A strong hand encircled him and the other moved lower to explore. Kayden was testing the weight of him, pressing gently and then sliding his other hand up the full length of him. He moved to press back against the hand but Kayden stopped the movement by moving a hand and pressing against his hip.

  "Relax," he said. "Let me. Beck, let me." The words were hypnotic and he repeated them over and over. His rhythm was smooth, even gentle and it wasn't enough to get Beckett off on its own. He pushed past the frustration of not being able to move and instead he let that last single chain of tension snap and gave himself over totally to Kayden. He sighed as the movement of Kayden's hand changed in response; firmer and faster with a wicked twist at his tip each time. Sensation chased his spine and he was so close in the space of a few strokes.

  Kayden gentled the kiss until it was nothing more than the taste of each other and the exchange of heated breath. At the last minute, when the point of no return was reached and he knew he was finished, Beckett opened his eyes. Kayden's eyes were heavy-lidded with passion and he was staring directly at Beckett. His balls tightened and fire travelled inside his every nerve as he came, his cry of completion muffled in their kiss. Exhaustion stole over him as, boneless, he allowed Kayden to support every molecule of him. Never before had something as intense as this ever happened to him.

  "As much as I'd like to stay here, we really need to move," Kayden said.

  He helped Beckett stand and supported him as he swayed. All the blood had clearly gone to his dick because he felt dizzy and lethargic. "Here."

  Beckett felt pills pressed on his tongue and he swallowed them with water from the cup placed to his lips. Kayden looked amused and for a second Beckett felt shame at what had just happened. Not only had he received the best hand job of his life; the most erotic experience ever. But he had left Kayden probably still as hard as when they started. Gently he pressed a hand to Kayden's dick and felt damp sweats. With a smile he looked up into Kayden's eyes and he couldn't help but smirk at the evidence he had just found.

  "What did you expect?" Kayden offered dryly. "The sounds you were making and the way you just let me—it would test a saint. Now. Bed."

  Beckett felt less like a kid being sent to this room than the night before and more like a man who was severely fucked out and he wasn't going to argue. Using Kayden for support when his legs refused to co-operate they finally made it to his bed. Climbing in, he pulled the covers up around his ears and heard the snick of the door as Kayden left.

  For a while he laid there and allowed the afterglow to sink into every muscle. Then, with his head clear of worries, at least until his nightmares chased him down, he slept.

  * * *

  "Manny is taking the code, your key and Austin's key to the bank to retrieve whatever is in the box."

  Beckett surfaced from sleep an inch at a time and opened his eyes to see Kayden leaning over him. Languorously stretching, he reached out to touch the other man but Kayden took a step back and made busy with checking a folder he held in his hand. Beckett didn't wait to even begin to analyze the movement which at first glance appeared like a retreat. He remained floating on the calm of dreamless sleep and images from the previous day. Nothing was going to spoil his feeling of contentment and safety.

  "Did you hear me?"

  "Yu-huh," Beckett answered.

  "Can you write down your part of the code?"

  "Manny has the code…" on the letter he had taken from Gregory.

  "Manny has half a code; forensics can't pull out the other part of it."

  Alertness filtered through Beckett until he fully realized what Kayden was saying. Manny was retrieving the box and needed the code that Beckett had read once before being attacked by his uncle. He knew it had letters and numbers in it. But the whole code?

  "I don't remember the code." He sat up and winced at the pain across his forehead. Shit. He thought he had chased the headache away. "Not the whole of my part."

  "Shit." Kayden ran a hand through his short curls. Then gripped his hair tight and looked to be deep in thought. "I hoped you weren't going to say that."

  "I thought Manny would be able to retrieve the information."

  Kayden took to pacing. With his forehead creased in a frown he crossed from drawers to door and back again. "So did I. How much do you remember?" He stopped his journey across the wooden floor, opened the file and waited with his pen poised. Jeez. Beckett wasn't even fully awake. He recited what he could remember but knew for damn sure there were at least three letters missing.

  Kayden considered the letters and then, tapping his pen on the folder, he clearly came to some kind of decision. "Like the idea of a road trip Beck?"

  "Road trip?" he repeated. Road trip where?

  "Manny has the keys and Austin's part of the code. We need to get you to the bank, see if proximity helps you remember."

  Beckett sat up and slid back so the pillows supported him. "Wait. I thought it wasn't safe for me to go anywhere. My eyesight is still blurred and what if I'm being watched?"

  "You're safe. No one knows you're here. No one has any idea what Sanctuary is. If they don't know where you're coming from, or where you're heading then they're not going to get to you. There is no obvious connection between you and the bank. It's a quick in and out when we get there and Manny and I will have your back."

  Beckett thought on this for a few seconds. He glanced over at Kayden who stood by the door with a look of expectation. Manny the IT nerd and Kayden the doctor?

  "Manny and you?" He wasn't trying to be offensive but Manny looked like a stiff wind would knock him over and as for Kayden? Kayden was the doctor and Beckett didn't think a gruff bedside manner counted as an ability to kick ass. "Look. No offense, but where's Dale? If we have to do this then surely we need someone to come with us? Someone good with his fists who at least knows how to shoot." Kayden narrowed his eyes and then crossed his arms over his chest.

  "Manny and I have received the same training as Dale. I think we can manage to look after one scrawny kid." Raising a single eyebrow he waited for Beckett to reply and when Beckett couldn't think of anything else to say without insulting Kayden outright he backed off.

  "Why do I need to go anyway?" Maybe he should try this defense instead. "Can't I just try and think here?" God. Was he sounding a whiny child or what? Terror at facing the unknown whilst still with blurry vision was merely coming over as being pissy.

  "I considered that. But against my better judgment maybe the other letters in the code will make sense when you're at the bank. Hell maybe you can prove who you are another way. Whatever your mom put in there was leverage against the Bullens and we need to get to it before they get to you."

  Beckett's stomach sank and his heart raced at the words. Kayden was right. This wasn't some damn cat and mouse game where he could sit here and wait on things to happen to him.

  "I think I can remember more. I'll try to remember."

  Kayden looked confused. "You think you can?"

  "Unless Manny can decipher what was on the rest of the letter then let's hope I can."

  "Get a shower and pack your things, kid. We're hitting the road." Kayden left and Beckett looked around at the sterile room. All he had was the clothes he'd found in the wardrobe. He didn't have a cell phone. Or money. Nothing.

  He didn't have 'things'. Tiredly he stood and stretched. Shower first.

  Chapter 10

  "Why do you call me kid?" Beckett asked. It was a way of breaking the silence in the car. "I'm twenty-one, you know."

  "So you told me," Kayden answered as he indicated to pull out onto the main highway.

  "Hell, you're not much older than me."

  "Not in years, no," Kayden replied agreeably.

  "What do you mean by that?" Beckett watched as Kayden shrugged. The shrug irritated him. They had over an hour to kill in the car and local radio was not cutting it. "Are you saying that you have had more life experience than having your mom ripped from you at four, being brought up with another family, losing those parents to cancer, and then being beat up by two men? One who was your biological father and the other your uncle?"

  Kayden snorted and then concentrated on pulling off of the highway and onto a back road. He'd already explained they would be using somewhat of a convoluted route to get to Albany so it didn't surprise Beckett to see the stands of trees that they passed.

  "My upbringing was unconventional to say the least," Kayden finally offered.

  "Unconventional?" This sounded interesting. Was Kayden going to offer something up of himself? Like a back story as to why he worked with Sanctuary and why at the young age of twenty-six he was not only a doctor but was also tasked with watching and guarding. Kayden glanced at him thoughtfully and didn't say anything at first. "Unconventional how?" Beckett pressed.

  "Have you ever heard of places in the middle of the woods, and when I say woods, I mean forests, where groups of people get together and live?"

  "Like a commune you mean? Don't tell me your real first name is River or Mountain?"

  "No," Kayden smiled and shook his head, "not a commune, not like that. No hippies or chanting or weird religious stuff. I mean secure communities on private land where ex-forces guys congregate."

  "I saw something like that on Discovery once. A place up in the mountains that was this stronghold for this disparate group of ex-Vietnam veterans. A whole community with wives and kids…" Beckett's voice trailed away. Kayden had been raised in a community like that? He didn't even think they still existed. What about education? Kayden seemed like a well-rounded, normal, intelligent guy who had years of college and medical school behind him; he was a doctor.

  "Yeah, that's the kind. With twelve foot fences and weapons and all the self-sufficiency stuff that goes with it. My dad was ex-forces, my mom your typical pie making momma. I was six when our family turned from being a normal forces family to being one that got involved in a place in the middle of freaking nowhere in Oregon."

  "Wow," Beckett said. "That's one hell of an experience."

  "You don't say," Kayden replied. His voice dripped with sarcasm. "This documentary you saw. What happened?"

  "The community was disbanded. I think there was some talk of some of the guys getting into trouble with the cops and ending up—" Sudden realization hit Beckett. Was the place that he saw burning on the TV the same one that Kayden had been in? He wracked his brains to try and remember where the compound had been but recalled little except for the remote isolation of it and the fact that the welfare of the children and families there made the law intervene.

  "That was my home. I wasn't there when it all went to shit. My dad had told me to go long before that. With an old army buddy of his who promised he would show me a real life away from the compound. I ended up with a brother in Jake Callahan, the guy who created and funds Sanctuary."

  "Was he one of the men who died?"

  "My dad? Yeah, he was. He wasn't well but I didn't know that at six or even at fourteen. All of them needed help but the reason they were there in the compound was more for other people than themselves."

  "You mean they didn't think they were safe to be around?"

  "We have twenty minutes to kill before we can get onto the next stage of this." Kayden sighed and pulled off the road and onto the grass verge under the trees. He kept the engine idling and turned in his seat. "My dad was the gentlest, most creative man I have ever met. He could spin stories from thin air and he was also so much in love with my mom. He doted on me and he desperately wanted to make a secure life for us all and for me to never fight for a country that he felt deserted him when he needed them. That was on the rational days. They were few and far between. PTSD is a like a whole reprogramming of the way a person sees life. Dad would almost re-experience traumatic events, through vivid daytime memories or dreams. He couldn't stop them and they would occur suddenly and without warning. They always came with really intense emotions like grief and guilt or fear and anger. He couldn't keep them in."

  "And most of the days were like that?" Beckett couldn't keep the horror out of his voice.

  "Yeah. Pretty much." Kayden shrugged but this time the movement seemed to convey so much. "Sometimes when it happened it was like what he had seen overseas was happening again. The same people would die in his waking dreams and the same helplessness he felt then would wash over him. He didn't ever leave the compound; it was the one place he felt safe."

  "I bet it was frightening as a kid to see your dad so upset."

  "Yeah, as a kid I just wanted to look after him and my mom." Beckett sat forward in his seat. "When my mom died I was nearly eleven. I was this freakishly bright kid who had no maternal influence. That lasted about three years or so before my dad told me he hated me and that I had to go. Then Jake was there, he and his dad took me to their home and that was the end. Well, no, the end was when there was the shit about child abuse and the authorities raided the compound. Jake and I got there as it was winding down and it was me who held my dad when he was dying. That was the end of it all."

  "Shit," Beckett said quietly. He shook his head at his own stupidity. "Sorry," he said softly. "I didn't mean to poke at old wounds."

  "You would have found out sooner or later. Jake means well but sometimes he is a little free and easy with the old 'my brother was in a commune' shit." Kayden reached a hand out and Beckett immediately grasped it. He felt suffused with warmth at the instinctive grip. "Anyway I don't believe in secrets," Kayden replied. "Not when I plan to have something with someone that lasts longer than one fuck up against a wall".

  "Longer?" Beckett had never really had any kind of relationship that lasted past the third date. Why was Kayden talking about relationships? What the hell was going on here?

  "Does that scare you? The whole idea of a few weeks of fun?"

  "The idea of longer when I don't have anything to base it on? Yeah, a bit."

  "Life's too short to be scared of deciding you want more." Kayden slid closer, as close as his belt and the center console would let him.

  Beckett thought back to his mom. She'd only been a few years older than him when she'd died. Kayden was right. Life was too short. He completed the movement to the middle of the vehicle and suddenly he was up close and personal with Kayden. It was way past nice. This close, and with the blurring in his eyes clearing up, he could concentrate fully on the color of Kayden's eyes, the shape of his mouth, the sweep of eyebrows and the soft curls that lay on his forehead.

  "We have five minutes left to fill."

  Beckett could have whined in frustration at that statement. Five minutes wasn't long enough for anything serious. The first kiss shook that thought right out of his head. Kayden didn't hurry. There was no force or pressure or anything other than taste. He slid a hand up into Beckett's hair and it was a caress unlike anything Beckett had felt before. Gentle and restrained the touch was grounding in the here and now and promised so much more. Beckett's hand rested on Kayden's arm then he traced the length of it so his hand entwined with Kayden's in his hair. This feeling of connection and need was something he could get used to.

  The Kevlar vest he wore was digging into him and he wanted it off. He wanted everything off. He just wanted it all. Reluctantly, Kayden moved back but didn't take his hand from Beckett's hair and his loose grip. Beckett pressed his head against the hand.

  Kayden smiled at the gesture but with a gentle squeeze of fingers he released the hold and then checked his watch. "We need to make a move."

  Beckett didn't want this interlude to end but he knew they had a job to do. That kiss though, he decided, would last him forever.

  They hit the city limits. Albany was a maze of twists and turns once they left the back roads outside of the city and Beckett idly watched the shops and houses as they drove by.

  "Yeah." Beckett turned when Kayden spoke but Kayden was clearly listening to a voice in his ear piece. He pressed a single button on the dashboard. "Go ahead, Manny."

  "How far out are you?" Manny 's voice echoed into the car and Beckett startled from his musings.

  "About twenty-five minutes out," Kayden replied succinctly. The Kayden that had been talking about a relationship a few minutes earlier was replaced by 'stern Kayden' as soon as Manny spoke.

  "We're maybe ten from your position but we have a problem. I'm not clean. Austin decided to come with and we've been tailed since we left his house." Kayden pulled the SUV over to the side of the road immediately. They stopped outside of a Mom and Pop restaurant in a no parking zone but none of this seemed to matter to Kayden. "Ops are tracking, clean plates and three men in the car. Could be the bad guys, could be we got ourselves an alphabet tail."

  "They've been watching Austin?" Beckett jumped to the only available conclusion.

  "Spotted them as soon as I arrived. Waited until city limits but I didn't want to try and shake them."

  Beckett felt a familiar curl of fear in his belly. Kayden was silent and clutching the steering wheel tightly. His expression was impassive and Beckett just stared at him. Manny was silent at his end of this conversation. What the hell was happening now?

  "Are we aborting?" Kayden finally said.

  "We've led them this far." Manny replied. His voice was calm. The direct opposite of what Beckett was feeling inside.

  "Kayden—" he started. Kayden simply lifted a hand to stop him and then turned to him thoughtfully.

  "I'm not happy taking Beckett into this."

  "Ops is confirming only one vehicle. The two of us could handle this in our sleep." Manny was utterly convinced of what he was saying. What were he and Kayden talking about? Surely Manny wasn't suggesting they confront the people following him and Austin? "We've scoped a site. I'll set up and you follow."

  "Manny—"

  "This is our chance to kill two birds, Kayden; get the evidence and catch us some possible bad guys while we're at it."

 

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