Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
“It’s called play night.” Taylor seemed to have dropped the whole “I don’t know anything about BDSM” line. “And you might not have access, but some of us do. Text me when we’re ready to go.”
“Then you’re staying on?” Brad sounded hopeful.
She wasn’t going anywhere. Not yet. Not if he could help it.
“For now,” she said and walked out without looking back.
“Damn, man. That was a lot. Like a lot.” Brad had turned his head, watching her go. Drake couldn’t exactly resent him for that. She looked so good, and it wasn’t like she had a thing for Brad.
She still had a thing for him. She simply wasn’t willing to admit it yet.
“It was a start,” he allowed. She’d responded to him. For a moment she’d forgotten how angry she was with him and they’d slipped into the friendship they’d begun all those months before.
Outside he could hear Grace giving her son hell, but it wasn’t as much fun to watch as it had been when Taylor had been with him.
“The start of what? World War III with sexual tension?” Brad asked with a long sigh. “This is not how an op is supposed to go. I’ve got two of you who probably should just throw down and get it out of your systems, one with parental issues, and now I have to hide in my room because apparently the entire headquarters is going to turn into a weird sex club. Also, why is there so much lube in our bathroom?”
“If you wanted a normal op, you shouldn’t have called in Taggart,” Drake pointed out, watching another vehicle start up the long trail. Likely Tucker and Jax.
“I didn’t. Taylor did. You did,” Brad shot back. “I assure you I wanted proper backup. She’s the one who wanted to go this way. You backed her up by bringing Kyle back.”
He’d gotten used to the idea of nonformal ops where no one gave a damn about anything but succeeding, where the players on the field were expendable. No one was expendable to Taggart, except maybe the guy who mistakenly ate the last piece of pie.
When had he started caring about something more than winning?
When you met Taylor. When she became more important than winning. When you realized you weren’t some machine who had to give his whole soul to the cause.
When she proved to you that you had a soul.
The truck pulled up beside the SUV, and Tucker proved he could bring the chaos, too. In addition to Jax hauling his big body out of the truck, Tucker opened the door to the back of the cab and three kids jumped out. Two girls and a boy who immediately started running for the front doors.
Brad’s head was going to explode.
But he rather thought Taylor would appreciate the humor in Tucker not finding a babysitter.
His day had just gotten more interesting.
Chapter Eight
“I’m so sorry. My wife got called in on an emergency. Susie Plack went into labor early, and Roni is way better with obstetrics than I am.” Tucker Seeger slipped into his seat at the conference table.
She was the only woman in the entire room. Kim wouldn’t be coming with her to Europe, so she wasn’t allowed to be in this classified conference. Neither was Sandra Croft. The last time Taylor had seen her she’d been pulling her youngest grandchild off a sex swing because the tiny girl had toddled into the dungeon. The older girl had been in the kitchen happily helping with baking cookies with her Grandma Angie, and the boy, she’d been assured, wouldn’t wander too far.
Most women her age would likely call out Tucker’s parenting techniques, but she’d been raised by a spy dad who’d once left her in a hotel in Tokyo with five ramen packs and instructions on how to use the electric kettle to boil water. She’d also learned how to stitch a knife wound at the age of thirteen, so a toddler swinging on what she’d been assured was a thoroughly sanitized swing that also happened to be used for some rough sex didn’t bother her.
“Yeah, Tucker couldn’t find a babysitter.” Jax Lee was a stunning man in his late thirties with a killer smile who seemed amused by the world around him. “What’s your excuse, Kyle?”
Drake snorted, and she didn’t want to think about how nice it was to see him smile.
Kyle, however, was neither smiling nor amused. “They’re my parents. Not my kids. I did not have the option of whether or not they came. Someone couldn’t keep his mouth shut about this meeting.”
The big, gorgeous guy at the end of the table shrugged. “I could have kept my mouth shut, but where’s the fun in that?”
“Well, sir, the fun is in keeping classified operations classified.” Brad had been a fussy asshole all morning, but she could sympathize a bit. The Taggarts had brought some chaos, and he had not expected Tucker to bring three kiddos with him.