Jesse Marks.
That is the name that comes to my mind as I stare at Jacob, trapped in silence by our location in my boss’s office, my gut telling me now that every move Jacob has made since I showed him that file is about that file. My boss, Lieutenant Ross, joins us, claiming his rightful spot behind his desk where he sits down. Jacob gives me a small nod and then turns away, claiming his seat. It’s all I can do to force myself to face forward and sit my butt in a chair. I do it though, but I’m aware of Jacob beside me, his leg so very close to mine. I am so damn aware of the man who almost made it to my bed before he sideswiped me that I want to hurt him, especially when I think of his promise that we were “doing this together.”
My boss looks between us, a curious look on his face, and no doubt he feels my combustible energy with Jacob, but he leaves it alone. “I understand your father contracted Jacob and his team to beef up security, thus you have met,” he says.
“That is correct,” I state.
“What else?” he asks.
I look at Jacob. “Why don’t you answer that question,” I say, since I have no idea what kind of ditch he’s driven me into. Just that I’m in one.
“Royce notified him about the notes you’ve been receiving,” Jacob states, clearly trying to tell me that he didn’t do this, but he didn’t warn me either. “Both he and Lieutenant Ross felt my involvement in a more intimate way would be useful.”
Intimate, my ass, I think, but I say, “The notes that my father has been receiving.”
“That target you,” Jacob counters. “We both know you’re the real target.”
“We don’t know,” I say, looking at my boss. “But yes,” I add, as if he’s asked, because he will, “I do suspect I’m the target, which is why I was going to tell you on my own this morning. I would have preferred to tell you myself. It’s not like this is my first threat. I know the procedures.”
“Royce Walker would not call me and get involved if there wasn’t a real threat,” he says.
“I didn’t suggest it wasn’t real,” I quip back at the inferred suggestion. “I assume all threats are real.”
“I understand this one seems to have intimate details about your life,” Lieutenant Ross challenges.
“That’s not verified,” I say, thinking I might just cuff Jacob and stick a sock in his mouth.
“It’s personal or it’s not,” my boss presses, trying to back me into a confessional corner.
He fails. “I can’t validate that it is or is not,” I reply. “A random incident might be nothing more than my paranoid creation. I have no facts to back that up.”
“You don’t get paranoid,” he points out.
“My father’s close to this,” I tell him. “And considering my history, this is an exception.”
“What does your gut tell you?” he presses. “How serious is this?”
I want to lie, but I hate lies, and I respect Lieutenant Ross, which means the trust is my only option. “My gut says that this is the real deal. This is a problem.”
“Your gut feelings have solved forty cases,” he reminds me. “I choose to bet on you, and that means keeping you alive.” I open my mouth to argue, when he adds, “And everyone around you,” which shuts me up. I can’t, and won’t, risk other people’s lives and he knows it.
“Jacob here will be your shadow,” he adds. “The story to the department is that Walker is helping with cold cases. Jacob will provide those man hours by helping you with those cases and any open investigations while his team offers our team support. In a perfect world, you two are golden together, and you find the bodies of a woman and her child and convict a billionaire CEO.” He glances at his watch. “And on that note. I have an IA asshole to deal with on an unrelated matter. That means you two need to get out of here.”
I ignore the order to get out. “I work best alone,” I state, feeling as if Jacob is taking over my life and my good senses, based on my early trust. “I’ll work off-site. I’ll—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” he says, leaning forward to rest his arms on his desk. “You’re close to this. You feel paranoid. You are not yourself. In other words, you don’t work alone this time and if I let you, your uncle would crawl out of his grave and beat my face in. But yes. You work off-site, at the Walker offices, where they can protect you, which protects the rest of the team.”
“With all due respect, Lieutenant Ross,” I begin. “This is not—”
“—up for discussion,” he supplies. “We aren’t turning down free services that offer you protection, and us man hours to solve cases.” He points to the door. “Go.”
Letting out a heavy breath, I accept my obvious defeat, and really truly, just hours ago, I felt I needed Walker Security, but now—now I question Jacob’s motivation, and that becomes a problem on top of a problem. But that is between me and him, and outside of this room, thus why I stand up. Jacob does the same beside me, and when I head for the door, my boss calls out, “Great job in court today, detective. Now use this asshole to find those bodies.”
In other words, he heard me call Jacob an asshole, but I don’t care. Jacob is an asshole. The one I trusted. The one I kissed. The one I would have fucked, but he fucked me instead. He won’t fuck me again, or ever, if we’re being literal. I open the door and exit, walking through the workspaces and past my old desk, without stopping. I keep going, turning right into the hallway and by the time I’m on the steps, headed down to the basement, Jacob is by my side, big as usual, which I decide works for me. Further for him to tumble and harder for him to fall, which is exactly what will happen when were alone. I don’t plot how that will happen, though. I’m confident the right moves will just come to me.
We clear the steps and once we’re at the file room entrance, I’m thankful to find that Becca is not at her desk. I reach for the door, and Jacob is there first, our hands colliding, a charge between us that jolts me to the core and tells me one thing. He closes his hand on the knob, but doesn’t open it. He does, however, crowd me from behind. “I didn’t plan that.”
“Not a conversation I want to have for the cameras,” I bite out.
I can almost hear him curse in his mind before he turns the knob. I push the door open and I’m inside the reception area a step later. I pass Becca’s desk and head down a row, created by shelves of files, on either side of me. Jacob is by my side in an instant, and damn it, our paces seem to naturally align. A lot about me and this man naturally align except for the big one: he’s trying to protect Jesse Marks while I’m trying to put him behind bars.
At the end of the path I cut to my right.
I enter the room, and of course, my robot is still with me. We pass through two rows of files, a path that feels like it goes on and on forever, while the charge between myself and Jacob is downright combustible for about ten different reasons. I open my office door and enter. And while I fully intend to put the desk between us, I’m not even slightly surprised I never get the chance. Jacob shuts the door and catches my arm. And so, the war is on and Jacob, The Robot Betrayer, is about to find out Green Berets have weaknesses.
I rotate and shove him against the door, my hand on the hard wall of his chest, heat seeping through his shirt to my palm. “I’m a pretty good judge of people,” I say, “which I’ve proven again with you because I was right. You’re an asshole. We’ll do it together wasn’t an offer. It was the only warning I got about that meeting.”
“I never denied my willingness to be an asshole to protect you.”
“Protect me? Or keep my cold case on Jesse Marks cold? Because we both know his name on my lips is when you decided to put your lips on mine. To control me. And it won’t work.”
“If you weren’t controlling me, I’d never have kissed you. I wouldn’t want to kiss you so damn badly now.”
“You kissed me to control me.”
“I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you.”
“Right. Just like you told me we’ll do this together and I was going to do this together when I don’t do together.”
“We are doing this together.”
“This is how you do together?”
He shackles my hips and pulls me to him, and I could fight him, but he is a Green Beret. And I really won’t win a brute force battle. “I couldn’t risk you shutting me out,” he says, as my hands go to his wrists to avoid his chest again, but it doesn’t help. Now heat is rushing up my arms and over my chest. “We both know,” he adds, “that you’re safer with me by your side.”
“Because you’re my personal Green Beret bodyguard, right?”
“Yes, detective. I am.”
“And you’ll fuck me and then if I cross you on Jesse Marks, you’ll make me beg you to kill me?”
“If I make you beg, it won’t be from death.”
“I don’t beg. Ever. For anything. As for right now, I’m going to work from my apartment, not Walker Security. We both know you’re coming with me, so you need to know this. I can fuck you, I can enjoy it, and I can arrest you the minute it’s over. I might even get off on it. And you can let go of me now.”
“Not until you hear what I have to say. I’m here to stay. I’m releasing you, but I’m not letting you go. You won’t get rid of me and you can take that to the bank.” His hands fall away.
I don’t immediately move away. I stand there, a lean from touching him, and I stare into those cool gray eyes of his. “I’m going to get what I want,” I say, thinking of that burned file.
“As will I,” he says. “You can bank on that, too. And then we both win.”
The heat that sizzles between us in the moment after that exchange says that we want each other, but we both want more. We both intend to get more. “We’ll see, won’t we?” I say, and on that note, I turn away from him and walk to my uncle’s desk, and key my computer to life. I go to the file search and right when I’m about to pull up the Jesse Marks file, Jacob grabs the keyboard and moves it away from me. I look up as he presses two hands on the desk across from me.
“If you think,” he says, “that I’m going to let you pull that file, you are wrong.”
“That’s fine,” I say, standing up and forcing him to straighten to keep a dominant position. “We both know the information I need is in your head and the battle we need to fight can’t happen here.” I grab a box, fill it with as many files as I can stuff inside, and then I round the desk and shove it at him. “My uncle had a lot of files and you’re big boy. Let’s go to my apartment, where we can be alone.”
“Whatever you want, detective,” Jacob replies.
“Yes. Whatever I want.” I head to the door, with every intention of taking this man to my apartment, where I might just go ahead and cuff him. From there, I’ll get my answers, one way or the other.