Page 61 of Good Enough

“No. I’m starting to get twitchy. And I don’t get twitchy, so that means we’ve got problems. At this point, if I can’t find him, I’m worried he’s nowhere to be found. Or at least not without a cadaver dog.”

God asked, “Do you think Kubrick might know somewhere he would go that we wouldn’t think to look or be able to find?”

“I don’t know. She doesn’t talk about him at all except when I ask directly, so it makes me wonder how close they actually are.”

“They’re close,” Midas affirmed. “I can find pictures galore of them together, and not just prior to his military days. She’s been his plus-one at a number of military events over the years. As recent as last year. I think I see Fourth of July decorations in the corner of one picture, but I’m not one hundred percent positive. Her hair is a little different in the picture than it is now, too. And they email all the time. Granted, there are huge gaps, which coincide with when he’s out in the field, but it’s at minimum daily when he’s not in action.”

There was a crunching noise over the speakers. “Do you think she knows anything she’s not telling?” God asked around the candy he was pulverizing.

“I don’t think so. She’s not exactly a ‘subtle’ kind of woman. She pretty much lays everything out there for you to see, although she can mask her emotions most of the time.”

Except when it comes to you.

Waters grimaced at a particularly loud crunch. “I thought Cherry took away your suckers?”

“She did,” God growled.

“Yeah, she did,” Midas confirmed, “but he just went online and ordered them to be shipped directly to him in his batcave. I think they’re being delivered by drone.”

God grunted. “Listen, Waters, we’re coming up empty, and under normal circumstances, I’d say we’re spinning our wheels. But with Ka-Bar up in smoke, I’m thinking it’s even worse than we imagined. I think it’s time to push her for anything at all she might have, even if it seems insignificant or totally useless.”

Waters sighed. “Yeah, not sure how she’ll take the fact that I’m really on this job with her because we think Ka-Bar’s in trouble, and somehow she’s leverage.”

“Worse will be when you tell her that Ka-Bar is missing,” Midas added.

“Yeah, then there’s that.”

Running his hands over his head and to the back of his neck, Waters leaned forward on his elbows on the desktop. “I’ll see what I can do. I’m gonna need a little time.”

“Don’t be a pussy, Waters,” God warned. “The longer we go with no leads, the worse things look for Ka-Bar, and the more in the dark we are with how Kubrick is involved. Time is running out.”

God wasn’t just warning him about finding Ka-Bar. It was also a reminder that his time with Kubrick was also finite. “Roger that.”

Waters shut down his tablet and sat back in the chair with a sigh. He was not looking forward to questioning her and wasn’t even sure how to go about it. His best approach was probably just straight at it and confess everything. But he wasn’t sure if she was going to be mad, scared, both, or something else altogether. And God was correct. They didn’t have time for him to be overly cautious because with each minute they didn’t act, if Ka-Bar was being held hostage, the more time that passed, the less likely he would be alive when they found him. If they ever found him.

Pushing up on the arms of the chair, he headed over to the doors of Kubrick’s suite. Quietly, he opened the doors, and just as silently, he shut them behind him, turning the lock once more. If she tried to storm out on him, he’d at least have the extra second or two that unlocking them would give him.

She lay diagonally across the bed, the foot of one bent leg peeking out, the sheet around her hips, her bare back beckoning him. He remembered covering her with his body earlier, kissing his way up from the top of her waist to the nape of her neck. Her skin was incredibly soft to the touch, and as always, the ever-present scent of lilacs seemed to surround her. Her face was turned to the window in sleep, hair thoroughly tousled, one hand tucked into her chest, the other straight along her side.

She was perfect.

He needed more.

Walking across the room, he stripped off his T-shirt and pants that he’d pulled on in haste to go make his call, quickly folding them and placing them on the chair in the corner of the room. He turned back toward the bed and lay one hand gently on the ankle of her partially exposed leg, then slid it loosely up the calf muscle. When his hand reached her knee, he leaned down and kissed the back of her thigh, pointing his tongue and licking a stripe up to the underside of her ass. He brushed the sheet aside, exposing her naked form to the room. A quick nip to the cheek directly in front of him caused a soft noise to come from her throat, but it was the very deliberate tongue swiping between the two cheeks he gently pulled apart, from her pussy opening to the dimpled mid back that caused a sleep-hazed gasp to emerge. He smiled against her lower back, and he knew the smile was wicked.

Yeah, it isn’t an ass fetish, but I am definitely an ass man. And hers is as wicked as I imagined.

Just to be greedy, he repeated the tongue swipe, a second of pressure and a swirl against her back hole, then continuing up to the lower back where he breathed an openmouthed kiss.

Bracketing her thighs with his knees, he placed both hands at her hips, sliding them up her back, then brushing the mass of blonde hair over the nape of her neck. When the space was clear, he closed the distance between them, bracing himself just above her body, his teeth taking light purchase in the skin there. He brushed aside his subconscious, making snide comments about claiming what he couldn’t, before he moved his mouth to where the nape met the shoulder. One hand tunneling underneath the blonde hair and gripping firmly, he sucked hard enough to raise a bruise.

She moaned with need in her sleep.

After admiring his work, one fingertip brushing the marked skin, he slid to her left and lay on his side, the hand that had been gripping the roots of her hair brushing tendrils off her forehead. He caressed the silk skin of her breast, feathered kisses along her shoulder, touched the tip of his tongue beneath her ear, sucked the lobe briefly into his mouth, trailed his lips across her cheek to the corner of her mouth, the Monroe beauty mark, the tip of her nose and the corner of her eyebrow all in an effort to sweetly wake her up in anticipation of, hopefully, more snuggling and kissing.

You have really got it bad, dude. Snuggling? Kissing? The guys are totally going to take your Man Card and rip it into shreds.

Her hand smoothed over the mattress and up his chest to curve around his neck. “Hey,” she whispered.

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