Tempted & Taken (Men of Haven #4)(51)

Tucked up next to Darya and sleeping like a damned baby, yes, but safe? Yeah, that was debatable. He still hadn’t been able to shake how good waking up next to her felt. “Yeah, Mom. I even made sure to double check the windows and doors.” He was just about to tack on a smart remark about missing his blankey when voices sounded in the hallway.

Darya’s voice. That animated tone she used that made everyone feel like they were the center of the universe, tinged with her sweet accent. The only thing he hated was Vance’s goofy laugh wrapped around it.

They walked past a second later, both casting surprised glances at Beckett and Knox. A reasonable response considering Knox never left his door open unless he knew someone was coming.

“Hey, boss!” Vance waved and shoved his thick black glasses back up on his nose. Why the guy never got around to sizing the things right, Knox couldn’t figure. “I’m taking JJ over to Wing Bucket. You guys want anything?”

Bigger than Dallas, the memory of Darya licking her fingertips when she’d helped herself to a plateful of ribs at the Bikes and Blues rally hit him out of nowhere. So not an image he needed to remember right now. Especially knowing Vance would be eyeballing the same thing if she got a serving of wings. “Nah, I’m good.” He shifted his gaze to Darya. Hell, maybe he should go out with Beck and the guys. God knew he’d be up to no good hanging here with her. “Don’t let him talk you into the 19th Sauce.”

She smiled and, swear to Christ, he felt it everywhere. Like she’d somehow reached inside him and unhinged all his tension. “Okay.” She shifted her attention to Beckett and waved, but he’d swear the lost connection hurt her as much as it did Knox. “See you later.”

“Yeah, JJ,” Beck answered back, easily using the identity they’d all agreed she’d be wise to keep in public. He chin-lifted to Vance. “Take care of our girl.”

The metal door latched hard behind them, the brutal sound echoing up and down the hallway with way too much finality.

Knox spun back to this keyboard just in time to watch Vance usher Darya to his white Jeep Wrangler.

“So that’s it.” Beckett’s statement was packed with a whole lot of aha and even more gotcha.

That was okay. Knox was used to Beckett sniffing and could play shit off with the best of them. “What’s it?”

“Why you’re in a shit mood.”

He glanced over his shoulder at Beckett and feigned an incredulous expression. “At Vance?” He scoffed for good measure and put eyes back to this work. “No way.”

“Not at Vance. At Darya with Vance.”

Knox shook his head, all too aware that if Beck got a straight-line view of his face, he’d see the glare aimed at his computer screens. “It’s not like that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

In one smooth move that shouldn’t be possible for a guy with Beckett’s kind of bulk, he dropped his foot, sat up and crossed his forearms on Knox’s desk. “You sure? ’Cause you were sporting the same nasty look yesterday when you walked in and found me and Darya sparring in the workout room.”

Yep, that had pissed him off. Especially when Beckett had thought it’d be a good idea to spend extra time teaching her how to break out of a choke hold—an exercise that had put him up against her way too damned long.

“Come to think of it,” Beckett said, “Danny got the same look Wednesday afternoon when you busted her hoppin’ off the back of his bike.”

That hadn’t pissed him off. He’d just been jealous as hell. At least Danny didn’t paw her nonstop. “No harm in her makin’ friends with my family.”

“Nope. Though I gotta wonder why she doesn’t show the same affection for you that she does with everyone else. The way I figure it, you’re either a horrible fuck and she doesn’t want to encourage you, or you drew an ironclad boundary and told her to keep her hands off outside of sex.”

“Stop diggin’, brother.”

“Who says I’m digging? Maybe I’m just thinkin’ out loud.”

“Well, think with your mouth shut.”

Silence boomeranged back at him, but Beckett’s stare pressed as steady as a gun muzzle at his temple.

He opened a new command screen and started typing. “Don’t you have something to do?”

When Beckett spoke, his tone had taken on a whole new range. The one saved for when he was either scared shitless or focused on something that meant the world to him. Considering Beckett had been afraid maybe twice in his whole life, it had to be door number two. “Nothing more important than me figuring out how to get my brother to pull his head out of his ass and see what everyone else in his family saw inside of ten minutes.”

All the frustration Knox had buried lunged to the surface and he spun fast enough Beckett actually flinched. “What? That she’s great? Yeah, I get that, too. But you know where my head’s at with relationships.”

“Yeah. I do. Like I said, your head’s stuck up your ass. And worse, you’re an idiot to boot, because you’re so wound up in those bullshit rules you hold yourself to, you don’t see the way she looks at you when you’re not looking.”

“I’m her boss, that’s it.”

Beckett snapped closer, his face heating with a rare display of anger and nearly going nose to nose. “She doesn’t look at you like you’re her boss. She looks at you like you’re the goddamn holy grail.”