Page 26 of Radar (Iniquus Certified Cerberus Tactical K9 #2)

Xander

Sunday

Lumberjack, Alaska

Xander lay on his back, his arms splayed wide, his chest heaving, and he felt sublime.

Euphoric.

Was there even a word to describe this sensation?

Being with Elyssa had been a drug.

“Holy shit,” he chuckled, then swept Elyssa’s long hair into his hand, lifting it off her face, and bent to kiss her. “Shit.” He dropped back down and ran his hand down his face, letting it fall off to the side.

She tipped her head to kiss his chest. “Same.”

And as with any new addict, Xander had to make sure he had a way to get his next hit.

“Elyssa, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

She eased back on the pillow, so they were looking into each other’s eyes.

Xander reached down and laced his fingers with hers. “When we were talking at the Lodge, I said that I wasn’t looking for someone while I was here because there were only three scenarios, and all of them had bad outcomes.”

She rolled her lips in and seemed to hold her breath.

He lifted a strand of her hair and rubbed it between his fingers. “There’s a fourth that I hadn’t envisioned. And that was meeting someone with whom I felt a connection, and who might live near me. You said you were from Virginia?”

“Alexandria.”

“I’m north of you in Arlington near the Pentagon.”

“Close then,” she said.

“I’m working away from home for the next bit.

But I’d like to stay in touch. And when I’m back on the East Coast, I’d very much like to spend more time getting to know you.

But if your job is like mine, that might become a challenge.

” He gave her an out that would suck, but might leave his heart intact.

“I’d enjoy getting to know you better, too,” she said. “I only travel for random conferences and for vacations. Otherwise, I’m at the lab.”

Xander reached his arm over her, rolling to grab his phone from the side table. “What do you do in the lab?”

“I do engineering.”

“Yeah?” He opened his contacts, tapped the plus sign, and handed his phone to her. “A geek-girl, huh? What kind?”

“I’m a food systems engineer.” She paused as she entered her information, saved it, then placed his phone back on the nightstand. “I design interior farming solutions.”

Xander’s heart pounded against his sternum. A sheen of perspiration salted his skin. He modulated his voice to sound sleepy but interested as she tucked back against him. “How did you, Eddie, and Paca end up out here in Lumberjack?”

“My great uncle invited us,” she said, pulling her knee up so her leg sprawled across his hips.

And while his dick danced to attention, the only thought in Xander’s mind was, shit. Finally, he managed, “Is he here with you, your great uncle?”

“Yes, well, for the moment. He’s leaving before I do in the morning. We came because Uncle Orest has a sled team, a hobby that he’s passionate about. He comes every year to see his team start the Iditarod.”

Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“The Iditarod is next week. He’s leaving?” Xander asked.

“Family crisis, unfortunately.”

“I’m sorry. I hope things resolve. And your Uncle knows Eddie and Paca?”

She pushed herself up, straightening her legs, and rolled away from him.

“Where are you going?” Xander’s arms wanted to pull her against him and protect her from … from her family. Shit.

“I’m coming back to bed with you.” She kissed his shoulder before she squirmed out from under the covers. “I need the bathroom.”

Xander took the opportunity to pull off his spent condom, knot it, and toss it into the trash, then he reached the end of the bed for his boxer briefs and tugged them on as some kind of shield between them when she came back.

Reaching for her phone, he found her driver’s license in the back sleeve. There it was, Elyssa Kalinsky Landers . He snapped a picture.

Kalinsky .

He’d slept with the enemy. He was always going to have to call it in and report his sexual activity. But this was not going to go over well.

Xander listened to Elyssa’s progress in the bathroom. As she washed her hands, he swiped his encryption app open. Sooner was better than later, he thought as he texted Hiro.

Xander: I had a sexual encounter. Forwarding a picture of her driver’s license. Dig up what you can. I’ll call in as soon as I’m able.

Without calculating the time zone or worrying if Hiro was sleeping, Xander pressed send, waited for delivery, then erased the message from his phone.

When Elyssa emerged from the bathroom, she picked up the shirt he’d been wearing earlier and tugged it over her head.

Something about seeing her dressed in his clothes made him feel–well, it was a new sensation, animal in nature. It was as if he wanted to stand in front of her and claim her as “mine.”

When he turned the sensation into mental words, he remembered a conversation with his female friends.

They said they loved to hear the growl of “mine” when they wanted it in a relationship.

It made them feel safe and cared for. But they found it abhorrent to them when it came with the feeling of being owned and manipulated.

Those kinds of conversations had fallen not exactly on deaf ears but certainly on unfertile soil. There was no way for Xander to understand the nuance that his women-friends explained to him because Xander had never in his life felt the word “mine” or anything even close.

Now, it was a boulder of a thought, massive and heavy.

This sensation was unimaginable to him yesterday morning.

And yet here he was.

What was he thinking?

He was thinking … well, he was thinking that what he felt toward Elyssa right now was the look in Nutsbe and Finley’s eyes when they talked about their partners.

Sorrow that their loved ones were in danger’s way and an utter conviction that they would throw themselves bodily in front of anything that came against them.

Those thoughts were all well and good if the loved one lived on the same side of sanity and morality.

It was devastating to think that not only could he not intervene to help Elyssa, but he was going to be one of the people working to bring her family to justice.

If she was involved in wrongdoing, Elyssa was their target.

He couldn’t believe that Elyssa had anything to do with hurting people.

And if that was wishful thinking on his part, just look at how Radar stood as her protector.

Okay, sure, Elyssa could be a sociopath for all he knew, acting one way with him and turning around and advancing her evil family. He could choose to believe that he’d made a hellacious mistake, or he could trust his dog.

From the end of the bed, Radar opened his eyes, and in the dim light, he lifted one brow then the other.

“It’s okay, buddy. We’ll figure this out.”

When Elyssa snuggled back into his arms, pressing her round ass up next to his hips, his dick stood at the ready. He ignored it.

He tried to ignore it.

This was such a mind-bender.

In the dim light of the side table lamp, he lifted Elyssa’s hand and read her medical band, POTS.

It was just as he suspected from Radar’s boops back in the lodge.

Radar only relaxed his vigilance after Elyssa curled herself into the chair, pulling her legs to her chest, gulped her electrolyte drink, and ate the salty nachos with a heavy-handed sprinkle from the salt shaker.

With his finger on the bracelet, Elyssa started to contract her muscles and pull away. Her medical condition was obviously not open for discussion, so he slid his finger along the script-written tattoo that decorated her wrist. “‘My little bit,’” he read. “Is that a special someone?”

She relaxed her muscles. He’d been right. Her diagnosis was a topic that she wasn’t open to discussing. And she was entitled to her privacy.

“That’s my Desmond Tutu reminder, the quote is, ‘Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” It reminds me that there are situations around me that I can ease.”

“That’s very sweet.” He licked her lips before kissing her. “ You are very sweet.”

Settling back on his pillow, he said, “Little bit,” as he rubbed the words with his thumb, trying to find a way to understand what was happening. “How does that work its way into your world?”

“I’m a scientist, and I hope that my work goes on to benefit humanity.

I’m not in a position to do something grand.

Desmond Tutu had a world stage when he asked us to do our little acts.

Anything big I might accomplish is years away.

So today, this minute, I can make something a little better.

A smile. A helping hand. A design that feeds a hungry child.

” She turned to catch his gaze. “That’s such an interesting glimmer in your eyes. Confusion?”

Torment, to be honest.

“Not necessarily confusion,” Xander said.

“But you really do present as a contradiction. The way you handled the Gaston guy was,” he kissed the tips of his fingers and spread them wide to release his appreciation into the wind, “chef’s kiss.

Not a waver. You had it all handled. You are graceful with your strengths.

” And because he really meant it, he put his finger back on her medical bracelet.

“I’m sorry about the POTS—it’s obviously a touchy subject.

It must be a real challenge. I don’t know much about the condition. Is it genetic?”

“Can be,” she said, and this time she wasn’t pulling away from the subject. “In my case, I became symptomatic after a bout of COVID. It’s possible that it will go away. And it’s possible that it’s here for life. Fingers crossed for the go-away prognosis.”

“Absolutely,” Xander exhaled. “How are you feeling right now?”

She answered by lifting her chin and smiling the most come-hither, wanton smile he’d ever been gifted.

What an f’ed up world this was.

Did he want her? Every cell, every atom, every pulse of energy in his body said, yes!

Instead, he reached for the light and clicked it off before wrapping her in his arms and tucking the blanket under her chin. He tried to signal that he wasn’t going to follow through, but that wasn’t meant as a rebuff of any sort.

She shuffled around, moving a hand down to rest on Radar’s head, and with a sigh that sounded like contentment, Elyssa stilled.