Explosive Encounter (Task Force 779 Book 2) Read online

  Covering her body, I close the door nearly all the way before going to the kitchen to grab coffee and then to my den where an encrypted laptop sits that only I have access to.

  Placing my phone on the desk beside it, I power the machine up and walk towards my standing gun safe to grab my Glock. Cleaning it always calms my nerves. The fluency of an action I’ve done for nearly twenty years comes with ease and without thought.

  Sitting down, I place the weapon beside my cell and power up the custom search engine Ryder built for us and look into Everett’s mom's background from birth. I know that whatever I find, Ryder will too, but I want the information sooner than tomorrow.

  As the wheel spins on the screen, I disassemble the gun and carefully place all the pieces on a cloth. A ding announces the search's end, and I gaze at the number of names listed before me. I narrow it down to the appropriate parameters for our Jessica Gaines and find her in less than ten minutes.

  Cleaning as I read, I take in all the new information about a woman I haven’t met and now have dozens of questions for. First being, who she was before becoming Jessica Gaines. There’s nothing indicating her maiden name. In fact, her marriage certificate to Van is sloppy. If this had gone through any type of scrutiny, it would have failed, and they’d have both been pulled in for questioning.

  With the pins and chamber clean, I slowly reassemble my Glock. A gun I was given by my grandfather when I was twelve years old. It catapulted my fascination with all types of weaponry. I still remember when I was fourteen and Gramps taught me to wire my first explosives as we popped firecrackers in the swamp behind his house in Clearwater. We always had good fishing days when we did that.

  I was sixteen the first time he handed me a brick of C-4 and taught me to wire it correctly so I didn’t blow my own ass up. That day is still one of the best of my life.

  “Foster Halsey, if you blow your fingers off, your Mama is gonna feed me to them gators.” Gramps sounds concerned, but I can tell he’s amused.

  Plugging the last wire into the brick, I head back to where he’s hiding behind a large fallen log in the swamp a couple miles from his place. It’s deserted here, so we know there’s nothing but snakes and gators out to get hurt by.

  “Can I have the detonator now?” I’m fucking excited. I’ve been popping firecrackers with him since I was little, and lately, we do a lot of shooting, but this is the first time he’s allowed me to handle the explosives myself.

  “No doing this without me, you hear?” I nod and wait.

  He hands it over, and the little red button is magnified as my excitement grows. “Here we go!” The words have barely left my mouth, and I’ve hit it. The water around us explodes, the ground shakes, and trees fall as I cheer my enthusiasm. “Woohoo! That was huge!”

  “Yeah, huge,” Gramps grumbles, and I turn to see he’s got a bunch of cattails and weeds covering him.

  “Sorry, Gramps!”

  “No, you’re not,” he mutters with a smile on his face.

  I don’t dispute him because I’m not. This was fucking amazing, and I can’t wait to do it again.

  And again, I did. I’ve set of five hundred small, medium, large, and overly large explosions over my fourteen-year career, and I’m hoping to set off a hell of a lot more in the remainder of it.

  Mom was livid when she found out Gramps was the reason I live for the adrenaline of arming and disarming volatile objects. If she had her way, I’d be set up in some high-rise office back in Tampa for life. But that’s not me. I live for the action.

  I crave the adventure and adrenaline of every mission I go on. I’m not certain there’s anything in this world that could take me away from what I do.

  Which makes me wonder if Everett can realistically handle the man I am?

  Everett

  I’m not sure how long I’ve been awake for, but I’ve been laying in the bed Foster put me in without thought to moving any time soon. I want to go to sleep and wake up to everything I’ve learned recently being a bad dream. A waking nightmare. Anything but the truth.

  If it were just the one incident of learning that Van was not my father, it would be one thing, but Mom, too? I can’t even call her by her real name. She’s been my best friend my entire life, and I can’t simply think of her as Jessica as easily as I can with Van. He was never there. She was.

  I remember all the times I cried on her shoulder as a child. My first crush, my first heartbreak, all the important moments of my life, it was always with her. She held me through every storm I was ever thrown into and never asked for anything in return.

  Now, I’m supposed to what? Ignore all of that. The love? The friendship? The work she put into making sure I had everything I needed growing up? I can’t do that. It’d be like chopping my own arm off.

  The trouble is, if I’m not hers, I have to be somebody's, and what if that somebody loves me and wants me? What if I was stolen from them?

  Because of Van, I know exactly how that feels, and I can’t imagine whoever my real mother is, going the past twenty-two yea- Jesus, am I even twenty-two?

  The more time that goes by, the more questions arise. I don’t even know how to begin asking them or if I’m even allowed to. But I know I can’t sit here and do nothing. I need to find out what everyone else is doing, figure out where I fit in.

  Rising from the bed, I see my overnight bag on top of a dresser and quickly grab it while heading into a bathroom. Closing the door, I search the bag for my toothbrush, hairbrush, and clothes. I can shower later. There’s too much to do for now.

  Somewhat freshened up, I follow the scent of coffee down the long hallway and enter an open room. The living room, kitchen, and small dining nook are cute. Comfortable in a bachelor kind of way, but I like how sparse the rooms are. There isn’t much more than a dozen pictures either hanging on the walls or placed on shelves.

  After opening and closing a few cupboards, I find the mugs and grab the largest of them and fill it to the brim with the sharp smelling brew. Black coffee is the only way to go when I need to focus. It got me through college exams, and hopefully, it’ll get me through an all-encompassing look into my life and the lives of those around me.

  “Foster?” I call just as I spot another door halfway open and hear the tapping of keys on a keyboard.

  I knock lightly. “Come on in, Everett.” He sounds distracted.

  Pushing the door open enough to slip in, I see a gun on his desk and papers scattered around his laptop. “Hi.”

  Stopping what he’s doing, Foster stands and gives me his complete attention. I’ve never had that before.

  “How are you feeling?” he asks, and I can see he’s annoyed with his own question because the answer is relatively obvious.

  “Confused? Sad?” So many things. “Angry. I’m so mad at them. I’m furious that she made me love her. That she was a wonderful mother. I’m pissed because she was always there for me. She held me every night for a month when I came home from Mexico and woke up screaming. She cried with me for everything I've lost.” My grip on the cup in my hand tightens, and I wish I were strong enough to shatter it.

  Walking over to me, Foster takes my cup and places it on a shelf before he pulls me into his arms. “She did those things because she loves you, Evie. Please don’t doubt that. You can’t fake love for over two decades. Whatever her reason is behind why you’re with her and not those you came from, we’ll find out. You will have your answers.”

  I wish it were so simple. “She might have taken me from someone, Foster. How am I supposed to deal with that?” I don’t require a response because none is forthcoming at this time, but I need to voice it. I need to kick and scream and become three again so I can have the temper tantrum of all tantrums.

  “I hate repeating myself, but we’ll figure it out.” He’s so supportive.

  “I know. I’m sorry, it’s just hard. It was so unexpected, you know.”

  “None of us saw it coming.” Grabbing my hand, he pulls me over t
o his desk to show me what he’s got on the screen, and I’m even more confused now. “So, here’s what I’ve found so far.” He sits and drops me into his lap. “Jessica Gaines never existed before she and Van married, and from what I can tell, the certificate has been forged. Sloppily so.”

  “I don’t understand what that means.” I think I might, but I’m pretty sure I’m in denial at this point.

  “Jessica Gaines is a fake name.”

  That’s…

  “So, she could still be my mom?” Hope attempts to blossom, but I squash down. I can’t handle the hurt if there’s no way she is.

  “I wouldn’t rule it out.” His smile is filled with everything I’m not allowing myself to embrace.

  Spinning to face him fully, I grab his cheeks in my hands and lean forward. “Thank you, Foster.” I kiss him. His lips are soft, strong, supple, and I could and would get lost in them for a lifetime if I let myself.

  His tight grip gives me the strength to explore his mouth further. I don’t know how or why, but my body lights up for Foster like fireworks. He elicits a response from me every time I’m near him, and I’m having so much trouble holding myself back from falling for him deeper than I already have.

  The day he rescued me, he claimed a small piece of my soul, and from every point of contact afterwards, he's begun to take more and more with him.

  He’s not just Foster Halsey, the man who rescued me. He’s Foster Halsey, the man of my dreams.

  Everything about him is exactly who I've pictured spending my life with. He’s strong, he’s loving. He’s understanding and forgiving. What more could a woman honestly ask for?

  “Foster?” I whisper against his lips.

  “Yeah, Evie?”

  “You’re a dream,” I confess.

  His grip on my hip tightens and slowly moves to cup and squeeze my ass as the other hand climbs up my spine and entangles in my hair. Fisting the locks in his hand, he pulls my head back. “No, Everett, I’m fucking real. Whatever you're thinking in that pretty head of yours is real. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

  His mouth slams down over mine and devours my cry of pleasure as he picks me up and places me on top of the desk. Moving a couple things to the side, he attacks the column of my neck with vigor as he steps further into where my thighs cradle him.

  “Finally catching on that we’re it for each other, are you?” His words may be low, but they hold every possessive note as if he were yelling in a crowded room.

  “Maybe,” I respond, enjoying the way he nips and kisses my flesh.

  My hands grip his biceps, and the flexing muscles constrict as I massage along his arms, encouraging him without words to continue his assault on my body.

  “Mmm, that’s my girl.” His whisper as he sucks my earlobe into his mouth sends shivers of delight racing through my bloodstream, and I let out a little moan of my own.

  “You make this so easy.”

  “Make what easy?” He pulls back to look up at me.

  I meet his stare. “Trusting you. I never thought I would do that again. But with you, there’s no question that I can.” A grin spreads across his face making me glad I told him.

  Foster

  Fucking progress. Finally.

  Trust is the first step. If I were any other Tom, Dick, or Harry, I know I wouldn’t have earned it. Everett is cautious; it’s in her nature, but with me, I’ve proven I can and will take care of her. There is no line I won’t cross to be the man she needs and can count on. Short of death, nothing will take me from her side.

  The ups and downs of the last couple of days have been worse than the Kingda Ka—the world’s tallest roller-coaster—in Jersey. A 456-foot drop on ten go-rounds wouldn’t be enough to describe what she’s been through. The emotional highs and lows she’s experienced.

  Everett Gaines is the strongest woman I know. And that’s saying something after everything Ryder’s girl, Codie, has gone through. Losing her child before she even got to hold him is unimaginable. But she pulled through it and became one hell of a woman.

  Brushing the hair back from Evie’s face, I hold her tight. “You won’t regret giving that to me baby. Not ever.” I’d rather cut my own arm off than disappoint this girl.

  “I know.” Her megawatt smile could light up a room.

  Bending forward, I trap her lips in a deep kiss. Her body relaxes under my weight as I pin her to the top of my desk. I debate for about half a second if this is a good idea or not, but she’s shown more than enough times that if she doesn’t like or want something to happen, it’s not going to, so I continue on.

  Pushing her shirt up her body slowly, I expose her creamy flesh and draw my fingers up the middle of her torso. The shivers that rush through her make my dick twitch as her grip on my arms tighten.

  “Mmm, I love the way you touch me, Foster.”

  “Oh yeah?” She nods. There’s so much I want to do to this girl. “You trust me?”

  “You know I do.” Her hooded gaze is filled with anticipation.

  Standing tall, I reach over to grab my phone and swipe until I find my music app and hit play on a sexy playlist. Shakira’s "Hips Don’t Lie" plays softly in the background.

  Everett looks at me quizzically as I sit down and roll my chair back. I give her a wolfish grin as I demand, “Strip for me.” I’m a visual man, and nothing pleases me more than watching a woman undress.

  Not just any woman, though, I have to have a connection with her. She has to mean something to me. And Everett means the world.

  “Strip?” The single word is breathless as she stares from me to the phone and back again.

  Biting my lip, I’m eager to watch her discover her sensuality. It takes a minute of me eye-fucking her before she hops off the desk and seductively begins to sway her hips from side to side. The lustful beat of the music is amplified by the comfort and ease Everett quickly finds, and soon, her hands are running up and down her body. Flowing through her hair and when she turns in a slow circle, I grip the arms of my chair so tight they squeak.

  “Fuckkkk,” I groan out when she leisurely twirls while taking her shirt off so fucking slowly. It’s torture, but goddamn, send me to my fucking grave.

  “Is this what you like, Foster?” Her coy look from behind as she watches me amplifies my desire.

  “Yes.” The word is curt. I’m tense. My dick is ready to fuck.

  Her girlish giggle as she notices how wound up I am only serves to amp up my craving for her, and my already painful grip tightens further as she drops her shirt on the ground.

  “The pants,” I grit through a clenched jaw.

  Her teasing smile and lip bite don’t prepare me for what she does next, and I realize I’d do almost anything to watch this again. Leaning forward, she pauses as I reach under my desk to press the on button of the camera I installed in my office when I moved in.

  “What’s that?” Her voice trembles as I sit back in my chair.

  “Do you really want to know?”

  Another fucking lip nibble. She’s going to kill me with those.

  “Yes.”

  “A camera.” I won’t lie to her. If she wants me to shut it off, I will. Reluctantly.

  “You’re recording this?” She doesn’t sound opposed.

  “Unless you want me to stop?”

  Looking behind her, she tries to find the camera, so I point it out. “Left side, top shelf, in the clock.”

  “Oh.” She breathes. “Does anyone else see it?”

  “Just me. And you,” I add.

  “We could watch this later?” Excitement rings in her tone.

  “All fucking night long,” I moan when her hands go back to the button of her jeans.

  With a shoulder shrug, her eyes close, and she gets back into the groove, and I feel like I might burst if I don’t have her now, but I’ll wait. Savor the show as she gives it to me.

  Pulling my shirt over my head, I toss it to the side, and when she does another whirl and shake
so her pants fall to the ground, her jaw drops. She obviously didn’t expect me to start stripping, too.

  “Like what you see?” I grin, just a little bit cocky.

  “A lot,” she tells me with a greedy, little crooked smile. Licking across her lips, her hands go to her back where I can tell she’s unhooking her bra, so I reach down and unbuckle my belt and jeans.

  The sound of the teeth from the zipper lowering echoes above the music and throughout the room. Wholly enraptured by what I’m doing, Evie drops her bra to the floor and falls to her knees in front of me.

  Pushing my hands to the side, she folds the brackets at the opening of my pants to the side and discovers I’m commando. A small sound erupts from her, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say she was fucking purring like a kitten.

  The heat of her hand as she grips the girth of my cock nearly has me coming in her grasp. With the light of the midday sun shining bright in the unlit room, I can see every sensation cross her face and the vibrations of her body as she eagerly lowers her head to my weeping cock.

  I can feel her breathing as her hand begins to glide up and down, torturously. Agonizingly slow with each stroke. My hips want to follow her movements, to gain the traction I favor, but goddamn, she’s out to kill me.

  “Everett,” I growl her name.

  “It shouldn’t be so beautiful, but it is.” She whispers like she’s worshipping me. “Can I?”

  I tilt my head at her question. I know what she’s asking, but I want to hear the words form her sexy lips.

  “Can you what?”

  She shrugs. “I dunno, kiss it?”

  A bark of laughter leaves my chest at her uncertainty. “Baby, you can kiss it, suck it, fucking bite it for all I care, just fucking do something.” Jesus. Anything at this point would be a relief from the building tension.