“Uhm, actually, she won’t be able to take her phone.” I swivel around to face Abbot as Mason’s attention is pulled back to him. “Too easy to trace. We can get her a burner.”
Mason pulls my back against his front like I’m a child that needs to be protected, his arm across my front, on my shoulders. “If anything happens to her while she’s in your custody, I have the resources to make you disappear. No one will find the fucking body.”
Agent Abbot smiles. “That sounds like a threat, Mr.Harlow.”
“Because it fucking is.”
Standing between the two mountains of testosterone, I can feel the static crackling in the air. I’m surprised my hair doesn’t start floating on the raw power swirling around me. Mason’s chest is bumping into my head as he leans closer, so I turn and grab his arms.
“Mason.” The formidable anger in his eyes startles me for a second, but I tighten my fingers around his biceps. It takes two full breaths for him to look down at me. “I’ll be okay.”
Grabbing my elbows, he pulls me away to the other side of the room and leans down toward me. “I have spare burner phones Callum makes us keep, I’ll send a number to the agent, and you can call me as soon as you get yours. I don’t care how you do it, I want you to call me every fucking day. Do you hear me? It’s not a suggestion, Kinley, it’s a fucking order. If I don’t hear from you, I’m calling Callum and we’ll be knocking down fucking doors.”
Callum is the boss of his off-the-books black ops team. There are seven of them on the team, including Jax and Mason.
Even though my heart is about to beat out of my chest, and I want to cling to him and tell him I want to stay, I smile and give him a salute with shitty form just to piss him off.
I assumed Agent Abbot would take me to a hotel, but I’m surprised when we park in front of a small house about twenty minutes south of Tulsa. It’s a Craftsman-style house with a large porch and flower bushes lining the front.
There’s even a porch swing lazily swaying in the breeze.
Stepping out of the SUV in the driveway, I shade my eyes with my hand as I move to the front fender. Without looking at him, I say, “I figured I’d get a seedy hotel on the FBI’s dime.”
He takes my suitcase from my hand, his fingers sliding across mine, sending a wave of warmth through my hand and up my arm. “Well, since I have to stay with you, I wantedsomething a little more comfortable.”
I watch his back as he walks up to the porch, pulling keys from his pocket. He’s wearing the clothes he had on yesterday. After I woke him up in the middle of the night, he changed out of his sweats and t-shirt into the clothes he left folded on the chair last night.
Then, he spent the morning arguing with my family. Dad wasnothappy.
The morning sun is shining on him, highlighting every dip and curve of muscle. He definitely has a back workout routine, and a butt routine… and a thigh routine.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I glance around. The houses are far apart, the front yards separated by four-foot white pickets. The tall tree growing in front of the house shades the yard and hangs over the sidewalk that leads to the porch. It’s all very quaint.
I’m surprised the FBI has a safe house that’s so nice.
“You coming?” He asks from the porch, pulling my eyes back to him.
The front door is open, and he’s standing at the threshold, his bag slung over one shoulder and my suitcase in one hand. I’m not sure why I’ve just realized this, but I’m practically going to be living with a man I don’t know.
My eyes lock on his from my spot in front of his SUV, my mind questioning the decision to leave my home with him. How can he protect me better than my brothers? This doesn’t feel safer than being in Mason and Gray’s shadows.
Taking a deep, frustrated breath, he puts my suitcase and his bag on the porch and walks back to me. He stops just feet in front of me and slides his hands in his pockets. His pants and his shirt are wrinkled, and his hair looks like he’s been running his hands through it.
Our eyes are locked in a battle of wills for several moments before he holds his hand out and says, “I want toshow you something.” He tips his head toward the side of the house.
Looking in the direction he just indicated, I look for a reason to say no, but it’s just a side yard with more flowering bushes and another tree shading the cobblestone walkway to an arched gateway through a tall privacy fence.
There is no danger, nothing to give me pause. Just beauty and serenity.
Sliding my eyes back in his direction, his hand is still hanging in midair, waiting for me to take it. Peeking out from under his shirt sleeve that’s rolled part-way up his forearm are scratches over his tattoos from when he grabbed me in the hall last night. A bit of guilt pinches my chest. “What’s behind the fence?”
In the sunlight, his dark eyes look like melted dark chocolate. Kindness looks back at me as he tips one side of his lips up and cocks a brow. “A backyard.” He leans toward me, his head almost touching mine. “No fire-breathing dragons, I promise.”
Dropping my eyes to his hand, I keep my arms crossed and flick my eyes back up to his as I lead with my shoulder and walk around him toward the stone pathway. I hear a huff of derision and a deep chuckle behind me as I walk toward the gate. His footfalls are close behind me.
When I stop to let him go through the gate first, he stops behind me and points at the corner of the house over the gate.
There’s a small camera mounted under the wide eaves of the house, pointed right at us. “Smile and wave.” He says from right behind me.
