Watching You: KJ Elite Inc. (32 page)

“You could always leave her in a barrel of paint thinner, too. But that’s just punishment to whoever finds her and or has to clean her out. The smell is horrendous.”

“So they say?”

“Exactly. Plus, I’m sure you could teach me a few things. What with being all special, elite, black ops and stuff.”

That unfamiliar emotion returned behind his eyes and it made me want to run my hand through his hair and kiss it all away. So I tried.

When my hand slid between his dirty blonde tufts, he leaned his head into my hand and let out the heavy sigh he had been holding in.

“Do you mean it?”

I knew exactly what he meant and right now, yeah, I meant it. Going back to New York meant starting over again. Yeah, I had the apartment and the job and Matt but I wouldn’t have Tommy or my family or familiarity and I had no idea where things stood with Jamie right now. She was another piece to my puzzle and it hurt me so intensely to know that she could have been involved in all of this.

I just let out my own sigh and went to drop my hand when he caught it and held it to his lips.

My eyes closed before the tears spilt out of them.

“Later.” That one word from his lips was so encompassing of all things Taylor related. It was practically my motto because I wasn’t very confrontational and he always saved me from having to be. Confrontation didn’t bother me, I just preferred to avoid it.  One day here soon I was going to have to face up to everything I did and or didn’t do and try to put everything right. I was going to have to get confrontational with my demons and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

So if right now was me being selfish, then so be it but I wanted to cherish whatever it was we still were to each other.

Sometimes, being an adult blew.

“How well do you know Matt?”

The question took me by surprise as we pulled up in front of the house. I turned to look him in the eyes and tried to figure his angle. His question made me wonder if he were reliving his own confrontation with Matt this morning. I’ll bite on this one.

“Almost as well I know you.”

My answer simply made him shake his head. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

“Just what does that mean?” I huffed in annoyance.

Tommy pulled the keys out of the ignition and shifted away from me instead of to face me.

“A lot has happened since you left. I’m not the same gangly, awkward teenager you left behind.”

“Tommy you were never gangly or awkward. I’m pretty sure you were never a teenager either because you went from cute kid to male God. But I digress. A lot of shit may have happened to you, but I know you better than I know myself and the same goes for you about me.”

He shook his head but didn’t argue the point. I climbed out of the truck not waiting for him to open my door and headed out to under the willow. It was like its own world beneath it and I needed an escape.

“Matt is a good man and he has done right by you in the absence of your family, of me, but there are…” he paused, searching for the right words, “dark shadows lurking in his past, ready to strike given the opportunity. I need you safe and careful isn’t exactly your strong suit.”

“Eat me.” Was pretty much all I had, but that wasn’t going to stop me from arguing now.

“Matt
is
a good man and he held me up when I had no one.”

“
You
left, Taylor. No one forced you.”

Talk about a slap in the face. The truth hurt.

“No one asked me to stay, either.”

I could play this game if I had to.

Tommy reached for my hand and in a moment of stupid, I let him. There never was much sense in my body to keep me pulling away from him.

“Safe.” He repeated. There was a vehemence in his voice that meant business.

We locked eyes in a silent battle of the wills which really sucked because my contacts started to dry out about thirty seconds in. Stupid eyes. Tommy opened his mouth to say something when Matt opened the front door and spotted us.

“How goes it?” Matt asked somewhat cheerfully.

There was only one reason for that smile and I had learned it real good the past couple of years.

“Please say you did it at her place.” I griped.

“I’m not stupid enough to bring anyone back here, Taylor.” He kissed my temple and took a step back, checking out the showdown.

I had to blink, I couldn’t take it. My contacts were almost shards of pointy glass on my eyeball.

“What are you two on about?” Noah called.

He had pulled up behind my truck and Candace was with him, climbing out of the SUV.

“Are we having a party I didn’t know about?” Tommy asked in return.

“Not that I know of. And you know I’d know.” Noah said.

“Matt had sex!” I sort of blurted out.

“Jesus Tay, you didn’t need to announce it.” Matt tried his hardest to sound annoyed but he was too high on sex feel goods to really care. I could see him beaming like headlights in my peripheral vision.

“Well good for Matt. What are you doing here?” Tommy said, turning to Noah.

“Ha! I win, you looked away.” I shouted, probably a little too loudly at him.

Noah laughed because he knew damn well what we were just doing. It wasn’t the first and probably would not be the last time. Age didn’t make a difference.

“What, I can’t just come hang out with my baby brother and …Taylor?” He said, grinning like the Cheshire cat.

“No.” Tommy answered. And just like that it was back to the hard ass, no nonsense way he had become in the years apart.

“Stop it, Thomas.” I chided.

He eyed me and looked back to his brother.

“This about the case?”

“Nope, just wanted to hang with my favorite Jameson.”

Tommy made a noise but no one else seemed to think anything of it. We both knew he meant me.

“Can we please get inside now?” Matt suggested, suddenly looking weary, glancing around as Tommy had, frequently, earlier. Taking into consideration how calm, cool and collected he normally was - if that didn’t make my skin crawl, I didn’t know what would.

Noah sauntered over to me and picked me up playfully around the waist and turned to carry me into the house while I giggled like a loon. Tommy was not having it.

“Put her down.” He commanded, standing in Noah’s path.

“Oh, stuff it tight ass.” Noah snorted and made to move around his brother.

“Now.” Tommy enclosed his hand around his brothers’ bicep and gave a little tug.

“Listen block head…” He began, stepping closer to Tommy and in turn, pushing my back up against Tommy’s front. Not that I minded too much physically, but I knew what was going to happen and after 18 years of it, no matter how long the break, I wasn’t exactly excited to jump back into the mix of fighting brothers. Noah had always known how to goad Tommy into a fight where I was concerned.

“Stop!” I shook my head at both of them, because seriously, this was ridiculous. “Alpha Neanderthals the both of yall.” Struggling between two deliciously tight, puffed out chests, I wiggled my way out of Noah’s arms. Each of them were gifted with a punch before I turned on my heel and stomped up to the house. Talking angrily to myself, all the way I felt Tommy on my back.

“Wants to send men to my door like lost puppies looking for a home with no sense of jealousy or regret, but gets pissy when his brother plays around with me. Infuriating. Bastard. Assface. Damn him. Who even does that?” Oh, I know who did it.

As we stormed through the front door, he about slammed the door in a whirl of movement, nearly giving me whiplash as he twirled me around and pushed me up against the door. Matt hollered from the other side but I couldn’t decipher a single syllable of it with Tommy’s knee pushed between my thighs the way that it was. That sweet zing of ecstasy mixed with the rush of endorphins his nearness created hit me like a heat wave.

Chapter 16

Taylor’s breath skittered across Tommy’s cheek, and her body bumped against his involuntarily as Noah and Matt banged on the other side of the front door.
“I don’t have enough time to keep repeating this, so listen close.” He said in his most menacing voice. “Whoever is doing this, wants to hurt you and I am here to protect you. Fucking around with my brother or anyone else, when someone is hunting you, is the quickest way to get you killed. That is mission failure. That is unacceptable.”

Oh, and seeing my brother touch you, makes me want to rip his fucking head off. Always had, always will.

“So, I can only fuck with you?” She responded, half dazed with passion and half infuriated with his gall.

Tommy let out an uneven breath and a grunt. “Damn right.”

He slipped his hand slowly up her waist, over her ribs and to palm her left breast, leaving his right hand just beside her head, caging her in. She sucked in a breath and shook her head lightly trying to clear the lust she was denying.

“They are literally about to break through the door and you’re trying to get some?”

Her eyes were slits.

“I thought you wanted to play?”

The grin on his face, taking up most of the real estate.

“Are you bipolar?”

He just couldn’t help himself; he laughed a hearty belly laugh and stepped back from her.

“Baby, there is no definition for what I am when it comes to you.”

“Well, I’m nauseous from all this up and down. Make up your mind before you start the ride.”

“I’m always up for you, baby. Just say the word.”

She snorted and he just couldn’t help but grin back. This was so easy, what they had.

“I walked myself into that one.”

“I’ve got something you can walk into.”

“Wow.”

“I’ve got these for days, darlin’.”

“It’s amazing how after knowing me my entire life, and having my heart for every one of those years, you still think your brothers hold a candle.”

His only response was to shake his head and rest his forehead to hers.

“Mine.”

She held her hand to his heart and looked straight into his eyes, through to his soul and affirmed, “Ditto.”
“As long as you know it and remember it.”

Tommy reached around her waist and hit the lock, before pulling her safely away from the wide, booming, swing of it. Candace approached from the back entry at almost the exact same second.

“What the fuck is going on in that head of yours?” Mike barked as he walked through the garage door.

Tommy weighed the options between ignoring his overbearing brother and answering him. Before he had the chance to make a decision, Mike hooked his boot up under Tommy’s creeper and pulled him out from under the project car he was tinkering with.

“Noah needs to mind his fuckin’ mitts.”

“That’s what’s up your ass? Seriously?”

“Do you need something? I mean, do you have news or are you just here to pull my dick?”

“You’re putting this mission in jeopardy…”

“Fuck this. What is your fucking problem man?”

“I’m trying to tell you but you’re thinking with the wrong head.” Mike shouted back, jamming two fingers into his skull to make his point.

Tommy stood up and got right in his brother’s face, nose to nose. Spittle flew between the two as they played pong with their insults.

“This isn’t a mission, Mike, it is Taylor. Taylor, who has always been like a sister to you. What is up your dick hole that has you looking like you sucked on an asshole every time she comes up, not to mention when she’s around.”

“You know what.”

He had a sneaking suspicion but had learned it was always better to hear the truth from the horse’s mouth. No confusion that way.

“No, I don’t, clearly. Fill me in, brother.”

Mike’s eyes hollowed out and he shook his head, taking a step back when he looked like he wanted to lunge more than anything.

“Keep your head in the game and dick in your pants. War room in ten.”

He was gone before Tommy had the chance to pull him back in.

This had to end and it had to end time now. He couldn’t fight three forces against Taylor. That wasn’t true though – he would take on a whole fucking continent for her, if he had to.

Walking into the war room, he was greeted by several grunts. Tommy took the chair next to Peyton and looked around, curious. Charlie walked in just a moment after him, glanced up and down the hallway and closed the door, flipping the lock before taking a seat and waving for Mike to get on with it. Tommy did a double take and realized the only people at the table were Mike, Charlie, Peyton, him, Noah and Luke. If something personal had happened, like to their parents or each other, they would have just called.

“Where’s everyone else on Alpha and Bravo teams?”

Mike cleared his throat and spoke with that alpha tone that commanded respect, while keeping his booming voice to a minimum – for what seemed like the first time ever.

“We have a breach. A rat in our house and I don’t know who can be trusted. Only blood in this room until we figure it out.”

Everyone nodded and waited for him continue.

“So far, we have approximately 9 stalking events with gifts and or letters, a handful of emails, texts and hang ups and as far as we know, and suspected presence on our grounds, but no physical attempts.”

“Yet.” Peyton huffed out annoyed.

“Yet.” Mike agreed. “That’s our job – to prevent it from ever getting physical. We had one slip up in our own territory and that is just not acceptable.”

“While we were all fucking downstairs, none the less.” Charlie whisper-shouted.

“Don’t forget Jamie. Taylor’s missing friend.” Tommy added.

“Noted. Luke, we need complete checks run and re-run on all our team members and anyone who has access to the grounds. Run Taylor just to see if there is anything we are missing. A run in with a fan, an ex, anything. We know about Leif so we needn’t spend much more time researching their relationship so much as his presence in this world for the past 7 years. I want to know every time anyone has wiped their nose to their ass.”

A few chuckles, but a general agreement hummed through the room.

“I want Candace in on this. I will vouch for her with the last breathe I take. She has no connection to this, aside from working on our side. You run her jacket first if you have to, but I’m telling you, that girl is squeaky clean.” Tommy mandated.

Mike and Luke nodded and looked around the other brother’s for their input.

“Done.”

“Anything from the Ward, yet?” Charlie asked.

“As a matter of fact, yes.” Luke gave a stiff nod, indicating whatever he had, was not good news. “Leif was released of his own recognizance after an initial ‘interview’, upon agreeing to private outpatient therapy in a rehab facility over in… dun dun dun… New York.”

“There’s no fucking way. I mean, I knew he wouldn’t be serving twenty to life without a possibility of parole, but come on. You gotta be shittin’ me.” Tommy hissed. He was furious with himself for not having had kept tabs on Leif after it all went down.

“I shit you not, brother. Apparently they had deposed a few people who attested to Leif’s very major drug problem that led him to delusions and irrational behavior.” Luke informed them all, shaking his head, hardly believing it himself.

Charlie breathed in deeply through his nose, eyes closed, gripping the table with white knuckles.

You and me both, Charlie.

“So where is he now?” Noah asked.

“I do not take anything shy of absolute fury in telling you, that I have no fucking clue. He literally appears to have dropped off the face of the Earth. His checkout from rehab was
the
last signature he ever signed as Leif Montgomery. There is no paperwork for name a legal name change, no paper trail, no use of credit cards or bank accounts – which have a fuck ton of money in them still, by the way. For all the world knows, he could be dead.”

“If he was dead, his family would have closed all his accounts, transferred the funds out, etc. No, they know where he is.” Noah growled.

It was surprising to see Noah get this passionate, now, after all this time. Not that he didn’t love Taylor and see her as a sister, but he had been fairly cool about this whole shit-tuation up until now. Though, however surprising it was, it was welcome. It meant to Tommy that he was entirely serious about this whole ordeal.

Peyton slammed his fist into the table and turned his chair around facing away from them all. They all waited for him to speak, because they all knew he had something working its way up through all the anger and hatred.

“They’ll never talk to us. Our best bet is to track them individually. Match record for record; bank statements, visits, phone logs, emails, trips, and so on. They’ll lead us to him, but it could take a while even still. We could have an attack on her here, before they do that and by then we’ll have caught him but not without a guarantee that there are no casualties.”

Still facing the wall, he took a deep breath and let his head loll back onto the headrest of his chair. They all understood his pain, being Taylor’s twin, this seemed to hurt him almost as hard as it hit her – and Tommy. That whole, twins share feelings thing or whatever.

“So, we have nothing on the roommate?” Noah asked, shifting the attention off of Peyton.

“I have her using her passport to fly back into the U.S., but oddly enough, she flew to Miami International. I have no idea what that’s about, I’m still looking into.” Luke answered, rubbing his chin in thought.

“It’s a good thing you’re a total genius because that wall of screens is going to be pretty busy this next few hours.”

“Exhausted. But Cherry can handle it.” Luke grinned, beaming with what Tommy would guess was pride.

“Cherry?” Tommy asked, not even wanting to know.

“My baby.”

“Sounds like a stripper.” He laughed.

“Hey, she brings me just as much pleasure.”

“I just – I’m not even gonna acknowledge that. Mental note – never touch Luke’s station.” Tommy shook his head.

“I’m sending your chair out to be deep cleaned, now that I know it’s probably holding about twenty million of your...” Mike laughed and didn’t even finish the sentence.

“Leave Bambi outta this.” Luke said feigning insult.

“Any other business, not having to do with our poor demented and not to mention, depraved, brother?” Noah chuckled.

“Matt is clean and clear.” Luke said definitively nodding on the sly at Tommy. He would get the file later. “As a matter of fact, he is going to prove quite useful to us.”

“Explain.” Tommy sort of asked, raising a brow.

“Well, our new friend was under lock and key from some of those branches of the government that ‘don’t really exist’. There was good reason, too. A few years back there was a program tested; a super soldier deal – think Captain America, minus the whole injecting and lighting him up. That program consisted of four top seed men. The cream of the fucking crop. All were trained, tried and true killing machines, merciless. Quite literally they were thought to be unstoppable. Until…”

“Until what?” Noah piped up, impatiently.

“Calm down, cowboy. I’m getting there.” Luke cleared his throat like this was kindergarten story time and moved on. “Until one soldier lost his ever-loving shit and flipped on his squad. Two men dead, one M.I.A. and the fruitcake. Technically these men did not exist anymore, so their deaths were not grieved, obviously, no one to miss them.”

“And the M.I.A.?” Mike asked this time.

“The M.I.A. was the fruitcakes worst nightmare. As if hiding in the very soil of the earth, he popped up after eight months of hunting and delivered the head, literally, of the fruitcake to the President of the United States with a few choice words as to his totally incompetent, poor excuse for a secret service and why these programs were never a good idea.”

“Please, tell me that B.A.M.F. is on our team now.” Noah nearly drooled, practically bouncing in his chair.

Luke grinned and answered, “Captain America scared the President so deeply that everyone agreed they would leave him be, never to scout him out again and end the program so long as he walked away and never made so much as a peep about it all.”

“A. Holy shit that’s really cool. I feel like I just read a comic. Two. You didn’t answer my question, not really.”

“Why do they even have all of this information in a system? I mean, come on, they know there’s master hackers out there and they don’t all work freelance for the FBI
and
CIA.” Charlie remarked.

“Dude! I’m lookin’ for an answer here!” Noah chided, smacking Charlie’s arm.

“No one officially knows what happened to said Super soldier, but I can tell you, from some digging and consulting with sources,” he paused only to take a deep breath, for effect of course, and finished, “he’s ours.”

“Halle-fucking-lujah.” Noah crowed.

They laughed at their brothers’ childish excitement and stood to disperse.

“Needless to say, this all stays in here and we trust in no one, but one another until we have the all clear.” Mike commanded.

A few grunts meant agreement and they all filed out, leaving Tommy and Luke. Luke pulled a file out from under his stack of crap and handed it to Tommy. “All his kills, orders, training records and anything from his departure to his entrance into Tay’s life.”

“You’ve read it all.” He said, without really asking.

Luke nodded, but added, “He checks out clean and clean. He’s not going to betray Taylor and can do as good a job, if not better than you can, keeping her safe. He might be rusty, but this guy is fucking beast; it’ll come back like riding a bike.”

“I don’t need him to protect her, I just need her to be safe around him. From him.”

Luke nodded again and patted Tommy’s shoulder on his way out.

“Thanks again, Luke.”

He was gone and Tommy was exhausted. This day had too much excitement in it for him, as of late.

* * *

Tommy walked in the door and headed straight for the kitchen where I was hiding from both the stubborn pig-headed men in my life. Matt wouldn’t stop hovering and even though I knew he was just around the corner in the sitting room, I was just glad he wasn’t standing over my shoulder now. My caveman had been gone for almost an hour and no matter how many bathroom breaks or excuses I came up with, Matt was there to apparently hold my hand or make sure another man did not run off with me.

“Smells good, what’s cookin’ good lookin’?” Tommy quipped, smirking as he walked through the kitchen door off the main entry. 

“Tar, would you like some now or slipped into your mouth as you sleep?” I replied with a sour face, so he was sure not to miss my displeased attitude.

Stalker or not, I could be more than five feet from a man.

Apparently no matter how pinched my face was, Tommy was choosing to ignore it all and grabbed me by the hips, lifting me onto the island before I even knew he was behind me.

Now he gets the silent treatment.

“Tar now, if I can kiss you.”

“When you’re sleeping it is. You know Thomas, I don’t particularly appreciate…”

The bastard cut me off when he pulled my legs apart, settled between them and devoured my mouth in one fell swoop. Well, hell. Why did he have to go and taste like mints.

This whore body of mine pushed into his capable hands; I moaned into his mouth, feeling his much engorged, very hard penis pushed to my core.  Then I wiggled just right to grind against it, eliciting a return groan from him.

“Next time, if you want me to take you seriously, you have to add the middle name and come wielding a wooden spoon.” He jested. How dare he be able to form words at a time like this. Taking a second, I mentally shoved his sexiness from my mind (even though it would only go away for a minute, tops), and quit moving against him.