Every Last Breath

by Juno Rushdan

  Heat smacked her cheeks. She wrenched the door open and climbed inside, slamming it shut. He was talking about a burger, right?

  Sounded so raunchy, so slip-n-slide kind of nasty.

  Her thoughts took a vivid nosedive into the triple-X gutter and her sex clenched.

  He opened the passenger door and hopped up into the cabin. “I believe the proper response when someone brings you food is thank you.”

  Shaking her head at her oversight in manners, she set the food on the floor with the file she’d been carrying. “Sorry. Thank you. I’m starving and tired and—”

  “Stressed.” He angled toward her, resting an arm on top of the bench seat, dark hair falling across his collar. “I’m no stranger to your cranky side, and I don’t scare easily.”

  No, he didn’t. She’d always admired that about him. His strength. His boldness. The fierce determination that had kept him out here waiting for hours. But she preferred when he used his superpowers for good and not wickedness against her.

  “How did you get back through the gate?”

  “Sanborn granted me temporary access,” he said.

  “I’ll have to see about getting it revoked.”

  He scooted closer along the seat. A dizzying kind of panic skittered through her with no console between them. The masculine smell of him cut through the aroma of food, stirring a different hunger.

  “You should go wherever it is you plan to sleep,” she said. “It’s late.” Her body fluttered with traitorous sensations in protest.

  “That really what you want?” The gravelly heat in his voice sent tingles to her thighs.

  His gaze dropped to her mouth, and her tongue tied. She wanted to say no, it isn’t, but also wanted to scream in outrage. Alive and well all this time, and he’d never contacted her. No phone call, no email. She had a mountain of issues to sort through. Everest-level shit. Tackling it now would strip her bare, leaving her nothing for the mission and the fight with Novak.

  “Why are you here?” Her voice was barely audible. “What do you want?”

  He inched closer, his proximity a dangerous tease. “You’ve got my gear.”

  Her gaze fell to his backpack on the floor near the passenger’s door, but he hadn’t glanced at his bag once. He was staring at her.

  The scorching look burning in his eyes threatened to incinerate her resolve.

  “We survived today. Makes me appreciate what’s right in front of me.” He dragged his knuckles down her bare arm.

  Awareness tickled every pore of her body.

  His face dipped, drawing near, unhurried. Testing the boundaries between them. Pushing the primal button, driving her toward one of the four evolutionary f’s.

  Fight, flight, feed, or fuck.

  He brushed his lips across the corner of her mouth, along her jaw, his stubble scratching her cheek. He pressed a searing kiss to her pulse point.

  Her heart stumbled a beat, then knocked like crazy. So loud and hard, she swore he’d not only feel it but hear it—a rap against a door she longed for him to open, letting her into that bittersweet place where sensation flowed like milk and warm honey in the promised land. Where she’d do anything for another taste of him. Where only he could make her come undone.

  He cupped the back of her head, his fingers curling in her hair. Licked the tender spot on her neck below her ear. His breath rough on her throat. The quiver in her chest spiraled, and if she hadn’t been sitting, her knees would’ve buckled.

  His mouth glided over her cheek to her parted lips, and he kissed her. He tugged her onto his lap, pulling her hips to straddle him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, caressing his tongue with hers.

  Need unfurled in her belly, a warm, silken thread loosed from its spool.

  No question she wanted him.

  He kissed her hard, almost brutally. Desperately. Deep and long, he drew the breath from her body, filling her with his.

  Years of loneliness and yearning flared, making a pulse thud between her legs like a heavy heartbeat. She squeezed her legs against his hips, longing to be closer.

  His mouth didn’t give a second for retreat. His lips so hot on hers, she melted. He stroked her inner thigh, his fingers inching higher and higher. Until he slid his hand into her baggy shorts and tugged her thong aside.

  Her craving for him gathered in a painful knot in her core. She throbbed for release, growing wet at the nearness of his fingertips. Anticipation shivered over her skin.

  “Want me to stop?” The low words were rough as sandstone.

  “No,” she breathed. Starved.

  Pure male satisfaction splashed across his face.

  His callused thumb rubbed the sensitive button of nerves between her legs, featherlight, and a finger slipped inside her.

  She arched against him, softening, yielding in ways she’d forgotten. Cole had been her first, not her only, but the one who’d made her tremble with want and beg for more.

  He nipped her bottom lip, playful, eliciting a sigh, and plunged a second finger in her slick wetness. She clenched helplessly around him, rocking against his hand.

  Blood rushed through her ears. Everything inside her wound tighter, swelling, contracting. She was so aroused and ready, she feared stroking his ego by coming from two minutes of foreplay.

  She lifted her hips away from his hand, pulled down her shorts and underwear, working them off her legs in a frenzy. Unzipping his jeans with trembling fingers, she freed the beautiful, heavy length of him. He made a deep sound of approval in his throat. His flesh nudged against her, hot, hard, and seeking. She ached with a gnawing emptiness.

  “Are you sure I shouldn’t go wherever it is I plan to sleep?” A ghost of a smile on his lips as he threw her words back. “It’s so late.”

  “Smug doesn’t look good on you.”

  “Sure does feel pretty damn good.”

  He was under her skin, stamped on her soul, branded on her heart. To her shame, she needed him, needed the sweet friction that would leave her a sweaty, sated mess.

  She curled her fist around his shaft. From the thick base to the engorged crown, she palmed him, ran her thumb across the slippery wetness on the tip, driving a guttural groan from him. She stroked herself, bathing the hard length of him in the slickness of her desire.

  “Does that feel better than smug?” she taunted.

  He grabbed a fistful of her hair and pressed his mouth to her ear. “Fuck yeah.”

  She popped open the glove compartment and fished out a condom from her purse. Their gazes locked as she tore the wrapper and quickly rolled it on him. She rose on her knees and took him deep inside.

  The fullness, the pressure, startled her body. She splintered around him. Rocking her hips, she took him deeper. He pulled her tee off, unclasped her bra, and stilled. His eyes were trained on her bruised abdomen.

  “I’m fine.” Better than she’d been in years. Afraid the wary look in his eyes meant he’d bring things to a halt, she tugged his shirt up over his head, desperate for his skin against hers. “Really. I’m okay.” He clamped his mouth on a nipple and flicked the pebbled peak with his tongue. She arched on a wave of pleasure. He caressed and suckled and licked and kissed her with gentle possession and violent tenderness.

  And the world condensed to this. Connection. Communion. Cole.

  He clutched her waist and brought her hips down while he pumped his in a frantic rhythm.

  She planted a hand on the roof for leverage, taking him as quickly as possible. That sweet place was in reach, the one that would sate the grinding ache.

  “Cole,” she whimpered, milking him hard. Her voice was packed with the urgency blooming inside.

  She loved this sensation of tumbling toward relief as he caressed some deep part of her soul.

  He gasped, his body tightening with hers. Slipping a hand b
etween them, he rubbed her throbbing clit, and she shuddered in a riptide of spasms. He swallowed the cries from her mouth and took charge of the rhythm, bringing her hips down hard and fast in a driven fever to his own release.

  The pleasure was so blinding and raw, it hurt.

  Breathless and limp, she drifted everywhere and nowhere. Settling back into herself piece by tenuous piece. She cupped his face and kissed him. This time, aching for him to be hers again, rabid to find what had been lost. She showed him how much she still loved him, opening herself to him.

  He caressed her cheek and jaw in a touch so tender, she yet again unraveled. More vulnerable. This sensation of being tethered to him was everything.

  Then she looked at him, both of them panting, and it turned wrong.

  His gaze hardened, pain tattooed across his face as if a kiss had somehow wounded him, and her smile fell. He dragged the pad of his thumb across her lips, wiping her mouth.

  Her whole body constricted. He pulled out of her, slowly and gently. She rolled off him, loathing the volatility between them.

  He sat back, staring out at the dark parking lot. Goose bumps scattered across her skin, and she was dying to know his thoughts.

  They cleaned up with tissues from the glove box in silence.

  Lowering his head, he hauled in a long, broken breath before he wrapped the condom in Kleenex and discarded it in his bag. They dressed in the awkward quiet.

  To her surprise, he gathered her against the side of his body with one arm.

  She wanted to snuggle against his warmth, but even this small intimacy was a soap bubble, iridescent and captivating and bound to burst.

  They were so far from being right with one another. Thinking about what the future held for them was terrifying.

  “Enjoy the burger and get some sleep.” Grabbing his bag, he hopped out.

  Before she’d collected her brain enough to wonder where he planned to sleep, the roar of his bike reverberated, setting her teeth on edge, and he drove off.

  The idea of going home to an empty apartment and an empty bed made the loneliness of her empty life echo through her. It sucked. Big time.

  She kept spare clothes and toiletries in her locker, and the sofa in the break room wouldn’t be too hard on her back for a few hours. She took the burger and the file and shuffled back inside the building.

  Chapter 19

  Gray Box Parking Lot, Northern Virginia

  9:46 a.m. EDT

  Face upturned to the blazing sun, eyes closed, ankles crossed, Cole leaned back on his bike in the Gray Box parking lot. He adjusted the Glock holstered under his arm, doing his best not to melt in this godforsaken heat wave.

  He’d replayed last night in his head a hundred times. Not the bits about them nearly dying. The juicy bits about making love with Maddox, holding her like she was still his. And that final, tender kiss she’d given him that had shifted the tectonic plates of his reality. How it’d soothed him and destroyed him at the same damn time.

  He didn’t know what in the hell to do with it all, but he was done bullshitting himself.

  His desire to see her, to be with her, had never waned. For nine miserable years, what-ifs had plagued him, keeping him up at night. What if she had moved on? What if she loved someone else?

  He rubbed his chest at the sudden ache.

  A couple of hours ago, he’d swung by her place, but Knox’s truck—Cole spat on the ground—was already gone, so he had headed straight for the spy center. Despite how she’d baited and hooked him and tried to toss him aside, he understood what she and her covert crew were fighting for. As worthy causes ranked, hers topped the list.

  When Maddox left to track down the Ghost, he’d be with her, regardless of her insistence that he sit this out. She was smart and bold and more badass than he had ever imagined, but he couldn’t let her face Aleksander Novak without him.

  A low creak squeezed from the front doors. Adjusting his Ray-Bans, he pitched his head forward and opened his eyes. Maddox and Reece came into view as they approached, followed by Castle and Gideon.

  Her riot of curls was roped back into a ponytail, tension cascading off her stiff shoulders.

  “Good morning, sunshine.” He tossed the words like a softball, as if the chasm of unresolved pain and anger separating them didn’t exist.

  Her feet stuttered. Must’ve caught her off guard using the pet name she used to love.

  Somehow, sunshine didn’t fit her anymore. He needed to look up the name for a monster star that burned ten million times brighter than the sun. That’s what she was now.

  “What are you doing here?” Her sharp question cracked the air like the lash of a whip.

  “Since you didn’t revoke my access, I figured you came to your senses about letting me help.” The only thing he knew for certain was that he was going to help her stop Novak.

  Whether she liked it or not. Even if it was the last thing he ever did.

  “I told you,” she said, “you’re done. I can’t allow you to risk your life helping us again.”

  Allow? Did she really think she could stop him?

  She wore her bossy pants well, but he didn’t take orders.

  Smiling, Cole adjusted his sunglasses. “I guess you forgot. I’m a member of the band.”

  She folded her arms. “Well, we can do just fine without you, Ringo.”

  Chuckling, Castle gave a nod of approval. “Now, that’s the first sensible thing I think I’ve ever heard you say about Lover Boy.”

  Gritting his teeth, Cole let the “Lover Boy” crap slide. If he let Castle see it bothered him, the fucker would only give him more shit.

  “Nah, you’re giving him way too much credit.” Reece rested a forearm on Maddox’s shoulder, half-cocked grin showing pearly whites. “He’s more of a Pete Best.”

  Gideon scratched his trim, blond beard. “Who?”

  “My point exactly.” Reece’s grin deepened to a bright smile.

  “I’m not asking permission. I’m helping you catch this guy.” Cole thrust his helmet toward her. “The bike is faster, and we don’t have time to waste.”

  “We’re not getting more tactical support from in there.” Castle threw a nod at the Gray Box. “I’m sure he can do something useful—carry your gun or fetch you a coffee.”

  Cole rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses.

  “An extra body on this would be good,” Gideon added, “but we can manage without him. Your call.”

  With eyes narrowed, Maddox evaluated the situation. Cole waited. He had the perfect skill set to assist, and a man like him was worth two extra bodies. A smart boss would make the right call.

  Finally, she took the helmet. Attagirl.

  “We’re burning daylight,” she said. “Reaper, follow Harper’s lead on the helicopter, and locate Van Helden. Castle, Reece, news station. See how our Ghost got clearance to enter the building. Lover Boy and I will follow the lead at the taxi company.”

  They nodded and headed for their vehicles.

  Buttoning her jacket, she stepped closer to him. “Give me your phone. I’ll load the team’s personal numbers and a couple of Gray Box lines in case you need them. Don’t discuss anything classified on an open line.”

  Her bossy pants were hot.

  He handed her his cell. “You left your place rather early. I’d hoped you’d get more sleep.”

  “Never went home.” She loaded numbers in his phone. “I keep spare clothes here. Showered in the locker room. Grabbed some winks on the break room sofa.”

  She stiffened.

  Her brows drew together and eyes snapped up. “You went to my place this morning?” His silence must’ve been confirmation. “Why?”

  Hell if he knew. To talk? To fuck? The woman had him tangled in a tizzy.

  “What lead at the taxi company?” He pulled h
is spare half-shell helmet from his backpack and put it on, buckling the strap under his chin. He was a safe driver, one of the best, but in the unlikely event of an accident, he’d rather Maddox have the full helmet—better protection.

  “We got a facial recognition hit on a public surveillance feed. Novak got in a taxi on Massachusetts and Van Ness last night. Alone. We have a partial plate of a Yellow Cab and need to track down the driver, see where Novak was dropped.”

  Cole swung his leg over his bike and sat. “As you said, we’re burning daylight.”

  She climbed on behind him, put on the helmet, and gave him back his phone. He fired up the engine, and she clutched his waist. Her hands on his chest had untimely desire humming through his body stronger than the full throttle of the bike.

  He missed the carefree days when they’d ridden for pleasure. Took long walks through the Dulles terminal, eating pizza. Instead of thinking him crazy or cheap, she’d understood and appreciated that the airport was one of America’s greatest works of modern architecture. Eero Saarinen’s greatest design. He could go on for hours about the beauty and chaos in the story of a structure, and she’d listened without boredom, no complaints.

  Maybe it’d been the same reason he didn’t groan and roll his eyes whenever she wanted to watch some black-and-white flick. Or how she’d sit beside him when a boxing match came on, make a bowl of popcorn, and spout off stats she’d learned. Everything between them had been easy. No fight they hadn’t been able to overcome. The two of them in sync. A lifetime ago.

  Now, despite the fact that they’d reconnected in the biblical sense, she didn’t scoot her pelvis up against his ass, didn’t nestle her legs tight along his hips the way she once had.

  Things between them were complicated. Tainted. Broken.

  And it wasn’t all her fault.

  Any path forward was murky as smog and littered with land mines. He still harbored deep-seated resentment for her betrayal. She was pissed at how he’d handled the fallout and left her behind. And there was her chosen profession to consider.

  A real shit sundae with a spy cherry on top.

  * * *