Her eyes went wide. “Did you really just say that? Did you say…” She let go of him and ducked under his arm and he reached for her but she was gone. She whirled on him. “You want to fuck someone else? There’s the door. Go find a good ‘fuck’ escape. That’s what you do, right? Fuck everything that moves to try to forget whatever it is that’s eating you alive?”
“Kara, sweetheart…”
“Blake, go to hell, and stop calling me that. I’m not your sweetheart and I’m not your fuck buddy either. Damn, you’ve made me hate that word more than I already did.”
“You took what I said wrong.”
“I took it wrong? How am I supposed to take it?” She crossed her arms in front of her body. “It’s fine, Blake. Just go.”
Oh, shit. He knew enough about women to know the word “fine” was not a good thing. “I…damn it, Kara, it came out wrong.”
“You owe me nothing, Blake. Not an explanation. Nothing. We hardly know each other.”
“That’s the problem, woman,” he half growled in complete, utter frustration. “I can’t just fuck you and forget you. And you were right. That’s what I do. I walk away and if I never knew the woman’s name, all the better. That’s what I swore would be how I operated for the rest of my life.”
She looked appalled. “What made you like this? What happened?”
Blake’s skin started to twitch; the shadows swirling around in the back of his mind were threatening to take shape. He walked to the bed and sank down onto it. He dropped his face to his hands. “I can’t do this, Kara.” The shadows began to part, the bloody images started to take shape.
The bed shifted and Kara’s fingers gently stroked his hair. “Blake…”
Her touch was both soothing balm and liquid fire. He grabbed her hand, trying to control what he felt, trying not to feel at all, and it was impossible. Steeling himself for her probing stare, he forced his gaze to lift. “Kara.” His voice was hoarse, laden with emotions he couldn’t seem to control. “You…you make me…”
Feel. He didn’t put another name to it. He couldn’t. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to feel anything, and yet he did. He felt way too much.
Her expression softened instantly. “You make me…too. Blake, I know what pain feels like. I’m here. If you need me—”
“I don’t want to need you,” he said vehemently, unable to hold back.
“I know. Believe me, I know. I get it. I get you. I have from that first night we met in Denver.” She reached up and touched his temple, letting her fingers trail down his cheek, and Blake felt her touch chase fire through his blood—but even more, it stirred a hot burn in his chest that had nothing to do with desire, and everything to do with emotion. Like it or not, and he didn’t, he was feeling again and it was heaven and hell. It had to stop.
His lips tightened and he moved her hand to her leg. “I can’t focus on what I have to do and worry about you.” He started to get up.
She wrapped her arm with his. “Oh no. You were right. We need to talk. I’m FBI, Blake. I don’t need you to worry about me.”
“Believe me, Kara. I’m crystal clear on what your job is.”
“Are you? Because all this talk about protecting me says you’re not.”
“I am. And it’s part of why—” He stopped himself before he said too much. “You think because you’re FBI you know how to stay alive. You don’t. Not with Alvarez. So I’ll do it for you. You’re out, Kara.” His gut clenched, waiting for the impact of what came next. This was where her hating him came into the picture. “You either get out on your own or I’ll blow your cover and force you out.”
“What?” she gasped, shoving off the bed to whirl on him, her pale cheeks flushed red with anger. “I trusted you and you’re threatening to expose me?”
“I’m doing what I have to. I’m keeping you alive.”
“Oh right. Mr. Death Wish himself wants to keep me alive? Well, two can play that game, Blake. You expose me and I’ll damn sure expose you.”
Smack. He should have seen that one coming. “You’re getting out, Kara, and you won’t get the chance to expose me.”
“You underestimate me, Blake, or you wouldn’t have ended up drugged and asleep in Denver. Who else will you underestimate and end up dead while Alvarez is still alive?”
Double smack. His fingers curled into his fist, adrenaline pumping through his veins. She’d hit ten nerves, all of which had been raw since the night Whitney had died. “You’re right. I underestimated you and you aren’t the first.” He’d underestimated too many people, or Whitney would be alive today. “I won’t take the risk and I won’t do it again. You’re getting out.”
“Not without my sister, and not until I make sure you don’t go and get yourself killed. I might be furious with you right now, Blake, but I know you are trying to be a hero. I’m not a damsel in distress. I’m an FBI agent. You have my back. I have your back. That’s how this works. That’s how it is.”
She hit the big nerve, the raw, throbbing, aching one he wished he could just bury in the hell of his past, and Blake snapped. He grabbed her and took her down on the bed, covering her body with his, fighting a memory that was sure to shred him to pieces. “Don’t say that to me again,” he growled. “Not ever again. Do you understand me?”
Pain sliced through her eyes. “Right,” she said, her voice quavering. “Translation. You want a fuck buddy and nothing more. No partner. No…whatever else. Just a fuck buddy who goes away when you want her to go away. Check. Check. Get off me.”
Her hurt cut through the adrenaline and pain eating away at him, and then it punched in the chest. He didn’t want to get off of her. He didn’t want to hurt her. He didn’t want her to go away. “I’m sorry,” he breathed out. “Kara…I’m sorry.” He lowered his forehead to hers. “I am getting this all wrong. I’m just trying to keep you alive.”
Her fingers curled on his cheek. “I’d rather have you by my side, helping me. I’d rather not be alone in this anymore, Blake. Don’t make me be that again.”
Alone. He felt the ache in that word when she said it. Her family was dead. Her sister was missing. He wanted to make it better for her. He would. He’d get her sister back, no matter what that meant. “I’m the wrong person to count on.”
“Because you expect to die.”
“Because I’m willing.”
“I’m willing. There’s a difference between being willing to die and wishing you were dead.”
He inhaled sharply and lifted his head to look at her. She saw too much and he saw no point in denying the truth. “And that’s why you’re a problem, Kara. You make me want to live again and damn it, that’s dangerous.” Too dangerous. He had to find his control again. He had to do it now.
His mouth came down on hers, his tongue tasting her deeply, drawing in her sweet honey flavor. There was a desperation to his kiss, a need to get to that familiar place where there was only pleasure and escape. Blake skimmed a path up her slender waist, over her high, full breasts, and she rewarded him with a sexy half moan, half pant, that thickened his cock and set his blood on fire. Burning up, urgently wanting to be inside her, Blake shoved off the bed, shackled her legs and dragged her to the edge.
Wasting no time, giving her no chance to argue or challenge him, he undressed her. The sooner she was naked, the sooner he could feel pleasure and escape, not pain and the other things she stirred inside him that he refused to name. And still, with every touch, with every brush of their eyes, more than sex stirred in the air, in his body. In his chest.
He undressed, and disposed of his gun on the nightstand, and while it could protect them from enemies, he wasn’t sure who would protect him from Kara. She’d seduced him into every emotion he’d never wanted to feel again and he was desperate to gain back the control she’d stolen. His knees hit the mattress and he lay down, pulling her to her side, her back to his front, his body cradling hers. He didn’t want to look into her eyes, determined to make this just sex, tw
o people surviving a small piece of hell. He nipped her ear. “Are you ready for me?” he asked, sliding fingers in the wet heat of her sex that told him her arousal matched his.
She made a soft sound of pleasure, and then challenged him. “I’m ready, Blake. The question is, are you?”
His cock thickened with her response, and he pressed against her, inside the tightness of her sex, his hand flattening on her stomach, angling her body as he buried himself deep inside her. “Do I feel ready?”
“Just know this,” she whispered, arching into him. “Wherever you’re trying to escape to, Blake, I’m here. I’m with you.”
He stilled with her words, their content shaking him to the core. Blake buried his head in her neck. She was with him. He wanted her with him. He shouldn’t. He couldn’t. He did. He was falling for this woman, and he could almost feel her carving away at his anger and pain, could almost feel the raw, aching parts of himself being exposed. Could almost imagine Alvarez using those weaknesses to slaughter him, and everyone he cared about, including Kara. “You’re going to get us both killed.”
“I’m going to keep you alive.”
This wasn’t working. He had to get away from this woman before he couldn’t. Blake pulled out of her and turned her to face him. She instantly pressed her mouth to his, her soft, tempting tongue teasing its way past his lips, to caress and seduce. To hell with it. He stopped fighting what he was feeling, stopped denying this was more than sex with Kara, and with a low growl, he pulled her close again, sinking into the kiss, and guiding his shaft back between her legs, pushing back into the tight, warm center of her sex. He was falling in love with this woman and she was right. Denver had been the beginning of what was inescapable today.
For the first time in years, he didn’t think about who was in control. He thought about who he was with, and he saw Kara as more than a body, more than a way to suppress the flashbacks. He was lost, but not in the sensations of edgy need and pleasure. In this woman.
Blake savored Kara. He kissed her, touched her, tasted her, made love to her. Every touch of her hand was waking up a new part of him. Every brush of her hair on his skin like an electric charge. Every collision of their eyes a touch of his soul to hers. When they melted into satisfaction together, sated and exhausted, and he pulled her to his side, her head resting on his chest, he was alive again and he wasn’t sure what to do about it. How did a man, on what he knew was most likely a suicide mission, embrace life? How did he not, with Kara in that life and in his arms?
Blake stared at the ceiling, listening to Kara’s breathing slow, feeling her body relax against his into slumber, his mind racing. Kara had been hurt by Alvarez as well, and as much as he wanted to bring her sister back to her, he knew, and he knew she knew, that it was a long shot. That bitter truth only made his mission more important. This wasn’t just about vengeance, though he didn’t deny he wanted it. Too many people had died directly and indirectly because of Alvarez. It had to end. Blake had to kill him no matter what the consequence.
***
Kara woke with a gasp as the hotel door burst open, instinctively clutching the blanket to her naked body as she sat up. Heart in her throat, she blinked a new day’s sunlight—and the huge man with long dark hair now standing at the foot of the bed—into view.
“What the hell were you thinking, Blake?” the man demanded.
Beside her, Blake, undaunted by his nakedness, threw off the covers and stood up to grab his pants. “In case you didn’t notice, Royce,” he said irritably to the bigger, crankier version of himself, “I’m not alone.”
Royce, Kara thought, processing the name with relief. Blake’s brother.
Royce snorted. “When are you ever alone?”
Irritation and embarrassment prickled at Kara, and she scanned desperately for her missing clothes. “Kara,” Blake said. “He’s an ass. Ignore him. Way to be a gentleman, Royce. Thanks a fucking lot.”
“I suppose ‘thanks a fucking lot’ makes you a gentleman?”
“This wasn’t the way to announce our arrival, Royce,” another man grumbled, appearing in the doorway and clearly of the same genetics but with his hair cut to his nape. The Navy SEAL, she assumed.
Blake glowered at the newcomer, tugging his pants, sans underwear, over his hips. “How about some warning, Luke?”
The instant Blake glanced at Luke, like a predator waiting for an opening, Royce stalked forward, heading straight for Blake—and good gosh, the man really was huge. He stopped in Blake’s face, but Blake was seemingly unfazed, clearly used to Royce’s attempts at intimidation, standing toe to toe with him. “Back off, Royce,” he warned in a low, tight voice.
“Killing Alvarez isn’t going to do anything but put you behind bars or in a grave.”
Kara watched the muscles in Blake’s body bunch, his fingers curling into his palms as he leaned forward, right in his brother’s face. “And if Lauren had been killed? Would you sit back and let her murderer live the high life?”
Luke stepped beside them and shoved them apart. “Enough. This isn’t solving anything.”
If Lauren had been killed. Lauren must be Royce’s woman. Kara’s stomach knotted with realization. Blake’s woman had been killed by Alvarez.
“Enough, I said,” Luke barked again. “Not now. Not here.”
Tension curled in the air, the two men glaring at each other, and Kara knew, despite Royce’s gruff approach—perhaps because of it—that he was terrified of losing Blake. Her chest burned and her soul ached. Royce was afraid of losing his brother, like she was her sister.
Finally, in unison, as if they’d come to a silent agreement, Blake and Royce took several steps backwards, both crossing their arms in front of their chests. Royce glanced at Kara and then back at Blake. “You do know that to get these women proper protection and identities that will carry them a lifetime, we have to call the feds.” It wasn’t a question.
Kara’s heart lurched. No. No this was not happening. They were not going to call the feds. The implications to her sister were devastating, and the hard steel and determination of Royce’s expression, told her he was set on doing this. This was his way of saving his brother. He wasn’t going to back down.
Adrenaline rushed through Kara and her gaze went to the gun on Blake’s nightstand where he’d left it. Training and instinct kicked in and she dove for it, and somehow she managed to keep the sheet at her chest in the process. The cold steel was relief in her hand. It was her control among all these men, and she aimed it at Royce. “No one is calling the feds.”
She felt the room’s attention shift to her a moment before Blake growled, “Are you crazy, Kara? Put the damn gun down.”
“Not a chance.” The mattress shifted with his weight but she didn’t dare look his direction. “Don’t even think about taking the gun, Blake. I’ll drop the sheet and fight you for it. I don’t care who’s watching.” She lifted her chin at Royce, praying she’d successfully held Blake at bay. “We aren’t calling the feds, Royce. You and I both know they will take over the operation and my sister will be a fatality of a bigger investigation. I can’t let that happen.”
Royce snorted. “You’re naked and half my size and you’re telling me what’s going to happen?”
“Law enforcement 101. My bullet trumps your size. And yes. I am. I get that you’re desperate to save Blake from his death wish.”
“Hey,” Blake barked.
“You do have a death wish, Blake,” she said, and continued talking to Royce. “And I get you’ll do anything to protect him, but remember that this is my sister we’re talking about here. I feel the same about her. She isn’t trained like we are. She doesn’t have a chance inside the cartel and I will do anything to protect her. If that means tying your big ass up and feeding you three meals a day like a baby in a chair to control you, until she’s safe, that’s what I’ll do.”
“Kara,” Blake said softly this time, the mattress shifting again with his approach.
“I
told you, Blake,” she warned, “I’ll fight you for the gun.”
“Royce is an overbearing ass,” he replied. “But he’s one of the good guys. He won’t leave your sister to be a statistic any more than I will.”
“I won’t,” Royce agreed. “You have my word.”
“And mine,” Luke added.
“And mine,” Kyle said, appearing in the doorway.
“We’ll talk it through, Kara,” Royce added. “We’ll come up with a way to save her. We won’t let her be sacrificed.”
Kara didn’t have to study their faces to believe them. She had this overwhelming sense of commitment from these men, commitment like she’d not even felt from her own FBI unit, a sense of family coming together. A sense she hadn’t felt in a very long time and, unbidden, her eyes started to burn. “Thank you,” she whispered, and damn—the burn was getting worse and it seemed to have spread from her eyes to her chest. “And, for the record, I’m not going to let Blake sacrifice himself either.”
Blake moved in front of her, his back to his brothers, his eyes meeting hers. He took the gun from her and set it on the bed. “Kara,” he whispered softly, wiping away a tear that had slid down her cheek. “We’re going to save her.” There was shuffling behind them and a murmur before Kara heard the door shut and knew they were alone.
She never cried, but she felt a waterfall coming and the last thing she needed was Blake thinking she was weak. He’d use any excuse to keep her out of this thing with Alvarez, and she wasn’t letting that happen.
Kara cut her gaze from his. “I need to shower and put my clothes on.” She started to scoot off the bed. “There are too many men running around here.” Darting toward the bathroom, she didn’t look back, thankful Blake actually let her escape. The minute she was inside, she shut the door and turned on the shower, impatiently waiting for it to heat. She wanted under the water where her tears would be hidden. Where, for just a few minutes, she could let go.
Stepping under the hot water, emotions erupted and she sobbed. Body-shaking, intense sobs she couldn’t control. Her sister was all she had. She couldn’t lose her. She couldn’t lose her. But she knew the chances of getting her back were small. So very small. It hurt. It hurt so much and she fought against the memories of losing her family. She didn’t think about it. She didn’t go there.
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