“Wes,” I whispered, unable to form other words. Unable to ask for what I wanted.
His face moved closer, his mouth trailing wet kisses along my jaw, making me squirm with pleasure. His lips landed softly on mine, but he didn’t kiss me. They were the shadow of a kiss, the ghost of what I needed — teasing, taunting. He was driving me crazy.
“Please,” I begged, my eyes on his.
“What, Red?” He asked, grinning crookedly down at me. He was enjoying this, the bastard. “Use your words, like a big girl.”
I glared at him. “I don’t like you.”
His grin widened before he leaned forward and kissed me. Not another insufficient peck — a full-out, no-holds-barred kiss that invaded every one of my senses and left me gasping for breath when it was finally over. He pulled away, a smug look on his face, and I couldn’t remember what we’d been discussing only seconds before.
“Oh, I think you like me.” Wes taunted against my lips. “Especially when I do that.”
Okay, now I remembered.
“Or this,” he whispered, kissing a path down my neck, until his face was hovering directly over my cleavage. I forced my body to lay unresponsive under him, not to bend or break beneath his touch, as he slowly pulled the neckline of my t-shirt down. Somehow, this had become a contest — a battle of wills I knew I’d never win, but couldn’t stop myself from taking part in.
When whisper-soft kisses began to land against the lace of my bra, keeping still became nearly impossible. I needed to move, to touch him, to kiss him — and he wasn’t letting me. His hand began to move under my shirt, and I felt my spine go rigid with the effort to remain in control.
“Wesley Adams, if you don’t make love to me in the next thirty seconds, I will kill you,” I threatened in a murderous voice.
Wes’ head came up at the sound of his name. Laughter and lust faded from his eyes and something else — something painful — flashed in their depths. He abruptly released me, rolled to the empty space beside my body, and sat up, so we weren’t touching at all. A guarded expression masked his emotions from me.
I sat up and stared at him, eyes wide. “Wes?”
He didn’t look at me, and I saw the muscle ticking in his cheek like a time bomb as he clenched and unclenched his jaw.
“I was just kidding,” I said, reaching out to touch him. When my fingertips landed on his forearm, he flinched and lifted haunted eyes to meet mine. Whatever he saw on my face affected him so strongly, his expression immediately shuttered.
“I have to go,” he said haltingly, rising to his feet. His tone was cold. Impersonal. Like he was talking to a stranger, rather than the girl he’d been kissing like a madman for the past hour. I couldn’t fathom what had inspired this change in him. He had to be kidding around.
Right?
“What do you mean, you have to go?” I asked, a little hysterically. If he was joking, I was ready for the punchline.
“I’m sorry.” He stared straight ahead as he spoke. “I just remembered I have something to do for work.”
A beat of silence passed between us. It was eight o’clock at night — we both knew his words were a lie.
“Wes, what did I do?” I asked in a strangled voice. “I’m sorry if I said something wrong. If I did something…”
His eyes came back to meet mine. They were burning with fervent emotions I couldn’t name. “It’s not you, Red. You’re perfect. Don’t ever think it’s you.” Leaning down to where I was still sitting on the floor like a discarded rag doll, he pressed his lips fiercely to my forehead. He held the kiss for a long time and, inexplicably, I felt my eyes fill with tears.
“Are you saying goodbye to me again, Wes?” My voice wavered.
He didn’t say anything as he pulled his lips from my skin and turned for the exit. When he reached the door, he stilled with his hand on the knob. “I’ll see you soon,” he promised, but his voice was hollow. I wondered if his promise was equally empty as I watched him pull open the door and step over the threshold.
And then he was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Four: WESTON
SUBZERO
My punches rained down on the bag in a steady rhythm. I hadn’t bothered to tape my knuckles or change from my street clothes. As soon as I’d stepped through the door, I’d shrugged off my jacket, crossed to the bag, and started hitting. The rage, the pain I’d been feeling since I left Faith’s apartment — it needed an outlet. With each strike, I recited the two words bouncing around my head like a crazed incantation.
Wesley.
Smack.
Adams.
Smack.
Ten minutes passed.
Twenty. Forty. An hour.
I kept hitting.
My knuckles were raw — bleeding and aching. They hurt like a bitch.
But that pain was a fucking needle prick, compared to what I’d felt when Faith looked at me with love in her eyes and said another man’s name.
It gutted me.
A knife twisting in my stomach, slicing through sinew and muscle. Rending vital organs to hemorrhaged shreds.
Before I’d met Faith, I didn’t think I had a heart. Now that I knew her, I was sure I didn’t.
For twenty-five years, a solid block of ice resided behind my ribs, and I was better for it. The perfect operative. Cold, detached, numb. No need for useless emotions. No use for the triviality of love.
You can’t miss what you’ve never had.
But in the span of a few weeks, a stubborn, whip-smart, unshakeable girl had melted my subzero shell. With one look, one laugh, one touch, she’d dissolved all the defenses no one else had even gotten close enough to see. And when she’d exposed the shriveled, unused, underdeveloped organ inside my chest — the laughable excuse for a heart that hadn’t pumped since I was small — she ripped it, still beating, from the cavity and claimed it for her own.
So, I could hit the damn bag until my hands fell off.
The pain would never come close to the searing agony inside my empty chest.
***
“Abbott.”
“I need a status report.” Benson’s voice snapped over the line.
Breathing deeply, I tried to mask the contempt in my tone before I responded. “I’m surveilling the interior of the Hermes offices as we speak.”
My eyes remained riveted on the screen of my laptop. The picture was bouncing slightly, the rhythmic movement of Faith’s steps making the camera on her messenger bag sway as she walked the halls. I reached out a hand and pressed a series of buttons to mute the volume feed and dim the picture.
“And?” Benson prompted.
Ass.
“I have audio and visual.” My jaw clenched.
“Anything actionable?” His voice was patronizing. “Or are you just monitoring the girls’ locker room to get your rocks off?”
I began to grind my teeth. “I’ve ID’d six operatives from the internal footage. One of them is Szekely’s nephew.” Konrad’s face flashed in my mind and I felt an uncomfortable sensation in my chest. I liked the kid — it was a shame he’d gotten himself snarled in this shit. “I bugged a baseball cap and gave it to him as a souvenir – hopefully, he’ll be wearing it next time he visits his uncle’s compound.”
“How old is he?”
“Sixteen.”
“Good. The young ones always break faster in interrogation.” Benson’s voice was smug. As if he’d ever interrogated anyone except the intern who finished the last doughnut from the box in the staff break room.
“We might be able to use him as leverage, but I doubt he knows much about the true nature of his uncle’s company.” I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “Plus, Szekely isn’t the sentimental type. You could cut off his nephew’s hand and ship it to his doorstep via one of his own couriers— I doubt it would faze him. He won’t do anything to jeopardize his empire. Not even for family.”
“Well, we’ll see about that,” Benson blustered. Even when he knew he was wron
g, he couldn’t admit it. “What do you have in terms of layout intel?”
“I’m reverse-engineering a map of the building from recorded images, sewer plans, and old blueprints. I should have a complete picture in a week. Two weeks, max.”
“Make it one.”
I began to pound a fist against the metal desk in sharp, metronomic hits that made the bones in my hand ache. My eyes followed the blinking red dot on the city map monitor, as Faith hopped on her bike and headed out for another run.
“Do you have access to deliveries in transit?”
“Limited.” I bit out the word like a curse, remembering how shitty I’d felt when I searched Faith’s messenger bag, opening each parcel and photographing the documents inside for later study. If she ever found out…
“Abbott, I’m not fucking around. We need actionable material, and we need it yesterday.”
“You don’t think I know that?”
A frosty silence blasted over the line. “Speak to me like that again, and I’ll transfer your ass back here behind a desk so fast you’ll have perpetual whiplash.”
God, even his threats were pathetic. The worst pain he could even contemplate inflicting on someone was akin to a slight neck twinge. I tried not to laugh.
“Sorry, sir,” I sneered. “I’ve made contact with a few local sources. There are rumors that Szekely is working on something big. A new prototype.”
“The CIA doesn’t deal in rumors, Abbott.”
Given the opportunity, I’d put a bullet between Benson’s eyes without hesitation.
“Rumor or not, my sources are worried. Theories range from drones to nukes to bio-weapons. No real consensus. The only thing they all agree on is that whatever he’s working on is so advanced, it could alter the course of modern warfare.”
“All the more reason for you to stop dragging your heels,” Benson barked. “Tap every source you can find — bleed them dry, if you have to. I want to know what the hell he’s building in that compound. And, for god’s sake, get some eyes inside his estate. I don’t care what you have to do — just get it done.”
“I have a meeting with a new source in a few days. He’s outside the city, living off the grid in a small village, but apparently he was one of Szekely’s inside men for years before defecting. He wants to discuss possible U.S. asylum status in exchange for what he knows. I’ll contact you if he has anything concrete.”
“Do that.”
He hung up.
“Enjoy your doughnuts, lardass,” I muttered.
I took a deep breath, tightened my grip on the sat phone, and hurled it across the room so hard, it ricocheted off a wall and the screen fractured in a spiderweb.
Chapter Twenty-Five: FAITH
YOU CAUGHT ME
“Faith, wait up!”
Shit.
I pasted on a happy smile and turned to look at Istvan, who’d abandoned his post by the back door and was hurrying to my side with a determined look on his face.
Shit, shit, shit.
“Glad I caught you before you left,” he said, smiling broadly when he reached me.
“Me too,” I concurred, though my true feelings couldn’t have been further from that statement. I’d been avoiding this interaction for over a week. “What’s up?”
“I’m taking you out to dinner tonight.” His smile was confidant, his tone self-congratulatory. “I made reservations at my favorite restaurant.”
Talk about presumptuous. “Um… Istvan…”
“The table is ours at eight, but we’ll want to walk around a bit before we eat. I’ll pick you up at six.”
“Istvan…”
“You’ll love it.” He reached out to squeeze my bicep in what was supposed to be a soothing, seductive gesture. It succeeded only in giving me goosebumps — and not the good kind I got when Wes touched me.
“Istvan…” I shrugged away from his touch and took a step back. “I’m sorry, it’s really nice of you to offer, but I can’t go out to dinner with you tonight.”
He looked a little crestfallen, but quickly recovered. “Tomorrow, then,” he said decidedly.
“I can’t go out with you tomorrow either, Istvan. Or the night after.” I sighed. “Not any night, really.”
The warmth faded from his eyes and they seemed to harden as I watched, turning to steel and narrowing on my face. “Why?”
I gulped as I considered his question. Wes and I weren’t officially dating, or anything. We’d never talked about labels. In fact, we hadn’t talked, period, since he’d pulled his Houdini act the other night. Technically, I was free to go out to dinner with anyone I wanted.
“Um…”
Istvan’s brows rose.
What the hell — a little white lie never hurt anyone, right?
“Well, I’m seeing someone.” I felt the nerves begin to stir to life in my belly as soon as the fib left my lips. “I mean, sort of. Strictly speaking, we aren’t a couple or anything. Not officially. But I suppose we’re dating. Practically dating, anyway. Maybe.”
I forcibly bit my lip to stop myself from spewing any more idiotic word-vomit.
“Maybe,” Istvan echoed, his expression still chilly. Evidently, he didn’t find my nervous talking cute.
“Look, I’m really sorry.” I swallowed roughly. “I think you’re a great guy. If the situation were different, I’d love to go out with you.”
Okay, so that wasn’t exactly true. He scared the ever-living shit out of me and I’d rather eat my own hair than consume a meal sitting under that spine-chilling stare of his for an hour. But I wasn’t about to tell him that.
Istvan’s eyes went so cold, I worried I might contract frostbite if they lingered on me a moment longer. Thankfully, he clamped his jaw shut, nodded curtly, and turned on a heel. Watching his back as he walked away, I felt a relieved sigh slip from my lips, grateful the conversation was over. Now, maybe things would go back to normal between us.
Unless he’s some kind of psycho-killer who’s going to exact revenge on you for shutting down his ego, my snarky internal voice offered.
Jeeze, if I became just a tad more paranoid, I’d turn into my sister Saffron, who’d spent her childhood convinced our next door neighbors were spies and to this day believed that SLEEPY’s mattress stores were a front company for the mob.
I shook some tension out of my shoulders, hauled in a deep breath, and headed into the lobby, determined to put my odd day at Hermes behind me.
***
The first thing I saw was Anna.
Ugh.
You know those women who talk incessantly about how much they “hate girls” and insist that they have only male friends because they simply “get along better” with men? Those same women who, when you aren’t looking, will steal your boyfriend or stab you in the back because they refuse to respect the Girl Code all members of our ovarian-sisterhood inherently follow?
Anna was one of those.
She didn’t have girl friends because she was a shitty one herself. She was untrustworthy, flirty, and almost constantly at odds with the women in her life. She made a point to befriend every man in the office and every boyfriend who came to visit his girl during shift breaks. It didn’t help matters that she had a huge amount of T&A, spoke in a bubbly voice, and was a self-proclaimed “hugger.”
We didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye.
So, when I stepped into the front atrium after my shift, approached the wide glass doors, and glanced out to see her petting Wes’ bike with one hand and stroking the arm of his leather jacket with the other, I saw red. The blood began to boil in my veins, pure fury bubbling through my ventricles and vessels like lava, until I thought steam might start leaking from my ears. Even when I saw Wes shrug off her touch and step to the other side of his bike on the sidewalk, my anger didn’t cool.
I didn’t question why he was here, picking me up like it was an average afternoon, after three days of radio-silence.
I didn’t care that we weren’t exclusive and hadn�
��t talked about labels.
I didn’t give a single shit that I was about to look like a crazy person.
I heaved in a deep breath, blew past Irenka, who was glaring at me from behind her bodice-ripper, and pushed open the doors with a determined shove. Storming down the front steps, I beelined for Wes’ bike, a glare already on my face. I could hear Anna’s syrupy sweet voice as I approached.
“…such a nice bike. I wonder what it feels like to have that much power between your legs,” she purred, her eyes on Wes.
I swallowed a scream.
“Maybe you can take me for a ride sometime?” she asked, leaning over the bike so her ample cleavage was on full-display. Wes, to his credit, didn’t react. His eyes were cool when his mouth opened to respond.
I beat him to the punch.
“Anna, have you really ridden so many men in Budapest that you’ve been forced to move on to inanimate objects to get your thrills?”
I heard her gasp in breathy outrage, but my narrowed eyes were locked on Wes. His gaze snapped to mine, startled by my abrupt arrival, and I thought I saw his lips twitch with humor.
He was amused by this? I was going to kill him.
“And you,” I spat at Wes. “I told you from the start that I don’t like games. I especially don’t like to play when I can’t figure out the rules or the other player’s intentions. So I’m about ready to cash in my chips or turn down my deck or fold in my cards or… whatever.”
Damn, my metaphor would’ve been so much stronger if I knew anything about cards.
Wes’ lips twitched again. “You’ve never played poker, have you Red?”
“Shut up,” I muttered, my cheeks flaming. “So not the point here.”
“Well, will you tell me the point so we can stop fighting? ‘Cause I’d really like to kiss you hello at some point, but I’d prefer to do it when I know you aren’t gonna bite my tongue off for trying.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “The point is…”
Crap, what was the point? It was so hard to hold onto rational thought when I was looking into those dark chocolate eyes.
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