indicator read only two, which meant no visitors had entered the house. Ace was still home, hiding from his Handler—no newsflash—and they still hadn't gotten around to acquiring the cat they'd talked about getting.
Something felt a little off to Draco about two single guys, even brothers, living alone in a mansion and acquiring a cat together. The animal made their situation permanent instead of transitory, and frankly, the idea of living forever with Ace made his skin crawl. He didn't want to be one of those men sitting on the porch in his old age, reminiscing with his brother because he was the only person around.
He opened his bedroom door and walked into the room. The lights turned on automatically, set to his preferred wattage, which kept the room at a dim, relaxing illumination.
Following his routine, he walked into the bathroom and took a quick shower, dried off and returned to his room. Climbing into his four-poster bed, he leaned against the wooden, artisanal headboard and rubbed a hand over his nose. In all of his years living here, he'd never had a woman in his bed. It seemed wrong to bring someone here who wasn't his wife. He'd built this place for her, he realized. Whoever this woman might be was another question, but this was their bed—he and his wife's—and he wanted her to know, when he met her, where she slept had never been sullied by anyone else's presence.
Assuming his wife liked the house and was willing to live in it with him. His phone, on his nightstand, beeped, letting him know he had a message.
Groaning, he reached for the tool he often thought of as his leash, since it meant he was in permanent contact with everyone, and looked at the screen. The display read, ONE MISSED
CALL, with Wendy's name below it.
What the hell? She never contacted him at night. Had she figured him out? Did she know he was the one stalking her online tonight? Crap.
He pushed the button to retrieve the message only to discover she'd sent a text.
Reading her words, he couldn't help but smile.
Draco, sir, I'm so sorry I forgot to thank you today for saving my life. Hope I'm not waking you. Just couldn't put it off until morning. Wendy Warner.
Almost no one thanked him for what he did. He took that to mean they felt that since they paid him a large fee they didn't need to show gratitude, and mostly, he agreed with their philosophy. Wendy's words warmed him, though, deep inside where he didn't like to
acknowledge he felt cold.
He almost never sent text messages. Why bother when he could just send the employees messages using their computer system? Awkwardly, he fiddled with the phone until he'd gotten his brief reply correct.
Anytime Warner. Go to sleep. It's late.
It made good business sense to make sure she was properly rested. That was his only concern.
"Lights off."
The lights responded to his vocal command. His surroundings were engrossed in blackness.
Anyone venturing into his room would be completely blind, but he could see well enough to read if he wanted. He was in utter darkness only when he closed his eyes.
Tonight, he felt restless. The clock read one in the morning. Grumbling, he flipped over. Had Wendy listened? Had she gone to sleep? What did she sleep in?
Not something sexy. He just couldn't see practical Wendy buying lingerie. No, she probably slept in a t-shirt or flannel pajamas. He grew hard at the thought and groaned. Now he'd never get to sleep. How the hell could the idea of plaid pajamas make him so completely hard, when he'd seen some of the most beautiful women in the world wear leather and lace?
Oh, but he bet she smelled clean and fresh, free of the hideous manufactured perfumes all the rest wore. Maybe she used a moisturizer. It wouldn't surprise him. But if she did, she wore very little. He'd never smelled the remnants of it on her in the morning. She wasn't cheap; he paid her enough she didn't need to be. Maybe she used one of those moisturizing soaps women bought at department store counters. Ace used to buy them for their mother before she died. They couldn't afford them when they were growing up.
Imagining Wendy rubbing it into her warm, slightly damp body after she'd bathed made his erection pulse. God, he needed to release this tension. He hadn't been this hard from just the thought of sex since he'd been a teenager.
Pulling down his silk pajama pants, he grabbed his cock and started to stroke himself.
Wendy's face filled his mind. In his imagination, he saw her leaning over him. Her left eyebrow raised in the way she did when she concentrated on something, all of her attention now on him.
Her fingers replaced his, moving over him, stroking his ball sack, giving him the most pleasure he'd ever experienced. A throaty laugh escaped from her mouth as her strokes became
harder. Yes, he could feel it, her dainty hands, surprisingly strong, as she pulled up his shaft and then slid to the base. The pleasure came fast, so fast, and usually it took him so fucking long to reach the point of no return. But she knew him, which made a difference; she cared if he reached completion.
"Come for me." He heard her words as if she was there, over him, coaxing him along. "You can trust me, Draco."
With one last thrust into his closed hand, Draco made himself come, Wendy's smiling face in his mind's eye. After a moment, he let his head drop against his pillow, feeling strangely bereft.
He'd had an orgasm, not an easy feat for him. Yet he lay in his bed, alone, wishing for his Handler—the one woman he knew he should never have.
He was a Guardian and yet probably, at this moment, the most pathetic man on Earth.
****
Standing in his office, he heard the building come alive. Elevators dinged, people laughed, and then finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he heard the footsteps he'd longed to hear all morning. The ones, truthfully, he waited for each morning.
Wendy's footsteps were very clip, clap, clip. She walked with purpose. He heard her sigh when she reached her desk, and he frowned. Her behavior was unusual. Had she had a bad night after he'd disconnected from the Internet?
Usually he gave her a minute before he called her into his office, but today he was anxious to see her. To set things right in his mind. She'd been a goddess in his sexual fantasy. He needed to reset his imagination, to look at Wendy as he normally saw her, as his Handler and nothing more.
Come into my office. He sent his usual command to her computer and seconds later, heard the familiar footsteps approach his door. The wooden door swung open and Wendy entered the room.
He nearly swallowed his tongue. Dressed entirely in black, Wendy wore fitted pants that hugged her ass and a turtleneck that emphasized her breasts.
"I thought maybe today I would copy your standard attire." She shrugged and grinned at the little joke she'd made.
Dumbfounded by how sophisticated and hot she looked, he let his gaze travel downward.
Gone were her sensible shoes; in their place were black boots made more for fashion than for sense.
"You look...different."
"You know how I always have to dress for whatever I'm doing after work?"
He nodded because speaking was as hard as his dick, which uncannily remembered his fantasy from the night before, making it impossible for him to move.
"Today, I have a date."
Only after he broke the arm off his desk chair did he even realize he'd been squeezing it.
Chapter Five
"Draco, are you okay?" Wendy realized she was sputtering but what the hell?
Her boss had just ripped the side off his chair.
"I'm...fine." He stood and dumped the broken arm into the garbage can next to his desk. He turned his back on her, almost as if he were embarrassed. "Call down to Maintenance or whoever handles these things now and get me a new chair."
"Right away." She paused on her way to the door. Biting her lip, she decided not to ignore what just happened. "Do you want to tell me why you ripped the chair apart?"
"It was an accident."
She whirled around to find Draco had plac
ed his stoic, unreadable expression back on his perfect face.
"You see me do those kinds of things all of the time. I'm constantly tearing clothes."
"Yes." She knew he was avoiding giving her a direct answer, and she wasn't going to let him get off so easily. He could simply tell her to leave if he didn't want to discuss it. "But not breaking chairs."
"I guess I was just startled you had a date."
What? Not sure how to respond, she stood, silent, staring. Why would he care one way or another if she dated? She opened her mouth to ask him when he continued.
"So who's the lucky guy?"
"He's a friend, my best friend, actually. He's been pestering me to try dating for some time.
I've always been resistant, but then I met this man online last night in the game I play, and he pointed out making friends online is not quite the same thing as making them in real life. Or, in any case, he said something close to that."
He closed his eyes and held out his hand. "Please stop talking."
"Draco, are you sure you're okay?"
"Go back to your desk, Wendy; I've got a lot going on here today." He opened his eyes.
"Okay, sir, if that's what you want." He nodded. "It's what I want."
Turning on her heel, she walked to the door when she suddenly remembered the package in
her hand. "Oh, one more thing, this was on my desk this morning. It's addressed to you. The mailroom must have left it there yesterday. It has the code under your name, indicating it's private, for your eyes only."
As he made no move to approach her, Wendy strode to the desk and set the manila envelope down. She wasn't sure what had gotten into Draco. He seemed both heated and distant. Sighing, she wondered if Kyle was right and she was working in the wrong field. Well, in any case, they could discuss it on their date. She hoped they could. It might be awkward to be out with Kyle.
They might not have anything to say to one another at all.
It couldn't be nearly as scary to ask a lawyer or an accountant if they were having a bad day.
She hurried out of the office, glad when the door closed tightly behind her.
She returned briskly to her desk, wondering if the others had left her any nasty surprises and was relieved to see they hadn't. Sitting in front of her computer, she went over the day's schedule. Halfway through the morning, she realized Draco hadn't asked about it. In the four years they'd worked together, he had always asked her about his schedule.
Biting her lip, she called downstairs to the medical department. They answered on the first ring. This was standard, since she was calling from Draco's number. If Draco—or Ace, when he deemed to show up—needed anything, everyone in the building jumped to get it for them. That included answering the phone.
Moments later, she had set up a complete physical for Draco the next week. If he objected, she would cancel the appointment, but better to get it on the schedule and then convince him to go than to ask his permission to schedule it in the first place.
A message popped up on her computer . Come back in here.
She smiled. He must have remembered the schedule discussion. Hopefully, he'd worked out whatever demons he'd been battling earlier. Grabbing her print out of the day's activities, she hurried back into his office.
Draco sat in his chair, his eyes forward as he regarded something on his monitor.
The envelope she'd brought in earlier lay torn open, discarded upon his desk. "Come here."
He still hadn't looked up at her.
She moved silently forward, her heartbeat picking up as she did. Something was wrong—and not in the same way as it had been earlier—Draco's pallor was bad. He looked almost green, as if he was sick, although his eyes showed only fury.
"This is what was in the envelope." He motioned with his chin toward the screen.
Leaning over the back of his chair so her head was close to his, she resisted the urge to breathe in his clean, masculine scent as she looked at what he wanted her to see.
There was a man strapped to a chair, bound and gagged. He looked pleadingly at the video camera.
"Isn't that Carl Andrews?"
"Yes, my first Handler, your predecessor." Draco paused. "It's about to get really disturbing.
This is the third time I've watched it. Before things turn ugly, notice the date on the bottom of the screen."
She squinted, reading the small display of the date and time. "Four years ago to the day."
"The day Carl disappeared. I assumed he'd run off. We'd had a fight. He didn't like his paycheck. I told him if he didn't like it, he shouldn't come back the next day. When he didn't, I just assumed..."
Draco's voice tapered off as a man, masked in a costume looking like President Reagan, stepped behind Carl, and, using a machete, sliced off his head. Blood spurted everywhere.
Blinking one time to make sure she'd seen what she thought she did, Wendy covered her mouth, both to stop the scream wanting to explode and to keep from vomiting. God-oh-God-oh-God-oh-God...She couldn't think. What? How...?
Draco's strong hands pulled her down onto his lap. "Shh...it's okay, little girl." Normally, she hated that phrase, but from Draco it sounded like an endearment, and as she shook in his arms for the second time in two days, she didn't think she was in a position to complain.
Someone had just sliced off Carl's head.
"The video's not over. I'm sorry to do this, but I need you to look again. See what it says. As soon as you do, I'll turn it off and you'll never have to look at it again."
She turned back to the computer, not wanting to see, just wanting to walk out of the room and never return or better yet, pretend the whole thing had never happened. Where was her rewind button to make the day start again? She would call in sick.
Words appeared over the image of Carl's now decapitated body. "SUBJECT: DRACO
POWERS. WEAKNESS: His Handlers. Powers has an obvious affection for the people in his employ...we're coming for you, Draco."
"Look at me." Draco turned her in his lap until she faced him. Their faces were so close she
could have kissed him if she could make her body work. All it wanted to do right now was shake. "I made you watch this because I want you to understand. You're in terrible danger. This is the Organization. I don't know why they sent this today when they did it four years ago. But I'm certain there's a reason. Clearly, they think to hurt me by what they did to Carl. They succeeded. The poor bastard must have thought I'd be looking for him, must have thought I'd rescue him, and I thought he had just run off..."
Draco's voice faded away and his gaze became hooded. She wondered if he was holding back tears. She no longer held back hers. She hadn't known Carl very well; he had hired her, not been her friend. Regardless, the video horrified her. The poor man.
Finally, when she could speak, she answered him. "It's not your fault. They're after you, Draco. They want to hurt you. They've held onto this for four years; they're planning something."
"I agree." He nodded and she noted he hadn't let go of his grip on her or made any move to remove her from his lap. "I need you to pull yourself together and call a meeting of all of the Guardians. Don't tell their Handlers what's going on. I don't need panic, not yet. Tell everyone who is out in the field they have to report in within the next hour. I know some people are overseas. They are going to have to fly like hell. I won't take any excuses."
Wendy must have mumbled some sort of agreement. Her mind wasn't quite working, but Draco accepted it.
"Make the calls from in here. I don't want anyone to hear what you're saying.
Then, when you're finished, you have to do something for me." She cleared her throat; it felt raw. "What?"
"I want you to stay in this building. It's safe in here. Don't go anywhere, not even around the corner for a coffee. Sit here at your desk. If you have to go to the bathroom, go fast and then return to your desk. Don't move."
"You just want me to sit at my desk."
"Correct.
I'm going to call everyone into the vault to discuss this. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
Draco was speaking very slowly as if speaking to someone for whom English was a second language.
"It means..." She appreciated he was being gentle with her. "You'll be behind closed doors, unreachable by cell phone."
"There'll be three pounds of lead between us and the rest of the world. No one will be able to hear what we discuss, and no one will be able to reach me. Including you. It's the only flaw in the system, but I'd never counted on having my Handler become a target."
"I'll be fine."
He shook his head. "I'm not so sure."
"I'll stay at my desk, like you said. If I run out of work, I'll sign in online and play my game."
Draco nodded, his black hair falling into his eyes. Since she sat on his lap, and the whole thing had gotten preposterously out of hand, she gave in to her instinct and pushed his hair off his forehead. He was so deep in thought he didn't seem to notice, which was both upsetting and relieving, as she worried about her forwardness immediately after she'd acted.
"I would bring you down there with me but then all of the Guardians are going to want their Handlers, and you're the only non-Guardians in the world I trust."
Her cheeks heated at his remarks. Maybe it was because she was his Handler and she did a good job. Maybe it wasn't personal. But sitting on his lap as he told her he trusted her, she couldn't help but feel he'd given her the greatest compliment of her life.
"I'd never betray you, Draco." Her voice sounded hoarse.
His gaze met hers and when he smiled, it looked like ten years lifted from his face. "I know."
Silence stretched between them like a highway. "Maybe I should get up."
He nodded. "Good idea. I'm going to go down to the vault to get ready. I'm going to have to show the video to everyone."
"Why didn't they just e-mail it to you?"