Sweet Seduction Sabotage (24 page)

"You better believe it," I muttered to his back as we started ascending the stairs. He chuckled, but then we both fell silent, as the enormity of what lay ahead stretched out above.

Ten stories, God alone knew which one Dom would be on. And then how the hell did we get him out?

I trudged on, or rather tip-toed on, behind Drew. One flight of stairs after another. Occasionally we'd stop to listen to the sounds around us. The building still creaked, evidence of its structural weaknesses obvious in the thick cracks that marred the white walls of the stairwell. The odd indistinct and muffled noise from up above. It could have people talking, or just water in pipes gurgling, we just couldn't tell.

Every now and then we'd come across another air duct cover. Like the one we escaped through, the slats were adjustable, allowing cool air out or blocking it off. I decided they must have just been maintenance access to the system of ducts themselves, because who would air condition the stairwell, unless of course this was the outlet for the stale air, which kind of made sense as well.

All these useless thoughts rolled through my mind when I should have been thinking up a plan of attack. But I'm no soldier, no special forces police unit member and not even a trained bodyguard like Ben. I wondered what Ben and Abi were doing. I wondered if they were helping the Police, trying to find a way inside. Nick's firm often worked with the cops, but also often worked outside of the rules as well.

Where the cops would wait to enter, ASI would do what they needed to get inside. A bit like
Oma
. I think she would have approved of them as well.

With nothing else to do but suck in air as we climbed the stairs up to God knows what, I pulled my cellphone out of my pocket, intending to flick through old messages; one last chance to see my friends' words before entering the inner circles of hell. It took ten steps, one turn of a flight of stairs, for me to comprehend what I was seeing.

Drew had instructed me to switch my phone to silent when the siege began. An instinct to preserve our hiding spot, to keep us safe. Before he realised we'd had no coverage in the cloakroom itself. When I'd done that, my screen had been bare. Just the normal wallpaper and applications, nothing else.

Now, in a large vibrantly yellow bubble stood a figure. 23. I'd had twenty-three missed calls.

I stopped on the step I currently was on and stared at the thing, not quite connecting the dots fast enough. How did I have a message on my screen? How did I miss it before?

"Kels?" Drew whispered from several steps higher. "What is it?"

"My phone," I whispered back as he took the stairs two at a time to reach my side. "I've got missed calls."

Maybe I wasn't as recovered as I thought, because Drew got it straight away. Pulling his own cellphone from his pocket and checking his screen.

"Thirty-two," Drew whispered, glaring at the screen as though it had offended him somehow. "We got coverage at some stage." His thumb was swiping across the surface of the device like a demented game boy shooting at pixelated bad guys. "One from Dom," he added, and the world stopped in its track.

"What does it say?"

God, please let it say he got out of here and was sitting in Sweet Seduction with Gen. Please.

Drew swiped the screen, his face a blank mask.

"Well?" I couldn't stand the tension.

I watched his shoulders droop, just a fraction, not nearly enough to signify much. But I
knew
. I knew Dom had not gotten out.

"Gunshots on the sixth floor. Stay away from Court House."

I looked at Drew as he stared at the words he'd just relayed. Dom had used precious seconds to warn Drew. But it had already been too late. Drew hadn't left the building, he was still inside. On the ground floor where it had all begun.

"We know he was on the sixth floor then," I whispered, not sure what else to say. "We start there."

Drew nodded. "We start there," he whispered back.

I glanced down at my screen and jumped. The phone was ringing in my hand, but on silent it hadn't made a sound, not even a vibration to alert me to an incoming call.

The caller id said, 'private'. I swiped to activate the call and brought it to my ear.

Dom's calls always identified themselves as him, but he could have been using another line.

But anyway, why would Dom call
me
?

"Hello?" I said eventually into the mouthpiece, then held my breath.

Static, and a long breath of air let out. "Thank the fuck you're alive." A male voice I couldn't recognise. "Now please tell me, sweetheart. Are Drew and Dom with you?"

My eyes were glued to Drew's, the only thing holding me to this unforgiving earth. Dom wasn't outside the building. I'd figured that out, but somehow I'd still naively held out some measure of hope that after he'd messaged Drew he'd escaped.

The caller had just shattered it all.

"Kels?" he asked over the line. "Are you still there, sweetheart?"

"Eric," I whispered, my brain catching up with my ears at last. "I'm with Drew, we think Dom's on the sixth floor."

I watched as Drew closed his eyes slowly, aware of what my words meant. No doubt figuring out who I was talking to as well. I was a little behind the eight ball right now.

"Fuck," Eric swore, not bothering to hold any vehemence back. "That's where the cops think Declan King is. That's where the last explosion was that blew out all the windows on the north side."

I lost my grip on the phone, the floor coming up to meet my arse. Drew had one hand around my upper body to steady me, the other juggling his and my phones. He didn't talk to Eric straight away, he crouched down in front of me and looked me in the eyes.

"Kelly? Breathe," he instructed.

I sucked in air, clenched my fists in my lap and then growled, "Sixth floor. I am so going to hunt that cock sucking bastard down." One of palms wrapped around the protruding handle of the hammer in my pocket.

"Glad to hear it," we both heard Eric say over the phone's tiny earpiece. Drew lifted it up closer to our faces, we both leaned in. "But how about you work with us to get this thing done."

Work with us?

"We've just entered the ground floor on the west side of the building, whereabouts are you?"

Drew frantically looked around the stairwell we were in. It wasn't an external one, against an outside wall with windows showing the street it faced. It was completely enclosed, allowing it to extend to the upper floors, on the smaller size levels from the fourth floor up. Not offering anything to allow us an indication of where we were in relation to the front entrance, or say, north, south, east or west. The doors into the various levels were solid wood as well, with no internal windows to orientate us. And as we'd crawled out of an air duct, which had taken several turns since we left the cloakroom earlier today, we might as well have been blindfolded and spun around several times and asked to pin the tail on the donkey, for all the good it would do.

"The stairwell isn't labelled, but the writing on all the walls depicting levels is in green, does that help?" Drew asked, still in a whisper. We'd gotten very good at keeping the volume of our voices down.

Keyboard buttons clicked over the line as they were being depressed in the background, then Eric said, "Our boys have just entered one that has red writing, so it does help. There's only two stairwells in the building according to the site plans, one on the west side, one on the east. You're in a different one from the advance team."

"Advance team?" I queried.

"A small group sent in to scout, with instructions to give a sit-rep once they're inside."

"The Armed Offenders Squad?" Drew asked.

"No," Eric replied. "They're on the roof, trying to gain access that end, with the intention of breaking the seal as soon as the advance team gives an update and the go ahead. We're trying to time this just right. The advance team is mainly ASI."

It didn't really surprise me, ASI worked with the cops often, and some of those times were high level, high risk jobs. Nick ran a sought after group of ex-military or ex-police force team. They may have been in the private sector, but that did not mean they didn't still help out the authorities when it was required. Expertise is expertise.

"The AOS," Eric continued, "will either be our diversion, or enter with a hell of a lot of dust cover when the times comes. You do not want to be anywhere near them when they do."

"So how do we help?" Drew asked.

"For now, tell me what level you're on."

We both glanced at the door on the next platform up from where we currently stood. The large green lettering said, fourth floor.

"Fourth," Drew supplied.

"The way look clear up from there?" Eric asked.

We'd been hugging the wall as we climbed the stairs, unsure if anyone could see down from above. The noises we'd heard had been muffled, as though behind doors, so I was fairly sure we were alone in the stairwell, but you never knew. Tentatively Drew walked to the centre of the stairwell and carefully looked up the hollow middle.

He didn't jerk back suddenly, so obviously no bad guy face was peering back down, but he didn't muck about either.

"It looks like it's clear straight to the top," Drew whispered.

"All right, stay where you are. We know people are on the sixth floor, or at least they were before the explosion went off. Our guys are on the third now, clearing it. They'll do the fourth and someone will come to you once it's cleared."

"OK," Drew whispered back to Eric. "We'll hang tight here."

Eric rang off after that, seemingly pleased with our current location and level of safety. With nothing else left to do but wait for someone in the advance team to arrive, Drew and I sat down on a step with our eyes stuck on the fourth floor door.

Minutes, that felt like hours, ticked slowly by.

"It might be over soon," I offered hopefully. This was the closest we'd come to being rescued. The knowledge that people we knew were inside the building and coming for us. And they were working with the AOS, who could be storming the structure and disarming the terrorists in next to no time.

It felt like we were on a precipice, about to topple over the side. For some reason, part of me was reluctant to completely believe the fall would be painless. Too much had happened. Too much could happen still.

"How do you think they'll use us?" Drew whispered quietly at my side.

I'd said it before, that Nick wasn't opposed to using anyone to get a job done, but for the life of me, I couldn't see how we'd fit into this scenario. Not with armed police squads and no doubt equally as armed ASI teams closing in on the bad guys.

"Do you think Eric's humouring us?" I queried, softly.

"Had crossed my mind," Drew admitted, offering me that crooked smile.

"I want to make sure Dominic is safe, but I also want the guys who actually know what they're doing to just get on in there and get it done."

"Yeah," Drew agreed. "Me too, Kels. Me too."

We waited and waited, but no one came. It was obvious Eric was keeping us out of the situation, well away from any harm. I'm surprised he didn't insist we just go down to the ground floor again. But maybe he thought we'd argue the command. I was beyond arguing, I just wanted to go home. Make sure Dom made it out back to Gen and then spend the rest of the foreseeable future in bed with Drew.

Despite Drew's earlier words of living up to his
Oma's
expectations, I think he wouldn't have put up much of a fight if I suggested we high-tail it out of here as soon as an exit opened up. Sometimes you can't always do everything you want in life.

I watched him as he sat watching that damn door. I took in his profile, the sharp angles of his jaw. His long, proud nose. The dark stubble that had formed on his chin and cheeks since this morning. The dirt clinging to his dark brown hair, that didn't seem to mar what looked like perfection to me. I'd always been drawn to Drew, on a purely physical level. Now it was so much stronger, so much deeper, than that.

How could I have known that love could become this? This... multi-layered, multi-dimensional thing. I knew more about him than I'd ever known before, and it hadn't scared me off like I had thought it would in the past. I'd been so scared to get to know any of my five too closely, but somehow Drew had wormed his way in.

A smile curved my lips as I thought about the effort he'd gone to get me away from the other four guys in my life. The patience he'd demonstrated, the cunning and devious plan he'd laid out. He'd never overstepped the mark. Not once. He'd played the dutiful fifth guy in my stable without showing any qualms. And when he'd seen his opportunity he'd struck.

I could admire that. Like I seemed to admire so much about him, and more and more about him each day. The deeper I got, the harder it was to see myself without Drew in my life.

I realised, in a rather bemused way, that Drew had caught his sun.

"Your
Oma
would be very proud of you," I whispered.

His head swung from looking at the door expectantly, to stare with slight confusion at my face.

"You caught your sun," I explained and dawning comprehension graced his face.

"Have I?" he whispered a little hopefully. "Have I really caught you?"

So much had happened, in such a short amount of time. Epiphanies, life altering changes, the opening up of my heart to just one man. This man.

"Yes," I said simply, because it seemed so simple now. "You have," I added, feeling lighter than I had felt in years. Feeling... whole again.

I hadn't felt whole since before my father left. Drew gave me a rainbow, but he also gave me my life back.

With slow and purposeful movements Drew closed the short distance between us and wrapped a hand around the back of my neck. His forehead came to rest against mine, grey eyes holding me captive.

"I thought perhaps I had," he whispered. "But like the sun, you are not so easy to contain. We shared moments, we've said things, but I've been waiting for that light in your eyes to shine. That dazzle and sparkle to return. How do you do it,
sternchen
? In a stairwell, in the middle of a building siege? How do you shine so fucking bright?"

"Because I'm with you, and life's an adventure, but it's the adventure I have with you that I've realised I want."

"Just me," he murmured, lips pressing against my forehead softly.

"Just you."

He let a long breath of air out, gripped my neck tighter and said, "I'll be demanding. I'll be possessive. You think I won't, because I stood by while you had four other guys in your life. I shared you with them for quite some time."

Oh, I knew better. Drew never shared, Drew simply bided his time.

"But I will not share you again, Kelly," he said firmly, his grip on my neck almost this side of too tight.

"I know," I whispered back.

"Do you? I don't think you do. I will not share you," he repeated.

"I understand."

"Ever," he insisted.

"Got it."

"It almost killed me," he admitted, and the silence following that felt like a knife to my heart.

Then, "Watching you with them. You weren't quite ready, but I took the chance. I had to. I couldn't stand by and wait any more. I couldn't
watch
any more."

So he turned up at my dates.

"But I was ready," I pointed out.

His head shook, forehead rubbing against mine with the move.

"No, you thought it was part of the game. Illicit. Red."

"You like red too."

"I like your red. No one else's," he argued. "But I let you think it was all part of the same red you liked in your life."

"Are you saying you played me?" I asked, pulling back a fraction. He gripped me firmly again and pressed our heads back together.

"Yes, that's what I'm saying."

Holy cow. What a dastardly plan. Playing me at my own game, letting me believe one thing while he was setting me up for something else. Just him.

My lips curved into an appreciative smile, but he missed it. He'd closed his lids and sucked in a deep breath.

"And I'd do it again," he murmured. "I'd do whatever I had to do to trap you. To have you to myself. I am not a saint, Kelly. I see something I want and I set out to make it mine."

His eyes flicked open and deep, desperate grey stared back at me.

"And I wanted you. All of you. And I didn't want to share."

"OK," I whispered. His head cocked to the side.

"Just OK? No yelling and spitting fire at me for playing you at your own game?"

I smirked, his eyes dropped to my lips. Then straight back up to catch the expression on my face.

"Drew, baby," I purred, cupping his scratchy cheek. "I let you. Because I wanted you to. And guess what?"

A twitch at one side of his lips.

"What,
sternchen
?"

"I won't share you, either."

Without warning, his lips crushed into mine, followed by the stroke of his hot tongue along the bottom one. I opened and let him storm in. He'd stormed into my life, under the pretence of a patient observer and occasional participant. But it had been a siege of sorts too. How does that saying of Julius Caesar's go?
I came, I saw, I conquered.

Drew came and saw and conquered.

But only because I let him.

He gripped my cheeks on either side of my face and ended the kiss abruptly by pulling our lips apart. Both of us were panting slightly, eyes wild and alight, rainbows of colours on our world.

"I was so fucking jealous of them," he whispered in a husky sounding voice. "So fucking jealous."

I hadn't even known.

"I will not share you again," he whispered, kissing my cheeks, my forehead, the top of each eyelid, my nose. "Do you understand?"

"I understand," I said in a rush of expelled air. "I understand," I repeated, because Drew needed to know that I did.

"Good," he finally whispered back, a shudder entering his frame and running the entire length of it.

Drew, I think, had been through hell, all because he knew I needed to sort my shit out before I'd let him inside my heart for good. I'd seen so many sides of Drew this past day. So much depth and intelligence and heart. I was bowled over again by how remarkable this man was. How intricate his layers were, how deep they actually went.

I wanted to uncover more of him. I wanted to dig to the very heart. I promised myself, then and there, that I would. That I'd spend the rest of our lives doing just that.

I laced my fingers with one of his hands and rested my forehead against his, one palm cupping the back of his neck. A turn around of our previous positions.

"I want to see your house," I announced.

He let a breath of surprised air out, no doubt not expecting those exact words.

"I want to make love to you in my bed," I added.

His fingers squeezed mine.

"I want to meet your parents," I whispered.

And his free hand came up and stroked my cheek, just under my eye where I hadn't realised a tear had trickled out.