Save Me If You Can (15 page)

Harrison’s shoulder sagged in relief when she gave him a subtle nod. “I do. And I love you too.”

Harrison groaned as she pressed her lips to his, then slipped her tongue into his mouth with an urgency that came out of nowhere. Just the sight of her had him unbelievably hard, and when she reached between them, her hot fingers gripping his rigid erection through his sweats, he just about lost it. He caught her by the hips, dragging her onto his lap to straddle him, testing the limits of that slim-fitting bandage dress.

“Wait,” Savi panted, grabbing his shoulders for leverage as she stood up. “I need… help me with this,” she said, turning her back to him, indicating the zipper of her dress.

Harrison lifted an eyebrow. “Do you have something else to wear?”

With her lip pulled between her teeth, Savi glanced over her shoulder. “Do I…
need
something else to wear?”

She held Harrison’s gaze, and after a moment, he understood her meaning, and his eyes went wide. For the entire five weeks now that they’d been reconnected, they’d danced around the subject of sex between them again.

Savi wasn’t, by any measure, a woman who was shy about asking for what she wanted. Because of the way they’d separated – or rather, the way he’d separated them – Harrison figured it was best to follow her lead. He only wished she’d lead them into the direction of the bed, for something other than long kisses that left both of them horny and frustrated.  But so far, she hadn’t. She seemed to want to take it slow, and he respected that, so he never broached the subject. But this… this seemed like an invitation. And he was
certainly
going to accept it.

His fingers went to the delicate zipper, and he slowly pulled it down, revealing a sliver of warm brown skin inch by inch as he went. When he reached the bottom, she stepped away, turning around to face him as the pristine white fabric fell away from her body into a puddle on the floor.

At first, a little surge of anger rushed through him.
Why the hell would she go for a meeting with Terry King with nothing on under that dress?!
But then, he realized the illusion, that her panties and bra were the same rich dark bronze as her skin. He shifted in his seat on the bed as his eyes traveled up her body. The super-fit, toned body she’d had when they were first together was gone, replaced with lush curves that he’d been dying to get skin to skin with. The sway of her hips held a distinct aura of seduction as she sauntered back up to him.

Harrison smiled at her, reaching up to run a thumb across the delicate lace cup of her bra, then trail a finger over the small gun holstered between her breasts. “This feels like déjà vu,” he murmured, unstrapping the gun, and pulling it out. Savi grinned as she climbed onto his lap, carefully avoiding his injured leg before she slipped the gun from his hand and gripped it, pressing the short barrel into the space between his chin and neck.

“It does, doesn’t it?”

She pulled the gun away, depositing it on the nightstand before she turned back to press her mouth against his. She probed the seam of his lips with her tongue, requesting and receiving entry, then plunged in, mating her tongue against his.

Harrison groaned as she pressed the heat between her thighs against him, subtly rocking her hips. “Savannah,” he murmured, making her gasp as he slipped his fingers under the flimsy layer of her panties to plunge them into her. “You know I’m not with all this teasing and shit… are we doing this?”

“
Yes
,” she said, half moan, half whimper, as he buried his fingers deeper. “
Please
.”

“Then come here.”

Harrison laid back on the bed, and in a swift motion, had Savi on top of him, positioned so that her legs were on either side of his head. He cursed under his breath at the continued presence of her panties, then grabbed both sides of one seam, then the other, ripping them off and tossing them aside.

Savi laughed as he hooked his arms around her thighs, pulling her onto his mouth. Her giggles turned quickly into soft little sounds of pleasure as he devoured her like it had been… exactly as long as it had been. Unfiltered lust ripped through him as he moved his tongue, savoring the slick arousal that covered her lips. Above him, she moaned his name, in a slow, sensually tortured whimper. He closed his mouth over her clit, sucking and nibbling and licking until her thighs clenched tight against his head.

“Damn, you taste just as good as I remember,” he mumbled, then covered her with his mouth again as she shamelessly rocked her hips.

He kept one hand hooked around her leg, but moved the other so he could sink his fingers inside her, moving them in concert with his mouth as he licked, flicked, and pleased. Her body began to shake, and spasm, so he stroked her harder, faster.

“Oh my God. Ooooh, my God,
” she whined, over and over, in labored breaths. He tugged her clit between his teeth and then sucked it, hard as he moved his other hand from around her thigh. He slid it up her body and underneath the cup of her bra to caress and pinch her nipple, tugging and teasing until it was hard. Savi cried out in pleasure as she came, and Harrison kept devouring her, slurping and licking up every ounce of ecstasy her body gave. She tried to move away from the sensation by pitching herself forward, and before Harrison could catch her, that forward momentum sent her right off the bed, crashing onto the floor.

“
Oh, shit!
” he said, ignoring the pain in his leg to get himself off the bed, and down onto the floor with Savi, who was sitting up, but had her head down as her shoulders shook. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

After a moment, she looked up, wiping tears from her eyes. Harrison’s first thought was panic that she was crying, but as she tossed her head back, he realized she wasn’t crying at all. She was
laughing.

“What the hell just happened?” she giggled, turning to look at the bed. “That just took all the fun out of my orgasm.”

Harrison chuckled. “I guess we were too close to the end of the bed.”

Shaking her head, Savi wiped her face, and then moved closer to Harrison, lust and laughter still dancing together in her eyes. She tugged the front of his sweats and boxers down, then straddled his lap. “So how about we just stay down here?”

A low groan worked out of Harrison’s throat as Savi sank down onto him. She let out a rasping moan herself as her body clenched around him, burying him in hotness, and wetness, and…
bliss.
He grabbed her thighs and pulled her down hard, pulling a cry from her. She was so damned tight, and felt so damned good, he…

“
Shit, Agent Briggs
,” he muttered, holding her tight against him, trying to calm himself as his dick throbbed, impatient, ready for more.

With her face buried against his neck, Savi giggled, then raised her head to meet his gaze. “Yeah. Ditto.” She planted her knees in the plush carpeted floor and began to move, anchoring her hands on his shoulders as she rolled her hips against him.

Harrison sat back, his fingers buried in the plump swell of her ass cheeks as she rode him. Up, down, up, down, and…
shit.
He let his head fall back against the bed as she leaned into him, kissing and biting his neck, driving him crazy with her knowledge of exactly the places that took him there. She knew his body like he knew hers, knew just how hard and all the right spots.

He moved his hands up her back, bringing them to bury in her hair so he could pull her mouth to his. He kissed her hard, devouring her lips and tongue with all the pent-up passion of six years apart. Next, he undid her bra, smiling at the fact that she kept riding him as they pulled it off. He eased her backward, separating her body from his so he could dip his head, pulling the rich brown tip of one of her breasts into his mouth.

Her breath began to come in short pants as he suckled her nipples, taking turns between them. Kissing, sucking, licking biting, making her feel it everywhere, until she tossed her head back, and her gyrations lost their rhythm. But Harrison didn’t need rhythm, he just needed to be inside her, getting buried in pleasure over and over as she pulsed around him.

Their kisses were feverish, hungry, as sweat slickened their skin. He was relieved when he felt the frantic way she began to contract around him, the tension in her lips, the tremors in her legs, because that meant he could stop holding back. She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him tight as she came with a gasp, and a few second later, he was growling through his own explosion inside her.

Neither of them moved. Savi kept her arms around him, resting her face against his neck. Harrison moved his arms around her waist, running his thumb along her spine as their hearts stopped racing and pounding in their chests.

“Savi…”

It took a moment, but she finally moved her head, lifting her eyes to meet his gaze. “Yeah?”

“I love you,” he said, reaching up to caress her face. “Whatever happens… I need you to know what. Need you to know that I never stopped.”

She licked her lips, then slowly, she nodded. “I love you too, but… what do you mean,
whatever happens
? What do you think is going to happen to you?”

“Nothing,” he said, though he knew different. “I’m just saying… just in case.”

Savi didn’t look convinced, but she nodded again, resting her head against his chest. If he had to guess, there were probably a million thoughts swimming in her mind. Thoughts that were, by his estimation, better left to him.

But there was nothing he could do about it. Savi was a smart woman, and that intelligence lent itself to a natural curiosity. He’d already said too much, and it was only a matter of time before he was figured out. It was time to formulate a real plan, one that included getting out of this house, and finally completing the task he’d been working toward since he was barely an adult.

Now that that Savi had been deployed against Terry King, he felt like his time was running out. What if her cover wasn’t strong enough? What if King wanted to see her again, and sought her out? What if… there were too many what ifs. It was time to move, now, before Savi or anyone figured it all out. He had no doubt that they’d stop him, plead for real justice, jail time, whatever. But that didn’t work for Harrison. For the retribution he wanted, there would have to be loss of life.

Twelve

Returning the message was never an option.

Still though, Renata would be lying if she said she’d never thought about it.

Most people would, after all, be moved in one way or another by a correspondence from a father they’d desperately wished for, but never known.

The email seemed innocuous enough. From: Old Man. Subject: Reaching Out. Renata shook her head as she looked at the message in her inbox, knowing that if it had come anywhere other than her official FBI inbox, there was a good chance she may never have seen it. And really, she wished she hadn’t.

Terry King was out of his mind.

He had to be, to think that Renata would ever in a billion years be interested in the fact that he was “reaching out”. According to the email, sent about a week after the attempted invasion, and ignored for another week after that, he wanted to “try to be the father he should have been”, and be “present in the life of his grandchild”.

As if.

Certainly
not
, not when the other half of that grandchild’s parentage was Damien Wolfe, King’s sworn enemy. And besides that, Renata was well past the point of “needing” a father, especially the likes of Terry King. So no, she pretended that she hadn’t seen it, and tried – in vain – to forget it existed. She had no idea what King’s end game was, but she had no interest in being a part of it. And she would kill his ass first before he laid a hand on Taylor.

There had been a point, before the break they’d caught with TJ, where she’d considered telling the team about it. They needed an “in” with King, and honestly, she had it, but to what end? Potentially putting her child’s life in danger? Not an option. Not to Ren.

So she kept her mouth shut. She didn’t even tell Quentin, even though the secret was burning a hole in her mind. The
one
person she mentioned it to was Harrison, from whom she’d expected the most benign reaction. Instead, he’d blown up. Not
quite
as badly, but similar to the way he’d gotten so upset with Savannah over her mission with King. Apparently, King was a sore spot for Harrison, but
why
? Was it really just because his boss hated him, or about getting shot?

Renata put her phone down and fired up her computer, navigating to the folders that held Harrison’s files. There hadn’t been a ton of information available on him in the first place, so it wouldn’t take her long to do another quick scan of his past.

When the documents began to open up on her screen, Renata snickered at a picture of Harrison as a small child. She moved the picture to the side to dig through information. School records, disciplinary actions, when he’d gotten his vaccines, down to the hospital records from his birth. Born in winter, seven pounds, four ounces, to an Yvette Cole.

Yvette Cole.

Yvette…

Why did that sound so familiar?

She’d died when Harrison was only twenty years old according to the files, of an aggressive form of breast cancer. He’d taken his mother’s death hard, and channeled the grief into over-achieving. Hyper-focus in school to finish early, police academy, a crazy-fast rise to detective, and then recruitment into the DEA. At some point he’d started working for Wolfe as part of his undercover assignment, and somewhere along the way those lines had gotten blurred, because Harrison Cole was no longer an active agent. He stayed on to work for Wolfe, but
why
? And what was his real problem with Terry King?

“Mama?”

Renata nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of Taylor’s voice right behind her. She turned to see her daughter standing in the doorway, chewing at the inside of her lip.

“… yes?”

She didn’t mean to sound so… scared. As if she were actually
afraid
of her own child, but the last five or six weeks since Taylor had returned hadn’t exactly borne any resemblance to “kumbaya”. That Taylor was willingly speaking to her was a surprise in itself, even after the conversation she’d overheard between the teenager and Quentin. She’d been marginally less hostile, but still… not quite the Taylor she remembered.

“I… can we talk?”

Renata’s heart leapt up into her throat, and she had to take a hard swallow before she could offer the girl a nod. She turned her chair around, and beckoned for the girl to come in, and close the door behind her. “Of course, sweetheart. You can
always
talk to me.”

Taylor took a seat on the bed, tucking her hands between her knees. “Um… I guess… I guess I wanted to ask you, out right if… Did my father
really
…? Did he… what those files said he did to you, when you were a teenager. Is that true. He did that to you?”

Holy shit.

Renata swallowed hard again, then reminded herself that Taylor was fourteen, not four. As much as this was a conversation she would have rather never had… it was happening anyway.

“Taylor… I know you think the world of your father, but you and your sister are the only ones who consider him to be anything close to a good man. Please trust that I really,
really
hate to say these words to you, but… yes. He did. I’m sorry.”

Taylor’s head shot up. “Why are
you
sorry? He should be sorry! He…
I’m
sorry.” The girl shook her head, then dropped her gaze. “I said all of that mean stuff to you, because I…”

“Because you wanted to believe your father was a good person. And I mean… believing that someone is lying is a lot easier than accepting that real people, even people who are nice to you, can sometimes do monstrous things.”

When Taylor looked up again, her eyes were glossy with tears, and Renata wanted so badly to snatch her daughter into her arms, but she stayed put. “I… found archives, of some of your conversations with Quentin. Your mom kicked you out when she found out you were pregnant with me?”

Renata lifted an eyebrow. “Archives of… how in the world…?” Taylor shrugged, and Renata shook her head. “We’ll talk about your
hacking
another time. But… yes, she did. And Quentin helped me a lot, so that I would be able to keep you, and take care of you.”

“Why?”

Renata frowned. “Why… what?”

“Did you want to keep me? I mean… it wasn’t like you wanted a baby, or like you guys were in love, so… why?”

Renata raised her shoulders as she opened her mouth, then let them droop again as she pulled it back closed. She took a deep breath, and then met Taylor’s eyes. “I… I don’t really know. I definitely had… other options, but for some reason, the only thing that felt right for
me
was bringing you into the world, and making sure you were well taken care of, and loved. I don’t honestly have a quantifiable answer for
why
, Taylor. But I do know that I’ve absolutely never regretted it.”

“Even these last few months?”

Renata laughed. “Yes. Even these last few months. Even when you’re being an insufferable brat, you’re still mine. I’ll still do anything for you, little girl. Everything I’ve done, pretty much every decision I’ve made since you were born… I had your best interests in mind, sweetheart. I hope that someday you’ll understand that.”

Taylor nodded, then dropped her head again, picking at the chipped, bright blue polish on her nails. “It’s just… he was
so
nice to me. And Kennedy… she’s known him her whole life, and never saw any of what everybody is claiming he did. She’s been really upset. I tried to tell her it was true… to show her what I found on the computer, but she swears we can’t trust anybody here. Not even you. Nobody but Harrison.”

“She’s really close to Harrison, right?”

“Yeah.” Taylor looked up, smiling. “He’s cool, you know. Taylor calls him her uncle, but he’s really not… right?”

“I don’t believe so, but…” Renata let out a sigh. “All of this mess is so dysfunctional and twisted that I really can’t say. Has Kennedy talked to Harrison at all?”

Taylor shook her head. “Not since we first got here. She got really upset because he wouldn’t really answer any questions, or tell us anything.”

“But he knows your father better than any of us. Was closer to him than anyone else has gotten.”

“We know,” Taylor shrugged. “That’s why we went to him, but he said he didn’t want us asking about it. He didn’t want to “give us things to get questioned about”.”

Renata lifted an eyebrow. It made sense, she supposed, that he didn’t want to add further confusion for the girls. Still… though it seemed that Taylor was coming back around to common sense’s side, having Harrison confirm a few carefully worded questions would help remove any lingering doubts in their minds.

“Come on,” she said, standing up. “I bet with me there, we’ll be able to get a few things answered.” She closed the top of her laptop and headed for the door, stopping when she realized Taylor wasn’t following. The teenager had stood up, but she remained rooted to the spot, fidgeting with the braids that had fallen over the front of her shoulder.

“Taylor?” Renata moved closer to her daughter, her eyes narrowed in concern. “What is it? Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Taylor replied, nodding as she looked up to meet Renata’s eyes. “It’s just… I… I’m sorry.” A hard lump of emotion swelled in Renata’s throat as the teenager flung herself against her, wrapping her arms tight around Renata’s waist. She choked back a sob of her own as Taylor cried against her chest, and her hands shook with relief as she raised them to the girl’s head, soothingly stroking the length of the braids as she cried. “I… hope… you… don’t… hate… me,” she managed to speak between sobs, and Renata shook her head as she lifted Taylor’s chin to face her.

“I could
never
hate you, sweetheart. Okay?”

Sniffling, Taylor nodded.

“I love you.”

“I love you too mama.”

Renata squeezed her eyes shut, trying and failing to hold back tears as Taylor buried her face in her neck again. She blew out a relieved breath, one she hadn’t realized she was holding, and hugged her daughter tight. After several more long minutes, she pulled away, wiping Taylor’s face and then smoothing her braids behind her back.

“Okay, let’s go find Kennedy, right? If she’s feeling upset, we need to see if we can try to help make that a little better.”

Taylor nodded, and Renata took her by the hand, leading her to the room Taylor and Kennedy shared.

Ren
really
couldn’t blame Kennedy for being disturbed by all the new developments. The girl was only sixteen, finding out all kinds of ugly, traumatic things about a man she’d only ever known love from as a father, and not even being able to seek comfort with her mother. Anger, fear, and confusion were probably all at the forefront of the teenager’s mind, and unfortunately, they’d all been too busy with trying to find Damien Wolfe and Terry King to focus on giving the girls the structure and counseling they desperately needed.

She’d have to run it by the rest of the team first, to figure out the logistics, but Renata resolved to call Dr. Layla Alexander, the woman who’d helped her a few months ago, to see about speaking with the girls. It would probably do them good to talk to someone who was qualified to help direct their emotions. And, once they got past this, a tutor to make up for them missing school.

Kennedy wasn’t in the bedroom, kitchen, or in the massive TV room Kendall referred to as his man cave, which they’d adapted as a sort of recreation area. She only had an hour before the team was due to sit down for another meeting, to regroup and figure out the logistics now that Terry King was, once again, in the wind.

The trip to Dubai wasn’t for another few days, but the mission at the house had been a bust. King hadn’t been back there, there were no signs of Wolfe, and the men Barnes had assigned to watch the house had lost Noelle on a trip to the city. Even
she
hadn’t been back to the house since then. It was imperative now, figuring out how to move forward within these next days, because the chances of seeing him formally prosecuted and brought to justice were
over
if he made it to Dubai.

With that in mind, Renata and Taylor gave up the search for Kennedy, and resumed the goal of seeking out Harrison. When they got to his room, they knocked, but didn’t get an answer, so Renata quietly unlocked the door and eased it open. Her eyes went wide when she didn’t see him on the couch or bed.

The TV was on, so she stepped inside, and went to the bathroom door. The light was on, so she knocked, but didn’t get an answer there either. Shielding her eyes, she opened the door and took a quick peek. Her heart dropped to the floor at the sight of the empty bathroom.

What.

The.

Hell?!

She darted out of the bathroom to look around the room, checking the window to make sure it was still sealed shut, under the bed, everywhere.

“Where is he, Taylor?!” she asked her wide-eyed teenager, who was still standing at the door, looking confused. “Do you know anything about this?”

Taylor frantically shook her head, and she seemed so scared that Renata didn’t doubt that answer. She smacked her forehead, dropping her gaze to the floor as she searched her mind.