Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 149137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
Shane sighed and turned toward her. “Are you really okay with this?”
A good, overprotective man. “Are you asking me if I’m okay sleeping with Joshua Hunt for this assignment? It’s just sex and quite frankly, I haven’t had any in a while, so I hope it’s good sex.”
A smile crossed his face. “Okay. I’ll back off, but if he hurts you…”
She held up her Louis strap. “Do you need a demo?”
“I do not,” he said with a wink. “Just know that Dec and I are here to back you up. I know you’re technically on the Agency payroll, but you’re our girl and we’ll fuck up any of their plans in order to keep you safe.”
That was the difference between being a spy and working for McKay-Taggart. Some of them came from the Agency, but they were way more military than spies. They were a team and they didn’t leave their teammates behind. “I know, and that’s why I’m here.”
She started looking around the place, trying to figure out how she would get in if she had to. “How many cameras are on the house?”
“Twelve after Dec was done with it,” Shane explained. “We’ve been revamping the security here for the last couple of weeks. Dec’s a paranoid bastard but he gets the job done. There’s not an ingress point that doesn’t have an eye on it. We’ve also got two pointed either way down the beach. The locks are all sturdy, but there’s a room under the house that’s completely open and two sets of stairs that lead down to the beach. I talked Hunt into pulling up the one on the far side of the house. Dec and I took it down. Unless someone can jump really high, we only have to worry about the one set of stairs.”
She’d been in many beach houses, had been raised in one. “Is the room underneath where they keep all the toys?”
“There’s a place for paddle boards and surfboards and a couple of canoes. There’s no door into the house though,” he said. “It’s super wet down there even though he says high tide doesn’t flood the space.”
“Consider it the beach version of a basement. And everything gets wet,” she explained, walking toward the main house. “He’s likely got a hose down there to wash his feet off after walking on the beach. He can also spray out any of the local wildlife that thinks to make his beach basement into their space.”
Shane followed. “There’s lots of wildlife. I think it’s freaking Dec out a little. He’s not really into nature, it turns out. The birds are pretty aggressive.”
“I’m sure they’re used to humans feeding them. Do we know if there are any CCTV cameras at the public access points to the beach?” She walked from the dim light of the hallway into glorious sunlight. The atrium of Josh’s home was lit by a large skylight. There the floor went from stone to a pretty white marble. The walls were white. It was stark and minimal.
It made her wonder who had been Josh’s designer. Even the paintings were minimalist, done in whites and blacks and shades of gray.
“Uhm, found the CCTVs and already broke into the feeds, thank you very much,” a sarcastic voice said. Declan Burke stood in front of a doorway that led to the right side of the house. “I’ve already got it set up with some sweet facial recognition software that should warn us if one of our peeps shows up. And by peeps I mean crazy motherfuckers. And by should I mean if they look at the camera.”
“That’s a big if,” she replied.
He shrugged. “One sweet day we’ll have tech that flies around and takes pictures of everyone. Until then we’ll hope the crazies look up. Most people do. How ya doing, Kay?”
She liked Dec, but then she was the girl who liked to hang with the weirdoes of the world. Declan Burke was a big, gorgeous total freak. He wasn’t like Tucker. There wasn’t a bit of golden retriever in the man. He was like a Doberman who always had to figure out whether or not he was going to bite.
Still, she was a chick who took chances. She walked up to him, opening her arms, and he grimaced, as she’d known he would.
“Huggers,” he said with a sigh, but his arms went around her anyway.
“Huggers are awesome, Dec. You need more hugs.” He was so grim and refused to talk much of the time, yet he was loyal and fun to be around.
“I don’t think he needs more if he wants to continue to remain employed by me,” a chilly voice said.
She felt Dec’s hands come up.
“Nothing sexual about it, boss,” Dec said. “She’s a huggy chick.”
She held on for another second before letting him go and turning to face Hunt. Just on principle. It wasn’t like she was doing something wrong and he needed to understand that he couldn’t make her feel guilty.