Chapter Thirty – Kris

 

“Are you nervous?” Hunter asked.

“Why would I be nervous?”

“Well, you’re about to enter hostile territory. People will be asking questions. Aren’t you worried they’ll see through us?”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, come on, Hunter, we’re just pretending to be in a relationship in a shitty dive bar. We’re not actually going into enemy territory here.”

We were standing right outside the Landing, a little bar down the way from the office. Most of the guys preferred to come down here if they were doing an after-work drink, and when they’d suggested it, I’d been fine with it. After all, this was as much about their getting a chance to send me off, as it was about my celebrating my so-called “retirement.”

Now, as far as the pretending to be in a relationship with Hunter part, I’d certainly had more difficult missions in the course of my career. Wading down a sewage-filled river was certainly up there.

Now, if this had been a year ago, or even a few months ago, it might have ranked up there with my river float. But now?

“Come on,” I said, reaching for the front door handle as I grinned up at him. “We’ll go drink some beer, do a couple shots, and then we’ll get out of here.”

“Drinking before we meet our contact?” he asked as we stepped inside the bar. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Not drinking when four shifters expressly tell you to might be more dangerous, to be honest.”

“Point.”

We made our way into the slow bar. It was early afternoon on a weekday, and the crowd hadn’t had a real chance to build up yet. The FMS crew, complete with Tabitha looking like death warmed over, had already staked out a section of tables in the back like the territorial creatures they all were. With how aggressive some of them could be, I was surprised Fitzgerald hadn’t tried to mark the tables, and Carter wasn’t scratching his initials in the chairs.

“And the two lovebirds are here!” Luke called, pulling out two chairs side by side for us. Cheap beers and shots of brown liquor were already lined up for us, and Hunter pulled out my chair a little farther for me as I went to take a seat. Our thighs pressed together as we crowded into the minimal space, and it was all I could do to keep the pressure of his leg against mine out of my thoughts.

The liquor poured hot and fast down my throat, and the beer was cooling as it chased right after. Even Hunter’s hand on my back and shoulder felt right as we all laughed and talked about our time at FMS.

The next couple hours passed in a flash of more beer and more liquor as we all told old war stories, sanitized as much as possible in case anyone overheard us. Stories of how we’d all met. Of the colonel, and the shifters wondering where he was.

On that last point, Hunter and I stayed as mum as possible.

Tabitha was up and gone soon after, with the guys grabbing her tab between them. As she got up to leave, she came over and put her arm around my neck, bending down close. “Got a minute?” she asked.

“Uh, sure,” I said as I tried to awkwardly hug her back. “Outside?”

“Hopefully we can hear ourselves out there.”

We made our way out of the bar, which was rapidly filling with happy hour-indulging patrons, and onto the city street. As soon as we were outside, Tabitha spun on me.

“You and Hunter, huh?” she asked, grinning.

“What?” I asked, brow furrowed. I jerked a thumb back over my shoulder. “That? That’s all for show. It’s just for the guys.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, stifling a yawn. “Sure it is.”

I laughed, shaking my head. “No, really, it is. I mean, sure, yeah, he’s cute and all. And, you know, a dragon. But, I mean, we’re still completely different.”

“Yeah?” she asked, taking a step towards me. “I heard you two outside his door earlier today, after Imogen Smith left.” She pointed a finger at me as she grinned. “You like him.”

I crossed my arms, shook my head, and laughed nervously. “No. It’s not like—”

“You really like him. It’s all over your face.”

“I told you, Tabitha, this is all just for show.”

“Well, then you’re gonna win a fucking Oscar,” she said, a near leer forming on her lips. “Because it’s the best acting job I’ve ever seen.”

I screwed up my lips to the side, rolling my eyes. “Tabitha—”

“Kris,” she said, putting her hands on my shoulders and looking me right in the eye, “it’s fine. You can like a guy, even if he’s got a weird past. You said so yourself, he never really hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. He’s. A. Good. Guy.”

I batted her hands off my shoulders. “No, it’s not that. He’s a guy I work with, Tabitha. And, you know, he’s—”

“Handsome? Smart? Funny?”

I frowned. “A wanted man?”

“So are you, depending on which country we’re talking about. You’re about to violate international law, for fuck’s sake.” She sighed. “Kris, just admit it to yourself, okay?”

“Admit what?”

She shrugged. “You care about him.”

I sighed, shook my head. “It’s just not like that.”

“Whatever,” she said, rolling her eyes now. She pulled out her phone and checked the screen. “All right, I gotta go. My car’s right around the corner.”

“Not driving?”

“Kris, I’ve been awake for over twenty-four hours and had a shot of whiskey. I’m lucky I’m not asleep on Carter’s shoulder in there.”

I laughed. “Okay. Yeah, you’re probably right. Better safe than sorry.”

“One for old time’s sake?” she asked, holding her arms open for me.

“Of course.”

We hugged, held each other close for a moment.

“I’m going to miss you,” I said.

“I’m going to miss you, too,” she replied as she pulled back. “Now, go back inside and enjoy your time with your fake, but not fake, boyfriend.”

I groaned as she turned away and headed down the street.

“He’s not really my boyfriend!” I called as she stopped for a car that had just pulled up and put on its hazard lights.

“Sure! Keep telling yourself that!” She was in the car seconds later, leaving me there to grumble to myself.

“Having a tiff with Tabitha?” Hunter asked from behind me.

“What?” I asked as I turned around, my free hand going to brush a strand of hair back from my face and behind my ear. I shook my head, saying, “No. Just, you know, saying our goodbyes.”

“Yes. That’s exactly what it seemed like.”

I cleared my throat as I looked up and down the street. It wasn’t quite evening yet, but the sun was already occluded by the surrounding buildings. “The guys in there still lively?”

He nodded gravely. “Unfortunately.”

“Think we should close our tab and get going? I’ve been drinking water, but I honestly don’t know how much more I can handle.”

“Oh, believe me, I’m in the same boat as you. Two more drinks, I think, and I’ll have to ask our waitress for a pillow and a blanket so I can curl up beneath our table.”

Smiling, I looked up at him. “Hey,” I said, a thought suddenly pushing its way to the forefront of my mind. “I have a question.”

“Yes?”

Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was Tabitha’s prodding, but something made me bold enough to think back to our play-acting in the lobby several hours earlier in front of the guys. “About earlier, when we were talking about Hawaii.”

He raised an eyebrow, nodded. “I remember.”

I took a step towards him. “You told me I was beautiful.”

He smiled a little bit, and took a step closer to me. “I believe I actually said you were more than enough to remind me of the beauty of nature.”

I cleared my throat, looking down at the sidewalk. “Did you, um…did you mean that?”

“That I think you’re attractive?”

“No, that you think I’m beautiful?”

He licked his lips a little, looking off to the side at the passing traffic. At the legions of workers trying to make their way home through the heat of the day, all enclosed within their individual steel cages mounted on wheels.

“Well?”

He turned back to me, that little smile, which drove me wild, still on his lips. He nodded as he stepped closer. A hand snaked out, encircling my waist as he pulled me closer. “What do you think?”

I tilted my head back, turning my face up towards his as our bodies seemed to melt together. We gazed deep into each other’s eyes as one of his hands came up, brushing a lock of my auburn hair back from my cheek. The tips of his fingers traced a fire hotter than even my true breath down my cheek, and I closed my eyes a little as I leaned into them.

“Well?” he asked, his lips inches from mine.

“I think you’ve got a silver tongue,” I said, smiling a little, before opening my eyes to only slits. “But sometimes you actually tell the truth.”

I glanced down to his lips, and I wondered briefly what they would feel like on my own. Would they be soft? Or firm and insistent? I bit my lower lip before smiling a little more widely, realizing that all that mattered was his arm around my waist, and my arms encircling his body, and the feel of his muscular frame holding mine.

Because this was right. This actually felt right.

His lips lowered to mine as I raised myself on my tiptoes to meet him halfway.

Like I said, maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was Tabitha just moments before. Or maybe it was something else. But this felt…good. For the first time in decades, this felt good, to be held like this by a handsome man on a city street. To let myself feel something, anything, for once.

“You two get out of here,” one of the guys, Carter from the sound of it, called from the bar’s entrance.

Red rising to my cheeks, my hands came up to Hunter’s chest, gently pushing him away.

A look of hurt passed Hunter’s face as the moment ended and we separated, but he accepted his fate just fine. Brushing my hair back behind my ear, I looked away from him as I went walking up to the shifters gathered at the front entrance of the Landing.

“We got y’all’s tab,” Carter called again as I made my approach.

“Yeah, use the money we saved you to get a room or something,” Oldham said.

Hugs all around from my men as Hunter shook hands with each. Kisses on the cheeks.

“Go on,” Ryder said, squeezing me tightly. “You’re free, now.”

We broke apart, and I couldn’t help but grin up at all the guys towering over me, despite the conflicting feelings over Hunter welling up in my gut. It didn’t matter that they weren’t dragons. And it didn’t matter that Ryder was about as wrong as anyone could get.

They were still family.

Together, Hunter and I walked back to his car, our hands stuffed into our pockets.

“Sorry,” I said to him over the top of the car as I stood at the passenger side, “guess I got a little too into our cover. Won’t happen again.”

“Yeah,” Hunter, about to climb in through the driver’s side, grunted. “Suppose it was the same for me, too.”