Desire filled his dark eyes and flushed his cheeks. A desire she remembered well from Beirut. One she’d dreamt about seeing again on his face. But not like this. “Yeah, I do.”

She leaned forward and brushed her breasts against his bare chest. The movement forced her sex into tighter contact with his erection. Tingles spread all through her lower body. Tingles she wanted to savor but couldn’t. “It takes a lot for me to trust someone. I need to feel something for them.” She did it again, and she knew he felt those tingles too by the way he sucked in a breath. “You made me feel once. I wonder if you could do it again.”

“Eve—”

She flexed her hips, this time intentionally rubbing against his swollen cock. “Do you want me, Archer? Tell me you want me.”

“Eve . . .” His eyes rolled back, and he lifted his hips to meet hers. “Yes, I want you.”

Anger pulsed through her once more. She tightened her grip on his arms and then pushed quickly off him. “Well, tough shit. In this business we never get what we want. And you just proved to me you’re a bigger liar than I am.”

10

Zane’s blood ran hot. Before Eve could get a step away, he grasped her by the ankle and flipped her onto her back on the bed.

“What the—?”

Her surprised gasp met his ears just before he climbed over her on the mattress, straddled her hips, and pinned her arms near her head. “Stop, Eve.”

She thrashed beneath him, but he was stronger than her, even with his injuries, and all her struggling did was shake the bed. “Let me go, you stupid son of a—”

“Bitch. Yeah, I know. God, you don’t know when to quit, do you? I’m not lying to you. I do want to help you, but you’re too goddamn stubborn to see it. And if I didn’t still want you, I wouldn’t have had a hard-on these last twelve hours, and I sure as hell wouldn’t have spent the last year trying to track you down.”

She jerked against his hold but couldn’t break free. “You tracked me down because you wanted to turn me over to the Feds.”

“Partly. But I didn’t, did I?”

“That’s your stupidity, not mine.”

His temper flared. “You’re right, it is. Because I wanted to know if you felt anything for me or if it was all just an act. You cut me when you left me, Eve. Not because of what I thought I’d caught you doing, but because you turned your back on me without a second look. Like none of it mattered. Is that all I was to you? Just a job? Tell me the truth right now and this ends here. You want to go? I’ll let you go. Just tell me the fucking truth.”

She stopped her struggling and stared up at him with wide amber eyes he couldn’t read. Eyes that had haunted him for way too long. Her chest rose and fell with her quick breaths, and the pink hue to her cheeks screamed of arousal—he just couldn’t tell if it was for him or for some stupid job that turned her on more than he ever had.

“I . . .” She blinked several times, and her hands curled into fists against the mattress on each side of her head, but she didn’t try to wriggle free.

“Come on, Eve. You’ve never been speechless before. Tell me the truth. Tell me I never mattered to you and it was all about the job. I’ll walk away and you’ll never have to see me again.”

“The government—”

“Fuck the government.” Why was she stalling? Because she liked torturing him? God, he really was a dumb fuck. For concocting this whole plan, for spending the last year searching for her, for thinking—after she’d finally told him the truth earlier—that she’d done any of it because she cared about him. “I know how to disappear and not be found. I did it this whole last year, and I can do it again. Just tell me the damn truth. Tell me you don’t give a shit about me.”

“You’re a complete jackass,” she whispered.

Zane stilled above her. The air caught in his throat, and his chest drew tight as a drum. Not because of what she’d said, but because of what he saw in her suddenly damp eyes.

Fury—yeah, there was still plenty of that—but behind that, something else. Something vulnerable. Something hot.

“I don’t care about you,” she whispered. “I really don’t. You don’t deserve it. I hate you. I—”

He let go of her wrists, lowered his mouth to hers, and kissed her. But unlike when he’d kissed her before, when he’d been trying to distract her from crushing him to death, this time she kissed him back. Her tongue found his, and she arched up into him while she wrapped her arms around him, opened her legs, and made room for him between her thighs.

The taste of her was something he hadn’t forgotten. Not even in the dead of night when he’d been plotting ways to string her up and torture the truth out of her. Sweet, spicy, so fucking forbidden. Her fingers slid up into his hair and fisted, pulling on the strands until pain shot through his scalp. Kissing her again and again, he tasted her deeper, drew her in even though he knew he shouldn’t. Even though he knew it would only fuck with his mind even more.

“Evie—”

“Shut up. Just—” She hooked a leg over his hip, flexed, and flipped him to his back in one smooth move. The mattress bounced. “Don’t talk.”

She closed her mouth over his again. Kissed him hard. Tongues tangled. Teeth scraped flesh. Her fingers found the edge of her T-shirt, and she pulled away from his mouth long enough to drag the cotton up and over her head. It landed somewhere behind her, and she yanked his shirt off, then lowered her mouth back to his and kissed him until all thought—all reason and common sense—disappeared into the ether.

He trailed his hands up her ribcage to the underside of her breasts, hidden behind the soft, nude-colored bra. Classic Eve. Functional, not seductive. But he liked that about her. There was something so damn hot about a woman who could rock a simple bra and panties and look like a Victoria’s Secret model, and Eve had the body to do that. Toned, muscular, so freakin’ perfect it made his cock throb with the thought of getting inside her.

He flicked the front clasp of her bra and groaned into her mouth when her bare breasts spilled into his hands. His fingers cupped the soft flesh, and he dragged his thumbs over the sensitive nipples, already hard and aching for his touch . . . for his mouth. But before he could break away from her greedy kiss so he could give them what they desperately needed, he realized she’d already undone his pants and that her clever hands were inside his boxers, pushing them and his jeans down his hips.

Cool air washed over his cock as it sprang free. Then her hand was there—hot, tight—wrapping around the base and sliding up the tip to squeeze and stroke his shaft until he couldn’t take it anymore.

His hands fell against the mattress, and he gripped the comforter in a tight fist as he jerked his mouth from hers. Something way in the back of his mind warned this was a bad idea, but he couldn’t seem to listen. “Eve, wait, you have to—”

“Shh. Don’t talk to me. Put your cock in me.” She shimmied away and came back. Her knees bumped into his hips. She hiked up her skirt. Then her mouth was back on his. Needy, aggressive, devouring his until she was all he could taste. Until a slick, hot vise closed over the tip of his cock, drowning out every other sensation.

He groaned. Or maybe it was her, he couldn’t tell. All he knew was that her tight, slippery sex was sliding down his aching cock, sucking him in, making him see stars.

“Oh fuck, Sawyer.” Her palms landed against his bare chest, and her fingernails dug into his skin as she stretched around him, taking him all the way in. And he didn’t even care because she felt so fucking incredible. He loved that she was using his alias, that she was remembering what they’d once had.

His reasons for trying to get her to stop slid to the back of his mind. He let go of the blanket and gripped her hips. Thrust up to get deeper inside her. She gasped, pressed against his shoulders, and lifted, the movement dragging his cock against her walls, making them both shiver. She clamped down with her sex as she did it again, and he helped her by squeezing the skirt bunched around her hips and lifting with his hands, by clenching his ass and thrusting up on her every downstroke.

“Fuck . . . oh fuck that feels good.” Tiny tremors racked her body. Her eyes slammed shut as she lifted and lowered. As his cock pressed deep and then slid back out. Her hands slipped from his shoulders to the mattress, lengthening her body over his. Her hard nipples abraded his skin, and he knew by the way she was rocking, by the way her eyes were clenched tight, that she was grinding her clit against him. That she was close. “So big. So good . . .”

Warmth infused his chest. Made his blood pump hot. The need to feel her release overrode every other thought. “Do it, Juliet. Come all over my cock.”

She grunted. Lifted, lowered. He captured her mouth and thrust into her with his tongue just as he was doing with his cock. Grabbed her knees and slid them wider so she could rub her greedy sex harder against him with every deep thrust. Her hips picked up speed. She rocked against him faster. Harder. Wrapping both arms around her waist, he pulled her tight and met her speed. Then ravished her mouth and let his body take over.

Thought dissipated. Need took over. He thrust deeper. Harder. Faster. Every muscle in Eve’s body contracted while he fucked her. While sweat slid down his temples and dripped onto the mattress. Then her sheath clamped tight around his cock, and she tore her mouth from his and cried out as her body jerked and shivered.

Her orgasm made her even tighter than before. But he didn’t ease up. Couldn’t. He continued to drive into her again and again while the wave dragged her under. Continued to hold her tight so she couldn’t get away from the pressure on her clit. To plow into her with all the loss and frustration and sexual need he’d been saving this whole last year.