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CHAPTER SEVEN

Ryden was in a foul mood.

How had his day gone from bad to worse? At least the weather wasn’t against him, and the venue was nearby, or he would have sweated through his uniform from his little trek. He could have done without the attention. Not every day a Marine walked through old St. Augustine in dress blues.

The elevator doors pinged, and he marched toward his office.

All eyes were on him, but his expression was dark enough to keep everyone at bay.

Jay wasn’t at his desk, and Ryden clenched his jaw.

Had he left early to prepare for his date?

Storming into his office, Ryden slammed the door behind him.

What the fuck was Jay’s deal? Yes, Jay was overly dramatic on most days, but this was something else.

Ryden paced his office, flexing his fingers.

Why did he care? It was like any other day at the office, with Ryden opening his mouth and Jay getting pissy.

So much for their truce. No one got shit from Jay the way he did, and yeah, he deserved what he got for the times he’d intentionally provoked Jay’s wrath, but what the fuck had he done wrong this time? Why did this feel different?

Maybe because you made out with him ? Twice.

Okay, there was that. Fuck. Ryden straightened and ran a hand through his hair.

Fucking hell. Jay jumping into his arms had surprised the shit out of him, but he quickly caught on.

That didn’t change the heat between them.

The fake boyfriend part might have been an act, but the raw desire sure as shit hadn’t been.

Jay wanted him as much as Ryden wanted Jay.

When had that happened? How had this day spiraled so out of his control?

Ryden had never been kissed like that. He sure as hell had never been so fucking turned on.

All he could think about while kissing Jay was how bad he wanted to taste every inch of him, of what it would feel like to be buried deep inside him.

Ever since their first kiss, Ryden had been twisted in knots.

How far would it have gone if they hadn’t been in a public place? Then, there had been the tenderness after. The way Jay looked at him and touched his face… It was a whole other side of Jay he’d never seen, at least with him.

Whenever he met someone for the first time, his eyes threw them off, and Ryden could see them silently scrambling to find the right words.

It’s why Ryden addressed it first and got it out of the way.

Usually, when he told them it happened during a military training exercise, they relaxed and moved on, but more than one date had ended abruptly.

Jay had never so much as blinked. Not even the day they met.

Ryden shook his head. Whatever foolish idea he’d had about something happening between them, it was time to forget it.

They couldn’t even make things work as friends.

Besides, he had enough to occupy his time.

An office romance wasn’t something he needed.

Fuck’s sake . Office romance? He’d been reading too many of Jay’s fucking novels.

Why he read the books he took from Jay was a whole other level of absurdity he wouldn’t think about.

As he carefully hung everything up in the garment bag in his office closet, he made a mental note to get his uniform cleaned.

Once every item was put away, he quickly texted Saint to check on him.

He received a brief reply stating that everything was okay and they’d talk later, which meant it wasn’t serious.

Knowing Saint, he was playing nurse to his injured boyfriend.

Ryden had redressed in his usual black tactical pants, socks, and military-grade boots. He pulled on his black Four Kings Security T-shirt just as someone knocked at his door.

“Come in.”

The door opened, and Mason walked in. He closed the door before sitting on Ryden’s couch and making himself comfortable. Oh boy.

“I’d ask how it went, but considerin’ you stomped through the office looking madder’n a wet hen, I can take a guess.”

Ryden dropped into his chair behind his desk and threw his arms up. “Why the fuck did he volunteer to go in the first place?”

“That well, huh?” Mason sighed. “Maybe he wanted to support you.”

“Jay? A guy who’s spent the last six years assaulting me with his romance novels? I don’t get him. How did he go from barely talking to me to volunteering as my plus-one at a wedding? Not that it matters. I can’t seem to say or do anything right around him.”

“What did you say?”

Ryden told Mason everything, from the asshole he knew wasn’t a Marine to what Jay overheard and what Ryden had said. He left out the part about them making out. Things were complicated enough.

Mason blinked at him. “Well, shit. I’m gonna address the Jay thing first because we’re gonna need reinforcements for the other. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“What?” Ryden studied Mason. Clearly, Ryden must have, or Jay wouldn’t have flown off the handle.

“Think about it. Every time Jay gets his tail up, you’ve said somethin’ that he interprets as you saying he’s weak or weaker than the rest of us.”

Ryden’s eyebrows flew up. “The fuck? I don’t think he’s weaker’n the rest of us. I was tryin’ to keep him safe because although he’s a hell of a lot stronger than he looks, he ain’t a fuckin’ Marine. These guys are dangerous.”

“I know that. You know that. Jay…” Mason shrugged, his expression going soft. “Bein’ seen as less than by guys like you is obviously a trigger. What does that tell you?”

Ryden frowned. His grip on his chair’s armrests turned white-knuckled.

“Someone like me hurt him. Bad.” He should have known.

“Then why work in a security company owned and run by former military personnel? There’s enough testosterone around here to choke a bull.

He’s been here for how long? Has this been an issue before? ”

“No.”

Great. So, after years of Jay working at Four Kings Security, he’d never had a problem with any former military personnel here, just him. “So why am I the asshole?”

Mason cocked his head to one side. “Good question. What makes you different? You get under his skin, Ry. Why is that?”

“The fuck should I know?” Ryden shook his head. This was not something he wanted to think about at the moment. “How’d Lucky’s meeting go?”

“Gibson never showed.”

“What the hell?” This day just got weirder and weirder. “Gibson’s been desperate for a meeting. Lucky had to move a bunch of clients around to make room for him, and he didn’t show?”

Before Mason could respond, Lucky swept into the room, closing the door behind him.

“Have you seen?” Lucky asked, grabbing the remote off Ryden’s desk and turning on the flatscreen on the wall. He changed the channel to a station showing a news flash.

“What’re we lookin’ at here?” Ryden frowned as the screen switched from the news reporter to a massive cloud of black smoke, the thrum of news helicopters circling filling the air. A ribbon scrolled the bottom of the screen.

Breaking news. Car explosion on A1A kills driver and at least one passenger.

Just as Ryden was about to ask, an image of a familiar man appeared on the screen. Holy shit.

“We’ve just received confirmation that one of the victims, Graham Gibson, owner of Gibson Global, a major import-export company in St. Augustine, was inside the vehicle at the time of the explosion. There’s no word yet on what might have caused the explosion, but an investigation?—”

Lucky muted the TV. “That is why my client never showed.”

“Fuck.” Ryden stared at him. His gut told him something was very wrong about all this. “What was Gibson comin’ in for?”

Lucky’s lips pressed into a thin line before he spoke up. “Executive protection.” He sat on the couch next to Mason and shook his head. “He wouldn’t tell me what was wrong, but when I spoke to him, he sounded…off. Something was not right. He was scared.”

Mason and Ryden exchanged glances.

“What?” Lucky asked, looking from Ryden to Mason. “You know something?”

“It’s probably completely unrelated, but something weird happened at the wedding.” Ryden told Lucky everything he’d told Mason, minus his little spat with Jay.

Lucky jumped to his feet. “Are you kidding me? Impersonating a member of the military is a third-degree felony in this state, and I know whatever that fuck he’s up to, it goes beyond misrepresentation.”

“You think the two are related?” Mason asked. “I mean, that would be a pretty big fuckin’ coincidence.”

Ryden paced as he tried to wrap his head around this.

“Gibson owned an import and export company here in St. Augustine. He was comin’ here to discuss protection, and he was scared.

Then, the same day, a fake Marine is in the area talkin’ ’bout how the asshole didn’t agree and, ‘after this,’ they had to move fast and get a shipment ready to go.

” He looked up at the same time as Mason and Lucky.

“Jack,” all three said.

Ryden snorted. He headed for his desk to call Jack when Lucky raised his hand.

“Wait,” Lucky said. “Before we stick our noses into this, we need to talk to King.”

The three of them exchanged glances. Not what Ryden had been hoping to hear.

“Not it,” Ryden said seconds before Lucky.

Mason let his head fall back with a groan. “Shiiiit.” With a heavy sigh, he sat up. “Fine. But you two owe me.”

Lucky winked at Mason. “I’ll make it up to you later, carino.”

“I will not,” Ryden said, chuckling when Mason flipped him off. He also wasn’t going to be the guy who interrupted King on his honeymoon with Leo for work stuff, even if the two were due to return in a couple of days.

Mason called King and put him on speaker.

“What?”

Ryden held back a smile at King’s usual gruff greeting.

“Hey, King,” Mason replied cheerfully. “Sorry to bug ya on your honeymoon, but we kinda got somethin’ goin’ on here, and we wanted to run it by you before we made any kinda move.”