Текст книги "Falling for Danger"

Автор книги: Chanel Cleeton

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

“Honestly? I don’t know.”

“Would you need to leave town?”

“Probably. If by ‘leave town’ you mean develop new identities and go on the run. Even if we figure out who’s responsible, even if we expose them, I think we’ll always be looking over our shoulders; there will always be someone else who’s threatened by the information that comes out. You know how these things are; it’s like a hydra, once you cut off one head, two more pop up. Everyone’s in bed with each other, everyone’s connected. We can’t have a life as ourselves anymore.”

“Would you be okay with that? Would you be okay with leaving everything behind—your job, family, friends—and starting a new life with Matt?”

The answer made me feel so guilty, but I said it anyway.

“Yeah. I would. I love you and Jackie. So much. But Matt’s my family, too.” He was more than that. He was also my heart. “It’s not just about Matt anymore, though. People died because of our father. How many more people will be killed because they stand between him and something he wants? Someone has to stop him. I think I have the tools to do it. And if it means saving Matt, then I don’t see how I have a choice. It’s the right thing to do. And it’s what I want. I don’t want this to spill over to you and Jackie. I just want to keep the people I love safe.”

Blair was quiet for a moment. I knew she was reluctant to get too involved in this, knew that she hated the dirty side of politics, the ruthlessness that seemed to go hand-in-hand with the way our father conducted business. I wanted to shield her from as much of this as I could. She’d spent her whole life playing big sister; now it was my turn to take care of her.

“I get it. That’s how I felt about going to Boston with Gray.” She shot me a sad smile. “It’ll be the end of an era. No Reynolds girls in D.C. What will Capital Confessions do?”

I laughed, despite the urge to cry. “I think Jackie will hold down the fort. Hell, she’ll probably be running this town in no time. I fully expect Will to be in the White House before he turns forty.”

Blair grinned. “I was going with forty-five, but if you want to make a wager …”

“Deal.”

Blair’s expression sobered. “Whatever happens, wherever you go, you’ll always be my sister. And I’ll always love you. I’m here for you, for whatever you need.”

“I know.” Emotion clogged my throat. “I love you, too.” I wrapped my arms around her. “We’ve done pretty well for ourselves, haven’t we? No horrible arranged marriages to men decades older than us. You say ‘fuck’ occasionally and you stopped wearing those stupid pastel dresses that our mother always tried to dress you in and I haven’t seen a ginormous bow in your hair in ages.”

Blair snorted. “God, those were horrible.”

“And I’m happy. Really happy.”

“I know.” Blair grinned. “Yeah. The Reynolds sisters did well.”

Chapter Thirteen

Capital Confessions is sad to report the death of …

–Capital Confessions blog

Matt

I walked up the stairs to Kate’s apartment, feeling the first stirrings of hope that we might have a way out of this. The guy I’d talked to had worked personal security in Afghanistan for Intech, and while he’d signed a nondisclosure agreement, he’d seen enough over there to be willing to speak to me. I couldn’t use him as a source, but he’d given me what I needed to point me in the right direction.

I used the key Kate had given me earlier, wondering if she was back from lunch and shopping with her sisters. I opened the door and froze over the threshold.

Kate sat on the couch with Blair, their eyes red, their gazes locked on mine.

Kate broke the silence first. “I told her.”

I shut the door behind me, feeling a bit like the walls were closing in. I’d grown up with both of them, and while Kate and I had always been closer, Blair had still been like a sister to me. We were the same age, and even though we’d always had different personalities, we’d been close. Seeing her was a punch to the gut, a blast from the past that I’d known I’d face eventually, but still felt unprepared for.

And maybe, more than anything, I felt a little guilty because I should have treated her sister better. Blair had no doubt seen firsthand the pain Kate had experienced with my “death.”

Blair rose from the couch, walking toward me, and then her arms were around me, her body shaking as she cried. I held her, a lump in my throat, her presence another reminder of the life I’d lost, of the disconnect between who I had been and who I’d become. I looked over Blair’s shoulder and my gaze connected with Kate’s.

She stood a few feet away, her arms wrapped around her body, a smile playing at her lips, her eyes welling up with tears. All it took was one look. One look that anchored me and set me to rights. She was the constant, the one person who I knew would accept me no matter how lost I felt inside. She saw me, somehow carved through the parts of me that filled me with shame, and found the essence that had been in the boy before, the essence that I guessed hadn’t died after all.

I was a mess, had become someone who no longer felt comfortable in their own skin, who didn’t recognize the person staring back at me in the mirror. But she did. And right now that was enough to give me something to hold on to, something to believe in, something that would keep me going until I could come out the other side.

Blair pulled back, squeezing my arm, more tears spilling down her cheeks.

“I’m so glad that you’re okay. I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you, too.” I swallowed. “I’m sorry about everything. Sorry about the trouble I’ve brought Kate. Sorry I lied to all of you for so long. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want you guys to be hurt because of me.”

Blair shook her head. “You don’t owe me anything. You did what you had to do to stay alive.” Her gaze jerked to where Kate stood and then came back to me. She squeezed my hand. “Do right by her. You always did before. She deserves that.”

“I will.”

“Good.” Blair smiled. “Well, I think I’m going to get out of your hair. I have dinner plans with Gray, and you guys look like you want some time to yourselves. Are you going to be around for a while?”

“Yeah. I will.”

“Maybe you can meet my boyfriend. You’d like each other, I think.”

It was good to see Blair so happy. Before I’d left for Afghanistan she’d been dating Thom Wyatt, and after years of seeing them together, I’d never gotten the impression that they were a good fit. I’d heard about the drama surrounding her broken engagement in Capital Confessions, so it made a little more sense now, and it was good to see her finally in a relationship that brought that look to her eyes.

“I’m sure I would. I’d like that. And I’d like to spend more time together.”

We said our good-byes, and then she walked out, leaving Kate and me by ourselves in the living room. Her cheeks looked slightly pink—I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Kate be embarrassed by anything—and I wondered if Blair’s big-sister talk was the culprit. Kate had never been comfortable with other people trying to take care of her.

“Sorry to blindside you like that,” Kate said with a wry smile. “I didn’t realize you would be back so soon.”

I shook my head. “It’s fine. I’m glad I got to see Blair. I’ve missed her, too.”

We stood staring at each other, several feet apart, and suddenly the whole thing felt stupid and wrong. I’d thought that if I kept a tight leash on my emotions, if I tried to compartmentalize our relationship into tiny, manageable little boxes, I could deal with seeing her again, with being around her again. Obviously, the sex box had been blown open, and the friendship one, too, but I’d tried to convince myself that if I could just keep a lid on the emotional one, all would be well.

I was scared. She was right; I was dealing with shit from Afghanistan that I couldn’t seem to let go of. The only way I knew how to stay alive, how to survive, was to stay in control. But there was nothing controlled about the nightmares that plagued me when my head hit the pillow or the way I felt when I was near Kate.

My life had gone off the rails somewhere along the way and for now the only thing that made sense was to follow the ride.

I loved her. Had always loved her. Would always love her.

I wasn’t a romantic necessarily, didn’t know if I believed in soul mates, or much at all, but I believed in her. In us. In the feeling inside of me when I was with her. The peace and the sense that she made me the best version of myself.

Afghanistan and everything after was this giant black mark over my life. She was the light.

I closed the distance between us, wrapping my arms around her and hauling her up on her toes so that my lips came down on hers, a hum building in my throat as I kissed her, as my body relaxed into the familiar sensation of having her pressed against me. She was a key sliding into place, flipping a lock open with a flick of her wrist.

She was everything.

Kate pulled back first, her eyes wide, as though she recognized that the tenor of our relationship had once again changed. I waited to see if she would push, but she didn’t.

“How did it go with your source?” she asked instead.

“Good. Really good.” I wrapped my arm around her waist, leading her over to the couch. I tucked her body into the curve of mine as we sat down on the lumpy cushions. “He was working personal security for the Afghani warlord we were protecting. He saw my father meet with him on multiple occasions. And he saw your father.”

“Oh my god.”

“He signed a nondisclosure agreement and he’s definitely scared, so he’s not going to be a help in terms of being a named source, but he’s pointing me in the right direction. It looks like my father was selling arms that were supposed to go to the troops and instead diverting them to a group of Afghani warlords whose interests were definitely against the U.S.”

Kate paled. “Fuck.”

“Based on his descriptions of the meetings with your father, I think he was using his political connections to leak information. And to cover it all up.”

Kate got up and paced the length of the living room. “But why? Why would he risk all of the things he’s built? He’s the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee. There’s talk of him running for president. Why would he screw up all of the political capital he’s amassed for himself?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know why my father would risk it either. Money? Power? Both?”

“Because they’re constantly getting trod on? I mean come on, our fathers have enough of both to control this city and everyone in it.”

She was right, but I didn’t know what other explanation there could be. Their motives didn’t matter beyond the fact that they were willing to do anything it took to get what they wanted.

“Look, I gave up my seat at the table and enlisted in the military; I can’t necessarily say that I understand any of the decisions they’ve made. But I don’t really see another explanation for it. Money and power are powerful motivators. They’re the fuel this town runs on.”

Kate was silent for a moment, her expression shrewd. “You’re right. Maybe we’re naive to think that there’s a limit to money and power. That there’s ever an enough. Maybe they just liked being kings and wanted to expand their kingdoms.”

“Maybe.”

“So what now? Where do we go from here?”

“I think your father’s travel records are a place to start. If we could find a way to place him in Afghanistan, and somehow try to pinpoint his location—or an approximation, at least—it would go a long way to proving that they were together.”

“I can look in his office like we talked about,” Kate suggested. “I can also see if Jackie has anything. It sounds weird, but when she worked for Capital Confessions she collected a lot of stuff on him. It was a project of sorts for her. And I can check with Blair to see if she remembers anything from growing up—when he was gone, where he said he was going, things like that. It might be a long shot, but it’s a start. Some of those trips might have even been official. There’ll be a record of them.”

“I can try on my end with my father. I haven’t quite figured out how to get into Intech since I’m supposed to be dead, but I’ll come up with something.”

“It seems like a lot of the info would be with your father.”

“Yeah, but I have no clue where he’d keep that stuff. We weren’t exactly close before. I don’t know his habits—”

“Maybe not, but you did work at Intech. The summer before you were supposed to start at Princeton. Remember? That was the summer of my sixteenth birthday.”

I did remember. That was the summer when I’d realized that I didn’t want to be like my father, that I didn’t want my life to be about chasing the bottom line, that I wanted to make a difference, wanted to help people.

When I was a kid, I’d thought he was a hero. I’d been in awe of his military service, thought there was nothing cooler than getting to make weapons that would go to our troops. I’d wanted to be exactly like him until I saw that all of the stupid speeches he made and causes he supported really meant nothing. He used the military to garner support when he needed it, to increase his power and wealth, knowing that defense spending—especially defense spending for the kind of equipment and services he provided—would never go out of fashion.

He exploited fear and patriotic duty for his own greed, increasing his wealth while others bled and died for what they believed in. He wasn’t a hero, wasn’t someone to look up to. He was a greedy motherfucker who’d sold his soul to the devil to get ahead. It wasn’t about providing for his family, or anything other than his own lust for more.

“I might be able to figure out some of their security protocols. Might remember some things from when I worked there. I’ll think about it and see what I can come up with.”

Kate nodded. “It’s not much, is it?”

“It’s a seed. It’s a start.”

“But where are we headed?” she asked.

Kate’s phone rang, interrupting the question she left hanging, the question I desperately wished I could give her a definitive answer to.

She stared down at the caller ID. “It’s Blair. Do you mind if I take this for a second? I just want to make sure it isn’t anything important.”

“Of course.”

I didn’t mind the reprieve. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to talk about us as it was the fucking frustration of not being able to be someone she could lean on, someone who could assure her that everything would be okay. Our dynamic had been developed for so long now that it wasn’t easy feeling like I was impotent in her eyes.

We had a plan, but it didn’t feel like enough.

I got up while Kate talked to Blair and grabbed a beer from the kitchen, taking note of the meager contents of her fridge. We were going to need to make a grocery run soon. By the look of things she lived off of takeout and she still wasn’t big on cooking; I wasn’t much better. I’d never had to learn to cook when I was a kid since we’d had a chef, and my time in hiding and on the run hadn’t exactly lent itself to being domestic.

I shut the door to the fridge and turned as I heard her footsteps walking toward the kitchen.

“What do you want to get for dinner?”

Kate stood over the threshold, her face pale, the phone clutched in her hand.

“Is everything okay?”

She shook her head, her voice strained, a weird choking noise coming from her throat. Her arms wrapped around me.

“I’m so sorry; your father was killed tonight.”

Chapter Fourteen

Our condolences go out to the Ryan family. James Ryan is survived by his wife, Janet Ryan. Their son, Matthew Ryan, was killed in Afghanistan nearly four years ago. While details are still trickling in, we have learned that Mr. Ryan was killed in an attempted home invasion. At the time, his wife was vacationing in Switzerland and he was alone in the home. His good friend Senator Edward Reynolds was quoted as saying, “James was a great man and a great friend. He will surely be missed by all who knew him.”

–Capital Confessions blog

Kate

Well, that was a new low. My father had a way of taking the worst things you thought people could be, and somehow, impossibly surpassing even those benchmarks. Having a man killed and then fake-mourning him ranked pretty high on my list of how to be a horrible person. It was just one more part of this that felt like we were living in a nightmare.

The aftermath of Matt’s father’s death had left us reeling. Matt was not good.

He’d left shortly after I told him about his father and I had no clue where he’d gone. The look in his eyes had terrified me. Sometimes it was easy to pretend that we hadn’t really changed all that much, easy to slip into the relationship we’d had for years. I would have known what to do before, but times like this, he felt like a stranger.

He hadn’t been close to his father, to either one of his parents, really, but I could tell his father’s death had rocked him. The more details that began to emerge, the clearer it became that whoever had killed Matt’s father sounded a lot like the person who’d broken into my apartment. The only difference was that I’d gotten away with just having my stuff stolen. I didn’t know why I hadn’t been killed, but I was beginning to feel like it was just a matter of time, as though we were all little more than names to be crossed off of some hit list.

But why was James Ryan’s name on that list?

By all accounts, he’d been my father’s coconspirator. Was he taken out in an attempt to tie up loose ends in the face of my father’s potential presidential bid? Or did he do something to spark my father’s ire? Was he the one who had ordered the break-in and my stabbing? Was this my father’s way of retaliating? Was I off-limits? Or was it something else we just didn’t know about?

There were so many questions and virtually no answers.

The sound of a key opening the front door lock had me turning, my heart pounding, my hand on the baseball bat I’d grabbed when Matt left. The sane part of my brain told me that an intruder wasn’t likely to use a key, that it was probably just Matt returning from wherever he’d gone, even as the part of my brain that had spent way too much time in the path of danger freaked the fuck out.

The door opened and I breathed a sigh of relief as Matt walked over the threshold, his face weary, his shoulders hunched, exhaustion dripping from him. He locked the door behind him, careful to flip the extra deadbolt he’d installed after the break-in.

His gaze drifted from me to the bat. His eyes darkened, his jaw clenched as he let out an oath. “I shouldn’t have left you alone. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine. I’m okay.”

Right now I was more worried about the stamp of defeat etched all over his features.

“We’re going to the shooting range tomorrow,” Matt interjected. “You need to know how handle a gun.”

I’d never had an interest in firearms, had always been a little freaked out by guns, but considering recent events, it wasn’t the world’s worst idea. The bat would only take me so far.

“Where did you go?” I asked, noticing that his hair was wet as though he’d brought the elements inside with him.

Matt crossed into the living room, sitting down next to me on the couch, his big body pressing into mine.

“I went to my parents’ house.”

Fuck.

I’d been afraid of that. Afraid that his reaction to his father’s death would make him reckless. I understood the anger and confusion swirling inside of him—no one could relate to confused parental emotions like I could—and yet we couldn’t afford any mistakes, couldn’t chance the risk that someone would realize he was still alive—if they didn’t already know.

“With the police there?” I squeaked.

“It was so chaotic that I figured it would be the best way to try to blend in. The security was down so it was the easiest time to get in there to see if I could find anything incriminating. I picked the lock on the balcony door outside my old bedroom.”

He’d used the second-floor balcony to sneak out so many times when we were younger. I shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d go that route again, but the fact that he did it when the cops were there …

“You went into the house?”

I’d sort of been joking when I’d asked him to help me figure out how to break into my father’s office, but apparently he had skills beyond any I’d ever imagined. Not to mention a propensity for living on the edge that terrified me.

“Yeah.”

Fuck.

“Did you find anything linking him to your friends’ deaths in Afghanistan? Or to the arms sales?”

I figured it was a lot to try for a signed confession somewhere, but a girl could hope.

“No. The place had been tossed. Completely. We can scratch searching his office off of our list. Whoever killed him did a thorough job.” Matt stood abruptly, turning away from me, his stance tense. He ran his hand through his hair, his voice strained. “He didn’t die well.”

A chill slid down my spine. “What do you mean, ‘he didn’t die well’?”

He was silent for a beat. “They wanted something from him. My guess? Whatever evidence he had that implicated his partner. They tortured him to get it. By the look of it, for a while. Then they killed him.”

Oh my god.

I closed my eyes, fighting the bile rising up, holding back the tears that threatened to fall.

“I’m so sorry.”

It was woefully inadequate, but I had no clue what words would suffice in a situation like this.

I stood and wrapped my arms around him, some of the wet seeping from his clothes to mine. I leaned up on my toes, stroking the base of his neck, running my fingers through his hair, trying to bring him whatever peace I could.

“I’m so sorry,” I repeated.

“I’m okay,” he answered, his voice hoarse.

He definitely was not ‘okay’. He looked like he was falling apart at the seams carrying the weight of all the trouble surrounding him. Minutes passed by while we held each other, neither one of us speaking. And then one of the seams split open, and he let me inside.

“Fine, I’m not fucking okay. He probably deserved it, given what he did, but he was my father, and while I can’t lie and say that I didn’t want to see him pay for his crimes, I’ve seen people tortured. It’s a brutal way to go. It’s hard to think of him going out like that.”

I understood his point, knew that Matt’s feelings for his father were beyond complicated, and at the same time, if anything, his reaction made me wonder if, for all the darkness he feared was inside of him, he’d actually clung to more of his humanity than I had in the past four years. Because if it were my father …

Maybe I was the one who’d lost all of my soft parts.

“It wasn’t always like this with us. When I was younger, he’d try to make it to some of my soccer games, would occasionally take me out boating or to the movies. You remember what it was like between us—he worked a lot and traveled all over the world—but I looked up to him.” He swallowed. “I wanted to be like him when I was a kid.”

“Matt.”

“There’s more,” Matt continued, his voice rumbling, body tense.

My hold on him tightened, trying to infuse him with whatever strength I had, bracing for the next blow.

“What else?”

“I managed to get into my father’s study.”

“How did you manage that?”

“Let’s just say that it was a case of mistaken identity. Amid all of the confusion, I convinced them I was part of the investigation.” A grim smile took over his face. “I’ve become pretty good at pretending to be someone else.”

“What did you find? I thought you said there wasn’t anything linking your father to what happened in Afghanistan.”

“There wasn’t, but I found a piece of paper with a city in Ecuador written on it. A city that I lived in right before I came to D.C. in July to check on you.”

Dread filled me as Matt gave a voice to one of my greatest fears, to the idea that someone would come after him again, that in coming back for me he’d put himself in even more danger. Maybe he should have stayed dead, should never have made his way to D.C.

“I think my father somehow found out I was alive. And seeing the way he died …” He cleared his throat, and I thought I saw a glimpse of a tear in his eye. “I think we have to assume that whoever killed him knows as much as my father did about me.”

“Do you think my father knows?”

If he did, there was no question in my mind that he’d have Matt killed.

“I don’t know.” His voice broke. “I think he would have given up anything at the end.”

I swallowed, a plethora of gruesome images coming to mind. Another chill spread throughout my body, and despite the August heat it felt like no matter what I did, I couldn’t get warm.

I was going to be sick. My conversation with Mr. Ryan at the Kennedy Center benefit ran through my mind again. Had he known the whole time that Matt was alive? Had he been trying to protect his son by keeping his identity hidden, or had he been biding his time, coming up with a plan to finish the job he’d started? Had he tried to have Matt killed then, too, or had it been an accident, a case of him not realizing that his son’s life was in jeopardy? That it was Matt’s unit in Afghanistan?

Did it matter?

And if he did know that Matt hadn’t died, did he tell anyone? “What are you going to do? What are we going to do?”

“I’m going to take you to the gun range this week after work and then I’m going to give you some tips on how to get into your father’s office. And I’m going to back you up, because there’s no way you’re going by yourself.”

I wasn’t going to argue that point; I was definitely out of my wheelhouse here. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t worried about him, that I wouldn’t have breathed a lot easier if he left town permanently.

Matt reached out, his fingers grazing my skin as he lifted my chin so that our gazes locked. “I promise you—I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I’ll do whatever I have to in order to keep you safe.”

That was what I was worried about. I didn’t want him risking his life for me.

“Are you sure it’s safe for you to stay? If they know you’re alive—”

“I’m not leaving you. Not until we finish this. You were right all along. We can’t get free of this unless we topple your father. When we have proof, when we can use it to hold him responsible for all that he’s done, for the crimes he’s committed, we’ll figure out what comes next. But right now there’s too much unfinished business.”

As far as plans went, ours pretty much terrified me, but I couldn’t see another way out of this other than confronting it head on.

“I’m here for whatever you need.”

He pressed his lips to my forehead. “I know. Thank you.”

“I’m sorry about your dad.”

“I know.”

“I heard that your mother was gone when it happened.”

“Yeah, I saw Capital Confessions. It looks like she was doing her annual spa trip to Switzerland. Apparently, she’s on her way back.”

Matt’s mom hadn’t been around a lot when we were growing up so it wasn’t like they were close, but I figured he still had to be worried about her; she’d lost both her husband and her son.

“Do you think she’ll be okay?”

Or as okay as anyone could be in these circumstances.

“Yeah. It might be hard at first, but you know how distant they were. They’ve been living separate lives for so long that I’m sure she’ll be able to move on.” He was quiet for a moment. “Did you see them? After they received news that I’d died? At the funeral and stuff?”

I nodded, surprised this was something he was ready to talk about.

“How were they? I mean, how did they seem to handle it?”

I felt a pang of sympathy for him, knowing he was really asking if I thought his parents had loved him, mourned him. The hardest part was that I didn’t know what answer I could give; I settled for as close to the truth as possible.

“Your mother cried at the funeral. Your father looked shaken up.” I laid my palm on his face, his beard scratching my skin. “They loved you in their own way. Even if it wasn’t enough and wasn’t what you deserved.”

Love was a funny thing in our world. If it was convenient, if it fit within the specter of power and wealth, then it was accepted, but if it didn’t, there was no question which would win out. I’d experienced enough of my parents’ marriage, seen firsthand my father’s infidelity with Jackie’s mom—who was probably just one in a long line of his mistresses—to know that love wasn’t a given. Those who had it were the lucky ones. Love gave you the kind of power that ruling by fear or amassing a fortune couldn’t touch. Power ebbed and flowed, money trickled through hands like sand, but love—if you kept it safe, guarded it, worked at it, turned yourself inside out for it—no one could take it away from you.

I stroked Matt’s back, my palms running over his powerful shoulders. I pressed my lips against his skin, inhaling his scent, savoring the feel of his warmth against me. With death swirling around us, this moment suddenly felt like everything, the need to simply stand together and breathe, overpowering.

“What can I do?” I whispered against his skin. “What do you need?”

“I don’t know.”

His hands gathered in my hair, pulling me even closer to him. I felt his body relax against mine as some of the tension slowly released, as he gave me the parts of himself that needed to be soothed.

Would we ever have normal? Would things ever just be good or happy? Or would this always be our normal? Did it matter?

I’d rather be in hell with Matt than heaven with anyone else.

“Tell me how I can make you feel better,” I murmured, holding on tight, knowing he needed me to be strong for him now.

“Just stay here,” he whispered against my hair. “Just be with me.”

I could do that. And more.

I pulled back, my arms drifting from his neck down to his shoulders, resting on his biceps. I pressed a kiss to the curve there, inhaling the musky scent of him, rubbing my cheek against his bare flesh. A sigh escaped his lips. Then another one as I burrowed into that crook between his neck and shoulder, my teeth nipping there before I sucked on the skin, my mouth moving lower, covering him in kisses until I reached the center of his chest. I tugged his shirt off; our gazes connected as arousal flashed in his eyes. I didn’t know exactly what he needed, but judging from the groan that escaped his lips, this was a good start.