Page 19 of Lost (Powertools: The Shields 2)

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Not to be outdone, Marcus shed his shorts too, eager to get under the cover of the bubbling surface of the spa before his dick decided it wasn’t as exhausted as the rest of his body. It still hadn’t fully recovered from what he’d witnessed the day before or the dreams he’d been so rudely awakened from earlier.

Knox’s bare ass was even paler than the rest of him, inspiring a chuckle from Marcus as he finished stripping and took up a spot on the opposite side of the spa. Damn if the jets didn’t feel incredible massaging his back and ass. This had been a great idea.

“Are you laughing at me?” Knox glared even as he sank gingerly into the frothing water. Fortunately, it didn’t quite reach the gash in his chest. Kennedy probably wouldn’t have approved if it had.

“Not the way you think.” Marcus shook his head. “Just noticing you could stand to go naked in the sun a bit more.”

“And broil my ass? No fucking thank you.” Knox huffed, but his gaze lingered on Marcus’s bare torso, which was pretty much the opposite end of the spectrum. “I remember one time when I was living on the streets during the summer, not too long before I met Kennedy, I fell asleep in the park. During the day the cops would leave me alone—I could hide in among the rest of the people hanging out on the grass. But I was so fucking tired I slept in the sun all damn day. Got blisters everywhere. Still have a few scars.” He pointed to one that was going to seem minor compared to the trail left by the bullet skimming his pecs.

Marcus wasn’t heartless. “It sounds like you had it rough growing up. I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.” Knox shrugged one shoulder, then sighed as he relaxed against the jets, letting them massage the soreness from his muscles.

“No, but I recognize that I got lucky in the family lottery and I wish everyone could say the same.” Marcus smiled softly as he thought about his mom and dad.

“Tell me about them.” Knox wasn’t high pressure. Hell, he didn’t even have his eyes open.

Marcus was proud of his family and he didn’t mind sharing. “My mom is a kickass intellectual property lawyer, and my dad owns an independent pharmacy. They’ve been together since they were in eighth grade and they worked their butts off to make sure that my sister and I had everything we needed and then some growing up. Most of all, their love. They supported me when I went to school for criminal justice and afterward when I got disillusioned by how broken the system I was supposed to be upholding turned out to be. I got in trouble for saying so a little too loudly on the force, and when Jordan heard about my case, he approached me to come work for Shields, where we might sometimes break the rules, but for all the right reasons. My fam doesn’t know exactly what we’re up to, but they are smart enough to know this isn’t a simple security firm. And somehow they’re still proud of me. My mom said she has plenty of lawyer friends if I ever need them to get one of us out of a bind.”

“So you’re vigilantes?” Knox wondered.

“I guess. Kind of. We operate in a gray area. Sanctioned and hired by official agencies to do what they can’t when there’s too much red tape tying their hands. At the very least, they look the other way and drop us intel breadcrumbs that lead us to messy situations we can clean up.” Marcus sank deeper into the water, letting it wash away the memories of some of the threats he’d eliminated. It wasn’t that he liked killing people, it was that sometimes doing so was better than letting them keep hurting innocent people. He didn’t regret it. And if that made him a psychopath, well, so be it.

“At least there’s a code of honor to what you’re doing.” Knox rested his head on the edge of the spa. “Where I came from, everyone was scrambling to survive and if that meant you dragged someone else down to get ahead…”

“Is that how you got mixed up with the Vipers?” Marcus asked. He couldn’t believe Kennedy would have involved herself with him if he’d already been headed down that path.

Knox let out a harsh laugh. “Nah. Actually was trying to do the right thing too. But it didn’t work out. I was destined to be gutter trash.”

“What does that mean?” Marcus sat up straighter, not that Knox noticed with his eyes still scrunched as if he could block out the memories.

“I was seventeen when I fell for Kennedy. Believed the stuff she told me about how we could make a better future for ourselves. And that things didn’t have to be like they’d turned out for my mom. So when I got approached by some undercover cop to be a mole, and bring them some evidence as a kind of tryout for their program, I took it.”

Marcus didn’t interrupt, afraid Knox might clam up at the slightest hint of judgment.

“The problem was that to get what he needed, I had to fit in. I had to be one of them, at least for a while. I didn’t think it would be an issue. Buy a little from them, smoke it with them a time or two until I could get everything the cops needed on my wire. Problem is, from the very first hit…it changed my life. It was magical poison. When I was high, none of my problems mattered. I had never felt so light. Except maybe when I was with Kennedy, though then I was worried constantly she was going to figure out that I didn’t belong with her. I also had some attraction to dudes, and I didn’t know how to tell her. If she would take it the right way or freak out or think it changed how I felt about her. We were young. And I was an idiot. Still am, mostly.”

Marcus forced himself to stay planted where he was. “You were an addict with no support—that’s not the same thing at all.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not what the cops said. Once they had what they needed from me, they didn’t reward me with an admissions letter to the academy like they’d promised. Nope, they threatened to toss my ass in jail.That’swhy I had to leave. And the only option I had, and—let’s be honest, the only way I could score more drugs—was hustling for the Vipers in exchange for a place to go. No way was I about to get Kennedy tangled up in that shit. So I bailed. On her, on the future we’d pretended could be real. On myself. For a long time. I don’t remember a lot of it to be honest. I was so fucked up, in a lot of ways.”

“So what turned things around?” Marcus figured Knox was a hell of a lot stronger than he gave himself credit for. To have survived all that. To have slipped through every crack in the system as a child and to have been let down by an institution he should have been able to trust, exactly like Marcus had…

It was a lot.

“Maybe we’ve been in here long enough.” Knox pushed up a bit, water sluicing down his flat abdomen, but Marcus lunged forward and clamped his hand on Knox’s wrist.

“Not yet. Look, it’s obvious to me that Kennedy disagrees with your assessment of yourself. She’s never gotten over you. So tell me why I should let you be around her now and how you’re different, and definitely not going to hurt her again.”

“Oh, so that’s why you gave me this shiner, huh? You have a hard-on for her too?” Knox shook his head as if pitying Marcus. “Of course you do—who wouldn’t? You saw how she rode me yesterday. Damn.”

Now neither of them were getting out of the spa any time soon.

They settled back in, Marcus willing his dick not to respond to the echo of Kennedy’s moans ringing through his mind. “She’s magnificent. You saw her in the field. She’s confident and incredible at her job. She has this way of calming people down when they’re injured and fixing them even in shitty conditions so they can do it all over again another day. She’s smart as fuck, funny, and…well…wounded down deep. It’s a combination that’s impossible to resist.”

“You forgot drop-dead gorgeous,” Knox offered.

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