Aegis Security 03 - Extreme Measures (26 page)

Eve’s stomach was a knot of nerves as she made her way up the curved staircase toward the second floor.

The house was beautiful. That fact, at least, took her mind off what she was about to do. Old timbers that spanned the high ceilings, gleaming wood floors, and plush, expensive carpets. Whoever owned this place was loaded. But then, she knew Aegis Security was the best of the best, and they had numerous high-profile, wealthy names on their client list. Names that could afford this as a second, third, or even fourth home.

She couldn’t fathom having money like that. Didn’t know what she’d do with it even if she ever had it. Someone thought she’d sold US secrets for money? They obviously didn’t know her very well. Her life was as simple as it came. At least it used to be.

She breathed deeply as she moved onto the second floor. An archway led to a huge game room, decked out with couches, a pool table, and a bar. Beyond that were four bedrooms and a theater room with a gigantic movie screen. All the rooms were empty, though, and right now she didn’t care about checking out the amenities. She had something more important to do.

Making her way to the far end of the hall, she pushed the double doors open and stepped into the massive master suite. Water ran in the bathroom somewhere to her right, and steam spilled from the open bathroom door. A monster king-sized bed, covered in expensive fabrics, took up space near the left wall, but it was the view out the gigantic windows that spanned two whole walls that stopped her feet. Not just of the darkening lake, but in the distance, the steadily fading view of an enormous mountain.

Sam would have loved this. He’d loved hiking, skiing, being in the outdoors. For a second, she tried to picture him here, but found she couldn’t. He didn’t fit. And the more she tried to conjure his image, the more she realized his face wasn’t the one she longed to see.

She sank onto the end of the bed and let the soft cotton and billowy comforter cushion her tired body. Let it give her strength. Her stomach knotted with every second the shower ran, but she held her ground and told herself that if she did nothing else for anyone ever again, she could at least do this.

The shower cut off. She heard Zane moving around in the bathroom. Her pulse sped up, and she tangled her fingers in the bedspread at her sides while she waited. Seconds later, Zane stepped out of the room, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped low around his lean hips. Water glistened on his sculpted chest and abs, and when he rubbed another towel over his dripping hair, the muscles in his arms flexed and released, reminding her what it felt like to be
surrounded by him
.

He made it three steps before he realized she was there. His feet stopped. His hand stopped its frantic rubbing. Slowly, he looked in her direction. And butterflies took flight in her stomach.

“I owe you something.”

A frown pulled at his mouth. “I’m not in the mood to get my ass handed to me again, thanks.”

She couldn’t stop the corner of her lips from curling. Even hurt and pissed at her, he could still make her smile. “I didn’t mean that. I meant—” Moment of truth. “I meant, I owe you the truth.”

He looked away from her, walked toward a chair across the room, and dropped the towel in his hand. “You don’t owe me any explanation, Eve. Let’s just call this what it is. Over.”

Her chest squeezed so tight she could barely breathe. “I was engaged.”

His hand stilled against the back of the chair. He didn’t say anything, but she knew she’d shocked him. And honestly, she’d shocked herself. She’d never told anyone this.

“It was in college,” she said, before she could change her mind. “He was a few years older than me. He was this computer whiz, and he worked for a company in Silicon Valley. We hadn’t told anyone we were getting married. I was in my senior year and was finishing up fall term. We’d planned to announce to our families at Christmas. It just . . . never happened.”

“Why not?”

The fact he asked told her he was at least a little curious. She steeled her nerves and went on. “He left for a meeting in Hong Kong a couple days after we got engaged. His plane was hijacked and diverted to Manila. You might have heard about it. Fifteen passengers were killed before authorities took control of the aircraft.”

He lowered himself to sit on the arm of the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “I remember. Happened about twelve years ago, right?”

She nodded. “He was one of the fifteen.” She looked away from his face, not wanting to see pity in his eyes. She didn’t deserve it. “I lost focus after he died. Couldn’t seem to pull it together. My friends were worried, my parents talked about sending me to therapy. Luckily, they were in Idaho so they didn’t see how bad I really was, but . . .” She drew another breath. “I wanted to die. I didn’t know how I could go on. And then one day I was walking by the student union and saw there was a job fair. I went in for no reason and realized the CIA was there, educating students about what they do. I saw it as my way out.”

Her hands grew sweaty, and she swiped them against her dirty jeans. “I started out as an analyst but then moved over to counterintelligence. I needed something to do. I couldn’t sit behind a desk all day. And I loved it. I loved the travel and the challenge and being out of my head. Working for the Agency saved me when nothing else could have. And I was doing good. Really good. Until I met you.”

She looked up. He hadn’t moved from his position on the arm of the chair, but he was watching her. Closely. She willed herself to go on.

“I knew as soon as I met you that you weren’t the mole. You didn’t fit the profile. You were too honest. And just being around you, I knew you were the kind of guy who’d joined CIA for the
right
reasons. To make a difference, not to hide, like I’d done. And I knew I should have stayed away from you, but . . .” She lifted her shoulders and then dropped them. “I couldn’t. Because your energy was contagious. And after just a few weeks, I realized I was . . . happy. For the first time since Sam’s death. Even in a miserable country that devalues women. With you I felt . . . safe.”

He didn’t say anything, and she had no idea what he was thinking. All she knew was that her pulse was pounding and her hands were sweating, and that as hard as all of that was to admit, what she had to say next would be worse.

“And then . . . do you remember that merchant we were staked out watching? The one we were trying to connect to those arms deals in the Middle East? Remember when he ventured out, and the three of us followed? We thought he was making a drop somewhere and that we could finally catch him in the act. Only he tricked us, and you and Carter and I had to split up to try to find him.”

She pressed a hand against her chest, remembering the fear she’d felt that day. “When that car bomb went off and blew up part of the street you’d disappeared down, I couldn’t breathe. I was sure you were dead.
Sure
of it. And then when I found out you were alive, I was so relieved. You have no idea what I felt in that moment.”

“Eve—”

“And then . . . then I was pissed and scared all at the same time. And I knew I had to get away from you. See, I gave up everything for the CIA. Everything I’d wanted before. A home, a family, a future. I never wanted to go through the kind of pain I went through when I lost Sam. And in one moment, in one microsecond, I was right back there. Only this time it was worse because what I felt for you was a thousand times stronger than what I had ever felt for Sam.”

Those hard, wary eyes that had been watching her since he’d stepped out of the shower softened, and he pushed off the chair. “Eve.”

Eve quickly rose to her feet and held up a hand, blocking him from touching her. “No.” She had to get this out. If she stopped, she’d never finish, and this time she was determined to tell him everything. “I hated you for that. For making me feel something again. And I hated myself even more for letting it happen. With you I was losing focus. I didn’t need the CIA, and that scared me. So I pulled back. And when you wouldn’t let me, when I knew I wasn’t going to be able to make a clean break without something dramatic, I set up that meeting with that arms dealer, and I made sure you saw.”

She stiffened her shoulders and met his gaze head-on, knowing this wasn’t something she could back down from, no matter how much she suddenly wanted to. “I wanted you to think the worst of me so I could get away from you, so I set it up to look like I was trading information with him. And then . . .”

She drew a deep breath. “And then I let him go, even knowing all the things he was rumored to be a part of, because I wanted you to hate me.”

Z
ane didn’t know how to answer. Didn’t know what to say, for that matter.

From the moment he’d walked out of the shower and found Eve sitting on the bed, he’d been speechless. After their argument downstairs,
he’d expected to barely interact with her before Ryder showed up.
And now here she was. Telling him things he’d never in a million years expected her to divulge.

So much now made sense. The way she’d started distancing herself after that bombing in Beirut. Her antagonistic tone when he’d tried to talk to her about what was wrong. Her animosity the night he’d confronted her. “Eve—”

She stepped back, out of his reach. “You’re not like me and Carter and everyone else in the Company. You believe that one life has value, whether that life is a child or an adult or an innocent or even a suspect. And you have a clear dividing line between right and wrong. It’s why you left the Agency. Not because you weren’t good—my God, you
are
good, and Aegis is lucky to have you. But you left because there is no gray area for you.”

He had. She was right. The life of a spy had not been what he’d expected, and by the time he’d gotten to Beirut, he knew he was going to leave. He’d been planning to turn in his resignation when his tour there was up. And then he’d met Eve, and his world had turned upside down.

“My whole life is gray areas,” she went on. “There is no right or wrong for me. There’s only what’s needed to get the information for the next op.”

“That doesn’t mean—”

She moved back again, and disbelief coated her features. “Don’t you get it, Zane? I’ve sat back and watched things most people hope never to see. Prisoners being tied up and held in stress positions for hours on end, being subjected to hypothermia, sleep deprivation, even waterboarding. I stood by and watched when they were screaming for mercy. And I did it because it was acceptable—they were the bad guys and we were the good, and that made it okay. But it didn’t stop there.”

She paused, and he could see that there was more. Something she didn’t want to tell him. Regret brewed in her beautiful eyes. “The contact you saw me with in Beirut . . . I knew he was planning to hit a high-profile target somewhere in the city. I knew, and I let him go anyway. I was waiting for more information from him about the mole. I made the decision that a few people dying in a random car bombing didn’t matter in the long run when I was facing a compromised officer who could be feeding US secrets to terrorist cells. I made the choice. Me. No one else.”

The school. That bastard had gone on to blow up a school US aid had helped rebuild. Dozens of children had died. And she could have stopped him. His words to her in that warehouse, when he’d accused her of being a traitor, filled his head and wrapped ice-cold fingers around his heart. “Eve—”

“No, don’t.” She took another step toward the door. Toward freedom. “You said it wasn’t my fault what happened to Carter and Natalie? Maybe it wasn’t directly, but indirectly it was. They were in that park today because of me. They’re dead now because they tried to help
me
. Not you. Not anyone else. And if something were to happen to you because of me”—her voice caught, and she closed her mouth briefly—“I couldn’t live with myself.”

Warmth filled his chest and radiated outward through his limbs. In a moment of panic, when he’d had her tied to that chair in the warehouse, she’d admitted that she’d once loved him. But he hadn’t believed her, not really. Now he did. Now he knew that what held her back wasn’t lack of emotion, but the exact opposite.

He crossed the space between them before she could run, wrapped both arms around her waist, and tugged her close. Her hands landed against his biceps. Confusion crossed her features. She was strong, and, in her mood, fired up enough to take him down, so he backed her against the wall and closed in at her front, trapping her with his arms and legs so all she could see was him.

“What are you doing? Let me go.”

She pushed at his arms, but he only held her tighter around the waist. “Not on your life. Never again.”

“Archer, goddammit—”

“I love you, Evelyn Wolfe.”

She went still as stone in his arms, and wide, shocked eyes darted to his. “No you don’t. You can’t. Didn’t you hear any of what I just said to you?”

“I heard it. And if you’d told me all of this sooner, we could have avoided a hell of a lot of trouble between us the last few days. We could have avoided the entire last eighteen months.”

“You—you don’t know what you’re saying.”

His lips turned up at the corner, and, releasing one arm from around her waist, he swiped at a smudge of dirt across her cheek. “I know that I’ve been miserable since Beirut. That I don’t really sleep, I just dream of you. I know that as much as I wanted to hate you, a part of me still ached for you. Every hour of every day. And I know that these last few days with you, even though I’ve wanted to strangle you half the time, have been the best of my life.”

Her eyes grew damp, and her fingers dug into his biceps. “Don’t say shit like that. I’m not like you. I’m not . . .”

She looked quickly away, blinked several times, and swallowed hard, and in that moment he knew what the big hang-up was between them. It wasn’t just that she loved him and was afraid to take a chance again. It was that she didn’t think he could ever see past the things she’d done.

He slid his finger under her chin and tipped her face back to his. “Just because I couldn’t hack it as an officer in the CIA doesn’t mean I don’t understand the necessity of what you do, Eve. I know what goes on behind closed doors. I know about enhanced interrogation techniques and the choices you have to make between snagging small fish and big ones. Just because I can’t do it myself doesn’t mean I don’t support those who do.”

She closed her eyes. “Zane—”

“I can’t judge you for what you’ve done, and I can’t forgive you either. You’re the only one who can do that. But you’re not the monster you want me to believe you are. And though you might not be able to see the good you’ve done, it’s there. Trust me, beautiful, it’s there. You’ve made a difference in the world, and that’s something not a lot of people can say they’ve done. Me included.”

“You do make a difference,” she said softly, opening her eyes and staring at her hand resting against his bare chest. “You save people. That’s more than I’ve done in ten years.”

“The people I save wouldn’t need saving if they’d just learn to stay out of trouble in the first place. And besides, I don’t work for Aegis anymore, remember?”

“Ryder’s an idiot to let you go.”

“He didn’t have a choice. I left to find you. I’d do it again in a heartbeat too.”

Tears filled her eyes. Tears filled with so many emotions, he could feel them vibrating in the air between them. “I don’t love you,” she whispered. “I don’t even know what that word means anymore.”

“Yes, you do.” His heart swelled, and he lowered his head, kissing the corner of her mouth so very softly. “You’ve loved me for years, you’re just too stubborn to admit it. If you didn’t, you would have left me on that rooftop. You would have ditched me on that island. And you wouldn’t still be with me now, telling me things you never had to tell me, making me love you even more.”

“Zane . . .” She closed her eyes. But she didn’t pull away. Instead she tipped her chin up and to the side, letting him kiss her jaw, her cheek, shivering when his lips moved toward the sensitive column of her neck.

“We’re gonna work this out, you and me. I’m not about to let you take the fall for something you didn’t do. And there’s no way I’m walking away from you now.” He pressed his lips to the sweet little mole just beneath her jaw. Loved the way she trembled at his touch. “Tell me you believe me, Evie.”

Her whole body tightened, and her fingers lifted from his arms and threaded into his damp hair. And then her hands were pulling his head toward hers, her fingernails digging into his scalp while she lifted to her toes and fit her mouth to his. “Kiss me.”

Her tongue pushed past his lips and dipped into his mouth. And the taste of her—heat, life, love—filled his heart. He deepened the kiss, stroked his tongue against hers, trembled himself when she arched into his growing erection and the soft mounds of her breasts pressed against his chest.

“Need you,” she whispered against his lips. “Need you now.”

Her fingers dropped from his hair, streaked down his body, and tangled in the towel at his hips. Cool air rushed over his overheated skin just before she pulled her mouth from his, pushed him back a step, and dropped to her knees in front of him.

He was already hard, and he knew if she touched him there with those sinful lips, he wouldn’t last. And he wanted this to be about her. Before she could wrap her lips around his cock, he dragged her to her feet and closed his mouth over hers.

She protested, tried to pull away, but he kissed her deeper. Then he wrapped his arms around her, cupped her ass, and lifted her feet off the floor.

She groaned into his mouth and kissed him slowly, deeply, until he was aching to taste all of her.

He carried her to the bed and laid her out. Her dark hair fanned around her as she hit the mattress. He eased away long enough to tug her shirt off, mindful of the bandage around her arm. She wriggled out of the garment and lifted her torso off the bed, reaching for him. Her fingers slid along his jaw, drawing his mouth back to hers, and then her lips were there again. Kissing him softly. Teasing him until he saw stars.

Emotions filled his heart and soul and mind. This wasn’t about sex. This time it was about so much more, and he wanted to prove to her it always would be.

He kissed his way down her neck to her collarbone. One hand closed around her breast and squeezed. She moaned and arched into his touch. He flipped the front clasp of her bra and slid lower, dragging his lips down her sculpted chest, and then he finally brought her breast to his lips and circled the nipple with his tongue.

“Oh, Zane.”

He loved the sounds she made. Loved the way when they were together—whenever they were together like this—the real her came out. The one he’d known years ago. The one he’d rediscovered on Bainbridge Island. The one she could never hide from him.

“I want to lick you everywhere like this, Evie.”

She groaned at his words. Moaned when he moved to her other breast, licked and laved and finally sucked. Her legs spread open, and she made room for him. He rocked his hips against hers, pressing his erection right between her legs where he knew it would drive her absolutely crazy.

He moved back up to her lips, nipped and licked and suckled there too. She arched into him and kissed him back. Her fingers slid back into his hair, and her nails scraped along his scalp. But it didn’t hurt. If anything it only amped his need more.

He flipped the button on her jeans, pulled away from her mouth, and dragged them down her legs. Then he groaned himself when he saw the lacy black panties. “Oh, Evie. You naughty girl. You’re wearing the crotchless panties for me.”

A red tinge darkened her cheeks. She pushed up onto her elbows and looked down her half-naked body toward him.

“Spread your legs.”

Her cheeks turned a brighter shade of red, but slowly she lifted one knee and then inched her legs open.

She was already slick and swollen, and he needed to taste her there. To feel her come apart in his mouth.

He grasped her hips and dragged her to the edge of the bed. She gasped and tried to hold on to the comforter. “Zane—”

He dropped to his knees, spread the opening in her sexy panties, and ran his tongue up her slit.

“Oh, God.” Her head fell back. She raised her feet and planted them on the edge of the mattress. When he did it again, she lifted her hips slightly. Helping him. Urging him on.

Blood rushed to his groin, and his erection grew harder. Hotter. More insistent. He swirled his tongue around her clit, then dipped down to her opening and did the same. Her body trembled. Another moan echoed from her throat. He licked back up to her clit and circled until her elbows went out from under her. And then he suckled.

Her entire body shook. He knew her orgasm was rushing in. Knew the signs. He ran a finger down her slick center as he tormented her with his mouth, then pressed inside until he found her sweetest spot.

The moan that shook her body echoed through every part of him. She tightened around his finger and rode the wave against his lips as it crashed over her. And when it receded, when she was putty in his arms, he kissed his way back up her body, continuing to tease her with his lips, his tongue, his fingers between her thighs.

“Zane . . .”

He loved that breathless, needy voice. Could listen to it forever. He stripped her of the panties, then leaned forward, pressing his hips between her legs until his cock slid along her hot, slick center.

She groaned. Reached for him, grasping his hips and pulling him closer.

God, she was sexy. And hot. And his. All his. Whether she could say the words or not, she’d only ever be his. Pushing both of her knees up and back to open her even more, he rocked his hips forward, circling her clit with the tip of his cock, loving the sight, loving even more every gasp and groan and sexy little moan she made. “Open your eyes, Evie.”