by Kaylea Cross
Once these two were dead, he would finally have the vengeance Zoya deserved. And only then…
Maybe then Zoya’s soul could find some measure of peace.
Chapter Twelve
“He’s responding.”
Jesse lowered his phone and leaned in to peer over Amber’s shoulder at her laptop. He started to reach past her to type in his password for the forum again, then thought better of it. She was insanely protective and possessive of her computer.
“May I?” he said, his voice dry.
She glanced up at him, seeming annoyed by his closeness and tone. “You’re aware I can hack in on my own, right?”
One side of his mouth lifted. “You could. But this’ll be faster and it proves I’m not trying to hide anything. So. Can I?”
She folded her arms. “Fine, go for it. But make it quick.”
Jesse entered his password and answered the security questions. Yury’s curt response popped up on screen immediately.
Fuck you.
“Yeah, so that’s a no,” Jesse murmured, not in the least surprised. They’d stabbed Stanislav right in the ego with the demand for more money. Though this response wasn’t just bluster. It was an extra threat they needed to take seriously. “We poked the bear and got the expected reaction. Now what?”
“Part B of Rycroft’s mysterious plan, I guess.”
The team here had say in what happened, but Rycroft had the power and resources to pull together a wider intel net. From what Jesse understood, Rycroft had been dead on about everything so far, and while it was clear Amber didn’t love the idea of letting a former government agent dictate their actions, she seemed to trust Trinity’s judgment, and the other Valkyrie trusted Rycroft implicitly. So whatever Rycroft came up with was what they would ultimately act on.
Amber pulled out her phone to text Trinity the news.
“You know she’s just downstairs, right?” he pointed out.
She lifted a shoulder, busy typing on her phone. “I prefer electronic communication.”
Because it afforded her the ability to be impersonal, and that was her comfort zone. He got that.
But last night she’d let him see an intensely personal side of her. The fire and need beneath the cool exterior she showed the rest of the world. She wasn’t nearly as standoffish and unaffected as she let on, even now. Inside, her emotions ran hot, and so did her blood. Just like him.
More than anything, Jesse wanted to see more of what lay beneath that cool façade.
“He responded already?” Trinity asked as she walked into Amber’s room a moment later.
“Have a look.” Jesse stood and let her take the chair at the desk so she could access what was on screen more easily. “What’s the plan now?”
“That’s up to Amber.” Trinity angled a look at Amber over her shoulder.
Amber frowned. “The bait thing. That’s the next part of the plan?”
“It’s the best idea we’ve got so far. Unless you have any other suggestions?”
“Nope. Bait it is. I’m ready to take this asshole down.”
Jesse concealed his unease, because even with all Amber’s skills, the thought of her knowingly placing herself in Stanislav’s sights to draw the bastard out made him go cold all over. She could handle herself, that wasn’t the issue. They’d just have to plan this out carefully, then have the team back Amber up with everything they had. Because the thought of losing her now—or being unable to keep her from dying—was unthinkable.
“All right. I’ll call Rycroft and update you when I’ve got more.” Trinity rose and walked out of the room, leaving them alone.
Jesse took the chair again and began typing in a few commands to sign out of the forum. “You sure you want to do this?” he asked without looking at her.
“Like Trinity said, you got a better idea?”
“No.” He wished he did. Something that didn’t put her at such a critical level of risk. Not that he’d say it to her face. He liked his teeth and balls right where they were.
“Well then, I guess I’m about to be bait.”
She masked it well enough, yet he could tell she was still annoyed with him because of last night, when he’d left her hanging. But he’d been left hanging too. And right now, with her standing less than a foot to his right, looking and smelling so good he could barely concentrate, he had to wonder if he’d lost his damn mind for stopping.
Needing closer contact, he shot a hand out, snagged her arm and tugged her down to sit sideways across his lap.
She went rigid and shoved against his shoulder with her free hand. Hard enough to get her point across: this was a warning. Keep pushing, and she wouldn’t be responsible for what happened next. “Let go.”
He liked living dangerously. Almost as much as he loved that fire and promise in her eyes. “Not yet.”
Her jaw set and her eyes narrowed in silent warning. The tension between them suddenly magnified tenfold. She was perfectly capable of breaking his hold to get up if she wanted—and she could hurt him pretty bad in the process if she chose. So her staying put for the moment was a small victory.
“I thought of you last night,” he told her softly, still grasping her wrists. She liked it when he talked to her in this low, intimate tone. Her eyes darkened and her cheeks flushed. “And again this morning when I first woke up.”
And in the shower a while later, when he’d stroked himself off while imagining her hand wrapped around him instead, her green eyes heavy-lidded with desire as they pleasured one another.
Her stare was cool. “That’s nice. I didn’t think about you at all.”
Liar. He was getting to her too. But if he wanted a chance for more than just a few days with her, he had to keep chipping away at her defenses. “You’re under my skin, belleza.” He wasn’t even sure how it had happened, couldn’t pinpoint exactly when. “How did you get there so fast?”
A frown formed between her eyebrows. “Stop with the games. I’m not interested in playing.”
“Not a game, sweetheart. Trust me.” Not even close. He wanted under her skin too, and was willing to do whatever it took to get there. He would never find anyone else like her.
She opened her mouth to argue but he slid his free hand into the back of her hair and covered her lips with his.
Amber jerked back, eyes shooting sparks at him. “You—”
He kissed her again, angling his head this time to deepen it, cutting off whatever she’d been about to say. “Want you,” he muttered against her lips. “Want you so damn bad I can’t think straight. But I want more than just a good time.”
His words seemed to stun her, so he kissed her again. She stilled for an instant, then began to respond, returning the kiss rather than just enduring it. She was all firm curves and silken softness, wrapped in a deadly package.
She was his kryptonite.
Jesse groaned and slid his tongue across her lower lip, tugged it between his teeth before delving inside to taste her. He couldn’t get enough of touching her, kissing her. Arousing and sparring with her.
Her teeth nipped at his lower lip. She caught it there and opened her eyes, staring into his.
Raw lust punched through him, so strong his muscles corded with the need to rip her clothes off, sit her up on the desk and bury his face between her thighs just to find out what sounds she’d make. How much it would take to make her come.
With a low growl he nipped at her top lip and pulled his mouth away. She searched his eyes, confusion on her face. “What do you want from me?”
“More than you’re ready to give, I think,” he mused.
She scoffed, eyes snapping with annoyance and arousal. “What does that mean? Like you could give more than sex? You’re a hitman.”
He wouldn’t apologize for what he was, though he didn’t think she was judging him for it. But she’d opened up something inside him that he couldn’t shut off.
“Just…shhh,” he murmured, and drew her head down to tuck her fac
e into the side of his neck. He didn’t want to rile her up to the point that she retreated. He wanted to rile her up enough that she couldn’t breathe without wanting him the way he wanted her.
Jesse wrapped his arms around her and leaned his forehead on the top of her shoulder, just breathing her in, savoring the feel of the firm curves pressed to him. Her chocolate-colored hair smelled like shampoo. It was soft and silky as he drew his fingers through it.
“I don’t even know you,” she complained in a low, irritated mutter. “You’ve literally been given a file on me about my entire past, and I know next to nothing about you.”
That was true. In that respect she was at one hell of an unfair disadvantage. “What do you want to know?”
She lifted her head to study him for a long moment, but didn’t shift away or try to get up. He was hard as steel under her ass but she didn’t seem to mind. “You’re really going to answer me?”
“Sure.” He had nothing to hide. Nothing to lose, except her, and he wasn’t going to do that.
“Where are you from?”
“New Mexico. My grandparents came there from Guadalajara after they were married.”
Curiosity lit her eyes. “You’ve got a family?”
He grinned at the astonishment in her voice. Not many people in their line of work could do what they did and maintain links with loved ones back home. He was no exception. “A few relatives left here and there, yeah. Some cousins. We’re not close, though.”
“So you’re an only child?”
“No.” He lowered his gaze, followed his finger as he drew the tip of it down the side of her neck to the hollow between her collarbones. “I had an older brother.”
“Had?”
Jesse nodded, finding he didn’t mind talking to her about it. “He joined the Army out of high school and I joined the Marines.” It was easier to talk about when he wasn’t looking at her. “He spent his entire career capturing high-level criminals and then watching them all go free on plea bargains or technicalities, or political deals. He hated that. Used to bitch to me about it all the time whenever we were home on leave together.
“Oscar refused to quit over it, though. His guys needed him, and he wouldn’t let them down or abandon them. Then one day, two of the HVTs his platoon had captured months before planned a suicide mission on a convoy. My brother was killed in the initial blast. The HVTs behind the attack were never found again.”
Amber was silent for a moment. “That must have been really hard for you.”
He nodded. Hard? Yeah. It had made him into what he was now. A merc. A hired killer with an agenda. “I finished my contract, but didn’t re-up.”
“And that’s when you became a hitter.”
“Yup.” He drew his fingertip over her collarbone, marveling at the seeming fragility of her when contrasted with how tough and badass he knew her to be. “I was sick to fucking death of watching bad guys literally getting away with murder and walking away, so I decided to do something about it. Took my first contract seven years ago. A wannabe warlord in the tribal region in A-stan.”
She nodded, her understanding strengthening the pull he felt toward her. “Mine was an arms dealer in Estonia. I was twenty-two.”
Jesse paused his finger and looked up into her face. She was staring at the floor, her expression far away. Twenty-two was too damn young to be doing that shit. “You’re thirty-four now?”
“Yes.”
Twelve years she’d been doing this. Working alone, pulling off high-risk jobs and hits, dancing with death every time and looking over her shoulder every step of the way. But the difference between them was, he’d done it by choice. She’d done it because she hadn’t been given a choice.
“Was any of it good?” he asked, bringing her gaze back to his. “Your training, and the job.”
“Yeah, a lot of it.” A fond smile tugged at her mouth as she recalled whatever it was she was thinking about. “Parts of it were the best times of my life. I loved learning what they taught me. I felt strong. Invincible. I liked taking out bad guys and emptying their bank accounts of all their dirty money. I believed in what I was doing, because I believed it made the world a better place.”
Her smile fell. “But that was before I found out I was just an asset they could use and then dispose of when they decided I’d served my purpose and no longer needed me.”
No, when they’d decided she and the others were too much of a threat.
He reached up to stroke a hand over her hair from the crown of her head to her shoulders. “When your trainer was killed?”
“Barry. He was a former Air Force intel officer.”
“Were you close?”
“As close as I’ve ever been to anyone.” She shook her head, the motion tight, angry. “But he’d lied to me all along too. He knew what they’d done to me and never said a thing. Knew they’d split Megan and me apart and told me she was dead. That they’d manipulated us in every possible way to get what they wanted, and then used us to do their dirty work.”
“And when the heat from the media about the program became too much and threatened to expose them, they turned on you.”
She acknowledged it with a soft sound and shifted slightly on his lap, leaning into him more and resting her hands on the tops of his shoulders. “But unfortunately for them, I’m not easy to kill. And I’m not going away.”
No, she wouldn’t. It wasn’t in her nature to quit, forgive or forget something like that. He respected that a lot. “So now you work on your terms.” She’d planned a careful, methodical elimination of the Valkyries who had turned on her, and had stuck by her promise to reunite with Megan after this last mission, to help find the others.
Her inner strength and conviction in the face of everything she was up against was incredible.
Her gaze sharpened on his, too many turbulent emotions churning in her eyes for him to decipher, but he felt the connection between them solidify further. “That’s right. I play by my own rules, and one of them is that I never harm innocents. And something tells me you’ve still got a moral compass somewhere inside you too.”
He smiled a little. “Maybe. Don’t tell anyone, though.”
She smiled back, and the growing sense of intimacy between them intensified. He’d never let anyone this deep inside him before. Something about her made it impossible to hold back. When he looked at her, he saw the missing part of himself he thought he’d buried with his brother. “Never.”
“So what happens after we get Stanislav?”
She was quiet for a long moment. “I help Megan and the rest of the team find the others. After that, I’m going to find the people behind the program. Then I’m going to end them all.”
He recognized it for the vow it was. A promise she’d made to herself a long time ago, probably on the night her handler had killed himself and she’d learned the truth about what had been done to her and the others.
It probably would have sent a cold shiver up most people’s spines. For Jesse, it triggered a rush of tender protectiveness unlike anything he’d ever felt before. “Yes, you will,” he whispered, believing her completely.
Capturing her chin between his thumb and fingers, he pressed a slow, gentle kiss to her lips, then raised his head to search her eyes. “What am I going to do about you in the meantime?” he mused.
“Don’t know, but I’m not up for anything more than temporary. I won’t change. I’m past being redeemable, and I also won’t apologize for who and what I am.”
“Maybe I like you exactly the way you are.”
Her expression froze. The cool mask slipped another notch, revealing the naked yearning inside her. Yearning for his words to be real. For her to believe someone could truly care about her after everything she’d done. “You need to understand, I can’t give you anything more than a fling.”
He liked that she was upfront about it. “No?” He drew his fingertip across her lips.
She shook her head.
We’
ll see about that.
With whatever time he had left here, he intended to get her so hooked on him that she wouldn’t be able to walk away. Using any means at his disposal.
She broke away and stood, and he didn’t try to stop her. “We should go see what the others are up to.” She gathered up Lady Ada and hugged the laptop to her chest, and he could admit he was mildly jealous of the piece of plastic and circuit boards.
“Sure.”
They’d just reached the lower hallway when Megan came through the front door, Ty right behind her, his face like a thundercloud.
“Something wrong?” Amber asked.
“Yeah, several things,” Ty muttered, shooting a dark look at Megan.
Megan rolled her eyes. “Just because you gave me a ring doesn’t mean you get to control me, remember? That was the deal.”
“I’m not trying to control you, dammit—I’m trying to stop you from getting yourself killed. Major difference.”
Jesse raised an eyebrow at Amber as the couple stalked past them toward the living room, or whatever it was called. “Trouble in paradise?” he murmured.
“Looks like.”
Inside, Trinity was on the tufted velvet couch talking to Georgia while Bautista helped himself to the tray of baking someone had placed on the table. They all stopped when Megan walked in. Ty stood across the room from her and stared at her with his arms folded, silent fury and frustration pulsing from him in waves.
Marcus came through the doorway a second later, his cane thudding lightly on the floor with each step and his dog at his heels. He glanced around, his gaze stopping on Megan, the pink, puckered scars around his left eye seeming more pronounced. “What are you doing?”
“Making sure we get Stanislav,” she responded, mimicking Ty’s posture as she faced Trinity and the others. Then she shot Ty a dark look of her own. “You ratted me out to him? Seriously?”
“Yep. I take your life and wellbeing that seriously.”
She made a disparaging noise and looked back at Marcus. “I’m going to pose as Amber in a different location when the meet up happens, so we’ll have double the bait and twice the chance of nailing him.”
