He repeated the sentiment, and her heart believed him, but he’d broken the law. He wasn’t supposed to be home.
“Come on, Rowdy.” He returned his attention to the NCIS agent.
“I owe you, I know. But I can’t break the law.”
“Not break, bend. I can’t leave her unprotected. I
won’t
.” Violence hummed through the air like a promise. “If you can’t…walk away. Walk away and forget you found me.”
“Right, because no other NCIS agent is going to check your girlfriend’s place first to find you. The only reason it’s me here instead of someone else is because a friend of a friend recognized your name and called before they put a BOLO out.” Despite his words, Rowdy Easton didn’t appear particularly happy about the subject. “I can’t pretend I don’t know where you are.”
The muscles along Brody’s arms went taut, and his shoulders tightened. He would attack his friend to stay with her.
No
.
“Agent Easton.” Shannon drew the man’s attention to her. “I don’t pretend to understand what a decision this has to be for you. But Brody isn’t wrong. Whoever this man is, he broke in here while I was gone for the last two days after the kidnapping and while the police were still treating it like a crime scene.” She pointed to the rubble she and Brody had cleaned up. “He destroyed my work. The military-oriented pieces and only those.”
Rowdy studied the worktables and then her, and finally Brody. “Fuck.” The handcuffs disappeared back into his pocket, and he pulled out his cell phone. Dialing a number, he put it to his ear, and Shannon’s heart punched at her ribs. “Kim, it’s Rowdy…. Yeah, thanks for the heads-up on Essex. I’ve got a lead, and I’m going to chase it down. How long before you have to make that BOLO live?”
All the tension seeped out of Brody, and he blew out a breath. The men locked eyes, another one of those wordless pulses of conversation passing between them.
“Got it. Yeah, I know I’m asking a lot. But the stupid bastard took a bullet for me and pulled my ass out of a firefight I shouldn’t have walked away from.” His mouth tightened. “I’ll call you as soon as I have a lead…. Yes, Agent Wakefield, I do realize you’re bending the rules for me….” For a split-second, laughter edged his words. “Yes, I also realize you’ll make me pay for it later. Thanks.” Disconnecting the call, he glanced at them. “We have forty-eight hours.”
Fifteen minutes later, an unhappy Shannon settled in front of her stone. She’d turned on the music, but how she could hear over the water and the chisel, he had no idea. Anger—and hurt—simmered beneath her confusion. She didn’t understand, and she might never, but he’d deal with the fallout when it happened. Not before. Ignoring Rowdy, Brody tackled the kitchen, and it didn’t take long for the agent to strip out of his suit jacket, roll up his sleeves, and go to work helping him.
“She’s pissed at you.”
“Not your problem.” Her anger was actually a good thing. Despite the fury in her eyes, she’d not retreated from touching him. Hell, quite the opposite. She’d dug her fingers into his hand and slapped his chest. She’d allowed herself to be a victim for a long time.
“So, give me the details on the man harassing her.”
Appreciating the bluntness of the request, and needing to focus on something other than Shannon’s disappointment, he answered Rowdy’s question. By the time he’d finished reciting the last of the known details, the kitchen was clean and they’d brewed a fresh pot of coffee. Brody had given Shannon a cup in one of her sealed mugs, so she didn’t risk getting stone chips in it.
“How the hell are you planning to catch this guy? You don’t know who he is. He hasn’t tipped his hand other than to escalate to extreme violence swiftly. He may not try to take her next time, you know. Maybe next time, he just tries to put a bullet in her.”
The possibility drove Brody. He had to control the circumstances of the next encounter.
Rowdy wasn’t finished, however. “Do you have any suspects? Somewhere to start?”
“No. Look at her. She doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. Whoever this guy is, he has to hate her to do what he did. You didn’t see her face when she saw her work destroyed. I’ve seen hell in someone’s eyes before. I never want to see it in hers again.” Killing the son of a bitch who hurt her wouldn’t give back what the man had taken, but it would assure he never took from her again.
“What about the rape in college?” Rowdy pitched his voice low, even if Shannon couldn’t hear them.
“Nothing to go on. No reason to believe it’s related.” As soon as he had a target, he could move on it. But he needed a target.
“No reason it’s not, either.” Folding his arms, Rowdy leaned against the counter with his back to the room.
Unlike Brody, Rowdy had a huge family to fall back on—a Navy family. They’d been displeased with his choice to go Marine. He’d met Rowdy on assignment, and they’d served together on a handful of occasions. Well over a year before, Rowdy had taken early detachment and gone NCIS agent. He approached the world from a different angle, but that still didn’t explain the statement. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You’re assuming what happened in college doesn’t have anything to do with now. But what if it does?” He cocked his head to the side, his eyes distant and thoughtful. “One of the agents I work with handles cold cases primarily. She always says ‘walk it backward, when that doesn’t work, walk it forward.’”
“Still not following. Shannon doesn’t remember the guy, reported the case without any DNA evidence, and basically only has what she remembers from the morning in her place.”
“Her dorm room, right? So, what was out of place there? How had she known she’d been raped?”
“Because she didn’t have her panties on.” Just rehashing the case caused his blood to boil. The night he met Shannon, he’d seen the echoes of her old hurt. Shadows of pain marred her eyes and limited her ability to trust.
“And?”
“And what?”
“The guy didn’t wear a condom. Now, college guys aren’t the poster children for safe sex, but the guy took the time to plan a roofie, so why not wear a condom?”
The automatic response of, “he’s an asshole” couldn’t be the one Rowdy reached for.
“C’mon, man. You’re too close to this. These days, guys don’t wear a condom for three reasons—careless, thoughtless or…?”
Brody studied Shannon. The intensity of her focus on the project in front of her kept her preoccupied and away from their discussion—emotionally as well as physically. She’d relaxed.
“He trusted her.” The guy hadn’t just met Shannon at some party.
“I’m going to bet if we pull apart her life over the last few years, we’re going to find a pattern.” Rowdy continued speaking, but Brody only half-heard the words. The guy dropped a roofie in her drink, raped her, and left the next morning. Shannon didn’t report the rape right away, and by the time she did, the police had no physical evidence to work from.
The case had gone nowhere. She hadn’t confided in anyone, other than a therapist and her agent, until she’d met Brody. The nature of the notes was possessive and anti-military—or were they anti-Brody?
“The guy trusted her because he
knew
her. She withdrew from her life, changed a lot of it…and
forgot
about him.” Which had probably been okay, until Shannon began to really make a name for herself.
“We need to question her about her college life—who she saw, what she did—everything before the rape.”
“I’ll do it.” No way in hell would he allow Rowdy to dig into her life.
“You are way too close to this.”
They needed to establish some ground rules. “You bring it up to her, you try to press her for details about a time in her life where her faith in herself and her trust in the people around her was ripped away and left her fundamentally changed to the point she still has PTSD issues, I’ll kill you. Clear?”
“It’s not going to be any easier on her coming from you.” No, it wouldn’t be, but the difference between him and Rowdy was Brody loved her. He’d already gotten inside her defenses, and he wouldn’t destroy her just to get to the truth. “But you don’t want my opinion. I’ll take first watch. Four hour shifts?”
“That works. Rowdy? Thanks.”
“Yeah, you’re welcome, and I don’t fuck my career for just anyone. Let’s make this count.”
Brody waited, taking a seat to watch her sculpt. Maybe he was giving himself time, hell, they both needed a break. After thirty minutes, she shut off the water and the music and shifted to face him. “You lied to me.”
“No,” he said, but he didn’t offer excuses. “I let you assume my leave came through.”
“Brody.” She started to reach for him but stopped herself. Uncaring of her wet, work-dirtied hands, he grasped them. “You’re career military. You could go to jail.”
“Probably will.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
“How can you say that?” When she would have jerked free, he drew her closer.
“Because you
needed
me.”
“I need you to not be in jail.”
“Yeah, I need you to be alive and to feel safe. I wasn’t able to do either there. Here I can be effective.”
“And when they arrest you?”
“Doesn’t matter right now.”
Her nostrils flared. “It matters to me.”
“And
you
matter to me.” Elbows resting on his knees, he leaned into her. “You can be pissed at me later. When this guy is nothing but a blip in the rearview mirror. I promise to stand still while you tear a strip off my hide. Until then, we’re doing this
my
way. Understood?”
Her mouth tightened, and his gut twisted. If she rejected him at this point, it would suck, but he would handle it. Finally, she relented. “I’m not going to ‘sir, yes, sir’ you. We’re not in bed.”
Scooping her up, he marched her around the silkscreen dividing the room and dropped with her on the bed, pinning her. “You were saying….”
“Brody, I’m filthy.”
“Those are not the words I’m waiting for.” This was what his life had been missing. Playfulness, arguments—make-up sex.
“Sir, yes, sir.” She laughed, and he covered her mouth with his, thrusting his tongue in to enjoy the taste and sound of her. Touching her was always a revelation; she gave everything to every interaction, her kisses as greedy and demanding as they were giving.
Loving her was the best thing that ever happened to him. With reluctance, he broke the kiss and nuzzled the corner of her mouth. “I need to ask you some questions, sweetheart.”
“Okay.”
“About your life before the rape.”
She stiffened, but he kept close. The dilation of her pupils and the hitch in her breathing were both fear responses, but she dug her fingers into his neck.
“You can hold onto me,” he told her, encouraging the behavior. “I will not let you go. You’re not going to be alone. But the only person who was there, who can tell us what we may need to know, is you.”
“You think this guy…the one who took me…is the same man who raped me?”
“Rowdy has a point. Bad things happen to good people.” God, did he know they did. “But we can’t ignore the possibility.”
Her throat convulsed with a hard swallow, and she closed her eyes, seeming to hold her breath. When she opened them, she whispered, “Do we really have to talk about it?”
“Yeah. No one has to know anything. Just me.”
“Brody, I wasn’t always that great of a person….”
“I don’t care about who you were, sweetheart. The words you need to be saying right now…?” She could do this, he had faith in her. She had to know it and believe.
“Sir, yes, sir.” Her grimace belied the words. The fact she said them at all was enough.
The lock of his mouth on her nipple sent electric shocks of pleasure through her. Somehow, strip questioning hadn’t been what she’d imagined when he said they had to talk about her past. Bristle along his cheeks rasped at her skin, adding another layer of pleasure. Brody took his time, nuzzling one breast then the other. When he resettled next to her on the bed, he leaned on one arm and continued to trail his fingers from her chest to her abdomen.
“You went to college to study art, didn’t you?” So
not
pillow talk, and she wanted to object, but he’d said they needed to know. The lazy path he blazed left tingles in its wake. Remembering the details would be hard enough, but it made the feelings associated with those memories even more elusive.
“I went to a charter for high school, and I’d been in a pilot program for the school district for years. The art charter school was similar to the pilot program. It focused on my strengths. I was a very visual learner.” Her thoughts derailed when Brody undid the buttons on her jeans. “We still had all the same types of classes, but they taught them differently. In English, we did read, but our projects weren’t necessarily papers or only papers. Instead, we did paintings, sketches, comic books….”
She’d loved her school. “Science fairs were art fairs with a scientific theme, and even math classes weren’t just standard formulas but designed to create something. Most of the students at the school were just like me. We reveled in what we could create, and in my junior year, I did my first sculpture.” Heat bloomed in her belly, unfurling like a flower stretching up to the sun. Brody continued to explore her skin, and she could almost imagine the color trailing behind his fingers across her flesh.
If she worked in oils and canvases rather than stone, she would love to try and recreate his actions. “Anyway,” she said with a shudder as he circled the tense point of one nipple, never quite touching. “I worked in cast plaster. We had a guest artist who came to the school. Greg was in his late thirties, good-looking and talented.” She peeked at Brody’s face when she said good-looking. His mouth quirked, and a hint of amusement slid behind his studious expression, but he didn’t comment.
“He worked in plasters and created busts. He had all these fancy ones of famous actors and actresses….” She rolled onto her side to face Brody and tugged at his shirt. If he wanted to play touch her and drive her mad, she wanted to do the same to him. The corded steel of his muscles was hot under his fingers. “Come to think of it, Greg even had a bust of Lauren. Huh, I’d forgotten about that. Anyway, he taught some guest classes, and it turned out I could do what he did pretty easily, but more than the skill to do it. I
enjoyed
sculpting, the feel of the knife working on the softened plaster, carving it to the shape I wanted.”