Page 6 of Kane (Ghost Ops #4)

Chapter Four

It took Kane a full ten minutes after Daphne strode away to get his wayward dick under control.

He kept thinking about her tits in the pale pink lace bra he’d glimpsed beneath her shirt, the way those creamy swells pressed together and looked like they might spill free if she just bent over a little farther.

He’d wanted them to spill free. He’d found himself stuck on the idea, on reaching up to cup them in his hands, on how soft they’d feel in his palms. What would her nipples look like? Were they big or little? Did they bud up tight or point enticingly?

He’d been transfixed by her tits, his dick throbbing to life, his brain conjuring up the picture she’d painted for him.

Her mouth wrapped around his cock, his hands in her hair as she made hot sounds in her throat. Him losing control and shooting his semen into the back of her throat while she drank him down.

Yeah, the thought had made him hot and it’d made him angry.

She was Daphne. Daphne. Sweet Daphne Bryant, the kid they’d rescued from a cold building that winter.

The pretty, red-headed, innocent girl who smiled with her whole face and put everything she had into being the best assistant they could ever have.

She was kind. A hard worker. A good person. A kid in this game of life.

Except Daphne wasn’t a kid at all. He knew it objectively but thinking of her that way kept her in the safe zone. If he ever took her out of it, made her an object of desire and pursued her, then he didn’t know what he’d do or how badly he’d fuck things up.

He wasn’t capable of the kind of relationships that his teammates were engaged in. He wasn’t the kind of guy who dated the same woman and got close enough to care.

He’d been that guy once and it hurt too much so he wasn’t ever doing it again.

Which meant Daphne was off limits because she was too important to their lives in Sutton’s Creek.

Not that they couldn’t hire a new range assistant, but Ghost would be pissed if they had to start over with someone new because he, Kane Fox, couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.

A pissed off commanding officer was the last thing Kane wanted or needed in his life.

Three of his teammates had already tested Ghost’s patience by going against orders and getting involved with local women.

They’d survived the experience, but Kane had a feeling that choosing Daphne would be crossing the line in a big way.

Best not go there, no matter how much a part of him might want to.

Kane finished his workout, showered, and put on his work clothes.

It was still a couple of hours until the range opened, but there was always work to be done before that happened.

He’d very deliberately avoided going anywhere near Daphne.

Let her be pissed at him. It was better than having her lean over so he could see her cleavage.

Not literally better, because nothing was better than soft breasts in his face, but better in the sense he didn’t need Daphne’s to be the ones he fantasized about.

“What’s wrong with Daphne?” Ethan asked as he walked in a little while later with a bag that Kane hoped contained breakfast sandwiches from the Gas-n-Go. Clarence layered smoked sausage on a homemade biscuit with egg and cheese, and it was amazing.

Kane was sitting at one of the desks in the shared office-slash-breakroom space the team occupied when they weren’t on range duty or engaging in training classes.

Ghost often joined them, but he had his own office if he didn’t want to hang out with them.

His was the official range office, though all the guys knew it was Ghost’s even if they tried to pretend they were equal partners in this business.

Kane’s coffee was halfway to his lips. “Why are you asking me? And do you have sandwiches from the gas station in there?”

Ethan laughed. Whatever had been bothering him last night seemed to have passed. “Yeah, man. I grabbed one for everybody since we’ve got a meeting this morning.”

“You’re my favorite, Dragon.”

“Bet that’s what you say to all the ladies. And you didn’t answer the question about Daph.”

“Because I don’t know what kind of bee she’s got up her ass today.

Could be anything. I was working out, then showered and came in here.

We spoke when I let her in earlier, then she went to her desk.

Maybe she’s annoyed at something she read online.

Doomscrolling the Internet. It’s enough to piss anyone off. ”

“Ain’t that the truth?”

Ghost rolled in a few minutes later and got coffee. “You went to the Gas-n-Go?” he asked, eyes lighting on the bag sitting on the desk near Ethan’s elbow.

“Yep. Figured we needed something happy once we get going.”

By ‘get going’ he meant they were headed into the SCIF for a meeting before the range opened. It was only a month since they’d apprehended Dima Smirnov at Callie’s place, and they still didn’t have all the information they wanted on the Dashevsky Group or what the fuckers were up to.

If they were up to anything. Smirnov could have been working a double agent op, pretending to work for Dashevsky but still answering to the spymasters in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Agency, or SVR. Anything was possible at this point.

The rest of the guys arrived and everyone grabbed a coffee.

They were about to head to the SCIF when Daphne popped in.

A woman followed on her heels, but it was Daphne that Kane couldn’t drag his gaze from.

She looked normal enough, but she didn’t make eye contact with him.

Her cheeks were slightly flushed and he wondered if she was still angry.

“Agent Corbin to see you,” Daphne said, her mouth twisting slightly. “I asked her to wait but she didn’t want to.”

“It’s okay, Daphne,” Ghost said. “I was expecting her.”

That jolted Kane out of his contemplation of Daphne. He exchanged a look with his teammates. News to all of them.

Diana Corbin had her blond hair scraped into a low ponytail as usual.

Instead of the black suit, she wore navy today.

It looked expensive, or maybe he just thought so because they knew she came from money.

Ghost had thought he’d gotten rid of her when he’d had her posted to Kentucky, but she was back like a rash.

Which is how they’d learned that her uncle, Stephen Adler, was the Deputy Director of the CIA.

It got better—or worse, depending on your perspective.

Don Lewis, the FBI director, was a personal friend of the family.

Agent Diana Corbin was Washington insider royalty with connections like that, and she’d used them to not only return to the FBI in Huntsville, but also to learn about their mission and get herself inserted into their business.

Seth had done a little covert digging after her surprise return.

Diana Corbin was Diana Standish Adler. Standish was a family name, and it was her middle name in the tradition of hoity-toity people who did that kind of thing.

Corbin was her mother’s maiden name and the name she chose to use when she’d joined the FBI.

Presumably so she wouldn’t get special treatment.

Or maybe questions about her last name and her connection to the powerbrokers at the top.

The Adlers were generationally wealthy, and they’d been a part of the Washington scene for at least a century. They boasted ambassadors, political appointees, a couple of Congressmen, and even a princess when a cousin married into a royal family in Europe.

Why Diana had chosen police work—and the FBI—when she’d gone to Harvard and majored in international affairs was anyone’s guess. She’d seemed to be on the fast track to a political career of her own. Until she wasn’t.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Diana said. “I hope I’m not late.”

“You’re not,” Ghost said. “Daphne, we’ll be in the private meeting room for a while. Call in if you need us.”

“Got it. Y’all need anything before you go? Waters? Sodas?”

“I’m good,” Ethan said. He held up the bag. “You sure you don’t want a sandwich from Clarence’s? I got extra.”

“Thanks, but I’m fine.” She gave Ethan the kind of smile she was not about to give Kane after their encounter. “Anybody else?”

Nobody wanted anything so Daphne returned to the front of the building.

The range didn’t open for more than an hour and the meeting would be done by then.

Daphne wouldn’t have to handle customers alone.

Not that she couldn’t, but some of the men who frequented gun ranges weren’t the kind you’d trust alone with a beautiful woman—or any woman.

She didn’t get harassed often at the desk, but it’d happened.

And he, or one of the other guys, corrected it. Swiftly. Brutally. They’d barred a couple of guys from the range for shitty behavior to women, and they wouldn’t hesitate to bar more. Man didn’t respect a woman, he wasn’t worth the trouble in Kane’s opinion.

He shrugged his shoulders as uncomfortable thoughts filtered into his brain.

‘Raped her before he shot her.’ ‘Obsessed with her.’ ‘Targeted her.’

Fucking hell. Didn’t matter how many years had passed, thinking about Hannah’s last moments on this earth, when he was deployed overseas and couldn’t do a damned thing about it, drove him crazy with anger and guilt. He wasn’t there when she needed him and he’d never get over it. Never.

By the time they’d entered the SCIF and took their seats, Kane had pushed those thoughts deep. Ethan passed the sandwiches around and the guys dug in. Diana declined. Ghost took a bite of his and indicated to Diana that she had the floor.

She wasted no time.

“Dima Smirnov is now a part of the prisoner exchange with Russia that I mentioned before,” she began. “He’ll likely be free in a month, once it’s all arranged.”

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Seth growled. “What about Callie?”

Diana turned cool eyes on him. Kane knew because Seth was siting beside him.