Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 146392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
He wasn’t asking TJ. He was asking Lou. She nodded. “Yes. I equipped before I blew the door. I just need to get hands on someone. It would be better to not have to deal with a wounded prisoner.”
“Then lead the way,” Zach commanded. “TJ, take our six. Tash, we’re heading out and will need extraction in less than five.”
Lou dropped her weapons, running for the door.
TJ started after her, his heart pounding. Why the fuck was she running?
Zach held a hand out. “Let her do her job. She’s right. We would shoot first and then not have a chance to ask questions.”
He watched as Lou burst through the doors and a guard turned, startled.
“Help me,” Lou said, sounding breathless.
The man who was holding a deadly weapon reached out for the sweet, covered-in-blood-so-she-looked-wounded woman.
Who reached up and cupped his neck with her right hand.
“And there it is. Nighty-night, buddy.” Zach walked out of the doors.
TJ followed. She’d had a doser? How the hell many weapons did his baby have on her? He rushed her way because the dude she’d sent to nappy time was trying to stay on his feet by holding on to her. TJ got to her before she hit the ground, sliding on his knees so she didn’t touch the concrete.
Her left hand came up, gripping his bicep, and she looked into his eyes. “TJ.”
She was gorgeous even with all the blood on her… And she was going fuzzy on him.
He gritted his teeth. “You had two dosers, didn’t you, baby?”
“I’m so sorry. I slipped them on my hands while you were getting redressed.” She twisted so now she was the one holding him. “It’s why I didn’t touch you when you kissed me.”
“You could have mentioned…” He couldn’t quite get the words out because those drugs worked fast. The Agency always had the best drugs.
“Yeah, Coop, you’re going to have to come to me. Your dumbass Romeo cousin got his ass dosed, and he looks heavy,” Zach was saying.
But TJ kept his eyes on Lou as the darkness took him.
* * * *
Lou looked down at the boy asleep on her lap. Boy? Would she always see that smiling, sunny boy when she looked at him? The one her twelve-year-old self had fallen in love with? Nope. It was a man sleeping on her lap. Well, his head was on her lap. The rest of him was laid out on the middle seat of the SUV Cooper drove toward wherever they’d managed to set up base. They’d argued about tossing him in the back with the now tied up guard, but Lou wasn’t about to let him bounce around back there. Even if it would have made the others comfortable.
“Lou, are you okay?” Because TJ’s body was taking up a whole row of seating, Kala was the one bouncing around in the back. Zach had tried to give his shotgun seat to her, but Lou had known that would be too far away for her bestie, who probably had a hell of a lecture building up.
They’d all seen her. Well, only base had seen her, but they all knew she’d done something with TJ. Something dumb. So dumb.
What had she been thinking?
Her glasses were off so everything was hazy, but she was close enough to see every inch of TJ. She knew she should still have them on, but Tasha could reach them through the radio in the car now, and then Lou wouldn’t have to listen to Big Tag complaining in the background.
“Of course.” She wasn’t, but now wasn’t the time.
“Uh, you want to tell me what happened?”
“Kenzie didn’t already do that?” Tasha would keep what happened private, but Kenzie would immediately tell her twin.
“All I got from Kenz is that Dad is broken and it had something to do with TJ’s dick. As you were the one in the room with my cousin at the time, I have to worry it’s about TJ’s dick doing something bad. Does TJ still need his dick?”
“Kala.” Cooper didn’t take his eyes off the road, but he proved his hearing was excellent. “You don’t know what happened.”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Kala replied. “If I find out he tried to force himself on her, I’ll make sure he can’t do it again.”
“He wouldn’t do that.” Lou couldn’t quite take her eyes off him. He was so beautiful, and now he had it in his head he owed her or something. They’d been in a high-octane moment. It didn’t mean a thing.
“He definitely wasn’t doing that,” Zach said with a long sigh. “She was not fighting him off in the hallway.”
“What the hell were you doing in the hallway, Lou? In the middle of an op?” Kala sounded kind of like she was begging to get the right answer to that question. “What made Dad go blind, Lou? What made him go blind?”