Chapter 2
Logan signed the Bentley’s keys back in at the departmental garage and heaved a sigh of relief. He’d just returned from driving Dr. Northwood back to his mausoleum of a house. With the hours he spent at the office, the genius was a goddamn workaholic. And at eight in the morning, Logan would be there, ready to do it all again.
Back in his leathers and carrying his helmet, Logan headed for his motorcycle. The hog was his pride and joy—one of them, at any rate. At this time of night, and on two wheels instead of four, he’d be home within twenty minutes, and relaxing with a beer and food inside forty. He was in the mood for a Chinese, or maybe something with a bit more of a kick to it, like a vindaloo or a madras.
Thinking of curry reminded him of his lucky escape. By the narrowest of margins, but one he’d take in any life-or-death situation, he’d avoided having his arse dragged into tomorrow night’s team-building shit.
Karaoke—what the fuck was that about?
A loner by need and nature, all that soft-skills crap left Logan cold. Colder than cold. Freeze-your-bollocks-off-on-Arctic-manoeuvres fucking cold. What he needed was a session at Aegis, but that wasn’t about to happen. Until he ditched the walking brain, recreational activities like that were off the agenda.
He needed something to burn up the restlessness caused by a day of doing what felt like fuck-all. Shit thing was, thanks to the unit medic, he couldn’t even work it off with weights in the gym. Not until he’d been signed fit for full, normal duty.
That meant he was stuck with only the four walls he’d relatively recently moved into for company. Before the taxi-driving and babysitting engagement, he’d spent far too much time here, recovering from that bloody knife wound. As a result, he was intimately acquainted with every inch of what was only now ceasing to feel like a prison cell.
The place where he lived was… convenient. He certainly wouldn’t call it a home—furnishings were minimal, man-cave essentials only, including the large-screen TV now providing a drone of background noise. He headed for the bedroom—another room that contained only what he needed, which wasn’t much beyond somewhere to sleep and some closet space.
Logan stripped and dropped onto the bed. His mind wandered back to the medic’s verdict. Apparently he was making excellent progress. His wound was almost healed, and his return to full active duty was imminent—she just wanted one final check after the weekend.
More fucking nannying. He hated it almost as much as he hated box-ticking and arse-covering. While on active service with the Royal Marines, he’d sustained far worse injuries and just carried on, because that was what Royal Marines did. As he saw it, he was fit for duty, but the doc didn’t share his opinion, and in this case, hers carried a hell of a lot more weight with the boss.
The icing on today’s especially unpalatable cake had been that altercation with Lucy Winter, the latest in a growing collection of such encounters. What was it with that woman? She’d turned up a few months ago as the CO’s new secretary, assistant, whatever the hell she called herself. Ever since then, it seemed she’d done her level best to bury him in red tape. More than once he’d wondered what he’d done to deserve such special treatment.
Logan was good with details. From the day he’d enlisted, sixteen and fresh out of school with little more than a voracious hunger to win his green beret, he’d been detail-oriented. Just as well—in his line of work, a lack of attention to detail could get a person killed.
Miss Winter, however… her attention to detail invaded OCD territory on a scale to rival the D-Day landings, which probably explained the email he’d received a couple of hours after their little spat. The paperwork had apparently turned up, and everything was now peachy. His claim would be settled in the next payment run, and she apologised for any inconvenience caused.
Logan rested his forearm across his eyes, ignoring the slight, nagging ache in his biceps. Acknowledging it meant he’d have to admit the doc might have a point about not declaring him fully fit yet.
Like a moth to a flame, his thoughts gravitated back to Miss Winter. Yeah, she was pretty—beautiful, if she’d stop torturing her hair in that bun arrangement. The colour of it reminded him of a blend of whisky and honey. Occasionally he’d wondered exactly how long it was. There looked to be plenty for a man to wrap his hand in and anchor her for a kiss—or more.
The rest of her wasn’t too bad, either. She was tall, about five-ten in those heels she favoured, so a nice height if she ditched the shoes. Good figure too—fit, but nice and curvy. Not the type to break when getting down and dirty in a scene. Just the kind he liked, but there was no way that was ever happening outside the impersonal confines of the club.
Sophia saw to that.
Logan checked the time. It was later than he’d thought, and he was famished. Pizza was probably more practical now—they’d still be delivering, and he already had beer chilling in the fridge.
A shower, food, booze and bed—not a bad plan after a shit day, although he’d have preferred to throw a good fuck into the mix as well. And he had the exact same shit to look forward to again tomorrow. Fan-bloody-tastic.
One thing was for certain, though—when this job was finished, no one had better get between him and a serious session at Aegis. He was more than ready to spend some quality time indulging in some no-strings fun, and there was nothing quite like the satisfaction of leaving a few pink handprints on the gorgeous arse of a willing submissive.
~~*~~
As usual, the evening passed too quickly.
Salsa class had been a blast. Even after a long—and today, stressful—day at work, Lucy wouldn’t dream of missing the chance to dance her troubles away.
Tonight she’d really needed to do just that. The latest confrontation with Simmonds had put her in a grumpy mood that had festered all day.
The damn man had all but accused her of gross incompetence. After he’d left, she’d hunted high and low for the missing paperwork, but, as she’d expected, it was nowhere to be seen. If he had left it in the tray, which she’d seriously doubted, he hadn’t done so while she was there. Not only would she have remembered—she’d have checked it and had Sir Guy approve it on the system at the earliest opportunity.
While she was there. That thought had proved to be the catalyst that led to solving the mystery. A couple of phone calls later, and Lucy had pieced together what had happened.
The recipe for disaster consisted of equal parts of a visit to the dentist, an early lunch hour and an inexperienced stand-in. Logan had left the paperwork for his expenses when an admin assistant was providing cover for Lucy while she was attending her appointment. The guy was relatively new, wasn’t acquainted with the intricacies of the expense policy, and had simply sent the documentation directly to the finance office. A quick call to the bean counters today had confirmed Lucy’s theory.
Out of courtesy, she’d emailed Logan to apologise, and let him know the matter had been resolved. She’d been somewhat surprised to receive an expression of gratitude in return, terse though it was. It seemed the man knew his manners after all, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
Before going for a shower, Lucy checked her answering machine for messages. She’d been let off the parental leash a good while ago. However, her brothers—whom she thought of as the human equivalent of flypaper, because she could never shake them free—insisted on keeping a watchful eye on her. Even being on deployment had never stopped any of them from checking on her whenever they could.
And yes, there was one message. Tempted though she was to leave it till the morning, there was always the chance it was urgent.
“Hey, Oh-Em-Gee, just thought I’d let you know we’ve arrived in the Philippines. We’re seven hours ahead, the weather’s hot, but rain’s on the way. Catch you later. Bye for now!”
It was Sam, and she was going to kill him. No matter how many times she begged and pleaded, he—along with all his brothers-in-crime—still persisted in referring to her with those three blasted initials.
As the creator of the nickname, Adam was really the one to blame. After two sets of male twins, their mother was desperate for a daughter. She’d persuaded their father to have “one more go” at having a girl. Her oldest sibling had shortened “one more go” to Oh-Em-Gee, and Lucy had been cursed with the epithet ever since.
For the last few months, Sam’s ship had been on a goodwill tour in the Asia-Pacific region, and unless some international crisis arose to prevent it, they’d be plotting a course for home soon. He wouldn’t be the only one. For once, planetary alignment was favourable, and all four of her siblings would be home on extended leave at the same time—and even more miraculously, the timing was perfect for their mother’s birthday. Family bonds remained strong in the Winter clan.
On tea-making autopilot, her mind wandered—not to either her friends or family, but her colleagues at work. They didn’t talk a lot about their private lives. Given the nature of their work, she wasn’t surprised. Her brothers had long ago explained the necessity to keep a mental barrier between their home and their professional lives, to help them manage certain aspects of their work, such as separation from their loved ones while on deployment. Exchange “deployment” for “assignment”, and the statement could apply to the members of Sir Guy’s unit.
As she poured the hot water, Lucy gave in to her lurking curiosity about Logan Simmonds’ home life. Did he have some long-suffering girlfriend waiting for him? She’d tried to picture him with a wife, and although it was a possibility, she just couldn’t see it. Married or not, if he did have a significant other… poor woman. Whatever redeeming characteristics the man might have—besides knicker-dropping good looks—they most assuredly weren’t visible to the naked eye.
Tempted though she was to switch the TV on for the late news bulletin, Lucy opted for music instead. The world and its terrors would still be there tomorrow. Given the access she had to Sir Guy’s inbox, those terrors could easily scare her to death—if she let them.
And if she did allow the fear to get to her, then they—the bad guys—would win, and that wasn’t an option. Although “real” home was the farm where she and her brothers had grown up, on their mother’s side there was a history of military service. Five generations that they knew of, possibly more.
There were no high-ranking officers in Lucy’s family tree, but they’d all believed in serving their country and defending those unable to defend themselves. Her brothers had followed the family tradition, and for years, when they were home on leave, she’d pestered them into sharing their skills with her.
The pestering had gained impetus once she’d come to a decision about her future. With that in mind, she’d taken steps that ultimately led to this job, where she’d set about learning everything she could from the confidential reports that crossed her desk.
When opportunity dropped its capricious arse in her lap, she was going to grab it and hold on, although not for opportunities like the team-building karaoke night. She’d consider almost anything if it would assist in achieving her objective, but another session of that cruel and unusual punishment was more than human hearing could be expected to bear.