Page 22 of Kyle (Gold Team #3)

We’d made the long journey back to Maryland.

As soon as we’d hit altitude, I let go of the breath I’d been holding.

Last night as I laid in the darkness next to Anaya, I’d been afraid she was going to change her mind and decide being with me wasn’t worth the risk.

I’d been stupid and almost lost her once.

I didn’t think I could handle it happening again, especially after she’d admitted she felt the same way I did.

There was something between us that was worth exploring and I was willing to pull out all the stops to make sure that happened.

The first half of the plane ride, Anaya and I had talked.

Most of the conversation had been innocuous.

Favorite books and movies. Places she liked to go in San Diego.

We waxed poetic about both of us being in the same city for years and had never run into each other.

How different would my life have been if I’d met her when I was stationed in Coronado?

Would I have recognized then that Anaya Baker would be the woman to crawl under my skin?

Or would I’ve been too young and dumb to accept what my heart was telling me?

By the end of our conversation, I was grateful I hadn’t met her back then—neither of us had been ready for the other.

But now I was ready. More than ready. Not only did I welcome the knowledge; I was ready to fight to keep her in my life.

Anaya had looked shell-shocked when Brooks, Thad, and Max had picked us up from the airport. She’d taken one look at the three overly large men and had stepped closer to me. I can’t deny that it felt good, her looking to me for protection.

The team hadn’t missed her reaction even if she’d immediately tried to hide it.

Pride swelled in my chest when she stood tall next to me and offered her hand in greeting.

For a woman who didn’t think she was brave, who had admitted she’d gone years without so much as a handshake, she sure was courageous.

We’d all piled into the SUV and gone straight to the Z Corps office in downtown Annapolis.

During the drive Anaya sat between Dec and me, and with her hand firmly in mine, she’d engaged the team in conversation.

I was grateful they hadn’t brought up what had happened in Timor-Leste.

If she wanted to talk about it with them, she’d bring it up.

Brooks pulled into the parking structure and I glanced around at all the cars occupying the reserved parking for Z Corps.

“Who’s in today?” I asked.

“Full house,” Max returned.

“The women?”

“Seriously? You even need to ask.”

Fuck, shit , and goddamn.

Brooks cut the engine and we all piled out.

“You guys go ahead and go up. I need to talk to Anaya a minute.”

The team all nodded, except for Max. He was staring at Anaya and I didn’t like how he was eyeing her with suspicion. Such was his way—he and Declan were neck-and-neck in the trust department. Meaning, neither trusted outsiders, and to Max, Anaya was an unwelcomed stranger.

Declan passed by Max and slapped him on the shoulder twice and gestured toward the exit. Max followed, but not before his gaze swung to mine and his eyes narrowed. Something Anaya wouldn’t miss because he didn’t want her to.

Shit, fuck, goddamn.

I waited for the team to disappear and turned to Anaya. Her back was ramrod straight and fear danced in her eyes.

I needed to shut this shit down before she closed down.

“Anaya, look at me.” My gaze went from the exit to mine. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”

“Why doesn’t Max like me?”

“It’s not you,” I sighed. “Max has serious trust issues. Actually, issues don’t begin to cover it. He’ll come around. In the meantime, ignore him. I wanted to warn you, there’s gonna be a lot of people in the office. Not only all the men, but their women, too.”

“Okay.” Her brows pulled together.

“The women are…” Anaya stiffened, misreading my pause. “They’ll mean well but they’re gonna swarm around you.”

“What? Why?”

“Because they all know what happened in Timor-Leste. They’ll want to make sure you’re okay. They know you mean something to me so they’ll also want to feel you out. But mostly they’re gonna want to make sure you feel welcome. They’ll just be pushy when they go about that.”

“They know?” she whispered.

“Sweetheart, when you went missing it was a companywide effort to find you. With Omni looming over our heads, the women are in the office every day and their husbands don’t keep shit from them.

Which means they know you were taken. They don’t know anything about your past and they won’t, not unless you feel like sharing.

With that said, if you wanna share, you won’t find a better group of women to have your back. ”

“I mean something to you?”

Anaya didn’t miss much and I didn’t think she’d allow my admission to go unquestioned.

“Hell, yeah you do. What is it you think we’re doing here?”

“I guess I just don’t understand how I could mean anything to you when we just met.”

“That makes two of us. But I’m not questioning it and I’m not fighting it.”

On that thought, I slowly brought my hands up to cup her cheeks and leaned down to brush my lips against hers. I was desperate to really kiss her. Wet, deep, and thorough. But I tamped down the urge knowing the parking garage was not the right place to push her.

When I straightened, her eyes were hazy, and fuck I wanted to see that look more often. Preferably when we were alone where I could test her boundaries, or rather after I’d tested those boundaries and she was lying satisfied in my arms. I bet that look would be even better—way fucking better.

Slow and steady wins the race.

And I definitely planned on winning.

“You ready to go up?” I asked.

Her entire being transformed right in front of me and I smiled. “Of course I am.”

There was the Anaya I first met.

At the time, I hadn’t known her confidence was laced with a healthy dose of fortitude.

That just under the surface lay fear she worked hard to overcome, and every time I witnessed her conquer it, I had the urge to kiss the hell out of her.

Tell her I was so proud of her. Tell her I was impressed with her tenacity.

So fucking strong.

“Then let’s go up. But if at any time it gets to be too much for you, let me know.”

“You’re handling me again,” she snapped.

“No,” I denied. “I’m telling you, I have your back. And when we get upstairs, you’ll get it.”

I led us out of the garage and into the front door of Z Corps.

Ivy was noticeably missing from the front desk where she spent most of her day.

Zane’s wife had taken over most of the duties his old personal assistant, Rena, had performed and then some, but Ivy refused to work in the office next to her husband, and no one in their right mind would refer to Ivy as Zane’s assistant.

She preferred to do her work at the front desk, work that consisted of running the company so Zane didn’t have to.

I keyed in the code to unlock the front door and walked us through the empty reception area to another door and stopped. I placed my fingers on the biometric scanner and entered my eight-digit code, once accepted the lock clicked and I pushed open the door.

Our footsteps echoed in the hallway leading us to the elevator and when we stopped, I placed my face in front of the retinal scanner and waited.

“Where are you taking me, Area 51?” Anaya muttered beside me.

The elevator door slid open and I motioned for her to precede me.

“There’s one more security checkpoint,” I informed her.

“Seriously?”

We stepped out into another hallway and I repeated the processes, waiting for my fingerprints to be logged.

“The information we deal with could be catastrophic if it fell into the wrong hands. And the clients Zane meets with in the office require a certain level of privacy and protection.”

“Who does he meet with, the president?” She giggled.

Damn, I liked that sound. And after I waited for the feeling to finish ricocheting through me, I thought about her comment.

She’d hit the nail on the head with her off-handed remark.

Not only did Zane meet with the president, Tom Anderson was a close friend of his.

I wondered what Anaya’s reaction to Erin Anderson-Doyle would be.

My teammate Colin’s wife was the president’s daughter.

Guess I’ll find out soon enough . Erin was in the building along with all the other women.

I pushed open the door, entering Z Corps’ inner sanctum, and Anaya stopped walking.

“Holy shit,” she muttered.

I followed her gaze around the room. Several doors opened to private offices and a large command room was enclosed in smart glass.

This room housed all the surveillance monitors and was supervised twenty-four seven.

In the middle was a maze of cubicles with high-tech work stations.

Zane had spared no expense. All clean lines with gray walls and chrome accents.

The space was enormous and impressive. It was also bustling with people.

All of whom stopped what they were doing to face us.

Zane straightened from the table he was bent over and started in our direction. I could feel the waves of nervousness coming from Anaya but she made no move.

“Anaya Baker. Nice to meet you, I’m Zane Lewis.”

“Nice to meet you face-to-face,” she greeted.

Zane took in her bruised face, and like the master of disguise he was, he showed no hint of emotion. But I knew Zane; he was seething that someone had hit her, and most especially the reason behind why she’d been struck.

My boss shifted toward the room and made the introductions. “ Meet the Red Team, that’s Lincoln Parker, Colin Doyle, Jaxon Cain, Leo Gillonardo, and Jasmin Parker.” Each person gave Anaya a lift of their chin as their name was called.

Jasmin studied Anaya, her eyes squinted, and deep frown lines formed.

“What the fuck?” Jas growled and stepped closer. Anaya flinched at her aggressive approach and Jasmin’s very pissed-off eyes swung to mine. “Serious as shit, Kyle, I hope you gutted the fucker that did that. I hear you went easy on the douchebag, I’ll be totally disappointed in you.”

“I didn’t go easy,” I confirmed.

With a nod of approval, Jasmin went back to looking at Anaya and immediately changed directions.

“You shoulda sold ‘em out and saved your face,” Jas said.

Here we go…

Anaya’s body went solid, her shoulders went back, and anger flashed. She was pissed and unlike all the men in the room, she wasn’t trying to hide her feelings.

“Sold them out?” Anaya spat out the words like they tasted like shit.

“Yeah. I heard that’s what the asshole who was slappin’ you around wanted. All you had to do was give two names and he would’ve stopped.”

Anaya sucked in a breath and my temper flared. I knew Jas was testing Anaya, but she’d gone too far. I promised Anaya she’d be safe and Jasmin was making me a liar. I understood her need to feel out Anaya but I would not allow her to push any further.

“Jas,” I growled.

“What? I’m just sayin’.”

No, she wasn’t just saying anything. Jasmin had almost died protecting the identity of her team. She was putting Anaya through unnecessary bullshit and I was done .

But before I could speak, Anaya did.

“What kind of person do you think I am?”

Jasmin shrugged like it was all the same to her. “Most people would talk.”

“Then most people are assholes. I wasn’t giving up Kyle and Declan no matter what. I’d rather die before I sold them out.”

There was a small gasp and Anaya and I turned to our right. A very pregnant Violet had come down the stairs along with Emerson.

The team had obviously not shared with Violet that Anaya had taken a beating to protect her brother.

Good to know some things could be kept secret around Z Corps.

I glanced over at Declan and he was looking down at his shoes shaking his head. Violet was getting ready to go all mother hen on his ass.

Time to shut this shit down, for good this time.

“On that note, you’re fuckin’ done, Jas. No more of that shit,” I demanded, barely keeping my temper under wraps.

Her eyes locked with mine and she nodded. She felt like hell she’d gone down that particular road with Anaya. And more so because Violet would now be upset, too.

“Great,” I grunted sarcastically, too pissed-off to articulate the word any better.

“Conference room,” Zane barked. “You, too, Emerson.”

I waited for everyone to file into the other room, then turned to Anaya.

“You okay?”

“Stop asking me that.”

“Anaya—”

“I’m fine. I’m not stupid, I understand what she was doing even if I didn’t like the reminder of what happened to me.

Look around…” Anaya paused and motioned around the room.

“I’m an outsider among a group of people who work be hind more security than Fort Knox with a command center that rivals NASA.

I get it. I have to earn their trust, and if you keep babying me in front of them, they’ll never respect me.

I have nothing to hide from any of you. They can prod all they like, I won’t break and that’s something you’re gonna have to trust me about. ”

My eyes went over her shoulder and Max stood in the doorway waiting for us. Arms folded over his chest and eyes hard, with a lift of his chin he dipped back into the room.

“Fuck. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

She gave me a tentative smile and grabbed my hand.

“Let’s get this over with.”

She yanked my hand and moved toward the door.

I needed to pull my head from my ass and stop doubting her. But fuck if I knew how to stop my insistent need to protect her, even from my teammates who were doing exactly what she’d said they were doing.