I felt a small pinch on my arm that woke me up out of my deep sleep. It had been sharp but brief.

When I opened my sleepy eyes I saw Brock lean back toward the night stand on his side of the bed. He opened the drawer for some reason then turned back to me.

He gave me a small smile then gathered me in his arms.

“Did you just pinch me?” I asked in a groggy voice.

He smirked. “Yes, are you hungry?”

I groaned and planted my face back in my pillow.

“I’ve been waiting for you to wake up for an hour. Did you know you drool in your sleep?”

I groaned again then looked up at him frowning. “I do not drool and it’s too early to wake up.”

His hand reached out and moved my hair away from the side of my face. Murky green eyes met mine for a moment then he leaned in and kissed me softly on my cheek.

“Okay, you don’t drool but you make these cute kitten sounds in your sleep.”

“What?”

“Yeah, little whimpering sounds.”

I thought for a moment wondering why I would make any sounds. I felt my cheeks flush remembering the dream I was having.

“Brock, can I ask you something?” I asked, shivering slightly as he continued to play with my hair. His fingers moved through it slowly then I felt his hand shift down to my bare back and softly skim across my skin.

“Sure, baby. Anything,” he said, while his hand dipped lower on my back and his fingers started to explore across my hip.

“Uhm, what we did,” my voice trailed off.

His hand stopped moving and he focused his attention on my face.

“Which part? The first, second or third time?”

My body was tingling from his lazy attention. We had drifted asleep for a while after the first time we had sex last night. The second time he had woken me up with a press of his hips against my backside. His hands had been everywhere and I had eagerly wanted him. The third time I had woken up to his lips between my thighs, gently caressing my core. He had made me orgasm just from the hungry attention of his mouth.

He was addictive and my body was needy for him.

I face planted in the pillow again. Why was I so embarrassed? The man knew my body quite well right now and I was buzzing with an awareness of him.

“Uhm, first time,” I said. “You tied me up. Do you like that sort of thing?”

His eyes slid from my face and wandered over my body.

“Yes,” he said simply without offering any further explanation.

“Why?” I asked.

His brow furrowed and his fingers started gently skating across my hip again.

I waited on him to speak but he seemed to have trouble answering. Maybe it wasn’t something I really had to know the answer to but I wondered why he liked it. The other two times he hadn’t tied me but he had kept a firm grip on my body, moving me and holding me where he wanted me.

“I like control, Andi. I think you probably get that. I want to be able—I don’t like surprises,” he finally said. The answer had clearly been difficult for him to define or talk about.

He frowned briefly. “If you had told me no, I would have stopped though.”

He was either embarrassed or reluctant to tell me why. The man who wanted to know everything wasn’t willing to share. Interesting.

I took a big breath, “Okay so you don’t like surprise birthday parties?”

He chuckled and laid back on his pillow looking up at the ceiling. I raised up on my elbows and looked at him.

“That’s not what I meant. I’ve never had a surprise birthday party but I’m sure I would like it if anyone could actually get one planned without me catching wind of it.”

“Well that’s kind of dull. Always knowing everything that’s going on.”

My fingers drew small circles on his chest and he continued thinking. He always had an air of confidence about him when I saw him. This man was clearly conflicted about my question but I was uncertain as to why.

His eyes flicked to mine then slid down to watch my hand on his chest.

“Did I tell you I had a sister once?”

My fingers paused with surprise then started back. “No.”

He closed his eyes and let out a deep breath.

“I grew up in Boston before I went into the military. My sister Ava was the baby of the family. Owen, Noah and I used to follow her around, watching wherever she went. All of us adored her and she knew it. When she was ten, we were all in high school. I was finishing up my senior year and really focused on a lot of other things by then. I had gotten a few scholarships for my math scores that could have set me up for life. I was also approached by a man that worked for the CIA. They start their recruiting early for their little think-tanks. Needless to say, I was intrigued.”

My eyebrows shot up but I didn’t say anything.

“Owen and Noah were likely going to be headed in the same direction. We were all different but we had a lot of skills and interests that would have meshed well with whatever path we chose.”

He cleared his throat and sat up, pulling me up with him to sit in his lap. He wrapped his arms around me and softly kissed my temple.

“So, we were all focused for once on something other than my sister. She went to a private school that was two blocks away from our house. Normally, one of us was able to pick her up from school but occasionally she walked home. She had done that a few times and was starting to like the independence. I was supposed to pick her up after school one afternoon in November. It was icy and cold and it was my week on Ava duty. I was running behind because I was too busy bragging about nailing an MIT scholarship. I wasn’t terribly late but I guess Ava got tired of waiting.”

He paused and took a huge breath again. I could tell that the story was bothering him by the way his heartrate had increased and the way he had tightened his arms around me.

“Anyway, she went missing between the school and the house. No one saw anything, There were no leads. Nothing. I spent the last couple of months of my senior year and a few months afterward helping my parents try and find her. It was my fault. Had I been there when I said I was going to things would have been different.”

My hand reached up to run my fingers across his jaw.

“You couldn’t have known, Brock.”

“Maybe. My life felt chaotic afterwards. My parents didn’t blame me and neither did my brothers but it was my fault I wasn’t there.”

“Did you ever find her?” I asked.

“No, not even after I had the resources to look more closely. She’s gone.”

“So, you went into the military afterward?”

“Yeah, self-punishment I guess. I would like to say that I went in to it for more noble reasons. Go America and all that but I went into it hoping that it would erase everything of my past. Redirect my depression. Unfortunately, I joined the wrong branch for that and went into the Airforce. It wasn’t as tough as I had hoped. Not to say it wasn’t tough but it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for.”

I tried to pull away from him enough to look him squarely in the face. “Brock, why would you—”

He tightened his arms and forced my head to his shoulder. “Shh, baby. I’m just telling you because you asked a question and it has a longer explanation than what you were thinking. I obviously didn’t get what I wanted. It was boring for a while. I ended up being recruited for the State Department’s little experiment with mixed military groups for black ops. Which is where I met the guys. Aiden, Logan, Holden and Cade became my family and they gave me something else to focus on. I needed to protect them and still do. No matter who they love or what they do, I would gladly protect each and every one of them.”

I sighed. That explained his obsessive need to keep tabs on them and their wives. The girls and I had judged him a little too harshly but he never seemed to mind the ribbing he got when he was prodded.

“So, I hate to make comparisons Brock, but do you see Liv, Julia and Kate as sisters then?”

“You know, one thing I really like about you, Andi is that you have a sharp mind. I suppose you could read that in there. I would if I were listening to me. Maybe that’s about right, I don’t know. You asked about being tied down?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re one of the very few women I’ve ever done that with and it meant more to me with you than it ever has.”

“Why?”

He hesitated for a moment. “Because you’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted to protect that was for totally selfish purposes. So, I liked being able to get you to trust me with that. I liked being able to get you to put your faith in me that I would make you feel good and not hurt you. I liked having control over something that makes my life feel chaotic.”

I grimaced. Given his story, I was probably driving him insane with my secrets and un-discoverable past. The word “chaotic” probably didn’t describe half of what he was going through. I felt bad for putting him through it but he had chosen to chase me, not the other way around.

I smirked. “And it turned you on?”

He chuckled. “Yes, very much. I plan on doing it again. And again, and again. You?”

“I think I might like it,” I nodded slowly.

He dug his fingers into my ribs and I squealed with laugher. I tried to wiggle out of his arms as he did it again but couldn’t get away from him.

Brock moved me to the side and onto my stomach then covered me with his body. His legs tangled in mine and his lips started kissing the back of my neck.

I let out a small groan when I felt that he had gotten hard again and he was pressing his hips into the backside of one of my legs.

“Speaking of which,” he growled and bit my neck.

His phone rang on the bedside table and he stopped.

“Damnit, they can wait,” he said and resumed his nibbling and sucking on my neck. I arched my back against him.

His phone rang again and was becoming annoying even to me.

“Brock, get your phone, it might be something important.”

It stopped ringing again and he slid a hand under me to my breast. His hands started massaging at my nipple.

His phone rang again. “Fuck, work never ends for me.”

“You should take a vacation,” I murmured.

I felt him lift off me and answer the phone.

“This had better be fucking catastrophic,” he barked.

I rolled over and smirked. He was scowling into the phone but gave me a wink.

His face turned into a look of surprise as he listened to the person on the other end of the line.

“Alright I get it, Owen, I understand. But it does provide a perfect excuse for taking a closer look at everyone,” he paused listening again. “If it’s not either one of them, then we move on to someone else. I hate to ask anything else but I need you to help me with Andi. Bodyguard duty, just in case.”

My ears perked up at the mention of his brother’s name. Bodyguard?

I sat up. “What the hell is going on, Brock?”

“Baby, hold on,” he said and gave me a half smile that didn’t reflect in his eyes.

He turned back to the phone as I got out of bed in search of my clothes.

“No, I didn’t call you baby, you asswipe. Shut up about it.” He paused to listen again. “Why wouldn’t I feel bad about it? I dragged you into this mess and you’ve been undercover for five months.”

“Uhm,” he said and glanced back at me as I took my clothes into the bathroom. I gave him a questioning look.

“Yeah, you could say that. She’s, uh, monitored like the rest of the family. So, you might want to consider that and not hit on her while you’re doing me a favor. I have to call Aiden.”

I closed the door to the bathroom as he continued to talk on the phone.

Monitored like the rest of the family. Strange statement and Owen was on the way. I wondered what had happened that he would need to drag his brother in to act as a bodyguard. Either he was still doubting I would stick around, which was a good question, or he was trying to protect me from something that had happened.

The pull to leave was gradually fading after last night and this morning. He was a capable man and the more time I spent with him the less I felt like I was doing this on my own. The feelings I had after our first time together were still there.

It was hard to wrap my mind around another person’s offer of help. I had been doing this on my own for so long that relying on a man I trusted but barely knew was difficult. He said the right things, he acted like he was sincere.

My hang-up in all of it was an upbringing in a household that also seemed sincere and trustworthy. I took my life at face value back then. Cared for, I thought at the time, by two people I thought I had faith in and deserved my faith. It wasn’t like they had lied to me about Santa Claus and all of the sudden they spilled the truth about that fantastical myth. It was so much bigger than that and it cut to the core.

Sometimes I would hear stories from people that I worked with about finding out that their spouses or boyfriends were cheating. Or the one time I heard that a woman had found out she was adopted after years of thinking her family was her biological one. The mental and emotional pain of any of that varied in levels but it was still a betrayal.

I wondered sometimes if I was being too dramatic about the situation or if I had done the right thing but my intuition had driven me to do something. To take control of my own chaos.

Brock’s story about his sister was similar. Mental and emotional anguish with his life turned upside down. He was now controlling the things around him because of one event that he couldn’t control.

It didn’t explain why he was so flirty with everything that moved but I guess when you looked like him you could be.

Rubbing my arm where Brock pinched me, I looked in the mirror. After sex bed head did not look good on me. My hair was sticking out in so many places I was surprised Brock even looked at me seriously this morning.

Turning my arm toward the mirror I noticed it looked red. It was probably going to bruise. I would have to talk with him about waking me up nicely and not with pinching.

I took a shower and put on what I had worn the previous day. Jeans, sneakers and my t-shirt. I couldn’t pass up the sexy panties and bra set that he’d given me though, so I elected to wear the red set. It still felt great even with just the normal clothes I had on.

After I finished my bathroom thing I walked out and looked for Brock. He wasn’t in the bedroom anymore so I walked down the long hallway.

When I got to the living room I saw Gabriel sitting on the couch.

“Uhm, why are you here?”

“Hey baby girl. How are you this morning?” he asked with a smile on his face.

He was wearing a black t-shirt and jeans with boots. Lounging on the couch, he flipped through the same folder that Brock had given me the night before.

A gun laid on the couch beside him.

“Where’s Brock?” I asked while circling the room away from him.

“Ian is wrapped up in a PR nightmare downstairs. Aiden is on his way to talk to the media.”

My confusion increased. “Ian? And why the fuck are you here?”

He smiled again and stood up to stretch. “Ian Brockton Fleming.”

“Ian Fleming. Wasn’t that the author of the James Bond series? You mean he was named after that author?”

Gabriel laughed. “Yeah, that’s the one. He didn’t tell you?”

I shook my head.

He shrugged. “Figures. He’s been going by Brock for so long he’s probably forgotten his name. He always hated Ian. I’m Owen, nice to officially meet you.”

“But—but he told me you didn’t know anything and that he threatened to kill you. I’m so confused.”

He considered for a moment and took a step toward me. “Well, we didn’t want to break my cover to anyone, including you, until it was absolutely necessary. If you slipped up and said something then it would be a bust. We would have to start all over again and frankly, pretending to be some executive asshole for months was hard enough without starting from scratch.”

I stared at Owen. “He lied to me.”

Owen held up his hands. “He did what he had to do, girly. I can understand why too. There’s a lot at stake if people start stealing things from his company. I know it wasn’t you, it’s just that he’s not used to letting people into his life. He must trust you a lot though because he told you about Ava. He hasn’t talked about that since it happened, that I know of. He told me before he left.”

I just blinked at Owen, not sure what to say. That jackass, lied. Bigtime.

“So, all that time when he was saying he wanted to kick your ass for leering at me he was messing with my head?”

Owen laughed. “Uh, no, probably not. He told me I was a dead man if I didn’t stop looking at you. I can’t help it, you’re gorgeous. Lucky bastard. But if you ever feel like breaking up with him, let me know.”

He winked at me and gave me the same cocky, flashy smile that Brock used on me a few times. It was identical.

I looked up at the ceiling trying to find my inner patience. I was going to strangle Brock. Ian. Whoever the hell he was.

“Hey shithead, are you in here?” I heard a male voice ask from the direction of the front door.

Owen crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah, living room.”

A taller version of Owen walked in wearing a black suit. He had the same dark brown hair and amber eyes but he had a slightly crooked nose that looked like it had gotten broken a few times.

He looked my direction and came to a full stop.

“Holy fuck. Please tell me this isn’t Andi,” he said, while clutching dramatically at his chest.

Owen chuckled. “Andi, this is Noah. Noah, Andi. He’s threatened to throw us off the hotel if we hit on her.”

Noah’s eyes gave me a thorough look before he gave me the same Fleming brother cocky smile. “Hey there. I can see why he’s gone nuts. He was yelling at me on the phone earlier threating to castrate me if anything happened to you.”

I looked between the two men. “Are you twins?”

“Yup,” they both answered at the same time.

Owen smiled. “Welcome to the family.”