by Zoë Archer
Simon leaned back in his chair, his fingers laced behind his head. “The only chance we have to ensure the success of this mission is if everyone acts in accordance with the plan.” He looked pointedly at Jack.
As much as they’d grown to trust Jack, he was still the wild card. He’d be within striking distance of the man who killed his sister. Such an opportunity might be too difficult to pass up.
“I know my part, gov,” Jack muttered. “Didn’t come this far just to botch it within spitting distance of the end.”
“You’ve done all right by us, Dalton,” Lazarus said.
“It wasn’t your welfare that interested me,” answered Jack.
Blunt as always. One of the things she liked about him.
“But yours does.” Jack nodded at Eva. “I don’t like the idea of you coming to the drop.”
“Pity,” she said, “because I am.”
“It’ll be sodding dangerous.”
“But the rest of this mission has been safe as a nursery.” When he scowled, she continued. “Gilling surely told Rockley about me, and the thug that attacked us at Miss Jones’s house saw me, too. Rockley knows I’m part of this operation. I need to be there at the exchange. If I’m not at the drop as your backup, he’ll know that you’ll have people stashed out of sight. He’ll see you standing by yourself and then call off the exchange.”
“Then have Simon in plain sight,” Jack countered.
“I have to be there,” she insisted. “I’ve worked on this mission from the beginning, and I’m not crawling away to hide now that we’re almost at the end. The decision isn’t yours to make, but I need you to have faith in me.”
“I’ve got plenty of faith in you,” he said. “It’s Rockley and his men I don’t trust.”
“Me, either.” She lowered her voice. “And that’s why I need to be there to make certain you’re safe. No one I trust with your safety more than me.” She glanced at Marco and Simon. “No insult intended.”
Both men held up their hands. “None taken,” said Marco.
Jack was dourly silent for a long moment. Then he muttered, “Goddamn it.”
As acceptance went, his wasn’t particularly enthusiastic. But she didn’t care if he adored the idea of her coming to the exchange. All that mattered was ensuring the success of the mission and protecting Jack.
* * *
She glanced once more at the clock. Less than two hours until they met Rockley for the exchange. Despite her assertive words to Jack, her heart rammed against her ribs. In all her missions for Nemesis, none of their adversaries had been as unpredictable, as dangerous as Rockley. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to ensure his security. A wealthy—and desperate—man. He’d already tried to kill them. Anything could happen tonight. Any of them might be wounded. Or worse.
Her gaze lingered on Jack, dark and austere as he moodily stared at the map of the construction site.
She’d faced risk before, but never had the stakes seemed so high. If anything were to happen to him …
The walls of the parlor suffocated, the tick of the clock deafened. She felt herself on the verge of angry recklessness. It beckoned to her with pointed fingers and glassy eyes. No—she needed control of herself. Yet to spend another minute inside would see the fine threads of her reserve snap.
“Where are you going?” Jack and Simon asked in unison as she bolted for the door.
“I’ll be back for the exchange,” she managed to say, “I just—”
And then she was out the door, down the stairs, and out into the night.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Jack was a man of instinct. He acted as his gut steered him to do. So when he saw Eva bolt from the room, he immediately went after her without a second thought.
She was a fast one, though. By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs, the door to the chemist’s shop had already swung shut behind her. He was out on the sidewalk a second later, just in time to see her figure disappearing into the shadows at the end of the street.
Calling her name would just wake the neighborhood. Instead, he ran in pursuit, along dark streets barely lit by flickering lamps. He followed the sound of her boots on the pavement, his own heart pounding in time. He kept seeing her face the moment before she’d run from Nemesis headquarters. A kind of wildness and fury he’d not seen in her eyes before. Worry gripped him like a fist around the throat. She seemed capable of anything.
He turned a corner and caught the flash of her skirts in the lamplight. She headed toward a little park dense with trees and shadows.
The hell with it. “Eva!”
She turned at the sound of his voice. Her eyes were like an animal’s—an animal that would tear your hand off if you tried to feed it. She backed into the park, until the darkness swallowed her.
He sprinted into the park and plunged through the shrubbery, shoving aside branches that scratched at his face, until he emerged in front of a small brick shed surrounded by grass.
Eva paced back and forth in front of the building.
He moved toward her slowly, step by step, the way one might approach a hawk caught in a snare. How was he supposed to get close to her? She seemed ready to bolt at the smallest movement. Some small words, then.
“How many missions have you been on for Nemesis?” he asked.
His question seemed to catch her off guard. “Eight.”
“You always get this nettled before a face-off?” He took another step closer.
She shook her head. “This is the first time.”
“Then what’s got you so riled?”
Her pacing stopped. Fitful light barely pushed through the trees and shrubbery. She looked more shadow than flesh, the details of her blending into darkness. Yet he could feel her, knew all of her—a map carved into his chest. He took one more step toward her.
“I’ve never had so much to lose before,” she said tightly. “You could get hurt. Or you’ll survive, but then you have to leave. Either way, I lose you.”
There was a crashing inside him like a carriage accident, spilling pleasure and fear and anger all out onto the pavement in a heap of confusion.
“I don’t want it to happen,” she went on, “but it will, and it makes me so damn furious.”
He was silent. How could he get her to burn that fury out of her? Rage was a dicey thing—it motivated or derailed, and he didn’t want her so distracted by it that she might do something dangerous.
“Hit me,” he said.
“I’m not going to hit you,” she said, appalled.
“When anger’s eating me up and got me so I can’t think, best way I know to get rid of it is to hit something. You’d break your hand if you punched a tree or the wall. So, best thing for it is to hit me.” He stood with his arms at his sides, presenting himself as a target.
Still, she hesitated. So he held up his hands, palms out. “Use these. Like sparring pads.”
For another moment, she didn’t move. Then she landed a jab in his palm. He kept his feet, but the strength in her punch came as a surprising certainty.
“I can’t let myself lose control,” she said, keeping her knuckles pressed against his palm. “I can’t disappoint Nemesis. I can’t let you down.”
A throb made itself at home between his ribs, the pain much greater than the dull ache in his hands. “Won’t happen.” He closed his fingers around her fist. Held it against his palm.
She stared up at him. He lifted his free hand up to cradle the back of her head and kissed her, swallowing her doubt with his lips. She tasted of night and spice, and he drank her down, wanting her breath to replace his own, needing the feel of her mouth. He’d meant the kiss to be some kind of comfort, but hunger roared to life the moment he touched her.
She returned the kiss with her own sharp need. Her mouth opened to him, her tongue slicked against his, and he felt that stroke all the way down to his cock.
Releasing her fist, he curved his hand around her waist. When he pushed his hips against h
ers, she widened her legs. He walked them backward, until she leaned on the brick wall, and he pressed himself against her. Her hands gripped his arse, fingernails digging into him as she urged him closer. He groaned at the feel of her cradling him and her desperate demand. Not shy, his Eva.
Hazily, he was glad of the hour’s lateness. No one was in the park except him, Eva, and the nighttime. No one to hear her gasps as he rocked his hips into hers, or his animallike sounds.
Something seemed to drive them, some urge that pushed them both. A wild hunger that wanted to defy the danger looming ahead. Within the next few hours, either they’d win out against Rockley or everything would go to hell.
He wanted all of her. For as long as he could have her.
As she seemed to want him. Their kiss grew more urgent, starving.
With a brutal groan, he pulled back. “Need to be inside you.”
“Yes,” she gasped, undoing the buttons of his trousers. They kissed, mouths open, panting with need. His body pressed against hers as they leaned against the wall. She was slim and strong beneath him, her fingers wrapping around his cock the sweetest thing he’d ever felt. As he gathered up her skirts, he felt the shaking in his hands. Hunger for her shuddered through him.
If only the damn world could stop. If we’d just have this forever.
He stroked up her legs, over her stockings, until he found the bare skin of her thighs. She shook, too. He tugged her drawers down, and she kicked them away. And then he ran his hands over her hips, her arse. His fingers found her pussy’s wetness. They both moaned as he stroked between her lips and rubbed the hard bud of her clit.
“Now, Jack,” she demanded breathlessly. “No more waiting.”
Grateful for his strength, he lifted her up, his hands on her hips, fitted himself to her entrance, and then brought her down onto him in one hard thrust. Oh, God, she was so slick, so tight around him. She gasped, her breath hot on his neck and her arms around his shoulders.
For a moment, he couldn’t do anything, couldn’t move, only felt her surrounding him and the beat of her heart against his. Then she shifted, a slight movement of her hips, and he was gone.
He thrust up into her, using the wall for leverage. Her heels hooked around his calves. He sank into her with thick, deep strokes. Too rough? Yet she only held him tighter, and her gasps came quick and hot with every thrust.
“This is for you and me,” he growled. “We’ll never lose this.” He punctuated his words with his hips driving against hers.
She moaned his name—the best thing he’d ever heard. As contained as she kept herself, only he could make her feel this way, could push her beyond the limits of her control.
He shifted, making sure that with each thrust, he ground against her clit. Her whole body tensed, and just in time, he covered her lips with his, swallowing her cry as she came. But he couldn’t be satisfied, not until she cried out again, and once more.
As she continued to tremble, he lifted her up and off him. She was pliant, her eyes gone heavy-lidded, as he turned her around and placed her hands on the wall. Gazing back at him, she arched her back, lifting her hips in bold invitation.
“Never seen anything prettier,” he rasped.
He grasped her hips, then drove into her. Already pushed to the edge of his restraint, he couldn’t keep himself from moving hard and fast, his strokes into her almost brutal. Yet she met him eagerly, pushing herself back onto him as if she couldn’t get enough of him.
He could never have enough of Eva. The heat of her, this hidden wild woman who was his alone. That they were both fully dressed but bare in the most important places only sharpened his excitement.
It took more control than he knew he had to pull out a moment before his seed shot from him, his orgasm hot and relentless. God, how he wanted to come inside her. But even lost in pleasure and need, he had to be smart.
Still, he bent over her, her back curved against his chest, as they struggled to breathe. She felt small beneath him, almost delicate, but he wasn’t fooled. She was every bit as strong as him, maybe stronger. Such a fighter, his Eva, so full of fire.
He nuzzled her nape, inhaling the scent of her skin, her sweat, and when he scraped his teeth over the skin, she gave a little tremble of pleasure. His own legs felt shaky.
Time slipped away. Nothing either of them could do to stop it.
Fishing around in his pocket, he found a handkerchief, and used it to clean them both. Slowly, they collected themselves, righting their clothing.
“They’ll know what we’ve been up to,” he said, tucking strands of her hair behind her ear.
“Can’t bring myself to give a damn.”
He bent and kissed her. “That’s my lass.”
A flash of loss crossed her face, and he realized that he’d spoken of something that couldn’t ever be. She wasn’t his lass. Just as she’d said, surviving tonight meant they’d have to go their separate ways—her to the life she’d built for herself and him to an unknown future. He’d never given much thought to what the future held for him. As he and Eva left the park and walked back toward Nemesis headquarters, he saw that if he did live past tonight, the time ahead without her would be emptier than the heath surrounding Dunmoor Prison.
* * *
As Eva and Jack neared Nemesis headquarters, she felt herself sharpen and focus—as though she were a telescope aimed skyward and the blurred forms of stars were gaining clarity, precision. The riotous, angry pounding of her heart steadied with each step.
He had done that. Or rather, they had, with the heat of their bodies and the strength they drew from each other. She trusted her Nemesis colleagues, but somewhere during this mission, she’d learned to trust Jack with a conviction that reverberated all the way to her marrow.
Natural as oxygen, he’d taken her hand for the return journey to headquarters. She glanced down at the sight—his hand so much bigger than hers, roughened from hard labor—and a sudden, sharp throb pierced her calm. How had this happened? She’d been so careful. But it had. Losing him would be a wound she’d carry with her the rest of her life. But she had to stay here, in London, with Nemesis. This was her work, her life. She couldn’t turn her back on it. Not even for her own happiness.
She made herself concentrate on what was to come. If her thoughts strayed, she put herself and her team in danger. Yet both she and Jack were tensely silent.
They approached the chemist’s shop, and Marco and Simon emerged from the shadows. Simon had slung his rifle on his shoulder, as he had when he’d been in the army. It was the same Martini-Henry he’d used at Rorke’s Drift, and she knew he trusted the weapon far more than most people. He never lost his military bearing, but with the rifle on his back and his expression blade-sharp, he looked every inch the soldier.
Marco appeared unarmed, but she knew that he had a revolver in a special shoulder harness he’d constructed—his preferred method of carrying weapons. Where Simon favored forthright military tactics, Marco held fast to the methodology of subterfuge. The vestiges of being a spy.
Neither men spoke as she and Jack approached. Simon and Marco both gazed at Jack’s and Eva’s joined hands. Difficult to read her colleagues’ expressions in the darkness. They were all of them expert in hiding their emotions. Unblinking, Eva returned their opaque looks.
Jack, however, wasn’t as adept at concealment. His jaw formed a hard, square line, and he seemed to grow even larger, more intimidating. A deliberate challenge. His body language said plainly, I’m not sorry, and if you’ve got something to say about it, I’ll make you hurt.
Damn, there was that pain in her heart again.
At last, Simon gave a brusque nod. He held something out to Eva. Her gun and a pouch of ammunition.
She took the weapon and bullets and tucked them into her pockets. “I didn’t bring you anything.”
“Next time.”
Marco handed Jack a revolver, ammunition, and a leather portfolio. “These are the forged documents.”
“Certainly he will,” she said. A man like Rockley would never hold to his word. Of course, Nemesis also planned on deceiving Rockley. He didn’t know that, however. Rockley would want his money back and his blackmailers—particularly Jack—dead.
“We’ll make the swap,” Jack continued, stashing the revolver in the inside pocket of his coat. “And he’ll give some kind of signal. The blokes he’ll have stashed somewhere will start shooting.”
“How will you recognize his signal?” Simon asked.
“I’ll know it when I see it.”
It was a measure of everyone’s faith in Jack that none of them questioned his instinct.
“When Rockley gives his signal,” Jack went on, “I’ll give mine. That’s when you lads lay down some cover for me and Eva.”
“What’s the signal to be?” Eva asked.
Jack thought for a moment. “Bollocks,” he said with a smirk.
“It couldn’t be something a little more elegant?” Marco complained. “Bach, perhaps? Or Bernini?”
“He’d know for certain something was up if I start talking like a toff.”
Marco glowered.
“Bollocks it is, then,” said Eva.
“No heroics, no attempts on Rockley’s life,” Simon cautioned. “We’ll provide enough cover for you two to get out of there, and then all of us retreat.”
Jack scowled at that word.
“This is how it’s got to be,” Simon continued.
“So long as we all make it out alive”—he glanced quickly at Eva—“then I’m happy as a goddamn Sunday roast.”
She made herself ignore the shard of fear that embedded itself in her heart, thinking of Jack hurt or worse, and pulled a timepiece from her pocket. “It’s approaching two. We need to arrive with enough time to get Marco and Simon into position.”
As she spoke, a hackney clattered to a stop in front of them.
“To the minute, sir,” the driver said, tipping his hat at Simon. The weapon on Simon’s back made the cabman start, but he didn’t drive off.
