18. Knox

"What are you doing with Luna?" Knox asked.

Ryder looked up from his phone. They were lying in the bunkhouse on new mattresses that were a damn sight more comfortable than the old ones.

"Nothing."

"I don't mean right now. I mean in roughly two hours when the motion sensors go off."

"Still nothing."

"So you wouldn't get upset if I went out to check on her instead of you tonight?"

"No, but she would." Ryder dropped his phone onto the bed and sighed. "We talk, that's all. She's lonely."

"Lonely? But she's surrounded by people. She never goes anywhere alone."

"And she doesn't trust any of them."

"Not even Jubilee? I thought the two of them were close."

"When it's crunch time, Jubilee always takes Amethyst's side."

"So it's Amethyst who's the problem?"

"One of them. Probably the main one. Luna doesn't like talking about herself, but she lets pieces of information slip out."

"Doesn't like talking about herself? We discussing the same woman? Luna Maara, with forty million followers who does nothing but talk about herself from dawn through to dusk?"

"She's playing a character."

"Well, she's really fucking good at it."

"Yeah, she is, but that isn't the real her. Jubilee writes most of that stuff anyway."

"So who is the real Luna, if she isn't a work-shy whiner?"

Knox intended to provoke a reaction with his words, and he got one. He'd shared a house with Ryder for a year, and if he'd learned one thing, it was that Ryder tended to bottle things up. But he was like soda—shake him, and he'd explode.

"Shut the fuck up. You don't know a damn thing about her."

"I know she still thinks you're gay." When Ryder merely cursed under his breath, Knox continued. "In your deep and meaningful chit-chats, you didn't think to set her straight?"

Ryder let out a long, low groan. "Shit got complicated."

"This whole job got complicated."

Luna's arrest, the court thing, the dead turtles, and now the fact that every time Knox saw Caro, his dick got hard. Not a good look in shorts, which was another reason he'd decided to wear a wetsuit around her.

"Luna isn't a big fan of straight men. She hasn't gone into the details, but I know a stranger got into her hotel room a while back, plus she had a bad experience with a bearded guy."

"That's why you shaved?"

"That's why I shaved."

Right. And now Knox felt like a shit for ignoring Luna's rider. But there was a scar on his chin that he'd rather forget about, and the beard meant he didn't get constant reminders of a past fuck-up.

"Do I need to shave?"

"She already thinks you're an asshole, buddy. Losing the beard now isn't going to change that. And it's probably good for her to learn that not every man with a beard is going to hurt her."

"What, are you her therapist now?"

"No, I…" Ryder slumped back against the pillow—the new memory foam pillow—and sighed. "Fuck, she reminds me so much of Neve."

Oh boy. "As in, your ex-girlfriend Neve?"

"They have the same vulnerabilities. Neve used bitchiness as a defence too. Man, I just want to help her."

"Does Luna need help?"

"Who the hell knows? Neve said she was fine, feeling better, and then she…" Ryder shook his head and took a couple of deep breaths. On the battlefield, he was one of the toughest men Knox had ever served alongside—he'd walk through fire for a teammate—but Knox knew that Ryder had a weekly appointment with Dr. Beaudin whenever they were in Virginia. He had demons. Maybe even more demons than Slater, who should also have been seeing Dr. Beaudin but had so far refused to do so. "Luna and me, we're not fucking around on the beach. I'm teaching her to swim."

This conversation was a ride. "You're…teaching her to swim?"

"That's the plan, anyway. She's scared of water, but last night, she went in up to her knees."

"She's scared of water? But she vacationed on a yacht."

"She figured that if she fell in, one of us would save her."

That sounded more like Luna.

"So, what's the plan? You spend a month hanging out and schooling her in the art of breaststroke, and then you just walk away?"

There was a long pause. "Yeah."

Sure, and the devil would take up downhill skiing.

"What time is your date tonight?"

"It's not a date, and could you do me a favour?"

"As long as it doesn't involve pretending to be your boyfriend. You're hot, baby, but you're not my type."

"Fuck off." Ryder flipped Knox the bird. "Could you ask Caro to go easy on Luna? She's trying."

"Very trying."

Ryder glared at him.

"Why would you think I have any sway over Caro?"

"Because she likes you."

"She doesn't like me. She doesn't like anyone other than Baptiste and the turtles."

Ryder snorted a laugh. "I'm surprised she even likes the turtles. When she studied marine biology in college, she came bottom of the class."

Bottom of the class? That didn't sound like the Caro Knox knew. She'd spent the trip to No Man's Rock telling him about the symbiotic relationship between turtles and remora fish. The remora cleaned all the shit off a turtle's shell, and the turtle gave the remora a free ride.

"How do you know that?" Knox asked.

"It was in part two of the background file. Agatha sent it over this afternoon. Anyhow, Caro was checking out your package when you were setting your dive computer earlier, so there's at least one part of you she doesn't mind."

"She was probably considering the logistics of removing it."

"Nah, she was smiling."

"I refer you to my previous point."

Ryder chuckled and checked his watch. Counting down the minutes until Luna showed up?

"Try telling Caro that the turtle-sunglasses thing wasn't even Luna's idea. It was Kory's, and she covered for him so he wouldn't get into trouble."

"Seriously?"

"I don't think she has many friends."

"The guy's a dick."

"Yeah, I know. And I asked Agatha to take a look at those shark sightings, see if she could find an IP address for whoever posted them."

"Good idea." As if on cue, the motion sensor pinged an alert on Knox's phone. "Speak of the devil," he muttered.

Ryder jumped to his feet. "Don't wait up."

"Wasn't planning on it."

The door closed with a creak, and once again, Knox hoped to fuck that Ryder knew what he was doing. He'd passed the C-SORT to become a SEAL, but sometimes, Knox wondered about his friend's ability to hold up in difficult circumstances. Not in a fight—Ryder had no issues there—but in the quiet moments when he had too much time to think.

Knox waited until Ryder's silhouette passed the window, then reached for his tablet. He should have read the email from Agatha earlier, but he'd been too busy diving, and then when Caro and Baptiste went to collect turtle eggs in the evening, he'd taken over Luna duty so Ryder could have a break. Catch up on the sleep he wasn't getting at night. Luna had barely said a word, not that Knox was complaining about that.

Agatha's report expanded on the initial profiles. Franklin Baptiste had once been arrested for protesting about raw sewage being dumped in the ocean, hardly a slight on the man's character. He deserved a medal, not a night in the cells. And there was a brief write-up on Vincent Fernandez—a decent cop, by SGPD standards, at least, and one who'd been on the force since he graduated from the University of San Gallicano a decade ago. But Knox was more interested in Caro. Her only brush with the law had been an arrest for smoking pot. Agatha's summary said that in her class yearbook, she'd been voted life and soul of the party, most likely to die from alcohol poisoning, and best celebrity lookalike. Who did she look like? Knox scrolled to the next page. Rebel Wilson. What the fuck? Caro was more of a Salma Hayek.

He fired off an email to Agatha: Can you send me a picture of Caroline Menefee?

Even if she was lying about her identity, she was unlikely to be a danger to Luna. She'd been living at the sanctuary under an assumed name for years, quietly staying out of trouble.

The steps outside creaked, and a moment later, the door opened.

"She kick you to the kerb already?" he asked, assuming it was Ryder.

"What are you talking about?"

Knox glanced up to see Caro in the doorway, and she didn't look particularly happy to be there. Did nobody sleep in this place?

"Everything okay?" he asked.

Instead of answering, she walked farther into the room. She'd unbraided her hair and changed into soft shorts and a strappy little top. No bra. She was either cold or turned on, and seeing as the temperature was still in the seventies, Knox had to assume it was the latter. He felt his cock hardening again and bent a knee so it wouldn't show.

"You seem like the kind of man who'd carry a condom in his wallet."

Was that a criticism or a compliment? "Safety first."

"Good." She took a tentative step forward. "This is just sex, nothing more."

Knox had either misheard or stepped into a parallel universe.

"What did you say?"

"I'm only here because the dog ate my vibrator."

He burst out laughing. "You want me to sub for your battery-operated boyfriend?"

Caro ticked off the points on her fingers. "One, you keep checking out my ass. Two, your wetsuit really doesn't hide as much as you think. Three, you're a commitment-phobe. This would be a mutually beneficial arrangement."

"Like I'm the turtle and you're the remora?"

"I said nothing about sucking. You're the remora."

Never before had a woman—let alone one he didn't much like—walked into his bedroom and offered him no-strings sex. Usually, he had to at least take them to dinner first. And this wasn't just any woman; it was Caro. Or was it? Did the whole "lying about her identity" issue affect things? His cock said not. This would be one small step up from a hate fuck, an activity Slater assured him was worth the aggro.

"So you just want to ride my cock and then pretend it never happened?"

"Exactly. Your roommate's having his own weird brand of fun on the beach with Luna, and they're always gone for a couple of hours at least."

She did make a good argument. Caro wasn't a client, and Ryder was watching the principal. Knox beckoned her forward, and she took a hesitant step. Then another. When she was close enough, he sat up and snaked his arms around her thighs, pleased by her sharp intake of breath. Just because this was a transaction didn't mean he wouldn't enjoy himself.

"I can smell your arousal from here, baby."

"Is that a ‘yes' to my proposal?"

"Get those fucking clothes off."