Ellis was woken up by the sound of bees buzzing near her. She tried to swat them away.
"Hey!" a bee protested.
Ellis stopped smacking them. Bees did not protest. They also did not buzz indoors.
"Hello?" Adam grumbled into the phone while Ellis blearily blinked up at him. She was sprawled next to him, and it had been his shoulder that she had been swatting.
"Who is it?" she asked.
"Petri Vorinski." Adam answered.
Ellis buried her face into the pillow, but she was still able to hear her Uncle's yell.
"What the hell is my niece doing waking up next to you?" Petri screeched.
Ellis groped for the phone without turning her head until an exasperated Adam handed it to her, just so she would stop grabbing at him. Petri was still yelling at the other end.
"Good Afternoon Uncle Petri." Ellis said softly, and there was immediate silence on the other end.
"You really do not want to start throwing stones, or we might have to discuss how you had a bodyguard team on me, or how you hired Adam without telling me. I am 24 years old, and who I sleep with is none of your goddamned business. Now I am going back to sleep; so you won't be loud, will you?" All of this was said in honeyed tones that raised the hair on Adam's arms.
"Of course not." Petri agreed quickly. He knew just how much trouble that sweet tone promised.
Ellis waved the phone and Adam took it.
"I needed to tell you that I am throwing a charity fundraiser tomorrow night and I will need you and Ellis to attend. It's a black tie affair. See you at seven." Petri said it all in one breath and hung up.
Adam sighed and tossed his phone aside, before turning to the woman who still had her face buried into the pillow next to him.
"Are you really trying to go back to sleep?" he asked.
"That was the best sleep I've had in a very long time." she mumbled.
"So you wouldn't be very happy with me if I were to do this?" Adam asked as he lightly ran his finger over her ear.
Ellis turned her head to look at him.
"All you think about is sex." she told him haughtily.
"Nopes."
"Liar."
"No, all I think about is putting as much of your skin against as much of my skin as possible." Adam said seriously.
"Uh huh" Ellis said suspiciously.
"Sex just happens to be the easiest way to do that." Adam finished deadpan.
Ellis just stared at him before she burst out laughing. Adam chuckled before he threw his arm over her waist and cuddled her close.
Ellis made herself comfortable, wrapped up in his arms, before she poked his ribs.
"What did uncle want?"
"We're invited to a charity fundraiser tomorrow night."
"Joy."
"Go to sleep." he growled, nipping her ear playfully.
"You're the one making it hard to sleep." Ellis mock-snapped.
"You want me to help you fall asleep?" he asked innocently. Ellis pushed Adam away and propped herself up on one elbow.
"I give up. You're just not going to let me go back to sleep are you?"
"Maybe you just don't want to go back to sleep and are blaming it all on me."
"You wanna do it this way?" Ellis challenged.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Adam teased.
Ellis opened her mouth to retaliate and there was a knock on the door.
"Saved." She told Adam who just rolled his eyes.
"Yeah?" Adam called.
"I need you to come check something out." Ash called back.
The transition from playful to scary was instantaneous in Adam. He slipped from the bed, and bundled Ellis up in the blankets.
"Go back to sleep." he said, and left the room after giving her a light kiss on the cheek.
Ellis could not fall back asleep but she did fall into a sort of warm comfy haze. She would never admit it in a million years, but all she needed to completely drop off was his arms around her.
...
When Ellis finally made it downstairs, Ash and Adam were in the middle of what looked like a serious discussion and there were photographs and blueprints spread all over the dining table they had commandeered.
"Coffee's in the kitchen." Adam said without looking up and she altered her course. Coffee came before dealing with them. She was dressed in jeans and a black tank that Adam had brought from her place this morning, but she had slipped on one of his shirts over it to keep warm.
When she came back into the room, she moved around the two men, and glanced at what they were working on. She scowled at the familiar building.
"That's Uncle Petri's monstrosity of a home." She muttered and Ash chuckled while Adam raised a brow.
"Yes. That's the venue for tomorrow. We are working on the security plans, then Ash will head there tonight and get everything ready." Adam explained.
Ellis nodded, then pointed to a section.
"That's not right. There is a passageway there, it leads to" she pointed to another section "here."
Ash swore. "Why is it not in the blueprints?"
Ellis inched away from him before she answered. "Its secret. But you're doing security and I trust Adam."
Ash took a deep breath and brought his temper under control.
"Do you know how many such passages there are? And how many people know about them?" Adam asked calmly.
Ellis nodded and started pointing them out. There were seven secret passages inside the mansion and one led out of the place.
"How... how do you know all this?" Ash asked while scribbling furiously on the blue prints.
"I grew up there. Uncle taught me so if there was ever any trouble I could hide or run away, as needed." She answered. "Oh, and no one but the family knows, so it should not leave this room."
"
All right." Adam answered before Ash could say anything.
"I'll let you know what the plan is on the way there. It's okay if we leave tomorrow after lunch?" he asked and Ellis nodded.
"I'll head to my place now." She said and left.
...
"You look gorgeous." Adam said with a lecherous look. They had arrived at the Vorinski Estate an hour ago and had gone to their separate rooms to get ready. Well, Ellis had. Adam had first done a through check of the security, but now they were together for one final briefing in the ante room along the ballroom with her Uncle and seeing each other dressed up for the night, for the first time.
Ellis grinned. "You don't look too bad yourself."
Adam was dressed in a black tux, charcoal gray vest and a white shirt and black cravat. He had a large onyx pin set in his cravat which was also a mike. Fashion and security, all rolled into one. Ellis was wearing a light gray strapless silk sheath dress that ended around her knees. She was also wearing lace filigree gloves that came above her elbows. A choker that matched the lace of the gloves was around her throat and dangling from it was an onyx pendant matching Adam's pin. It was also a mike and a locator. In one night, Ellis had started respecting Adam's fashion sense. Well, at least his fashion sense when it came to accessories that were equipped with security jargon.
"Please at least try to maintain some sense of decorum." Petri said in a long suffering tone.
Ellis sighed. "I am not 'sleeping' with him Uncle Petri, but I am dating him; not that it's still any of your business. It'll just get annoying if you keep acting like that all night."
Petri gaped at Ellis.
"She believes in being forthright. You should know that." Adam said with a shrug.
"Yes, but I am still her uncle." Petri sputtered.
"Then you should not wonder about her sex life to begin with." Ash told him calmly, then he turned to Adam. "Remember, I am on point for tonight. You concentrate on being a good date." Ash smirked, then turned to Ellis, "You know where to head if anything goes wrong?"
"Yes." Ellis and Adam answered at the same time.
"Good." Ash said briskly and left the room.
"Shouldn't you head out, seeing as you are the host and all?" Adam drawled at Petri who was looking dazed. He blinked and seemed to come back to himself.
"Yes of course. I will expect you two at the party within twenty minutes." Petri said and then he was off.
...
"I never pegged you for a dancer, a good dancer at that." Ellis said softly as she and Adam moved together on the dance floor. Her arms were wound around his neck, while his were strumming at her back. They had been slow dancing for a while.
Adam gave her a mysterious smile.
Ellis chuckled. "You enjoy being a mystery."
"You have no idea."
"Really?"
"Oh yeah. Ash is still not sure if Adam is really my birth name or just an identity I use and he's known me for the last fifteen years."
"Is it?"
"Is it what?"
"Adam!"
Adam laughed abruptly and leaned down to lightly kiss her cheek. That one spontaneous move saved his life. The bullet whizzed just above him and harmlessly embedded itself into the wall behind him. Adam had been around enough sniping in his life to know when there was a sniper around.
"Sniper at 2 o'clock, aiming at me." he snapped into his mike, even as he moved with Ellis for the doors out of the large ballroom bent almost double. Adam was using the people around them as camouflage to cover their escape from the room.
They rushed through the mansion until they reached the safe room that had already been designated to them in case of an emergency such as this. Ash was waiting for them.
"You guys okay?" Ash asked.
Adam nodded as he ushered Ellis inside. He had a quick word with Ash before he left. There were two guards outside the room and two inside. Ellis started pacing the room. Adam watched her closely. Blood seemed to have completely drained from her, and she was rubbing her arms as if really cold.
He stepped into her path and she stopped but would not look at him.
"Ell, look at me." Adam said softly.
She forced herself to look into his eyes. Once he had captured her with his eyes, he raised his hands and lightly placed his finger tips against her cheeks and then ran them lightly down her throat, her shoulders, her arms, all the way down to her fingers and then back up to her cheeks. Adam cupped her cheeks with his entire palm this time and then slowly moved it lower. When he reached the top of her gloves, he started rolling them down, and when he reached their end at her fingertips, he tossed the gloves aside, and just as carefully he moved his palms back up her arms, until he was cupping her face again.
Ellis shivered.
Adam repeated the act again but this time when he reached her fingertips, instead of moving up again, he laced them with his own, and pulled her close. The entire time they had not broken eye contact, and neither had noticed the other two people in the room. They just stood there, chests almost touching, hands laced together, looking into each other's eyes, and somehow it was more intimate than anything else could have been, and they knew it.
Ash suddenly burst into the room, his eyes were shining with feral excitement.
"We got the sniper." he told Adam and Ellis.
Adam's hands tightened around Ellis's before letting go. "So we finally have a break." he said in a soft but deadly voice.
"Sniper's not talking yet." Ash answered.
"Sniper will be singing by the time I am done with him." Adam answered.
"Let's go." Ash said and they both moved towards the door.
"Take me with you." Ellis said from behind them. Ash ignored her but Adam stopped.
"You sure?" he asked and Ellis gave him a nod.
Adam extended his hand and Ellis took it. Ash gave him a disbelieving look but kept his mouth shut as he led them both to the captured sniper.
...
"Don't give any info out all right baby?" Adam said before they entered the room. Ellis nodded. He squeezed her hand, and they entered the room together.
A man was handcuffed to a steel chair in the basement. Other than that, it was all it was very normal, disappointingly so.
"You brought my mark to me. Very kind of you." the man sneered in a heavily accented voice. Ash and Adam ignored him. Ellis followed their cue and did the same.
Ash calmly pulled a chair across from him and sat down. "Your group was trying to kidnap her." he jabbed a thumb in Ellis's direction. "Now suddenly you're trying to kill her date. What gives?"
"Well, obviously she is still here, rather than at my HQ. We had to do something to get the message across. This date of hers, he would have made a good message with his brains all over the floor, don't you think?" the man said casually.
Before Ash could say anything, Ellis slapped the sniper as hard as she could.
She had not made a single sound, and even now there was no expression on her face, but the man had blood trickling down the side of his mouth. Ash raised an eyebrow but left it at that. Adam ignored the whole thing.
They stayed there for a while longer, but the man stayed silent no matter what Ash said or asked. Finally Adam had had enough.
"C'mon Ellis, we're leaving."
"Had enough pretty boy?" the man sneered.
Adam smiled and it was not pleasant, but he left without replying. They had decided that it would be a better idea to stay the night at the mansion. He walked Ellis to her room but she stopped him when he started to leave.
Adam looked at her with raised eyebrows but although she opened her mouth several times, she could say nothing. Still she could not loosen her grip on his hand. Adam sighed.
"Lets walk to my room so we can grab my stuff and then we can both stay in your room. That cool?" he asked and she nodded, her relief was a palpable thing.
...
"I could have lost you today." Ellis said in a small voice.
Adam looked up at her. He was sitting on the bed while she had just come out from the washroom. He had no idea what to say so he remained silent.
As he watched Ellis walked towards him until she was standing between his knees.
"I don't want to live in the past anymore." she said softly before pulling off her shirt.