“Spontaneity was awesome when I was twenty. Now I have a deep and abiding love for mattresses. I can only imagine how you feel. You’re not getting any younger either.”

He pinched her backside and she giggled, wiggling against him in a way that didn’t do anything to slow down his heart rate.

They’d set up their picnic blankets under a heavy covering of trees in the soft grass a few feet from the bank of the lake. Water lapped against the muddy bank and the wind rustled the tree branches above them.

“I think you broke my spine,” she sighed.

“If you can’t feel your legs, it means I’m doing something right. But next time I’ll let you be on top. You deserve to have to do some of the work.”

She laughed and rolled so her breasts were pressed into his chest and her leg was thrown over his thigh. Her hair brushed against his shoulder as she looked down at him, and he knew this moment would be another one of those snapshots of her he carried with him always.

He felt the familiar pull of arousal, and knew his body should be replete, but he could never seem to get enough of her. His hands went to her legs and he shifted her so she straddled his hips, and then he ran his fingertips up the smooth arch of her back. She purred beneath his touch and her eyes widened as his cock nudged at the still moist folds of her sex.

“I need to take out better health insurance,” she said, leaning down to kiss his chin, then his lips. Her body relaxed and she sank into the kiss—gently—reverently—until time and sound ceased to exist around them.

His hands massaged her back and then lower to her buttocks, and then he shifted the head of his cock so it probed at her opening. Their gazes stayed steady on each other and neither of them seemed to breathe as she sank down all the way to the hilt.

He held her captive there, his hands anchored on her hips, filling her completely, and neither of them moved. In that moment he believed in the power of magic and he understood what the term soulmates meant for the first time, because he’d never felt more complete—more connected—than at that moment.

“I love you,” he managed to get out as her muscles flexed around him. “More than I could ever say with just words.”

Her breath shuddered and her eyes filled with tears that she blinked rapidly away. Her lips rubbed against his softly and the kiss was as light and fluttering as their first. “I love you, too.”

The words left him feeling invincible and powerless at the same time, and his hands squeezed at her hips as he began moving inside of her, a steady push and pull that took him from hilt to tip with every thrust.

He knew he wouldn’t last long, and by the rippling muscles of her pussy, he knew she’d be right there with him. Her hands pressed against his chest and he watched in awe as she rose high above him. Her hair tickled his thighs as her head dropped back on her shoulders, and her hands slid up her body to cup her breasts. He’d never seen anything more erotic, more beautiful in his life.

Then she rode him slow and steady, squeezing tight around him every time she lifted herself up. It was more than any sane man could bear, and he couldn’t help but thrust upward every time she sank back down. His balls tightened and he felt the beginnings of his release at the base of his spine.

“Come with me, Soph. Come now.”

Her pussy became hotter, tighter, and her orgasm washed over him as he pushed higher and harder inside her. Her scream was silent as she fell forward onto his chest and his semen erupted from his cock, draining him with every spurt, until he felt completely wrung out.

“I see what you mean about a bed,” he said. It could have been a few minutes or hours later. “I think I’m laying on a rock.”

She snickered but she made no move to untangle their bodies.

“I want you to make your home here with me.” Her shoulders tensed and then he felt her slowly relax again. “We’re right for each other, Soph. We’ve had our road blocks in the past, but I think we’re at a place where we can move on. There’s no one else I want in my life. No one else I’d want to make a family with.”

“Wow. That’s a lot to take in.”

He could feel the nerves coiling in her spine as she sat up and tried to move away from him. He kept his hands on her hips so she couldn’t disjoin their bodies and he kept his gaze steady on hers.

“You said you loved me. It seems like a natural progression to me.”

“I just think this time around we should maybe take things a little slower. There’s no rush for the happily-ever-after. And I want to make sure that we’re both totally committed to what we have before we bring children into the mix.”

“You don’t trust me enough to keep loving you.” He wanted to push back the anger building inside of him because he knew he deserved her skepticism and the fear that was obviously ruling her emotions, but he couldn’t deny the hurt her lack of faith brought him.

He let her go this time when she tried to pull away, and he watched as she scooted to the other side of the blanket to grab her clothes and start pulling them on.

“All I’m asking for is some time to think about it, and I’m not going to let you pressure me into doing it any other way.”

Dec pulled on his jeans and T-shirt and packed up the food as his heart pounded in his chest. He didn’t know how to convince her that he’d never push her away again. That he couldn’t push her away without destroying himself.

“Fine,” he finally said. “Take as much time as you need. As long as you’re thinking about it here with me. The last I recalled you needed a place to live and you seem to like it here.”

“Oh, yeah,” she asked, eyes narrowing and her hands fisting at her hips. “How much is the rent? It might be out of my price range.”

“I’m sure we can work out some kind of deal.” He loaded up the stuff in his arms and turned his back to head toward the house. The waves of fury he felt hitting his back didn’t make him feel as good as he thought it would, but he wasn’t going to back down now. “MacKenzie Security could use an in-house accountant if you want the job.”

Something hit him square in the back and he look down at the sandal that lay at his feet, his lips quirking. He turned around to face one furious woman.

“Don’t you walk away and then drop a bombshell like that. You think you’re wrapping things up nice and tidy when what you’re really trying to do is put a noose around my neck.”

“Do you really believe that, Soph? Or are you the one who doesn’t want to tie herself down too tight? If you don’t want the job then don’t take it.”

“So you’d just hire anyone to work for you without checking out their background first? You run what I’m assuming is a multi-million dollar corporation with government contracts and top secret information going in and out on a daily basis. That doesn’t seem like very good business to me.”

“It’s actually excellent business. I know more about your work ethic and your brains than the partners at your old firm could ever hope to know. I know that if they’d paid attention, they would have known you’d never have been responsible for conspiring with Kane to move that money. They should’ve realized they were letting go their best accountant and someone who would likely be sitting as partner in another five years. Their stupidity is my gain. But like I said, if you don’t want it, don’t take it. Now can I go back inside or are you going to throw more shoes at me?”

Tears streamed down her face as she stared at him in complete surprise. He had no idea what he’d said to make that look appear on her face, but he knew he probably owed her an apology. Instead she surprised him with her gratitude.

“Thank you for saying that,” she said, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “That’s one of the things that had hurt the most. When they let me go. No one believed me. Believed
in
me.”

“I believed in you. I just couldn’t show it at the time. And I’ll pay for that for the rest of my life.”

She started toward him, defeat weighing down her shoulders. “Just give me a little more time to get used to this. To be with you. I do love you. I never stopped, even when I told myself I hated you.”

He sighed and held out his hand. It was an offer he had no choice but to take.

“Oh, damn,” she gasped, her hand going to her throat. “My necklace.”

The chain she always wore around her neck was gone, and he set down the supplies and went to help her look. It was the only thing she had left of her old life, and if he had to drag the lake to help her find it then that’s what he’d do.

“You had it on when we started eating lunch,” he said, looking over the ground where their blankets had been spread.

“It must have come off when I took off my shirt.”

“My memories are pretty vague after that, but I think your shirt landed somewhere by the tree.” He walked over to the area in question and knelt down so he could see beneath the roots and wild grass that grew there. “Aha, here we go.”

The cameo necklace lay face up, the silver chain crumpled beneath it. When he picked it up the chain slid out into his hand.

“The clasp is broken. We can get it fixed in town. There’s a little jewelry store there.”

“As long as the cameo itself is okay then I don’t care. It’s all I have left of my family.”

“It’s beautiful work.” It was pale pink in color and the image was of a Victorian woman, her hair piled high and her face serene and somehow lonely. The artistry was intricate as each feature was detailed with precision.

“My parents were older when I was born, so I never met my grandparents, but I remember my mother wearing this every day when I was little. She gave it to me for my thirteenth birthday and told me to take good care of it.”

He turned it over in his hands, noting the silver markings on the back and the tiny clasp to the side. “Do you have pictures inside?” he asked, working at the clasp with his thumbnail.

“What are you doing? No, it’s not a locket.”

“Yes, it is,” he insisted. “See, you’ve got a clasp here. It’s just hard to see the seam because it’s so well made.”

The clasp gave and the cameo split in two. “I’ll be damned. You were right.”

Declan opened it up so it lay open in his hand. A picture of Sophia’s parents lay was inserted in one half of the oval, and in the other half a picture of who he assumed were her grandparents. And on top of their picture lay a tiny silver key. A lockbox key.

“What’s that?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“If I had to guess, I’d say half a billion dollars.” He dumped the key out in his hand and handed her the cameo with the pictures of her family. “You took good care of it,” he said, kissing her on the forehead as she stared down at the only photographs she had left of her family, and his heart broke as her tears fell.

Declan started an image search of the lockbox key and numbers as soon as they made it back to the house, starting first with the banks Kane had already been known to use. The database of files he had access to was more extensive in some ways than the CIA because he didn’t have to go through red tape and deal with privacy laws.

His office sat just off the kitchen and he could hear Sophia muttering to herself as she tried to follow a recipe Cat had given her for homemade bread. By the sound of the pounding going on, she was trying to get rid of some of her own frustrations.

He put in a call to his brother Cade and another one to Brant so he could update status and tell them to stay put, but to his frustration, no one was answering their damned phones. He rubbed his hands over the top of his head and left the computer search open and running.

Between the key and the way the hacker was taking the bait he’d laid, he was starting to get a good picture of the person who was after Sophia, and he knew he needed to tell her what was going on so she didn’t think he was keeping things from her, but he couldn’t think of a way to do it without hurting her more.

He took a deep breath and stepped into the kitchen, wincing when her fist punched into the dough.

“How’s it going?” he asked, keeping his distance on the other side of the kitchen island.

“Fantastic. I don’t know why I’ve never done this before. It’s very cathartic.” She patted the dough into a ball and then put into an oversize bowl before tossing a towel over the top. “So what was all the muttering about in there? I take it you haven’t found which bank the key belongs to?”

“Not yet, but it’s going to be an extensive search. I think I’ve found out a few important pieces of information though.”

“Oh yeah?” Her brow arched in question, but she could see the tension in the balled fists of her hands.

A high shrill alarm sounded from his office and his phone started buzzing at the same time. His only thought was to protect Sophia, and he pulled his weapon free. The alarm meant that there was a breach somewhere on the property, but he couldn’t pinpoint where or who until he looked at the satellite.

“Go down to the basement and bolt the door behind you. You remember where the exit is that leads into the tunnels?” he asked.

She nodded and was already heading in that direction, but he pulled her back as someone pounded at the door.

“It’s Shane. Open up.”

Dec went to the door and let his brother in. Shane’s weapon was held at the ready in one hand and the other was holding an electronic device that looked like an oversized iPad. It was still in the testing phase, but it showed a 3D projection of all satellite images and the topography of any terrain in the world.

“We’ve got an unidentified military transport closing in.” Shane went to the table and laid down the device and hologram of the area rose up above the table.

“Whoa,” Sophia said. “That’s cool.”

“It’s in stealth mode, but those new tweaks you added to your system worked and we can see them coming in plain as day.”

Declan’s phone buzzed again and Shane tossed it to him. “MacKenzie,” he barked.

“It’s Cade,” his brother said. “We’re about to land. Don’t shoot us.”

“You’re telling me that’s you that’s flying toward us in an unidentified military transport?”

“Yep.” He could hear the grin in Cade’s voice, and his hand clenched around the phone so hard he was surprised it didn’t turn to dust. “And it’s a piece of work too. Still in the test phase. Gabe knows some people who owe him a favor.”

“I’m going to kick your ass as soon as you land.”

“No you’re not. You’re going to kiss my feet because I brought you something you’re going to need.”

“What’s that?”

“Backup.”

Cade disconnected the phone and Declan dropped his head down to his chest with a sigh of relief.

“He always does like to make an entrance,” Shane said, closing down the device. “I think I liked him better before he started being so happy all the time. I’d finally gotten used to him being an asshole and then the man falls in love and suddenly it’s rainbows and unicorns.”

Sophia snorted out a laugh, and they all left through the kitchen door out to the deck, searching for Cade. If Dec hadn’t felt the rush of air against his clothes he never would have known it was there. A sleek black helicopter hovered silently over his roof—one of the newest versions of the stealth helicopter that was still in the test phase. It looked like they’d finally succeeded in silencing the blades all the way.

He shook his head as he saw Gabe in the pilot seat and Cade grinning next to him like it was Christmas morning. It was large, bulbous, and obviously meant to transport a team of soldiers into a hostile area.

“Holy shit, will you look at that,” Shane said, his grin stretching from ear to ear. “I wonder what kind of favor someone owed Gabe for this to be the payback.”

“You probably don’t want to know,” Dec said wryly.

“Ooh, baby. I can’t wait to ride out on a mission in one of these.”

Gabe maneuvered the helicopter to a flat area of ground and landed it smoothly before shutting down the motor. The side door slid open and Dec put his hands on his hips, irritation etching his face as he watched his agents and brother pile out of the helicopter.

“What part of go underground didn’t you understand?” he asked. Cade led the group up to the deck—Max and Jade Devlin, Cal Colter, Archer Ryan, Brant Scott and Gabe Brennan—they were all there.

Cade snorted out a laugh. “Seriously? You think we’re going to let you lure the bad guys here to face all by yourself? You’re not Superman, you know.”

Shane was already giving knuckle bumps and slaps on the back to the new additions to the group and then he headed toward the helicopter to get a closer look.

“Don’t worry, brother,” Cade said. “I’m sure you’ll figure out a way to pay us all back.”

“I’ve already got it planned,” Dec said, deciding to wait to tell them he was moving headquarters to Surrender. “If you guys are determined to stay, then lets get to work. Coordinate with Shane and his team and get settled. We’ll debrief in an hour.”

“We’re going to have a problem,” Sophia said. “There’s not enough food in your fridge to feed all these people.”

“I’m sure they’ll figure something out.”

“What are they going to do, go get takeout? Because I think I missed the part of Surrender where all the restaurants are located.”

He let out a sigh because she was right. They were going to have to feed all these people. “We can pick up some steaks and potatoes. There are enough grills around here that it’ll be quick and easy.”

“Can we go after you meet with everyone?”

“I’ll go. Why don’t you make a list while the rest of us are meeting?”

“I don’t think so, Declan MacKenzie. I’m starting to go stir crazy. I’d like to get out for a little while, even if it’s just to the grocery store. And I’d like to get my chain fixed while we’re out.”

“I can take her while you’re doing the debriefing,” Shane said, not bothering to hide the fact he’d been eavesdropping. “I’ve got a couple of things to grab as well, so it’ll kill two birds with one stone. And before you tell me I need to be at the debriefing, let me tell you that the stores all close at six and we won’t make it in time if we wait until after. Also, I’ll be with her and I won’t let her out of my sight. Does that cover everything?”

Dec sighed and knew Shane was right. “Call me when you head back in.” He pulled Sophia into his arms and didn’t care that everyone stopped what they were doing to watch him kiss her brainless. When he pulled away she was out of breath and her eyes were heavy-lidded with arousal. “I love you. Don’t let Shane talk you into anything that will get you arrested or banned from the stores. He has a reputation of causing trouble in this town.”

“I’ll try to keep him on the straight and narrow,” she said, winking at Shane.

“You’re killing me, Soph.” Shane threw his arm around her shoulder and Dec smiled as she elbowed him in the ribs.

“She’s going to fit right in this family,” Cade said from behind him.

“I was just thinking the same thing.”