by Misty Evans
“This isn’t about emotion, this is about information…information someone didn’t want leaked. Tommy was about to blow the lid on something, I’d bet my ass on it, and it got him killed. Maybe whoever wanted those files was just going to mug him and he fought back. I don’t know, but Maria met with Kemp, gave him a couple of the files, and he’s dead now too.”
“Why didn’t they kill her? Whoever they are.”
She was definitely tired and not tracking straight. “Because they need all the files.”
“And she still had them.”
“Exactly. Except, they didn’t know where the others were, so they probably followed her back home.”
“And broke into her house,” she said, staring into the blackness outside. “But they didn’t find the key ring.”
He made a turn, heading north toward the lake. “They—whoever they are—may have thought she gave the files to you. That’s why you were attacked.”
“They’ve been following her, and now us, the whole time? What if they go after her at the motel?”
“Brice will keep her safe. If they’re smart, they’ll be following us and leaving Maria alone.”
Her fuzzy gaze swung back around to him and she gave him a loopy smile. The drugs were working her over and if he didn’t get her to the RV soon, she’d crash right inside this filthy truck. “I love you.”
“That’s the drugs talking.”
She scooted across the bench seat and tucked herself next to him. Her arm went around his and she rested her head on his shoulder. “You may be a little tarnished around the edges, but you still rock that shining armor.”
He patted her knee. A stoned Caroline. What a gift. She was cozied up next to him, all warm and sleepy, and it reminded him how sexy she was after an orgasm. How much he loved this Caroline.
“Someone might be following us,” her voice trailed off as she yawned—“the goons maybe.”
“We’re clear. I’ve got my eye on the rearview.”
Except for Donaldson. His old boss had been following them since the hospital. Why, Mitch wasn’t sure, but he’d had no trouble losing him a few miles back.
Caroline rubbed her cheek on his shoulder. “Good. I need sleep. Drugs are making me loopy.”
By the time they reached the lake, she was fast asleep. Mitch did a heat run, taking a bunch of back roads until he was one hundred and ten percent sure they didn’t have a tail. Then he parked the truck behind some trees and carried Caroline to the camper.
Inside, he laid her down, took off her shoes, and covered her up. He booted up her laptop and rubbed his finger over the fleur-de-lis while he waited for the start screen.
One for all and all for one.
The computer was ready. Mitch plugged in the USB and cruised the files. The first one he opened was labeled “Mitch.”
One was a memo from Atkinson to various agents reminding them of the importance of discretion regarding Operation Bulletproof. They weren’t under any circumstances to discuss their activities. Period. The next file was a summary of purchases made by a guy whose name Mitch didn’t recognize. All fourteen weapons were semi-automatic rifles. Had to be a straw purchase, otherwise, what the hell did this guy want with fourteen semi-automatic weapons?
Mitch closed the file, went back to the directory and scanned the list again. Three documents marked with consecutive months were titled Meeting Notes. Click. Encrypted. Interesting. He sat back, thought about possible passwords. If Tommy intended him to have these files, the password would be something they’d both know.
Musketeers, he typed.
No dice. He drummed his thumb against the computer, running ideas through his mind. Names. They’d often joked about who would be which Musketeer. By Tommy’s way of thinking, Mitch was Athos, the protector. And since Tommy left this drive for Mitch…
Athos.
Had to be. Tap, tap, tap.
The file popped open to what looked like Tommy’s slanted handwriting. Scanned document. At the top of the page was the date and “TF meeting.”
Taskforce meeting. Had to be. Tommy had noted something about guns being found at a murder scene just across the border. Jesse’s name was written beside the note. What did that mean? Had Jesse purchased one of the weapons?
Mitch closed the file, clicked the next one. This one contained photos of dozens of semi-automatics and handguns confiscated from a warehouse. Beside the photo, Tommy wrote “straw.”
Jesus.
Sickness rolling in his stomach, Mitch closed the file. Next file was an email from Tommy to ATF ASAC Atkinson warning him of the number of weapons agents were letting walk as part of Operation Bulletproof.
Covering his ass. Good old Tommy.
The next document was the response from Atkinson blowing smoke up Tommy’s ass about his dedication to the job being honorable. He was also told to stand down. The plan was the plan and ATF had it under control.
Whatever that meant.
At some point, it started to rain. Mitch made coffee and stepped outside for air, the small awning keeping him dry. He stared at the lake, part of his mind filled with the information in Tommy’s files, the other half wondering about the encrypted ones. Caroline had woken up and he heard her moving around, but gave her what little privacy he could in their cramped quarters. After a couple of minutes, he went back inside. She’d taken off her pants and was dressed solely in her shirt. Her bra had disappeared, too, and never had he enjoyed that white button-down as much as right now.
“I crashed. Sorry. I don’t suppose you waited for me to look at those files, did you?”
He handed her his coffee. “You needed the sleep. How’s the head?”
She brushed her fingers over the bandage. “Sore, but I’m tough. Takes more than that to put me out of commission.”
He hadn’t slept, but he didn’t need to. He was wired. “Good, because we have a lot of work to do.”
She eyed him. “What’s on that USB?”
He’d had time to think everything out, but there was something he needed to do before he showed her the files. “Nothing that can’t wait for a few more minutes.”
Before she could protest, he lowered his head and kissed her.
Chapter Nineteen
The world needed a Mitch Monroe support group. A program. Somewhere women like Caroline could go to save themselves because she wasn’t just about to fall off the wagon. She was about to dive head first. Twelve stories. Onto cement.
And nothing good could ever come of that.
Mitch was a wild card. She knew it and yet…
This is bad.
But the triple orgasm from last time? That was good. Very good. A solid twenty-five on a scale of one to ten.
With Mitch, it was all about the closeness, that skin-to-skin, soul-to-soul connection—the heat—she hadn’t experienced with anyone else. Mitch was it. Then. Now.
Always.
Setting his hands on her cheeks, he backed away from the kiss, ran his thumb gently over her jaw and—wow—when he touched her, the stress of the job—life—melted away.
She hooked her fingers into the loops on his jeans and pulled his hips forward. “Let’s finish what we started last night.”
He nodded. One solid jerk of his head, but the gesture, one she’d seen from him thousands of times and was always so self-assured, so determined, suddenly felt…off. Hesitant. “Mitch?”
“It can’t be like last time.”
Um, why? “My three orgasms from last time beg to differ.”
What she considered a fun, snappy comeback earned her an eye roll. He dropped his hands from her face and stepped back. “You think it’s funny. This is what I’m talking about. It can’t be another night-that-never-was.”
Another…what? She stood for a second, stymied. Clearly her lame joke had unleashed something. For years now, sarcasm and innuendo had been their standard way of communicating. The status quo. What she knew and had adjusted to.
Now he wanted to
change it? She held her hands up. “Okay, relax a second. I didn’t mean to be flip.”
He poked a finger at her. “If we do this, you’d better be in it for the long haul. My two oldest friends are dead, Caroline. I’m—” he dug his fingers into his scalp and squeezed his eyes shut. “Shit.”
“You’re what, Mitch?”
Please let him tell me what I need to hear. Whatever that might be.
He lowered his hands, opened his eyes and stared at her with an intensity—sorrow—she’d never seen before. The cocky smart-ass was gone, his normally amused eyes doused like a dying fire.
She held her hands out, fingers spread wide, ready to grab hold of anything he’d give because, dammit, she needed to hear whatever it was. “Please talk to me.”
“Broken. I’m broken and—hello—the fact that I’m even admitting that is a fucking nightmare. You know me, you know how hard that is for me.”
“Mitch—”
“I can’t wake up tomorrow wondering if you’ll regret it. Last time, I thought I had it made. We had a great night. Superior night.”
“I loved that night.”
He let out a sarcastic laugh. “You loved it until you didn’t. That wasn’t a one-night stand for me. That was my future. Finally something good to grab on to. I was all set. And if the Bureau didn’t like the fraternization, no problem. Plenty of government agencies to work for. I would have walked away from the Bureau for you. So, yeah, for me, that night wasn’t just a lay.” He stopped, shook his head and let out a huff. “At least until you made it one.”
“Oh, come on!”
That was so unfair. He was the one always making jokes, being slightly crude, laughing everything off and now he blamed her?
“Admit it, Caroline. Call it what it was. I was some dick who happened to get you through a tough night. Back then, I could handle it. Now? I’ll lose my fucking mind. One more loss and I’m cooked.”
Mitch Monroe unleashed. Who knew? With every layer she peeled back, she found more. And worse, she’d misjudged him. Horribly. “I didn’t know. Back then. I didn’t know you felt this way. I’m sorry.”
“Well, now you know. The new Mitch Monroe. The one who talks about his feelings. Here I am and I can’t do a replay of the night-that-never-was. If you want to start again, yeah, I’m all for it, but you’d damned well better be in it for the long haul. I’m a federal fugitive and you’d be laying your future on the line. If we do this and you walk away from me again, after losing Tommy and Kemp, I swear to God, Caroline, I will never recover. I need you, but I won’t risk that. I’ll leave right now. It would be the hardest damned thing I’ve ever done—and that’s saying something—but I’ve been on the run long enough. I want my life back. When this is done, whatever happens, I’m done running.”
“I love you,” she said.
The words tumbled out, in a rush, without thought or a willingness to stop them.
He shook his head. “You said that before.”
She reached for him, but he stepped back, putting distance between them. “Yes. And it’s not the drugs. On the-night-that-never-was, you terrified me. It was so good that it was scary good. And I’m talking about the sex. Sex that good doesn’t happen unless there’s trust and affection. There’s a purity to it. You know what I’m talking about. I know you do.”
“That’s what I’m saying. We’re good together. On all levels. But being with me will wreck your career.”
“Only if this goes bad.”
“Which it probably will.”
Finally she grabbed hold of him, gripped his forearms. “Then screw it. Let it go bad. We’ll figure this out. Together. I have no idea what’ll happen, but I’m here. Right now. I’m here. I’d have never done this a year ago. Never. But I know what I want now and somehow, my job doesn’t matter.” She yanked him forward. “So quit talking and screw me blind.”
She kissed him, hard, the way she remembered it from last time and he finally gave in and smacked his hands over her ass, dragging her closer—skin-to-skin close, letting her feel the press of his erection against her.
I love him. For so long, she’d fought it. Knowing it and acknowledging it were different. Opposites that couldn’t quite come together. Now…now the ends came together.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, slowed the pace of the kiss. Not this time. This time they’d go slow. She’d waited too long for him, for the experience of him.
Pulling back, she nipped at his bottom lip. “I want slow.”
“We still have a lot to do and not much time.”
“We can’t do anything with those files until morning. Until we find out what happens in that meeting with Donaldson and the others.”
“So, we’ve got the rest of the night and I’m used to no sleep.”
“Good. Because after we’re done in here, I’ve got my eye on that lake. I want what I didn’t get last night.”
Mitch laughed. “Oh, you’ll get it, Caroline. You’ll get it.”
She loves me.
How was that possible? After everything he’d put her through, after the way he’d treated her. Bottom line, how could anyone love him in his current state?
Caroline’s legs went around Mitch’s hips, her arms wound around his neck. He carried her to the bunk bed, kissing her along the way. They didn’t quite fit, but it didn’t matter. Like two lusty teenagers in the backseat of a car, they contorted their bodies to accommodate each other without missing a beat. Setting her butt on the cheap mattress, he kept kissing her and went to work on getting his clothes off. Caroline helped, her fingers undoing his belt as he shucked off his T-shirt.
She loves me.
She said she wanted slow, and he did too. He wanted to draw out their time together and revel in the feel of her, the taste. But like always, the moment they were skin-to-skin, that searing sexual chemistry between them became nitrous oxide. One damn fine explosion coming up.
His belt was loose, his zipper down, and Caroline’s hand went for the gold, slipping inside his briefs and taking hold. But she didn’t yank or squeeze. She tickled him, the mere touch of her fingernails against his erection nearly sending him over the edge.
He plucked a condom from a pocket before his jeans hit the floor. Yes, he’d bought a couple of condoms from the dispenser in the mall restroom, and thank the good Lord in Heaven he had. She took the one in his hand and tore open the package. In seconds, he was sheathed. Caroline removed her conservative button-down, letting the edges slide over her shoulders and down her arms. She spread her legs and leaned back to grab the opposite edge of the bed.
Wanton. That was the look she sent him, her dancing eyes as tantalizing as her tickling, teasing fingers.
With their next kiss, Mitch entered her. Not fast and hard, but slow…inch by hard inch.
Caroline scooted forward, heels digging into his ass cheeks trying to speed things up. Slow, huh? He grinned against her lips.
“What?” she said, bucking against him.
He held perfectly still, refusing to give in to her body’s demands. “I want to make this last, remember?”
“I know, but…but…” She was moving again and closing her eyes. “Oh, God, you feel so good.”
“Caroline?”
“What?”
“Open your eyes and look at me.”
Her lashes flew open, the dark orbs of her eyes animalistic. “I know what I said, but I changed my mind. I need it fast and hard and…well, fast.”
She grabbed his ass cheeks, goading him to move. He took her by the wrists and wrangled her upper body so it was pinned down on the bed.
“Hey,” she complained, her dark hair fanning out against the white of her shirt lying under her.
“Let go, Caroline. Relax. Let me do the work.”
Miss Control Freak resisted for a moment, then arched her back, shifting her pelvis to take him deeper. “Mitch, please.”
Begging? Or bitching? At least she wasn’t fighting. He caught both of her w
rists with one hand and pinned them above her head. With his free hand, he massaged one breast and then the other. At the same time, he set up a slow, leisurely rhythm.
“Damn you,” she whispered, but her eyes stayed locked on his the way he wanted.
“You’ve already damned me to hell and back, Caroline. Why don’t you give up that precious control and just enjoy the ride?”
She rolled her hips, taking him deeper. His body defied his mind, wanting her. All of her. Against his will, his rhythm picked up. He gritted his teeth, hanging on for control. Damn woman. He was breathing hard and he hadn’t even gotten a good start on her.
Releasing her wrists, he grabbed her hips instead and held them still, lowering his mouth to one of her nipples. She squirmed but moaned as his tongue flicked over the sensitive bud. Drawing it into his mouth, he sucked it between his teeth, gently. Her hips surged.
Tightening his hold, he gave proper attention to her other breast for a long minute. She cussed him again, but laughed, too, and finally, he felt her let go. Really let go.
Her legs spread wider, giving him fuller, deeper access. Her hands swept into his hair, pulling his face to hers so she could kiss his lips.
She loves me.
Mitch plunged deep, taking all she offered. She met him stroke for stroke, until a few seconds later, her orgasm broke over her and she yelled his name into the night.
Hearing his name on her lips, he followed her over the brink.
Forget the support group. Caroline didn’t need it. Nope. Experiencing the glory of a New Mexico sunrise over the lake with Mitch after a healthy orgasm was definitely the way to go.
Caroline tilted her head back as streaks of purple and orange splayed across a sky dotted with clouds, each one stacked against the other in an endless layer. No artist could create such magnificence. Impossible.
From behind her, Mitch snaked his arm under hers and held out his hand. “You didn’t drop that soap, did you?”
“Nope.”
She smacked it into his hand. Day three of their trip and the heat wouldn’t let up. They’d stepped into the lake at 6:30 and the temperature had already hit eighty degrees. And without the use of a washer, Caroline was now out of what Mitch called her Bureau-wear. Today would be a jeans and tank top day. Unless they found a Laundromat.