Chapter Twenty-One

Finally freed from her gilded prison, Ashe was allowed by J8 to charter a flight to Chicago. A detailed security accompanied her to the safehouse. They threw a hood over her head and ushered her straight from the SUV into a building that resembled a bank. Once they were safely inside, they removed the dark cloth to reveal Walker Knight’s smiling face.

“Whoa, your hair,” he said.

“Do you like it?” After Walker had left her that morning, she’d had a ridiculous amount of time and energy on her hands. She’d decided to color her hair deep burgundy and had blown it out. The big barrel curling iron had given it bounce.

He reached out, touched one of her springy curls and tugged. “We are officially in wet dream territory,” he told her.

“Déjà vu?” Ashe asked.

He put his hands under her arms to pull her up to his lips. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure we’ve had this conversation before.”

Ashe wrapped her legs around his waist and kissed him, deep and hard. She never wanted this weightless feeling to stop.

“Mmmhh,” he groaned.

She leaned her forehead against his. “When did you get here?”

“Maybe a few minutes before you.” Walker sucked her lower lip into his mouth. “Barely any time at all,” he muttered.

As he grabbed a good chunk of her ass, a warm fire burned between her legs. Ashe reached up to cup his face, but a hard thud to her left pulled her attention.

“We can see you.” J8’s team stood outside the floor-to-ceiling window on the patio. Lola made a sweeping gesture with her hand. “It’s glass.”

“Shit,” he whispered in her ear with a chuckle. “Don’t move.”

“What?” she asked innocently. “You mean like this?” She tightened her legs around his waist and rubbed her crotch against his.

“Arghhh! Dammit, Ashe, just give me a second.”

They joined everyone outside. It took a minute or two, but Walker managed to get his cock under control fairly quickly.

Enclosed within an aqua-glass atrium, J8 had set up their hub in the most scenic spot in the safehouse. While Walker kept a healthy distance between him and Eden, Ashe took the only available seat next to the head spy.

“Glad you two could join us,” Lola muttered. “Meet the team. We have my nephew, Aims. He’s tech.” The wiry kid with black hair and wide-frame glasses shot them a two-finger salute. “Lemy here is research and geography.” The curly-haired fairy who appeared no older than a teen waved with a smile. “Vann is weapons, and well…then there’s you two.” She flicked her hand in their direction dismissively. “We have a couple of days until the summit. A few more agents will be joining us, so quit slobbering all over each other and settle in.”

“What about me?” A big man walked onto the patio.

“What the hell, Tank?” Walker stepped over to him and slapped his hand with a half hug.

“Since you don’t trust us, we decided to bring in someone you did,” Eden said, without bothering to look away from her laptop.

“You’re not mad, are you?” Ashe whispered, hoping to cut some of the tension.

“I’m not not mad,” Eden replied dryly. “The kids are in camp and Marta is on vacation. We have less than a week to knock this out.”

Ashe could feel the silent wave of Eden’s hostility pointed in her direction. She opened her eyes wide at Walker and nodded her head in the spy’s direction.

No, he mouthed from across the patio.

Shocked that her feminine power of persuasion held no sway with him, Ashe hunkered down and pouted, for real this time.

“Is this everyone?” Shielding his face from the sun, Vann stepped out of the safehouse with a can of beer. The Viking walked over to Walker’s wife and kissed her forehead. “Long time no see, stranger.” Ashe reached over to fist-bump the sweetest man on earth.

“For now,” Lola said. “Walker has news.”

Surprised, Ashe raised her eyebrow.

“Yeah,” he responded. “I went with Vann this afternoon and found the priest who hired the agency.”

Eden glanced up from her computer for the first time. “I couldn’t get clearance to that info. We never knew who paid for Ashe’s rescue.”

“Right. Well, you didn’t have Tank in your tool chest until, like, what, yesterday?” he replied. Ashe rolled her eyes at his smug tone.

“This morning,” Tank answered. “I got to say that you guys like to cut it awfully close.”

“Spies aren’t exactly planners,” Walker said.

As Lola gave him the middle finger, Tank stepped in front of Eden. “Do you mind?”

She shook her head and slid her laptop to him.

“Walker’s field trip allowed me to narrow down a couple of things.” After Tank typed on the keyboard, he attached a device that permitted pictures and video to play across the floor-to-ceiling window.

“Corporations hired militia to smoke out the villagers.”

Ashe sat up to study the makeshift screen. She didn’t recognize any of the companies.

“Displacing people allowed the corporations to pay them pennies for labor. Here are the three major ones at the time of Ashe’s kidnapping—a tire manufacturer, exotic gems and this one’s my favorite, water filtration.”

“Holy shit,” Ashe muttered. How the hell did we miss that?

 

* * * *

 

Soft hues of red and beige decorated their spacious suite. Ashe sat at the Queen Anne desk, resting her head on top of her knee. She studied the three companies Tank had handed them.

“Filters and purifiers were some of many products made by the Zonnegroep. The umbrella company that contracted the irrigation system was called Sun Labs,” Walker shouted over the water in the shower. “That’s why it didn’t stick out to J8.”

Digging into the company’s history, she’d uncovered a Dutch corporation with American ties.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Walker asked.

She peeked over her shoulder. The sexy man was naked from the waist up. Immersed in her thoughts, she hadn’t heard Walker turn the water off. “Not especially.”

“Got to admit, I’m loving the superhero attorney look…” he noted.

Boy shorts and a ratty tank that barely covered her stomach screamed college bum. Nevertheless, Walker’s towel tent told a different story.

“This does it for you?” She set her foot on the floor and swiveled the chair around. Teasing him, Ashe pulled her tank down, tightening the fabric across her breasts.

Walker approached her. She didn’t want to stop her research, but a distraction of the sexy-husband variety didn’t hurt.

“Everything about you does it for me.” He flipped off his towel, forcing Ashe’s eyes to take in his hard cock. “From your brains to your beauty, there’s nothing I don’t love.”

As she reached out to take him in hand, a dreamy expression graced his handsome face. While she grabbed his stiff rod, she kept her eyes on him. “Continue.” Enjoying the power she had over him, Ashe flicked her tongue over his tip.

“My dick gets hard every time I lay eyes on you,” he said in a husky whisper. “When I’m not touching you, I want to be touching you. And the way you smell… Oh—”

Ashe took another slow, sweet taste of him.

“Shit,” he hissed.

Incredibly turned on, she shifted in her seat, adjusting the crotch of her wet underwear. “Continue.”

“The minute I saw you in that coffee shop, I knew that somehow I would have you beneath me…”

Ashe dragged her tongue across the bottom of his member.

“On top of me, and in front of me, naked. That’s why I couldn’t give you to J8—” Deciding she’d heard enough, Ashe took his cock into her mouth and sucked.

“Oh fuck!”