Harmless Revenge: A Harmless World Novel (Harmless #11)

He turned away from the temptation they presented and walked to his home office. He’d set the office up when he realized he needed something with higher security than he could get from the average Wi-Fi. Of course, Emma had done all the work securing the lines. The woman was too smart for her own good. But, like most people like her, she couldn’t see the forest for the trees. And those trees tended to fall on her before she noticed what was going on.

After turning on his desk light, he decided to check on a few things and try to call Emma again. They hadn’t talked in days, and while she had a habit of disappearing from time to time, she always caught up with him a few days later. She knew he would worry.

He settled down in the chair behind the desk and started up his computer. He rolled his shoulders and realized that he was sore in places he didn’t know he could be sore in. He had always had an active sex life, but maybe he had been slowing down in the last year. It made sense with what had been going on, but still, he was starting to feel old. Of course, he had never had a threesome before, and both Jaime and Randy had been the two lovers who had challenged him on every level.

He rested his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. Sean didn’t know what would happen after this was over, but he knew that he was never going to be the same. There, in the office alone, he could admit that he wanted more, but what? How did he ask the two of them to stay around when his life was such a fucking mess?

Opening his eyes, he leaned forward and keyed in his password. As he waited for everything to load, he realized it had probably been well over thirty-six hours since Jaime and Randy actually slept. He sighed. No wonder they had passed out. It had been hard to force himself to leave the bed, but with both of them sleeping, now was the best time to do some research.

He checked his email and found nothing. Not even one of Lassiter’s strange emails from fake names. It was really starting to worry him. Lassiter was one sneaky bastard, but the last few months, he had kept in contact, in his own way. The fact that he was universally absent from everything was really, really bad. He checked a few more emails and realized one of this old buddies from MI-6 had emailed him. He scanned the email and realized things were finally moving forward. It looked like the beginning of the end of the nightmare that had started six months earlier, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up.

With that on his mind, he picked up his phone and dialed Emma. Nothing. It just rang and then went to voice mail.

“Emma, this is Sean. The only person who calls you. Things seem to be shifting and we need to discuss strategy.”

He hung up and sat back in the chair. His nerves were stretched to the limit, but he couldn’t show it. Not to Jaime and not to Randy. Hell, he couldn’t really let anyone know what was going on. If Lassiter had been picked up, there was a good chance Sean’s moves could definitely tip off his captors. That would put his life in jeopardy.

Shutting down his computer, he decided to grab a shower before he made it back to bed. Maybe it would clear his head and give him a direction for what to do next.

Perhaps, he could possibly figure out what the hell to do about Jaime and Randy.

Royce Lassiter made his way down the street in the seedier side of Paris. It was one of those areas most tour guides would tell you to avoid, but he felt pleasantly at home. He’d grown up in an even tougher part of London, so it wasn’t as if he didn’t know what to expect. There was a good chance he was going to get mugged, but he would welcome that. Being hunted wasn’t something he wanted to ever experience again.

Fuck, he was tired. His head pounded due to his lack of sleep, his back was killing him, and dammit, he smelled as if he had been sleeping in a pile of rubbish that was three days old. Every time he caught his scent he wanted to vomit. He was too old for this shit. This was a game for a younger man. He knew because he had been that younger man at one time. In the years he worked for MI-6, he did things most people would call…questionable. He had lived a life that most people would only dream of, and after a successful career with the government, he had started his own corporation that had made him richer than he had ever dreamed of being.

And it was all in jeopardy.

If this situation wasn’t because of Sean, he would have just bailed, but he owed his old friend. Royce knew that part of this was his fault. He had taken chances in the last few years and some of that had to do with making money, and other times it was all ego. But now, he would set it all right, fix things. He needed to make things up to Sean, plus, he had to make sure his daughter was safe and sound.

He came upon a little deli that was getting ready to close. He needed to eat and get a message to Sean. Things had gone to shit in the last thirty-six-hours. Hell, even the connections he could always count on weren’t coming through.

As Royce approached the door, he heard something behind him. Knowing he was stuck, he turned to face the threat. He never saw a face. No sound was made, but he felt the burn of the bullet as it passed through his shoulder. He lost his footing and fell back. He hit the sidewalk hard, first with his ass, then his back and finally his head.

He blinked as his vision wavered.

“Come on,” someone said, as two men grabbed him. He couldn’t really place the accent, but he was sure it was Eastern European. “There is someone very interested in meeting you, Mr. Lassiter.”

Before he could ask who it was, he felt something hit the back of his head and then nothing at all.

Eighteen

Randy jerked awake, thinking he heard something. He lay there quietly, wrapped around Jaime as she snoozed. He listened for a long moment, and realized he heard water running. When he looked on the other side of Jaime, he saw Sean was gone.

As gently as he could, he slipped away from Jaime and off the bed to go find Sean. Randy knew Sean would have issues, and Jaime and Randy had talked about them. Arriving as a couple—as they had been for over a year now—certainly would make Sean think he was the outsider. Both he and Jaime knew they had a lot of work with Sean to get him to understand their position. They wanted him in their lives, and they needed him to understand that. But, as Jaime had pointed out, if they said that to begin with, Sean would disagree because…well, that’s the way Sean was. At least now he was, partially due to his involvement with both Randy and Jaime. They had a lot to make up for.

He knew without looking, Sean wasn’t in the guest bathroom. Of course he wasn’t. He had probably retreated to his own room wanting some space between them. Sean would always be moving away from them until they made him understand. Randy could be patient to a point. Sneaking away after making love…that he would not allow.

Moving down the hall as quietly as possible, Randy crept into Sean’s room. He’d left the door to the room open, along with the bathroom door. Light spilled into his bedroom, along with a fair amount of steam. Randy knew from past experience Sean was trying to think something through. The man always did his best thinking in the shower.

He padded quietly to the doorway and watched from there. It had been a long time since he’d had time to watch Sean like this. He was a creature of habit, a man who loved water, and damn, he looked good with it sliding down his body. Randy’s cock hardened as he watched Sean soap up a massive sponge then slide it over his flesh. Sean was definitely aroused and, dammit, Randy loved watching him move that soapy sponge over his cock. Soapy water dripped from the tip of Sean’s dick. Fuck, even with the few pounds he’d lost, Sean was a man who would tempt just about any man or woman in the vicinity. Knowing just how talented he was in bed made it even harder to ignore him.

Sean must have sensed him there. He glanced over his shoulder.

“Hey.”

“What are you doing in here all by yourself?” Randy asked.

“I didn’t want to wake you two.”