“Owen can handle himself,” Robert replied with a confidence that Owen was pretty sure he was about to shake because he couldn’t hide this one. “According to all his records he was good in the field.”
“Yeah, well, he doesn’t remember a damn thing and he didn’t get the training the rest of you had,” Ezra pointed out.
“You mean the training where we were tortured and forced to commit crimes?” Jax’s arms had gone over his chest and his stare was steely.
“The training where a crazy bitch doctor pumped us all full of drugs and then proceeded to force us to try to kill each other? That training?” Dante walked in from the kitchen, a beer in his hand.
Yeah, he hadn’t been forced to survive that. What had happened to him had been brief. She’d only managed to dose him once, though it seemed to have been enough.
Then why have you started to remember things you shouldn’t? Little things like how it feels to stand in a surf with the sun on your face?
He shoved the thought aside because Ezra had his hands up, obviously conceding the point.
“I get it,” Ezra said. “It was hell, but it also trained you all on how to conduct yourselves during an investigation.”
Dante put a hand on Sasha’s shoulder. “Yes, this one learned how to nap so his coworkers must clean up all the trash.”
Sasha shrugged it off. “You’re better at it than I am. And Owen knows exactly how to conduct an investigation into what kind of underwear a woman wears.”
His eyes came up, the only one who realized Owen had walked back in the room, and that made him wonder how observant the resident drunken Russian really was. Sasha always seemed to not care, but then he knew things the others didn’t.
Robert sighed and waved for him to come back into the living room. “Let’s get this started. We’ll be alerted if Dr. Walsh leaves her apartment. We’re safe meeting here, but after today Tucker, Sasha, and Dante have to be extremely careful about when they come into this building. You’re working at Huisman. You can’t be seen here by Walsh. It would be far too much of a coincidence.”
Tucker leaned back in his chair. “I’ve been at Huisman for a couple of days and I haven’t even come close to meeting the big boss.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Ezra pointed out. “I don’t want you to engage her too heavily. Keep your head down. Get us an idea of how the foundation works. I want to know how deep the ties to McDonald went. Hope was getting her money from somewhere after Kronberg let her go.”
Kronberg was a large pharmaceutical company that had been involved in a group known only as The Collective. When Taggart had taken down McDonald, he’d also dealt a mighty blow to that group, though from what he’d read, The Collective had cut ties with McDonald long before that day.
Tucker was staring at Ezra. “Uh, bank robberies? You remember the part where a couple of us are wanted by Interpol for robbing places? I think that’s where she got the money.”
“I do know what she made you do.” Ezra sank down to the couch, crossing one leg over the other and getting comfortable. “But I also know roughly how much was stolen and Phoebe, the forensic accountant Taggart uses, doesn’t think it came close to paying for the high-tech facility in France we found you, Dante, Sasha, and Jax in. Despite the fact that the Huisman family is Dutch, they have heavy ties to France as well. When they moved their base of operations to Canada fifty years ago, they were originally in Montreal.”
“Just because they speak French and the facility happened to be in France doesn’t prove anything,” Robert replied. “And you shouldn’t have sat on that couch. Apparently Buster’s found his new happy place. You’re going to be covered in dog hair.”
Jax sent Ezra an apologetic grin. “Sorry. The boy knows comfort when he sees it.” He looked back at Owen. “Did the two of you talk about work at all? What did you think of her? She’s not as serious as she comes off in the reports, right?”
“She’s funny and smart,” he allowed. And sexy as hell. So fucking sexy. What would it be like to be able to have her in a proper bed, with all the time in the world to explore that gorgeous body of hers?
Jax nodded. “She is. I like her.”
Ezra turned his stare Jax’s way. “You’re not out here to make friends, and if River is going to have trouble separating the mission from her friendships, we need to talk about shipping you both back to Dallas.”
Jax’s jaw had gone tight. “We know what the op is and we know how important it is. Don’t forget I’m the one who sacrificed to get us here.”
Robert moved to Owen’s side as Jax and Ezra argued. His voice was low as he ignored the sniping. “Did you have a good talk with her?”
“Yes.” And a good shag. A nice hearty bang with the tightest pussy he’d ever been in. Well, that he could remember being in. “She’s a smart lady.”
He wanted to see her breasts. He’d felt them and they’d been soft and full against his palms. They’d felt perfect crushed against his chest as he thrust up inside her.
Fuck, he was getting hot just thinking about it. About her.
He didn’t like the fact that Sasha was staring at her on the laptop screen.
“Did she seem like the kind of woman who wants a diverse set of friends?” Robert was asking. “Everything we have on her says she’s had gay friends in her life before. She was particularly close to a man and his husband when she was doing her residency in Boston.”
“I’m sure she’s very open minded.” How open minded would she be? She’d responded beautifully when he’d taken over. She hadn’t minded being the aggressor, but she’d practically melted in his arms when he’d topped her.
How would she like more exotic play? How would she respond when he tied her up and tortured her with his tongue, playing with her pussy and her clitoris and her sweet arse?
He wanted to see that, too. He wanted her naked and laid out on the bed, a feast for his senses.
“You remembered our back story?” Robert asked.
“I remembered it.” How to explain this to him without getting into an immediate fistfight? “She knows I’m a bodyguard.”
Ezra and Jax seemed to have ironed out their differences.
“Excellent. So everything is in place,” Ezra said. “It might actually be better this way. She’ll get to know both of you, but let Robert take the lead.”
Because Robert was the smart one. Robert was the one who hadn’t betrayed the team in another life. Robert hadn’t turned over a couple of Taggarts to the wicked witch. Big Tag liked Robert, precisely why he’d wanted Robert in charge and not Owen.
“I’ll take over from here,” Robert assured him. “Now that she understands we’re a couple, I can go over tomorrow and thank her for helping keep you calm. I’ll tell her I was worried because you can be claustrophobic.”
“Did she keep you calm?” Sasha had a knowing look on his face.
Fucker. “She ain’t going to buy that we’re gay, Robert.”
“Of course she will. Don’t stereotype. We can be manly and gay,” Robert said with a prim quality to his voice.
“Yeah, well, gay blokes don’t usually fuck a lady in the lift.” There. It was better to just shove it right out there.
The whole room went silent and then Sasha laughed.
“I told you,” he doubled over. “I knew it the minute he walked in the door. Pay up.”
Dante shook his head and pulled out his wallet. “Asshole texted me a couple of minutes ago. Last time I take a bet from him without investigating myself.”
Wankers.
“You did what?” Ezra had stood up. He might have been more intimidating had he not been covered in dog hair. The man liked to wear black, and now his all-dark look was covered in white fur.
“It wouldn’t have worked,” Owen started.
“It obviously worked, if we’re talking about your dick,” Robert shot back.
His dick had totally worked. It wanted to work again. “She was attracted to me.”
“A lot of women are attracted to you, asshole.” Robert started pacing like a caged tiger ready to pounce. “Then they actually get to know you and they run the other fucking way.”