Protecting His Heart

by Dana Volney

  “Winter’s right. We need to get low,” Felix said to Arabella.

  Or not. Apparently Felix thought they all got to vote.

  “Alex is working on a couple of leads with Bahman, the bodyguards, and now our newest captive.” Felix was working out the problem; she could practically see his mind move three steps ahead.

  Arabella opened her mouth to rebut the decision to hide out but didn’t get a chance.

  “I’m tracking and tapping all your phones and these two.” Eddie pointed to the phones she’d lifted from the bodyguards the previous night. “They already had a tracking device, so I’m back tracing now, but it’s pretty high tech. I think it’s safe to say this is how they found you today. Whether they are working for Darek is hard to tell. But probably the safe assumption. We have a more-the-merrier situation.”

  “Maybe Darek needed more information out of Parsa, too. Then that ambush team this morning didn’t get the upper hand with us and therefore didn’t get Parsa either.” Arabella crossed her legs and clasped her hands on her lap in an attempt to control the nerves that were starting to get to her. Everything she was hearing and seeing was adding up to a much larger, not-good-for-her picture.

  “If someone calls, I’ll know.” Eddie handed Felix the phones then continued tapping away on his keyboard.

  She was so close yet so far away. This is the closest she’d let Darek and his hired guns get to her in four months. She couldn’t give up now. Or relent.

  Felix stood. “Call me when you know something.” He turned to her. “We’re going.”

  “Where?”

  “A safe house we have.”

  “Are you sure it’s safe?”

  “Locked that little secret away myself.” Eddie looked up with his stunning avocado shade of green eyes.

  She joined Felix’s side. Maybe they were really going to detour to the hospital or the CIA office and do a little of their own digging. There was no way Felix could be serious about only lying low. They weren’t hiders. They were fighters. And they had one hell of a fight brewing.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Arabella followed Felix into a small apartment. Her optimism about going out with Felix independently to stay on the offensive had been promptly squashed in the truck he had borrowed from Winter’s boyfriend. Their job now was to sit and wait, which was her least favorite part. This day had started out so promising and then morphed into a steaming pile of fly-covered shit. She couldn’t interrogate the guy Felix had picked off, because he was in official custody, she had no idea where the rest of the hit team was or how many there were, and now she had to sit on her thumbs and wait for Darek to make a mistake. They could be here forever.

  Impatience nagged at the back of her neck as her mind spun with next-step possibilities. The weight of this entire mission, if that’s what she could even call the last irritating four months of her life, sat firmly on her shoulders. It didn’t help that Felix was in the mix and her feelings for him were all screwed up. She’d shown up in his bed with the intent of keeping her emotional distance, but then his embrace had brought back sexy memories, Felix style. And he was helping her despite her deceit. Now she found herself torn between leaving and never looking back, or fighting for him. Two very different choices that would lead to two very different lives. At least, that was the hope. She’d put herself out there for Felix before, and here she stood, in a safe house with him even though he wanted a divorce. Right now, Felix was a fifty/fifty gamble if she tried to win him back. She could see it in his ice blue eyes. He was ready to walk away.

  “I’ll be right back.” Felix went out the front door, and she took the opportunity to take stock of the Wyn Security safe house. In one word: simple. The front door opened to the kitchen on the left and living room on the right, and a bedroom and bathroom were the only other two doors in front of her. One bedroom. Great.

  She jumped a little at the sound of the front door when Felix returned. Exhaustion made her eyelids heavy. Months of light and sporadic sleeping was slowing her system. She collected herself and tried for a smile. He had their bags and a couple of grocery sacks.

  “When did you go to the store?” she asked and wrapped her arms around her chest.

  “Amelia went for me. I didn’t think there’d be anything here.”

  “Amelia?” Her voice was high and insecure. Oh Lord, she was tired. On no planet did she want him to hear her jealousy.

  “You were in with Winter when she stopped by.”

  She stopped by to say hello? What the fuck, Felix? Arabella nodded and looked in the bags. If he wasn’t going to elaborate, she wasn’t going to ask. Maybe she’d been wrong in her quick assumption that he wasn’t involved with someone else.

  She took a deep breath to put her emotions in check. “What are you going to make?”

  He’d always been a better cook than her.

  “Spaghetti and meatballs.”

  “Really?” She was standing closer to him than she thought, so when her head whipped toward him, they were only inches apart, arms nearly touching. She gazed down at his lips, over his strong jawline, up to his round cheeks, before meeting his eyes again. Her body tingled with a need for him. What would it be like to be a woman who was good for him, someone who made him a better man? But she wasn’t. She was only trouble. They were only trouble together.

  He said nothing then turned back to unloading the groceries and retrieving pans from a cupboard.

  “I’m going to take a shower.”

  The stink of the day was on her, and if the water were hot enough, maybe she could scrub it away. Maybe she could melt into a lump and then reshape this whole mess from the beginning. Maybe all of her problems would go away. She’d been so focused on Felix as her last resort, she hadn’t taken into consideration what that meant: She had to play by his rules in the field, she had to be close to him every waking minute—some unconscious ones, too—and, now, she had to sign divorce papers. Yeah, dragging him into my mess was a great idea.

  The bathroom was small but sufficient. There were towels, toothpaste, and small bottles of shampoo and conditioner like a hotel provided. The shorts and tank top she’d grabbed from her suitcase lay folded by the sink as she used up all the hot water. Ideally, she’d hit the sack after her shower and sleep until the sun woke her, but there was one bed, and she didn’t want to be presumptive. And, as she put on lotion, the smell of red meat sauce wafted in from the kitchen and made her mouth water.

  She stepped out of the bathroom to discover the coffee table set with Felix’s mastered Italian dish, a salad in a bowl, and French bread with butter.

  “Good timing.” Felix sat down on the plain brown couch with two glasses of water. His large frame dwarfed the furniture, and a smile threatened her lips.

  “I must’ve been in there a while. This is a feast.” She swiped a wet piece of hair behind her ears.

  His gaze raked over every inch of her bare skin, and some parts not so bare, and she felt her cheeks heat. “It was easy to prepare,” Felix said.

  She took a seat to his right and folded her legs on the big couch cushion. Felix had his plate in his lap and had eaten half of his bread already. The first dinner he’d ever made for her had been this exact one—down to the salad in the bowl on her right.

  What happened to us?

  “Thanks for dinner.” She forked a bite of noodles and sauce into her mouth and closed her eyes at the familiar, delicious taste. When she opened them, Felix’s stare was intense. It wasn’t jealousy set in his cheeks, fury in his eyes, or love on his lips. She felt the color leave her cheeks. Did he feel anything for her anymore? “You’ve been quiet all day. Care to share?” She stabbed at more noodles and twisted her fork.

  “I can tell when you aren’t telling me the truth.”

  “And what did I lie about this time?” She rolled her eyes even though she wasn’t looking at him. This rhetoric was getting old. She wasn’t lying anymore.

  “Darek coming after me and not you.
Your tell, which never fails by the way, failed.”

  She sat her fork down and took a chunk out of the French bread. So he was still mad she’d lied. He’d kind of glossed over that point so far, and she’d thought he might be over it by now. A lot of bullets had flown since she’d first shown up. Couldn’t he see that if Darek got to her, he might find Felix, too?

  “I wasn’t really lying, because I was talking about myself. And I was thinking about myself. That’s probably why there was no twitch.”

  He nearly choked on his food and coughed to clear his throat. “You know about the twitch?”

  A grin started to form on her lips, and she nodded her head slightly. “Yeah, I know. You’re just the only other one who ever caught it, so I figured I was in the clear when I needed to keep covers intact. I never want to deceive you.”

  “You sure could’ve fooled me.” He set his plate back on the coffee table and picked up his salad.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d help, and I couldn’t take that chance.” Even with everything that had happened, she’d do it all over again. Today had been frustrating, but Felix had always been her best bet. “I promise when I’m in the clear, I won’t bother you again. I’ll get out of the game and go settle down somewhere else.”

  “Settle down? You?”

  He didn’t believe her, and that was fine. He didn’t have to. Hers wasn’t his life.

  “Yeah. I can’t stay in this game forever.” The shine of her covert life had worn off, and all she was left with was paranoia and loneliness. “And, civilian life seems to be working out well for you.”

  “Not really.” His salad was suddenly very interesting. “I miss it.”

  “You miss parts of it; I will too.”

  “How do you know? You don’t know me.”

  “Get real. I’m the only other person in this world who truly knows you.” And vice versa, which was scary as hell. She’d always been real with him, when it was just them. She’d told him about the slew of nannies who had raised her, the time as a fifteen-year-old she was hospitalized for a week with a lacerated spleen from an especially zealous soccer game and her parents never called or visited to see if she was going to live or how she was doing, and how pretending to be someone else for her profession was sometimes a relief from her own life.

  His brows rose. “And yet somehow you’ve concluded that I don’t want to go back. Well, you’re wrong.”

  “Am I? You’ve been out for, what, two years now? Have you even tried to go back?” He could tell himself that he was stuck and didn’t want this life in Seattle all he liked, but she knew better. He’d discharged and hadn’t gone back in after a couple of months for a reason—one that haunted him to this day from the looks of his scowl.

  “It would be another long commitment, and I want to be sure.”

  “Right. One of the most decisive people I know can’t go back to doing something he loves. I’ve seen you at Wyn Security. You enjoy what you do.” He’d found his niche. And now she wanted hers. In the real world. As Arabella Nox and not some cover ID.

  “No. I don’t,” he ground out. She’d touched his most sensitive nerve yet.

  “Yes.” She stuck out her chin. “For some crazy reason you do.”

  “I’m a babysitter.”

  “You’re protecting people. That’s who you are. Home or abroad. And that’s what you really love. Things have been a little hairy lately, but you haven’t lost a step.”

  “Some things are just too ingrained.”

  “Makes me think that I’d be fine turning over a new leaf.”

  “What would you do?” He set his plate on the table, crossed his ankle to his knee, and outstretched his arm over the back of the couch, nearly touching her with his fingertips. Her skin broke out in goose bumps at her yearning. If he reached out, she wouldn’t bat his soothing graze away.

  “Maybe this.” She shrugged and picked at her spaghetti. She could protect the shit out of people when she wasn’t trying to kill them.

  “We haven’t done much protecting. And let’s not forget you went off and kidnapped the guy we were hired to watch.” His brows rose—he still wasn’t over that yet, either.

  She swatted her hand toward him. “Eh, I get the gist.”

  “And where will you go?”

  A five o’clock shadow was starting to form on his strong, square jaw, and it made him more ruggedly handsome. She wanted to reach out and run her thumb over his stubble and sink into his chest and sleep. With his arms around her, she could be at peace.

  “I don’t know. I might stay in the States. There’re a lot of people I don’t want to run into abroad.”

  She could stay here with him. That was what she wasn’t saying.

  You have to move on.

  Felix didn’t want to be her future, but he would forever be a part of her past. She’d stay true to her word and sign divorce papers. Then she’d find a city that wasn’t Seattle or any other town Felix was in and start a new chapter of her life.

  • • •

  Felix watched as Arabella, in tight black shorts and a cream-colored tank top, God help him, put her dishes in the sink. She may as well have been traipsing around the apartment naked—her clothes left barely anything to the imagination. And since he was proficient in Arabella’s curves, she was basically naked all the time. He gritted his teeth and told his dick to calm the hell down.

  “I’m exhausted.” She glanced at the bedroom then to the spot on the couch she’d just vacated.

  “I figured we’d share the bed.” His gaze wandered to her shorts because he couldn’t help himself. Her legs were long and tanned, and he wanted to run his palms up them while kissing every inch. Always. But they were grown-ups. And age didn’t guarantee you got what you wanted. “We’re adults. We can do that, right?”

  She pivoted on the balls of her feet toward the bedroom. “Yep.”

  Her spunk had dissipated throughout the day—she was feeling the pressure and so was he. But murderous assholes didn’t get caught in an instant just because you wanted them to. The two of them had set up everything they’d needed to today, and with some luck, they might even have the bank connection established tomorrow.

  “I’m going to take a shower.” He set his dishes in the sink and proceeded to pull boxers out of his go-bag before closing the door to the bathroom.

  Tomorrow something had to happen so they could get this hell party over with. The ball had started rolling with the afternoon firefight, and he didn’t see it stopping until both sides came to blows. The sooner they did, the sooner she was on her way—to a normal life of all things. He’d never been able to picture Arabella in the real, mundane world. She was too bold, action oriented, and just damned sparkly. She was never going to be happy as normal; she was too great for normal. He went through the steps of the shower absently, trying not to focus on the fact Arabella in her skimpy clothes was lying in the bed he was about to get into. Once he was clean and in his red boxers hanging low on his hips, he slipped into the dark bedroom to find a sleeping Arabella lying on her back, hands laced behind her head as if she’d intended to think, not fall asleep.

  He slowly and silently lifted the covers on his side, the one by the door, and sank into the mattress. Good. He needed sleep if they were going to make progress tomorrow—at least more sleep than he’d had last night. Although given the opportunity, he’d still repeat last night than sleep anytime. And wasn’t that the fucking root of all his problems.

  They were getting a divorce. He’d asked and she’d agreed. And he still thought that was a good idea, even if she wanted out of the life—which had been a holy shock. He’d absolutely never thought he’d see the day when she didn’t want to be in the thick of the action. So she wanted to settle down—what did that even mean? Only spy in one country? Move on to corporate espionage? Have a white picket fence and 2.6 kids?

  He turned his head to face her on the pillow. The outline of her forehead, nose, and chin was smooth, peaceful, and p
erfect. Her chest rose and fell in rhythm with his. What would Arabella’s offspring look like? Damn adorable, that’s what. Ah, fuck. They weren’t having kids together. There was no sense in even dreaming about it. Their relationship didn’t work like that, and his life didn’t get to be perfect. His past had taught him that.

  Felix woke with a start at the feel of a hand on him. Arabella nestled against his torso, fingers splayed on his chest. She must’ve moved during the night. He glanced around the room. Nothing else seemed out of place, and it was still pitch black outside.

  He steadied his breathing as she rustled next to him, pressing into him. He was already hard from the innocent contact of her body and the smell of rich amber. Fuck, he was conditioned to get hard on a smell now. If she kept rubbing up against him like this, he was going to have a problem. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. Her fingers curled into his chest, and he stared holes into the curtain that was barely shadowed by a streetlight—he had to get out of this bed. The couch would be sufficient for a couple more hours of sleep. Putting his arm on her back, he tried to roll her away from him and simultaneously rotate out from under her and off the bed.

  “Don’t go.” She clamped her arm down hard on his chest to keep him in place. “Please.”

  Her soft voice caused an aching in his chest cavity, deeper than any muscle tissue. Her words took any sarcasm or fight away and replaced it with longing and hope.

  “I won’t.” He settled back into his spot and rubbed her arm with his thumb. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “But you are, aren’t you?” Her quiet voice cut through the darkness and stabbed him in the heart.

  Air left his lungs.

  “Not right now.” He wasn’t prepared to have a conversation about them. The only thing they should be focusing on was keeping her alive. And him—he’d like everyone but Darek to stay alive.

  “I don’t know how I could’ve changed it,” she whispered.

  He had to concentrate to hear her small voice in the dark. Her head was nestled into the crook of his shoulder. They used to have a lot of conversations in this exact position. A small, sad smile tugged at the ends of his lips. They’d had a lot of great moments together.