“I don’t carry a weapon.”
“That tongue of yours should qualify,” he muttered irritably. “Which reminds me—teeth. Teeth are a hell of a weapon and people forget that.”
She grimaced at the idea of biting any of the men who’d attacked her recently. Well, except…
Killion came up behind her and she was so completely aware of him as a man that she was shocked when he grabbed her roughly around the middle.
“Fight back, Aud.”
She got her mind off sex and remembered what he’d told her. She launched her fist in the direction of his face, felt him jerk away. Then he manhandled her easily to the floor, grabbing one wrist and pinning it with his knee to her back. Exactly as he’d done that first night.
She realized something else. He’d done his best not to hurt her that night, just as he was doing now.
“Let me do it to you,” she said. “I want to see how you get out of it.”
He nodded and lay face down on the floor.
She placed her weight on his lower back and tentatively took his arm, and promptly found herself flat on her back, staring up into his grinning face.
“What did you do?” she asked, slightly breathless.
“Just swiveled my body and used the momentum to knock you off balance.”
Dammit. “So I’m just supposed to accept the fact that if I’m attacked I’m at someone else’s mercy.” That idea was infuriating.
“Fuck, no—unless there’s a reason to believe fighting back is going to get you seriously hurt. Sometimes it’s good to wait for the right moment.”
He was sitting on top of her chest, crotch close to her teeth.
“How about I take a bite out of this?” She raised her head and opened her mouth to demonstrate.
“Hell, yeah.” He shifted back an inch. “That would get them off you pretty damn quick. Inner thigh is highly vulnerable, too. Once they’re off use your legs. Kick them as hard as you can.” He shifted off her and lay next to her on the floor. “Bottom line is you weigh one-ten soaking wet and I’m a good one-eighty. I have a big weight and strength advantage just ’cause I’m a male. And that’s not me being sexist, it’s basic biology, which I know you’ll appreciate.” He stared up at the ceiling for a few beats of her heart, then reached out and took her hand in his, lacing their fingers together. Her mouth went dry. “You didn’t stand a chance against someone with my training.”
And yet, he hadn’t hurt her. She hadn’t had a single bruise from the encounter. She lay next to him, aware of his warmth, his scent flowing over her. Of a sense of peace and acceptance for everything that had happened between them. She’d forgiven him, she realized. She knew he did what he did out of conviction and loyalty to his country. How could she not admire that?
She sat up. The man looked ridiculously sexy just lying there watching her. She ran a finger over the waistband of his jeans, stopped on the button.
“I never stood a chance against you. Not from the moment you picked me up and carried me away.”
His hand stopped her finger’s happy journey. “Don’t romanticize it. I kidnapped you, let you almost bleed to death in the back of a stolen aircraft, refused you medical treatment and then struggled to keep you from succumbing to a terrible fever. Don’t have any illusions about how many times my actions almost got you killed.”
She pulled her hand from his and continued to trace his navel. “I’m not absolving you of your sins.”
His eyes darkened.
“I’m just offering to help you commit a few more.”
He grabbed her hand before she moved it lower. “You know this can’t lead anywhere.”
“I’m on the run, Killion. Not expecting flowers or chocolate.” She kept her voice light and pulled her hand from his.
He swallowed hard. “My job is too dangerous for—”
She rubbed her hand against his hard length, telling him without words that she knew exactly where this was going.
“Fuck, for all I know I don’t even have a career anymore.” He climbed to his feet and scooped her up in his arms. “Hey—why did the frog make so many mistakes?”
She groaned and pressed her face to his chest.
“It kept jumping to the wrong conclusions.”
She used her teeth as punishment and he swore.
“No more frog jokes,” she insisted.
He placed her on the bed and came down on top of her. “I’m making no promises.”
And suddenly his words weren’t about stupid frog jokes. They were about the two of them, their unlikely relationship.
“I’m not asking for any.” She sank her fingers into his hair. “I just want to make love to you without any secrets or lies.”
He dropped his head to rest between her breasts. “You know that’s impossible, right?” his voice was muffled.
“Then we’ll just fuck like bunnies.”
“Thank Christ.” He tugged her T-shirt up and over her head. He palmed her naked breast with a look of reverence on his face. “I’ve missed you naked.”
She would have made up some amusing retort, but he’d drawn her nipple into his mouth. Her vision blanked, and her heels dug into the back of his thighs as her back arched up off the bed. “Okay.”
He pulled back and focused his attention on her other breast.
“I hope you bought condoms on your shopping trip,” she whispered as her fingers dug into his scalp.
He froze with a look of horror on his face, and she wanted to weep.
Then he grinned. “Kidding. But for the record, the only thing I considered a sure thing was my inability to resist you.” His fingers slipped into her panties and curled inside her before she could draw a breath. He was stroking and touching and driving her up and within seconds her entire being exploded like the stars. She cried out as she shattered.
When she came back down to earth she opened her eyes to find him staring at her, with a serious expression on his face.
“You’re beautiful.”
He’d never said anything like that to her before, and she couldn’t move. They stared at each other for a long moment. To combat the sadness his words evoked, she pushed him onto his back and used her teeth on his body, though more gently than he’d suggested earlier.
He cared about her. She knew he did. But she knew it didn’t make any difference.
Their time together was coming to an end. Assuming they got through this alive she’d go one way and he’d go on to his next top-secret assignment. Her hands smoothed over his skin, and she wanted to show him that she got it. And that she forgave him.
He pushed at her jeans, and they both stripped.
He lay back on the bed, and she bent over to kiss his full bottom lip.
“Where do you take a frog with bad eyesight?” His finger traced the bridge of her nose as he teased. “To the hoptician.”
She decided to ignore his terrible jokes. His skin was tanned, the fine hair golden brown. She touched and tasted every inch of him, stroking him gently, absorbing everything she could about this man during what was probably their last opportunity to be together. Finally she found his mouth and he groaned as she kissed him tenderly. His hands were shaking as they skimmed her, clearly terrified of doing something to ruin the moment.
He took his turn with her body, cupping, tasting, stroking. She lay back and closed her eyes and opened herself up to him. By the time he sank inside her, her muscles were melted wax. She cried out as he thrust deep. She wrapped her legs around his hips, and they started a dance that was ancient and elemental and amazing. They moved in perfect harmony, pushing ever closer to that yawning cliff, slowing down, building back up, neither in any hurry, both trying to prolong this moment.
Finally the muscles of her sex clenched and spasmed around him, and she cried out, sobbing his name as he drove into her one last time. Afterward, he rested against her, skin on skin, their heartbeats slowly melding. They held each other for a long while and neither spoke.
Chapter Twenty-One
KILLION WARMED A can of soup on the stove while Audrey got out the remaining bread rolls. What had happened in the bedroom earlier had shaken his foundations. He’d known he’d been missing out over the years, but that connection had damn near blown his mind.
Suddenly she lunged for the TV remote, and he turned to see what the problem was.
“Billionaire industrialist Gabriel Brightman was found dead in his home last night in what police are saying are suspicious circumstances. Police want to question Dr. Audrey Lockhart”—there was a photo of Audrey, smiling this time—“who was a friend of the family and is wanted for the murder of her graduate student in Colombia last week. It’s not known how Lockhart got back into the United States. Police are also looking for another man, named online as one Patrick Killion, although his identity hasn’t been substantiated.”
His image flashed up wearing his burglar gear. Fucking great. National fucking news.
“His exact involvement isn’t known.” Except to everyone he’d ever worked with, and everyone he’d ever manipulated or conned, or put away. Fuck. He closed his eyes until he heard Audrey gasp. She didn’t seem to understand his world had shattered, and why would she? He’d never told her a damn thing about his job or his mission. But he didn’t need a pity party. He just needed this damned thing over and the bad guys stopped.
Her parents were on TV, begging her to give herself up before anyone else got hurt. “Please, Audrey, we know something terrible must have happened to make you do this.”
Condemned by her own family. That had to suck.
Her hand rose to her throat. “Maybe I should give myself up. Give you time to find evidence against Devon or whoever did this.”
“The cartel can reach you just as easily in the States as in Colombia, chica.” God, he was pissed.
The camera panned out and Devon stood there looking rumpled and devastated, his arm around Audrey’s sister, his hand resting on a little boy’s shoulder as the woman held the kid in her arms.
Could they be wrong about the guy? Sure. But it felt right in a way Audrey had never felt right. And the motive was old as the hills. Money. Goddamn money.
The way the newscaster spun the story made it sound like Audrey was so insane with jealousy over her sister dating her ex that she’d gone on some kind of killing spree.
Audrey stood beside the table staring vacantly at the screen even as they moved on to another story. “No one is going to believe Devon is guilty without a confession, are they?” she asked quietly. He didn’t answer. “And there’s no way he’s going to give it up when he’s so close to having everything he ever wanted.”
“Money?”
“Power.” She nodded. “His dad made him work his way from the bottom up through the company and live off a normal employee wage. Devon resented the hell out of his dad for that. Gabriel said it built character.”
Killion snorted. “Hence him getting involved with the cartel. My guess is he’s using his dad’s business to smuggle drugs around the world. The company has facilities in Colombia I take it?”
“Yes.” Audrey bit her lip. He knew she’d put together the rest of the puzzle. “Do you think he’s the person who shot Rebecca?”
Killion put his hand around the back of her neck and drew her to him. “Is he the right size and shape?”
She rubbed her arms and nodded.
“Then, yes. Probably.”
He watched the anger build in her features as she remembered her past history with the fucker.
“He pointed a gun at me and pulled the trigger. Then he comforted me at Rebecca’s funeral and I cried on his shoulder. He knew all about the sting operation the cops were setting up with the undercover police officer.”
“Which is why he never touched you,” Killion suggested. “No one was supposed to know the identity of the person with Rebecca when she was killed. If he’d made a move on you it would put the killer firmly within her circle of family or friends. A random mugging would turn into a personal assault. Cops would have been onto him.”
“And now he has some professional assassin working for him.” Despair filled her eyes. “We’ll never get him to confess. He’s super smart and knows his way around computers—”
“I ever get the asshole alone in a room, I can make him talk,” he promised.
She stared at him intensely for a few moments, but he didn’t think she was seeing him. She pulled away, paced the floor, eyes focused inward as her teeth gnawed her lip. He loved watching when that brain of hers went into action.
“We have to kidnap him.”
He blinked. “Are you nuts?”
“Why?” Her eyes glowed almost lavender. “You did it to me. Let him think the CIA is onto him and that they’ve whisked him off to a Black Camp facility.”
He just stared at her. His innocent biologist had turned into a strategist.
She put her hands on her hips. “If we don’t get to him first the assassin might decide to get rid of him, too. Then no one will ever believe me.”
Killion frowned. “A confession drawn out under those circumstances will never hold up in a court of law.”
“So what? You said you couldn’t prosecute him for the murder you thought I’d committed anyway. You just need to know it was him, correct?”
True. Assuming he could get Devon to confess to what he’d done, it didn’t matter whether or not he’d received due process. The president had ordered Killion to find out who was behind the vice president’s murder. What they did once they discovered who the mastermind was had always been a little murky. Killion wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. Nor had he ever disobeyed orders.
“Shake him up. Get him to confess and tell you the name of the assassin.”
He ladled them each out a bowl of soup. “The CIA isn’t allowed to operate on US soil or against US citizens.”
“Now you’re following the rules?”
He laughed. Brightman had to be involved, but who the hell had done the deed? He was no closer to finding the assassin than when he’d staked out the Amazon Research Institute a millennia ago. “Look, we know it’s Brightman—”
“No, we don’t.” Audrey slipped into lecture mode and damn if it wasn’t hot. “We only suspect, the same way you suspected me and Gabriel.”
The reminder he’d been wrong stung, as did her lack of faith. But she was right.
“He thinks he’s smarter than both of us.” A vertical line appeared between her brows. “Doesn’t that piss you off?”
Well, duh.
“So we get him to confess, find out who his accomplice is and take them all down.” She shook a spoon at him like it was a sword. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and kiss the crap out of her, but kissing would lead to other things, and they needed to figure out their next move.
“You’ll still have the cartel gunning for you.” He hated to burst her bubble. “You can’t just go back to your old life if Devon confesses. And there’s that whole wanted-for-murder thing down in Colombia.”
Her lip trembled even as she took her place at the table. “I was kind of hoping the CIA might help me with that.”
He leaned over and ran his knuckle down her cheek. “I’ll do what I can, you know that.”
She swallowed tightly and nodded. Maybe she did understand the stakes here. Considering what had happened to her life, she should.
Kidnapping Devon might work, although rendition of an American citizen on home soil was walking all over the constitution. The president might not back him up if they were caught. The alternative was sitting here while the net closed around them. Equally unpalatable. These people had killed Crista, the VP, Gabriel Brightman, and had set Audrey up to take the fall as well as tried to kill her on multiple occasions. They weren’t messing around.
A knock on the door had his heart hammering as he pushed Audrey behind him, grabbing his pistol from its holster. Shit. “If it’s the cops you go with them and call FBI Agent Lincoln Frazer
. Don’t say anything else to them.” He rattled off a number he knew by heart. “Lincoln Frazer. Don’t forget that name.” He’d fucked up this whole mission right from the start.
The knock came again.
Killion checked the window and the wave of relief that rushed through him almost knocked him to his knees. Logan Masters and Noah Zacharius stood on the steps, grinning at him like a couple of fools.
He opened the door and Logan pushed past him. Noah followed and smiled at Audrey in a way that set Killion’s teeth on edge.
“Saw you on the news. Thought you might need a bit of help.”
Killion crossed his arms. “Yeah? And how’d you find us?”
“Your pal, Parker. Stuck a tracker on the bike and gave us a call.”
“He hired you?” asked Killion. Even after what happened at Gabriel Brightman’s mansion, he hadn’t been one hundred percent certain of the former CIA agent. Now he was ready to kiss him on the lips if he ever saw him again.
“He tried.” Masters grinned and punched Killion on the arm as he helped himself to Killion’s soup. “We’re officially on vacation.” The Brit gave him a shit-eating grin.
Noah went over to Audrey. “Hey, you look better.” He held out his hand. “We met before, but you might not remember. I’m Noah.”
Killion put his hands on his hips and made himself stay put. No point getting territorial. And if that little voice in his ear said his career was already over so what the hell was the problem with pursuing Audrey, he was ignoring it. He had enemies. He wouldn’t bring them to Audrey’s doorstep when she’d already endured hell.
Audrey smiled back at Noah, and Killion’s heart both expanded and contracted at the same time—not the most pleasant experience. “I remember. You’re the one who swore you didn’t look when I was naked.”
“Unlike some people,” Noah said slyly, throwing Killion a look.
Audrey laughed. “Well, he did save my life a few times. I owe you all a massive debt of gratitude.”
Noah opened his mouth to say something that would definitely be crude. Killion pointed at the guy. “One word, and I will kill you with my bare hands.”
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