Wanting (11 page)

“
He called you?” Hell
asked. Dan and Zeke were listening, Carrie could see them watching
her and Hellbrook. Why? Why was it so important to them that she
had been with Sebastian? “Why you?”

“
Computer searches and
because both our teams were on assignment. I really was the only
one available to help. Why?” Carrie felt the anxiety rising again,
and she started rocking. She knew she was close to flipping out in
front of the rest of the team, but she couldn’t stop. Not this
time.

“
Honey, I’m glad you went
with him,” Hell said. Did he know how close she was to shutting
down? Carrie hoped not, hoped she’d kept it hidden. “I’m just
concerned for you. He kissed you. We all saw it. And it wasn’t just
platonic on his part. Promise me you’ll be aware of
that.”

“
Ok.” Carrie was confused.
Why was this any of Hell’s business? “I don’t know why you’re
worried. I’ve kissed men before. Done a lot more than
that.”

Hell’s cheeks reddened. Was
he embarrassed? Why? “Still, I want you to promise me you’ll be
careful, ok?”

“
Ok. I promise.” Sometimes
it was just easier for her to agree with her team, even when she
didn’t understand them.

“
Good. Are you sure you
want to stay with him? We can get you a hotel room or you can stay
with any of us.”

“
No. Sebastian needs my
help. I’ll stay with him. I stayed with him last night.” Carrie
grabbed the bag of cat food—half of which had been dumped over her
stove. “I think this is all I’ll need, Hell.”

“
Ok.” He kept one hand on
her back as he escorted her out of her apartment.

***

Sebastian didn’t miss the
other man’s silent warning, and he suddenly felt like a green
school punk facing his first date’s father. Sebastian didn’t like
that feeling, and he lifted a challenging look to Hellbrook.
Hellbrook’s eyebrow rose in acknowledgement.

It faded with his first
look of Carrie and what she held in her hands. It told him a lot of
how she was feeling.

She hadn’t even grabbed
herself any more clothing.

Of course she had a day’s
worth stuffed into her ready-bag, and they could buy her more, but
that she’d not grabbed even a single change of jeans bothered him.
He knew instinctively that she’d felt violated looking at the
clothes that had been pulled from the drawers of her dresser and
yanked from the closet.

And it bothered him, too,
to think of some unknown bastard pawing through her things so
intimately. Fingering her blouses, her underwear. He wanted to
release that fury on someone. Hellbrook made a large and available
target but Sebastian controlled himself. “Hellbrook, you finished?
Carrie, are you ready?”

“
Yes.” She smiled at him
softly, though her bottom lip trembled. “Let’s go. I want to take
Linux to the vet now.”

“
Ok. Hellbrook, call me if
you find out anything.” Sebastian had no doubt the man would sit on
this case, ride the locals’ asses until they found out exactly who
had done this.

Sebastian had no doubts
that Hellbrook felt the same rage he felt. On that one point, they
were in agreement.

Sebastian just wished the
other man would stop looking at him like he was some sort of sick
pervert for lusting after Carrie. She wasn’t a child, they all
needed to stop treating her like one, and, dammit, he could lust
after her if he wanted to.

He hadn’t decided if he’d
be doing anything about that lust. But if he did—it was no one’s
business but his and Carrie’s.

***

His apartment was clean,
and only about half the size of her loft. It smelled like him, warm
mint and man. Carrie had to admit she liked it. She was starting to
like Sebastian Lorcan more than she’d ever thought she
would.

Rich leather similar to her
now ruined black couch dominated his space. Chocolate was his
color, sleek and sophisticated but still highly masculine. “Where
can I put Linux’s things?”

“
I only have the one
bedroom set up. You can take that. The couch in my office pulls out
into a bed; I’ll camp there.”

“
I don’t want to push you
out of your own bed. I can take the pull-out.” Carrie wasn’t sure
she wanted to sleep in his bed, surrounded by the scent of him.
That would be too weird. She would already have a tough time
getting the smell of him out of her mind.

“
My mother raised me better
than that. Guests get the best and it’s a damned fine bed.” He took
the bag from her that contained the clothes she’d taken with them
and started toward the back of his apartment. Carrie
followed.

The room was dim and
smelled just as strongly of Sebastian Lorcan as she knew it would.
She almost stepped back into the hallway. “I could have stayed with
a member of the team, you know.”

“
But then it would take
valuable time away from finding Ashleigh, remember?”

“
True.” And she wouldn’t
want to appear needy or weak in front of a member of her team. She
hated being the youngest, the most inexperienced, the one with the
most differences. The weak link. And she knew half the team saw her
that way, including Hell. He and Dan—and to some extent Josh and
Zeke—were obsessive about protecting her. Part of her liked it,
liked that it was what people did for the people they cared about
just like Paige had always protected her when they were teens. The
other half of her hated that they saw her as the one to coddle. As
the one who needed protected.

They knew nothing of her
background, although she was certain Hell knew a bit from the
personnel records. It listed her as a ward of the state of Texas
from the age of nine, but she hadn’t put anything in her
application about being a former runaway.

The only one she had told
besides Paige was Sebastian.

Did he realize that? Was
that why he seemed to understand how she felt about her team? He
had told Hellbrook she was going with him, hadn’t given Hell a
second thought after that. And why should he? Hell did not control
what she did outside of the CCU, and never would.

Sebastian had treated her
like an adult in more ways than Hell and the rest of the team ever
did. They didn’t condescend to her, by any means, but they did try
to coddle her at times.

She’d never said anything
about how it bothered her—why upset them when they hadn’t meant any
harm? But she knew Georgia, at least, had suspected how Carrie
truly felt.

But Sebastian hadn’t
treated her like that even once and in the past few times they’d
worked together, he’d actually expected different from her than the
rest of her team.

She liked it. He treated
her like a completely functioning adult, a federal agent with the
skills he expected from someone in the most elite unit in the
country. Which was exactly what she was.

That respect was highly
attractive. And it made her ok with him kissing her. Made her want
to kiss him again. She would have to think about how she felt on
that idea.

Carrie studied the room
once he flipped the light on. The bed was soft and large—big enough
for a man his size to stretch out comfortably. Navy silk covered it
and she had to resist the urge to stroke the comforter like she
would Linux. She loved touching soft things. It was a good thing
she’d recently had the caps put on the cat’s claws—it would be way
too easy for Linux to ruin the obviously expensive
blanket.

Seven cardboard boxes were
shoved in one corner, marring the otherwise perfect order of the
room. Pictures were stacked on top and Carrie’s fingers itched to
study them. To learn about him. There were three photographs
arranged on his end table. She put her bag on the bed and turned to
her host. “I don’t know what to do next.”

His brows rose. “We find
Ashleigh while Hellbrook finds out who trashed your place. You stay
here until we’re sure it’s safe for you to return to your home.
Tomorrow we’ll talk with Sherry again and maybe Ashleigh’s teachers
and friends. Start all over again and see if we can find out what
made her run. In the meantime, why don’t you and Linux get settled?
I’m going to take a shower then find something to eat. You can join
me if you want.”

Carrie nodded, then watched
as he grabbed some clothes from the dresser. Within a minute he was
gone and she was left alone to study his room much more
closely.

The first picture was one
of three boys, each with big grins and black hair. They were
completely identical and looked like the man Sebastian had become.
Which one was he? Did anyone else know he was a triplet, and an
identical one at that?

The second photo was of a
young woman who had the same dark hair and green eyes. A sister?
The resemblance was there.

It made her more and more
curious about the man. She’d never pictured him having siblings,
being a part of a family. Did anyone she know besides Paige’s
partner Alessandra and Georgia from her own team actually have a
family? Josh didn’t—his mother had been a single mother and she’d
died a few years ago. The same for Hell. Dan’s daughters were
missing and had been for fifteen years. Zeke and K.D. never even
spoke about their families. Carrie had never thought about that
before.

Did their career choice
draw people who were loners and without families? Sebastian
obviously had a family he cared about.

The final photo was of a
younger Sebastian—at least she thought it was Sebastian, it might
have been a brother—with his arm around a dark-haired woman with
the brightest blue eyes Carrie had ever seen. The woman was
beautiful, even though she was only dressed in ripped jeans and a
jersey.

Sebastian looked young and
relaxed and happy to be with the woman.

Carrie looked closer; the
couple wore matching wedding rings. So most likely a brother.
Sebastian didn’t even have a tan line where a ring had
been.

Chapter 25

*****

He was dressed in jeans and
a black shirt when she—and Linux, who walked at her heels—joined
him. His hair was dark and wet from his shower; he looked nothing
like the dangerous and confidant special agent she was familiar
with.

He was stirring a pot on
the stove, the sight so not what Carrie was used to seeing. He
smiled directly at her, making the green of his eyes seem more
prominent. His expression was welcoming and interested, and Carrie
felt the power of that expression clear down to her toes. “It’s
about ready; have a seat.”

“
Thank you. You don’t have
to do this, you know.”

“
Carrie—I want to. Besides,
this is the fastest way for us to find Ashleigh. And did you really
want to stay at your place the way it was?”

Her apartment, her space,
destroyed. Tears threatened again, but Carrie pushed them back. It
wasn’t the first time her space had been violated, although it was
the first at this particular address. She’d get through it, and
would survive. What she wouldn’t do was break down. Not until she
was completely alone, anyway. “No, I don’t. Let’s talk about
something else. I didn’t know you had brothers.”

“
Saw the
pictures?”

Carrie nodded. Why deny it?
She had snooped. Anyone would. “Yes.”

“
I have two brothers and a
sister. Seth, Sinclair, and Sarah. Sarah’s four years younger.
She’s a, uh, social worker in Indiana.”

“
What do your brothers do?
And your brother’s wife?” It was the blue-eyed woman who had
captured Carrie’s attention. Sebastian and his siblings were a
family, that was evident. But what had made his brother choose that
woman? Attraction had always fascinated Carrie. The bits and pieces
of what drew people together. It fascinated her because she so
rarely understood it.

“
My brother’s...oh.” He sat
the spoon down. “She wasn’t my brother’s wife. She was mine. I was
married for five years.”

“
Why?” Wow. He hadn’t
seemed like the type to have been married. Carrie suddenly felt
wrong for having been attracted to him. “I’m sorry. That was
intrusive, wasn’t it? Sometimes I don’t think before I say
something.”

“
Neither do I. It’s fine.
Cody and I were friends for years. Her dad and mine were close
friends. When mine died, Chet, Cody’s father, sort of stepped in
for us. His own wife died of cancer when Cody was seventeen. Chet
made a mistake, and remarried too quickly. His new wife wasn’t very
tolerant of a grieving teenage girl. Chet died a few years later,
unexpectedly. His wife left Cody out of everything, virtually in
the cold. Even cut off her financial aid for college. We married so
that she could continue with her education. It was only supposed to
be for a few years, but we stayed together nearly six.”

“
Then you
divorced?”

“
Yes. She decided it wasn’t
fair to me to be with her. That I should be free to find the person
I was—in her words—supposed to be with. We were too good of
friends, apparently, to be lovers.”

Carrie didn’t understand it
at all. “Were you?”

“
In hindsight, yes. For
both of us. And between you and me—I strongly suspect she may have
been a better fit for one of my brothers.”