Kiss the Enemy (Slye Temp) (27 page)

That realization destroyed the false confidence that had convinced her this would work.

“I’ve got this,” Logan told Angel who backed out and closed the door. His gaze returned to her and she read trouble. He explained in a very matter-of-fact voice, “The minute you entered our outer perimeter, you were located and observed to determine if you were carrying a weapon before you were allowed to proceed.”“I could have had one in my boot.”  Had she really said that? The point was to downplay herself as a threat, not rise to his baiting.

“You wouldn’t have entered this room without something in hand if you had a weapon on you. You came unarmed to convince me you’re no threat.”

Point to Logan. He’d read that one right.

In one lithe move, Logan was up standing over her, the knife still in his hand. “Get up.”

She pushed up on her elbows, gritting at the sharp pain in her arm, but she’d be damned if she was going to complain. When she got to her feet, she kept her hands in view. “I only wanted to make a point.”

He crossed his arms, knife still clutched in his fingers, expression flagged “no sale.” 

This had sounded like a such a clever idea in her head, but right now she was questioning her sanity for even trying. She smiled, trying for unconcerned. “I don’t like being held against my will so I wanted to show you that I could come and go as I pleased. That’s all.”

“Why’d you come back?”

“I told you I want to meet the Banker, too. I don’t have your resources, but I’m a merc and you know I’ve got skills. Some skills even
you
don’t have. Now that you know a few more of them, and how effective I am, I’m back to talk about working together, but as peers. Not your prisoner.”

Logan’s face didn’t so much as twitch with a reaction. He kept studying her, letting the silence build. She wouldn’t break and be the first to talk. She’d laid out a logical reason for coming back and with the universe on her side this time he’d accept it. Plus, she’d helped him escape the jungle prison.

Didn’t that count for something?

He flipped the knife over in his hand then threw it at a crate where the tip stuck deep into the wood. “I don’t take on people I can’t trust.”

Yes, she had an ulterior motive for coming back, but he was one to talk about trust. “You can’t trust me after I refused to leave you to die in that jungle hell, leave your man safe here, leave your truck pretty much intact and walk back into your camp unarmed?”  Getting pissed wasn’t the right tactic with Logan, but he was the one she had to watch out for in this partnership. “I’m clearly willing to trust you in spite of getting shafted in Paris.”

“I didn’t shaft you.”

“No? You mean to say you weren’t screwing me for my apartment?”  She hadn’t realized just how much that hurt until the words were out.

“That’s not the way it was.”

“Like hell. I finally put it all together after I woke up here as your prisoner.”  She let the word prisoner hang there between them. “You got a call that last morning and left immediately. The diplomat and his assisant died two blocks away. For years, I convinced myself that you had only been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that’s not true. You were in the perfect position to reach the kill zone within minutes.”

“I already told you, I didn’t kill them.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“I was there to save the diplomat.”

“So you were in the saving business?” she smarted back.

“He was my aunt’s only son. With some time, I can prove that.”

His admission drowned her anger. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Logan turned away. “I couldn’t.”

Because she hadn’t been more than a means to an end. “All those days together, all the sweet words, you telling me about the places you wanted to take me
one day
and the whole time I thought you meant it. That you—” ...
cared about me
. She caught herself before the words slid past her tongue and gave him a weapon to turn on her.

Her fingers were clenched, dead giveaway that she’d let him get to her.

His granite face softened when he turned to her. “I did mean everything I said. At the time.”

“Stop lying to me.”  She rolled all that anger and pain into a tight wad and shoved it deep, no plan to revisit it. “I came back to talk business. Make up your mind if we’re going to be able to work together or not.”

“You tell me the truth, Margaux. Your prints don’t show up in the law enforcement database in this country. You don’t exist. And you were in Paris when my cousin died.”

She deflated at that. “You ran my prints?”

“Why shouldn’t I if you have nothing to hide? Why were you in Paris? What
are
you hiding?”

Her world was imploding and every step she took risked another land mine. “I went there to hide from someone who wanted to kill me because I’d called in his plans for a bombing here. Things went bad and his son died. A friend helped me get to Paris. I knew enough French to get a job bartending. I was safe. Until you came along.”

Emotions shifted in his eyes. “You didn’t know about the diplomat?”

“Not until I read about it. I came back here and a friend taught me how to defend myself.”  Sabrina had given Margaux far more than self-defense training. She’d given Margaux skills and a sense of value when she’d most needed it.

“How’d you end up looking for the Banker in the Trophy Room?”

Who did Logan work for? CIA? MI6? Some other covert group? “Which side are you on, Logan?”

“Mine right now.”

“Just give me a straight answer for once. Are you trying to hook up with the Banker to execute an attack or to stop one?”

“It’s complicated.”  He looked away. “You shouldn’t have come back.”

That hurt.

Oh, shit. He still had the power to hurt her, even after all this time. She still loved him. She might lie to everyone else, but not to herself. Her heart was doing a jam-up impression of a stress ball being squeezed by a gorilla, but that didn’t mean Logan had ever felt the same way about her.

He thought she was a criminal, and that was how she was playing it, so it shouldn’t hurt.

Why couldn’t she get her head straight when it came to him? She let anger wash over her to drown out the sound of her heart breaking. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have walked into the Trophy Room. I shouldn’t have dragged your ass out of that hut and I shouldn’t have believed that it mattered to you if I lived or died. Does
anything
matter to you, Logan?” 

Logan grabbed his hair, gripping it and growling. He let go of his wild locks. “Nothing is fucking easy with you.”

Like his aggravation was all her fault? “Then let’s make it easy. I’m done with you.” 

She swept past him, headed for the door with no plan beyond that.

She opened it half way and the door slammed shut.

Logan yanked her around.

She punched him in the chest.

He stood there and took it then dropped his forehead against hers. “I can’t fucking live this way. I need to know the truth.”

“You
know
the truth. I’ve never harmed innocent people, Logan. How could you think that of me?”

He took a deep breath and exhaled a sigh filled with anguish. “This life fucks with your head until you can’t see up from down some days. I don’t kill innocent people either. I’m done doubting you. I believe you. Now I need you to believe me.”

The pain in his voice reached her when nothing else would have. There was no hope for her because this man was her emotional kryptonite.

She kissed him, hoping she was right to go with her heart on this one. He kissed like he made love, completely, leaving nothing on the table. He lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around him. She clutched his head and his neck, pulling him in harder.

He shoved up against her and she could feel her own damp heat. Somehow they ended up against a wall, freeing his hands. One went under her flannel shirt and cupped her breast. The relief at being touched  switched to an ache to be touched everywhere.

His fingers played with her nipples, sending heat spiraling down to her core.

She tightened her legs, riding hard against his thick ridge.

He started making that deep growling sound she used to love, the one he made when he was beyond stopping. She’d gloried in pushing him to that no-return point every time he tried to slow things down.

There was no slowing down this freight train.

He licked her neck, just under her jaw and she clenched against him. His mouth kissed and nipped, then dove in again for more of her.

He yanked down the waist of her jeans until he could push a finger inside her. She shuddered,  close to the edge. She tightened around him then pushed up and down.

His words ground out, harsh with hunger. “You’re so wet and tight. God, I missed you. Missed us.” 

She went all in. “You ruined me for anyone else. I want to feel you deep inside me. Now.”

“You’re killing me.”  His hands clutched her hips, lifted up and slid her down on his cock. She gripped his shoulders, clinging to him, her body taut and hurting. She needed just another touch. He pushed up hard and pulled back slowly, shaking. She tightened. His hand came down between them and he teased her then stroked up hard again.

Her release sent stars showering in her vision. He wouldn’t let her stop coming. His fingers were relentless and he was pumping harder until he tensed and shuddered with a deep groan.

They went down to the floor with him clutching her to his chest, breathing deep gulps of air. She was a noodle.

A very satisfied noodle.

No wonder she’d avoided men. The two times that she’d had sex in the past six years had paled compared to being with Logan.

He held her against him and she fell asleep with a thought hovering in the distance, waiting to be addressed.

Had they come to any agreement?

CHAPTER 34

Logan filled a plate with eggs, smoked ham, grits and drop biscuits. He’d never acquired a taste for grits, but Nitro had told him that Margaux liked them. Nitro knowing something Logan didn’t about Margaux rankled, but Logan wasn’t about to let on.

Moose was exceptionally quiet this morning before he struck out to walk the perimeter.

Party Man was finishing off his breakfast. He’d fixed the truck, but with a little help. When he dug around in the cab, he found a note from Margaux explaining how to repair the wiring.

Angel was honing one of his knives, lifting it to eye the edge.

Logan turned to walk away from the camp fire.

Nitro said, “Just remember that we do deliver to the love shack. You know, if you get
tied up
.”

Logan turned and sent him a scathing look that shut down all jokes then kept walking toward said love shack.

What kind of idiot had sex with no condom?

One that loses his mind around Margaux.

He opened the door and stepped in to find her buttoning up her shirt. She stood up and smiled. “I was heading out to eat with the guys.”

Logan placed the plate on the bed. “We need to talk.”

Her face lost all signs of happiness and he wanted to kick himself. Why was he constantly making her unhappy?

She moved over to sit down and put the plate on her knees. “Is this the ‘we made a mistake’ talk?”

“We did. Or, I did.”

“Well, I didn’t. I enjoyed it.”  Her chin shot up to put an exclamation point on that last part.

“I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it.”

“Then what was wrong with it.”

“
It
was fine.”

“What are you so pissed off about then?”  She kept eating, but stared at him the way someone would when they were hearing a new language for the first time.

“I didn’t use a condom.”

She waved her fork. “Oh, that. Not a problem. I’m on birth control. Have been for six years even though it was a wasted prescription for the past three. I wouldn’t risk being in situations like the jungle without it.”

The idea that she took birth control because of the chance of being raped sucker punched him. But his brain locked on her not having sex for the past three.

She paused, blinking then looked up at him slowly. “Or are you concerned about disease?”

“I’m clean, but I’ve never done that. Without a condom.”

“But you’re not sure about me?”

Margaux would rant and curse you up one side and down the other, but when it came to anything that touched her true emotions, she kept those locked up tight.

Vulnerability peeked from her gaze, as she waited to be judged lacking.

He stood on the edge of a dangerous cliff.

The wrong answer would shake the foundation of whatever was going on between them. “No, I’m not worried about that with you.”

Her face eased into a picture of contentment.

One that he was going to destroy.

He was destined to keep hurting her and hated every second of it, but when he woke up this morning he had to face that he had no choice but to do what was best for her
and
his men.

She cleaned the plate, set it aside and started pulling on her socks. “We didn’t really finish our conversation last night.”

He tried to break in. “About that.”

She kept on without taking a breath. “I know you’re not use to having a woman around but I’m not your average woman.”

No, she was extraordinary. “Margaux.”

“I’m a hell of a shot and good with hand-to-hand combat. You know I don’t have much jungle training, but I learn quick and—”

“Margaux!”  He was dying with every word of enthusiasm that spilled out of her.

“What?”

Before everything between them went down in flames, he had to try to get something out of her. “Would you please tell my why you want to meet the Banker?”

“Oh, that?”  She pulled on her other sock and picked up a boot that she propped on her lap. “He owes me.”

“Too vague.”

She stopped futzing with her shoes and stared at him. “Then you tell me what your interest is in him.”

Logan considered how much to share to get her to open up. “I need him to help me save someone.”