Page 46 of Callen's Captive
Callen glared at her. Okay then, her shifter wasn’t in the mood for light-hearted banter. He had objected to the idea of Canada, so she’d count that as a win.
Her jeans and t-shirt had dried overnight, so she changed out of Callen’s shirt, noticing how he kept sneaking peeks while he was supposedly facing the other way. She wiggled a bit more than necessary while pulling on her jeans. What good was having a hot shifter watching if she couldn’t have fun with it?
After eating breakfast, featuring fresh-made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, they headed out of the treehouse. More than once, Callen’s left hand rested on the small of her lower back as they traveled through sprawling backyards that quickly turned to smaller fenced in properties and ultimately alleys as they entered the heart of Riverview.
The heat from his touch seared through her shirt, making it hard to focus on where they were going. Several times Callen gave her a curious look when she paused at a split, debating which way to turn. He didn’t know the effect he was having on her, fueling her need to touch him, press her body against him, and feel him wrap those muscular arms around her and make her feel safe, even loved. Except it wasn’t love, it couldn’t be, not with her being human. Lust, nothing more than lust had driven him to kiss her, to touch her and elicit such delicious feelings she’d never experienced before.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked as they entered the library.
She was biting her pendant again, too nervous to answer. If she spoke now, she’d tell him how much she wanted to touch him, feel his body over her, let him claim her, and that was the worst thing she could do. Callen would be gone in a few hours.
They settled into a small conference room where she opened her laptop and got to work. Callen stood guard at the door. Occasionally, he left to patrol, as he put it. When he returned, he’d lay a hand on the back of her neck or her shoulders and peer at her screen. Sometimes he didn’t bother looking at the screen, considering how it was all a bunch of letters and numbers that didn’t make any sense. But still he found a reason to touch her. Heat pooled between her thighs each time she caught his scent or felt his hand on her.
When she finally broke past the WSSO’s last firewall. Callen’s attention locked on the screen, at the file titled Oskar Black pack. After only twenty seconds, the screen went blank.
“What happened?” he asked.
“They discovered me and threw up another wall. It won’t take them long to pinpoint our location.” Kate shoved the laptop in her back and flew out the door, with Callen right behind her. He grabbed her by the wrist to lead toward the fire exit.
She headed toward the back wall instead. “I knew we wouldn’t have much time, so I sent everything I could to print out.” He let her go, and she scrambled to the printer that was already spitting out page after page of covert files.
“Let’s go,” he said, with a cold edge to his voice. The yellow of his eyes crowded out the brown. Already highly focused on the hallway that led to their little enclave of the library, he was crouching low, and the muscles on his back rippled in a way she’d never seen on a man. That’s when she realized he was preparing to shift.
“Almost done!” She was grabbing each paper as it came off the printer, knowing he might force her to leave before everything printed. Less than a minute later, that’s exactly what he did. She shoved the papers in her bag and ran alongside Callen, taking the route they’d decided in advance.
They raced down the steps and out the back exit, through a small park and over a fence to an abandoned warehouse. They heard shouting getting closer. Callen held his finger to his lips and motioned her to crouch behind an old crumbling cement wall at the edge of the warehouse’s loading dock. He disappeared into the trees of the park.
Minutes passed as no one exited the woods. The silence was eerie, especially given the time of day. A panic she’d never experienced before started to rise within her, and she wasn’t even in the woods.
Pop, pop, pop. Three gunshots followed by shouts of ‘Got Him!’ destroyed the quiet. Her heart jumped into her throat. Part of her said to move, but she couldn’t leave him. She had to go back, do something to help him.
When Callen suddenly appeared before her, naked but whole, she launched herself at him, threw her arms around his neck and tucked her head against his chest. She never wanted to let go. Then a large hand stroked her back, and she realized he had lifted her and was running with her in his arms, away from the mercenaries.
* * *
CALLEN
Callen set Kate down when they were far enough from the mercenaries that he could no longer hear them. Briggs was proving to be a real pain in his ass. The man was good at tracking and strategy. Fortunately, his men weren’t as skilled, and that had given Callen the opportunity to lead them away from Kate and toward the river where he finally lost them. The river would keep the mercenaries busy for a while as they searched the banks and followed the flow downstream while he and Kate headed upstream. Monsoon season, which was usually late summer, was stretching into fall this year, resulting in a swelling river. One deep and fast enough to either make Briggs think Callen had drowned, or keep him and his men busy for a while.
Twice, Callen caught Kate glancing at his naked body as they walked. The only thing on him at this point was her backpack. “I told you. I’m not good about remembering to strip first.”
“No complaints here,” she said with a salacious smile that would have his cock rising to attention if she kept looking at him like that. He should have stripped out of his clothes; that had been his last set, except for the button-down shirt that he wanted to leave for her in case she needed it later.
“It bothers you that we’re different,” Kate said, slipping her hand in his as she led him to an old dirt road that would take them off the state route before any cars drove by.
Her smaller hand in his had felt so right all this time. The contrast of white against black was no different than the obvious contrast of female and male, human and shifter. The world was made up of so many differences and yet that was what made everything interesting.
“No, it doesn’t bother me. What makes you think it does?”
She shrugged, but said nothing. His Kate had a tendency to clam up when something was bothering her. He needed to give her time to think through whatever the issue was. Differences. . . He loved all her differences, especially how she wasn’t at all like the women who prattled on and on about insignificant things. He couldn’t picture Kate gossiping over which girl was sleeping with which guy or which shoes matched her outfit. On the other hand, Kate also had a tendency to hold too much in. Trust wasn’t easy for her. He didn’t like it, but he understood it.
“I never thought I’d date a shifter.”
“Dating? Is that what we’re doing? You must go on some strange dates then, because mine never involve guns, chases, and people trying to kill me. Except for a father here and there.” He wasn’t sure where this conversation was going or why she’d started it, but she smiled, at that was worth the world to him.
“I’m serious,” he said, in a voice that was anything but. He’d do and say anything to keep her smiling. She needed to let go and relax, enjoy life without her mission weighing her down all the time.
Callen never asked her where she was leading him. Knowing Kate, she already had a destination in mind. After roughly three miles, they reached an abandoned gas station. Another broken-down shelter that offered privacy. Kate hadn’t been exaggerating when she said she knew this town and surrounding area really well.
