Illicit Intuitions: Sensory Ops, Book 3

by Nikki Duncan

  “Go see him, Ava.”

  “He doesn’t want to see me.” She’d known his story and had still lied. Maybe only by omission, but she had lied. She’d become his betrayer.

  “Have you tried?”

  “I called him. Called Dana.” Locating and assisting in H’s safe rescue hadn’t won her any favors.

  Kieralyn led her to a bench in a secluded courtyard nearby. The sympathy softening her face couldn’t break through Ava’s melancholy.

  “You’re allowing your past to brutalize your present.”

  “I’m…” She froze.

  Peripheral awareness of her surroundings halted. Churning of internalized emotions and guilt halted. Years of lies halted.

  Her faltering barriers sighed with the release of stress. Strengthened.

  She’d have phrased it differently but it was exactly accurate. She’d harbored hope for a relationship with H, but had allowed half a life of pent-up regrets to interfere. She was willing to fight injustice for others, but accepted it in her own life.

  No longer.

  He wouldn’t take her calls.

  She would not be ignored. Her desires would not go unspoken.

  The turmoil darkening her mind cleared. Doubts vanished. Certainty settled. Peace reined. She narrowed her eyes and grinned, knowing just the thing to guarantee results.

  “That battle-worthy glint can’t be trusted.”

  Ava rubbed her index finger along her chin and met Kieralyn’s humored gaze. “You know what they say about love and war.”

  “That no man stands a chance against the goddess of vengeance?”

  “Just call me Nemesis.” Suddenly feeling as light as she had that morning with him on the beach, she stood and stretched her neck. “I know just the approach.”

  And it involved a morning swim and a red bikini.

  Ava straightened her jacket as Kieralyn joined her. They rounded a wall of greenery in the side courtyard. The buzz-cut guy from H’s study froze mid-stride, but recovered quickly.

  “Agent Malia.” He shifted course and moved toward them. “My name is Simon Mulwray. I have some information for you.”

  On guard, suspicious of his timing and whatever intel he claimed to have, Ava shifted her barriers to read him. Intense darkness—not quite evil, but questionable—clashed with sincerity. Caring.

  Kieralyn moved in behind her. Anticipation buzzed.

  “About?”

  “I understand your team has been looking for Dana’s and Dr. H’s parents.” He spoke directly and stood stiffly. In the lab he’d projected a relaxed, carefree impression. The contradictions glared like neon. “Is there someplace we could speak in private? Anonymously.”

  “What about them? They’re dead.”

  “No.” Simon shook his head. “Dr. H and Dana have been misled.”

  Ava’s heart slammed her ribs with bruising force. Their parents’ deaths had been a defining moment for H. How would he handle this new development?

  She considered demanding answers where they stood, but instead calmly led Simon to a first-floor conference room. Kieralyn took the flank, shooting a text message to Breck on the way. As much as H hated her secret, he would filet Simon if he realized his study had been infiltrated on another level.

  Ava closed the conference room door behind Simon and Kieralyn with a definitive click. Simon remained silent and stiff. Militant.

  “You need to tell me who you work for.” She leaned against the table with her hands linked gently before her. She wanted to fist them. “What information you have.”

  “I’m independent.” His gaze shifted to Kieralyn settling herself into a chair taking notes on her Blackberry. “They can’t know who I am.”

  “Don’t worry about her.” Ava nudged a chair out for Simon, but maintained her position. “Who can’t know? Dana and Dr. H?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” The rest of the team entered the conference room and filled the empty seats. Rather than interrupt, they sat back and gave Ava the lead. Tyler pulled out his handheld computer and did whatever he thought needed to be done at that moment—likely a background check on Simon.

  “It’s just best that way. If you guarantee my anonymity, I will give you my information.”

  “Anonymity isn’t mine to guarantee.” His eyes widened like a hawk zeroing in on prey. He said nothing. He would give her the information, regardless. “Without justification.”

  He glanced around her team displaying no tells of nerves or worry. “This isn’t my only case. I can’t have people knowing I’ve spoken with you.”

  “Which is why you came around the side? How were you hoping to gain access?”

  “I saw you head that way. It worked to my benefit. Do I have your guarantee?”

  Ava shifted her gaze to Breck. He looked to Tyler, who nodded once with his lips drawn into a tight line. They may keep an eye on Simon, but finding out what he possibly knew was priority.

  As a double precaution, before agreeing to his terms, Ava moved her barriers and read him. She hadn’t asked for her abilities, but having them could only make her better at her job. And this was one time she needed to know what they were walking into.

  Sincerity was the primary impression she picked up from Simon.

  Shit. She was backing herself into having to keep another secret because H would ask how she’d found out about his parents. Of course, she had to calculate the best approach for the information. She wasn’t sure he wanted to dredge up the past. If he did, if he wanted a reunion, she would need to line it up.

  “You have our guarantee.” Ava tilted her head and met his earnest stare. “How do you know their parents aren’t dead? What else do you know?”

  Answers about her future relationship would have to wait a little longer. H was about to have some bigger decisions to make. Like whether or not to face the parents he thought to be dead.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Poised to knock, H held his hand inches from Ava’s door. He’d been less than kind on the boat. He’d dismissed her role in clearing the way for his escape. Worse, he’d been too proud to thank her for opening herself completely in an attempt to locate him. She wasn’t strong enough as an empath to do that without jeopardizing the shields she’d only had days to erect. She could have seriously hurt herself, but had put him first.

  Dana’s arguments that he needed to talk to Ava only stiffened his back and tensed the muscles supporting his pride. It hadn’t been hard to turn his self-directed anger around and blame Ava.

  He’d allowed himself to fall for her. He had allowed it to matter.

  She’d lied rather than trusting him.

  So what? Her secrets made sense. To a point.

  Until they’d been together.

  He’d only held back the depth of his grief for his parents. He’d taught her about her abilities and protecting herself.

  His gut clenched.

  “Are you going to knock?”

  Ava. He turned. Faster than a bungee jumper leaping off a platform, his heart plummeted.

  She stood ten feet away in the slight shadow of a giant tree, in a pants suit and light, unbuttoned jacket. A scoop-necked silk tank clung seductively to her skin in the moist heat. “I…”

  She stepped from the shadows into the evening’s fading light and arched a thin brow. The right side of her forehead creased in a triad of matching arches. Exhaustion and weakness weighted her lids. Makeup failed to hide the pale bruising beneath her puffy eyes. She hadn’t been sleeping well, which would weaken her barriers. Though he wasn’t getting a read on her.

  If he wasn’t responsible for her misery, he’d at the very least contributed to her suffering. When he stopped helping her. Pain settled like lead in his stomach.

  “Why are you here?” Ava closed the distance and halted before him with her keys in hand. Her eyes, normally bright and expressive, were as void as her voice of hints into her thoughts.

  “You haven’t been sleeping.”

/>   “You came here to tell me that?” She waved her hand, motioning him aside.

  “No.” He stepped back, avoiding touching more for her sake than his. If her shields were compromised, contact would heighten anything she was feeling. Arouse everything he was trying to control.

  She shrugged and moved to unlock the door. “Come in. We need to talk.”

  “I may have grown up in captivity, but even I know conversations kicked off with those words never end well.” Especially backed up with the level of intensity rumbling low in her voice.

  “Depends on your viewpoint.”

  True, but if she thought for a moment she was going to brush him off to pay him back, she would soon recognize the errors of her thought processes. He didn’t like to admit it, but the days without Ava had sucked worse than all of his days in captivity combined.

  No. She wasn’t dismissing him.

  “What do you have to talk to me about?” He closed the door behind them while she stepped into the front closet and stowed her gun and badge beneath a blanket on the shelf. The stark reminder of her lifestyle didn’t jab at him the way he’d have expected. False perceptions were gone.

  “Our endings often begin with where we started.”

  They had started with a betrayal. They wouldn’t end that way. They wouldn’t end. Whatever she had to say…

  He diminished the space between them and backed her to the wall. She gasped and raised her chin to keep their gazes engaged. Her tongue slickened her lips. Her throat jigged.

  “We won’t be ending, Ava.” He pressed his body to hers, careful to shield himself, and claimed her mouth.

  Her hands went to his shoulders. Her nails dug into him as she rolled her hips forward. A catlike purr vibrated from her throat and slid into him.

  Profound belonging swept through him on a gentle glissade. Whatever lay ahead, he belonged with her. He would fight to prove it.

  Her tongue sliced between his lips and teeth, battling his. She explored him as hungrily as he did her. Ravenous desire raged in his veins. His shorts grew tight. His shirt bound his movements.

  He eased his hands between the shoulders of her jacket and pushed it to the floor. She writhed against him, moaning. Her slim fingers grappled with the hem of his shirt before she yanked it over his head.

  Ava pushed away from the wall, grabbed her tank top and jerked it off. She turned him with her body and moved toward her bedroom, never breaking contact longer than necessary to divest them of their clothes.

  Their fingers simultaneously moved to each other’s pants. She stepped out of her heels. He kicked off his flip-flops. He shoved her slacks over her hips as she lowered his shorts zipper. He pulled out the condom he’d stuffed optimistically in his pocket at home.

  Their pants fell to their feet, slowing their progress to the bedroom with the need to step free. She fondled his hard and free dick. He flicked her nipples through her lace bra and trailed kisses down her throat to her collarbone. Her head fell back, pushing her breasts into his chest.

  Complete surrender owned the moment. Drove them. Powered their passion.

  His cock twitched, bumping the warm apex of her thighs when they turned into her room. His mind went to the drawer with the vibrator, but he dismissed the idea. This time would be all him. Them. He would prove they were meant to be together.

  He turned them so she was walking backward. She jerked and almost fell when her knees bumped the mattress. He supported her even as he popped her bra loose. “I missed you. Didn’t get near enough of you.”

  He lowered the lace scraps down her arms, brushing his hands over her breasts and tweaking her nipples until they hardened to stiff points. She wiggled free of her panties and pulled him to the bed.

  Bracing himself on his elbows to keep from squashing her, H took a moment to study her. To enjoy her and the feel of her beneath him. Softness and strength. Desire and determination. Attitude and affection. She smiled up at him, planted her hands on his shoulders and shoved him to his back.

  Oh hell.

  Ava straddled him. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders, splitting around her boobs. He fisted his hands on either side of her head and pulled her down. She rotated her hips as her body repositioned and curved into his.

  Rubbing and grinding, she drove him on a soaring flight. Up. Up. Up.

  Sliding against him, caressing him with the length of her body, she snapped his every tethered restraint until he strained for rapidly disintegrating control. She grabbed the condom he’d held beneath his fingers and ripped it open. Blowing warm breaths along the edge of his ear, she teased him while her hand tormented him with a deliberate slowness while rolling on the condom.

  “I didn’t get enough of you, either. I was afraid you’d written me off.”

  “Moronically, I almost did.” He held her hair in his hands and met her gaze. “I’m not finished with you. We’re not finished.”

  She wiggled her hips and positioned his tip at her moist entrance. With a downward thrust she enveloped him.

  He dug his head into the pillow and fisted his hands at her waist. How could he have considered missing more time with her?

  A climax shook him, reaching into the darkest pits of his psyche and blasting him with light. Even with his shields in place, he recognized it as more than a climax.

  He recognized the reality of what had sparked in the beginning.

  He recognized the truth he’d hidden from himself even while standing outside her door deciding if he should knock.

  He recognized love.

  Ava collapsed against him, breathing heavily. The magnitude of what they’d found clogged in his throat. Shuddered in his heart. Ava moved to roll away. He grabbed her wrist to stop her.

  With secrets shrouding her eyes, she shook her head, pulled free and reached for a silk robe at the end of the bed. “We still need to talk.”

  He would agree, but had a different topic in mind. “You remember what happened last time you said that.” He scooted up and rested his back against the headboard with his hands linked behind his head.

  “It won’t happen again.”

  Not for a few more minutes at least.

  “Your robe’s not much protection.”

  Her gaze ran up his body, lingering. She sighed, with her hands paused over the task of tying the belt. “We can’t, H. Not until we talk.”

  “Fine.” He patted the bed and grinned. “Let’s talk.”

  “Not that kind of talk.” Her tone thickened, but he wasn’t sure with what. She retrieved his shorts from the floor and tossed them at him. “I’ll wait for you in the living room.”

  Once she’d left, he went into the bathroom to dress and compose his thoughts. He’d never gone in for fluff and frills, but whatever she had to say… He wished it had some. She was too set on the path of a serious conversation.

  H studied his reflection in the mirror. Her hairbrush, skin care items and cosmetics on the counter. Her toothbrush and the tube of paste squeezed from the middle with the cap left open. The towel from her last shower hanging on the hook. Her subtle scent of gardenias and eucalyptus pervaded his senses. His mind.

  Similar reminders had been left behind at the lab. She was everywhere he looked. The beach. The lab. Here.

  He couldn’t escape her.

  He didn’t want to.

  He strode down the hall. Each step pounded more loudly with resolve.

  She sat on the sofa, stiff backed and staring at the blank TV. Decided in his mission, he rounded the sofa and claimed the cushion beside her. “Ava—”

  “Stop.” She turned with her hand in the air between them. “I want to believe what just happened means you don’t hate me for lying to you, but I’ve been around enough to know that’s not necessarily the case. I also know I’m not interested in sex games with you.”

  “I don’t play games, except a few video games. And I’ve never hated you.”

  She snorted in disbelief.

  “I wouldn’t take y
our calls because you hurt me, more than I enjoy admitting.” He linked their fingers and dropped his shields so she would feel his sincerity if she tried. “I confided in you about the lenses and my abilities when I hadn’t even told my sister of them.” He pulled her feet across his lap and scooted closer.

  She edged deeper into the cushions, guarded, but not entirely closed off. “She was safer not knowing.”

  “So were you, but it was more than that.” Ava was better equipped to handle stress, secrets and apparently danger. And he’d tested her during their sessions. He’d seen it on the boat. “Regardless, you didn’t return the trust. You held on to your secrets.”

  “We both knew you were testing me and I answered your questions honestly.”

  She’d treaded that fine line he’d been teetering on. “It doesn’t matter. Unless you have more secrets.”

  “Only secret regrets.” She shrank into herself. Her eyes darkened with remorse.

  “Like?”

  She chewed the right corner of her top lip. Vacillating. Finally she sighed. “Like being a puppet to men willing to kill for the sake of gaining contracts. Like having blood on my hands from similar ops.”

  She’d said she left because they’d given her no moral choice. It sounded worse than he’d suspected. “If you didn’t find me through Whitestone, how did you? How did you know who I was?”

  “After joining Breck’s team, I continued searching for answers to questions that arose during my last mission for Whitestone. I found your business card while working through boxes of Channing’s stuff.”

  “That wouldn’t have been enough to send you after me.” He released her hand and played with the ends of her hair. Purely soft polish to her steel determination. She was amazing.

  “It wasn’t. Until we were able to talk with a Whitestone operative who’d gone missing for awhile. Then the NSA’s expert listener, who was helping us as a favor to his new fiancée, heard you listed along with Channing and Trevor Masters as targets.”

  His pulse thumped.

  Even after facing his intended killer, it was a shock to hear he’d been targeted. To have verification that Ava had been sent in to protect him.