More. Harder. Deeper.

He grunted with every thrust. Heard her cry out again and didn’t know this time whether it was in pleasure or pain, but he couldn’t stop himself to check. Electricity raced down his spine, gathered in his balls, and then shot through his cock like a rocket. Followed by stars exploding behind his eyelids as pure bliss radiated down his legs and up into his chest.

Eve’s body jerked, and she cried out again, her slick sheath tightening once, twice more, pumping him like a velvet fist before she collapsed against his chest. His own body quaked from her mini-orgasm, and tingles spread all along his skin.

She was breathless, panting against his chest, and something sharp was sticking into his ribs, but he didn’t care. All Zane could focus on was that sweet, weightless feeling gliding through his limbs like a feathery soft touch.

“Oh God,” Eve managed. “That was . . .”—her hand pressed into his good shoulder, and her hot breath ran across his neck, sending a shiver down his spine—”such a bad idea.”

He trailed his fingers down her bare spine, across the skirt still bunched around her waist, and finally down her muscular ass, which he squeezed. A bad idea? He wasn’t so sure anymore. “For the record, I didn’t start it. Not that, at least.”

“No,” she breathed. “You just pushed me up to the edge where you knew I’d go right on over.”

She rolled off him and dropped onto the mattress at his side. The loss of her heat was like a cold blanket draping over his skin. She tossed a hand over her eyes as her chest rose and fell and she tried to catch her breath, but she didn’t sound pissed. If anything, she sounded . . . unnerved.

Which didn’t help because he was unnerved too. He hadn’t planned that, but hell if he was about to regret it. His gaze ran over her nakedness, and as the dim morning light highlighted the curves and angles of her muscular body, his stomach tightened with the reality of what they’d just done, and her reason for being unhinged.

“Shit. Eve. I didn’t mean for—”

“Don’t say it.” She pushed up quickly to sitting, grabbed both sides of her bra, and clasped it around her breasts in front. “You may have pushed the matter, but I could have stopped it. So it happened. Big deal. It’s not like we never fucked before. Where the hell is my shirt?”

She rose to her feet, glanced around the room, and then moved for her T-shirt, which was hanging halfway off the nightstand lamp.

But it was a big deal. A huge deal. More so now when Zane thought of the consequences. His nerves strung tight, he tugged on his jeans and buttoned them. “I didn’t plan . . .” Shit. He raked a hand through his hair. This had never been anything he had to worry about because he was always safe. Except with her. She’d made him lose his mind more than once in Beirut. It was just worse now because he couldn’t tell where they stood. Or where he even wanted them to stand. “Look, I’m clean. You don’t have to worry about that. I—”

She tugged the shirt over her head and whipped his way. “Oh geez, Archer. The Feds think you set off a bomb in the middle of Seattle and you’re worried about screwing me without a condom? Your priorities are really fucking twisted.”

He stared at her, completely unsure how to take her reaction. Unsure of everything right now. Somewhere between the time he’d seen her on that Seattle street and now, things had changed, and he didn’t know what he wanted or what to do next. The only thing he knew was in that moment when they’d been locked together, everything had felt . . . right.

“I’m clean too,” she said with a frown. “And I won’t get pregnant from this, so stop worrying. A woman in my line of work takes precautions against that kind of thing.”

He watched her pick up her panties from the floor and wondered when she’d ditched them, but he was too curious about her statement to ask. “What kind of precautions?”

She tugged them on and smoothed her skirt. “Nothing permanent, though not by my choice. My doctor’s sure I’ll regret something permanent since I’m still so young.” She huffed and turned away. “Right. Can you see me with a family? That’d be hilarious. I’ve got the whole birth control thing covered, so stop stressing.”

He wasn’t stressing. As he watched her twist her skirt so the slit was back against her left thigh, he couldn’t help but imagine her with a family. A kid. A dog. A house on the beach with a white picket fence. She’d told him once she loved the beach. She could do anything she wanted if she put her mind to it. If she wanted it enough. He just couldn’t see himself in that picture with her. And wasn’t sure whether he wanted to be there or not.

His chest tightened as she turned to face him. “Eve—”

“Okay, that?” She pointed at the bed. “Clearly not happening again. Once we get out of here and I get in touch with my director, we’ll get this all straightened out, and you can go wherever the hell it is you go.” She picked up his shirt from the floor and flung it toward him. “We’ll just chalk that up to stupidity and not talk about it again. God knows we were stupid before.”

He caught the shirt in both hands and tugged it on, but something inside him didn’t want to drop the subject, even if he wasn’t entirely sure where he wanted it to go. “Eve—”

Gunfire exploded from the back of the house, the sound of wood and glass shattering drowning out his voice and thoughts and reactions.

He dropped to the ground behind the bed. Eve hit the carpet next to him and rolled to her back. In her hands she held both guns from the dresser. “Holy fuck. How did they find us?”

He plucked the SIG out of her hand and checked the magazine, then snapped it back into place. “Miller was right. Your call to the Agency—”

“No way they tracked us from that call.” She ducked her head as the doorjamb to the bedroom splintered into a hundred pieces. “I know how long it takes to track a call.”

Zane angled his head around the leg of the bed and looked toward the open door. He couldn’t see anything besides carpet, walls, and splintered wood. “Then how the hell did they—” Understanding hit, and he froze. His eyes fell closed. “Oh shit.”

“What?” Eve asked.

More glass exploded in the other room. From the direction of the kitchen. He ducked his head back behind the bed and looked her way. “I called Carter’s cell. Outside. Before I came back in.”

“You son of a bitch.” Eve smacked the butt of her gun hard against his bad arm. “Are you fucking brain dead?”

“Son of a—” He shoved her hand away. “Knock that shit off. Carter would never rat us out.”

“No,” she snapped. “But that doesn’t mean they’re not monitoring him to get to us.” She moved to her belly and stilled. The gunshots had stopped. “How many do you think there are?”

Zane tuned in to his hearing. Footsteps were moving around the side of the house. Faint ones. “From the number of shots fired,” he whispered, “five. At most.”

“They’ve split up,” Eve whispered back.

He nodded and pointed two fingers to his right.

“Fuck that,” Eve whispered. “I’m a better shot than you any day. You get the two moving around the south side of the house; I’ll take the other three.”

She was gone before he could stop her, sliding around the end of the torn-up mattress and disappearing into the hallway without a single look back.

“God, you’re a moron,” he muttered to himself. “Why can’t you be interested in a normal girl? One whose idea of an adrenaline rush is parasailing on some Mexican beach? But no, you gotta go and fall for Jane fucking Bond.”

He ground his teeth while he pushed to his feet. Then wished for a dose of that Dilaudid again. He had no idea where those stupid syringes had even gone.

Pausing near the doorway, he waited and listened. A quick shot of remorse trickled in when he thought about the fact these could be fellow agents, but it faded when he realized they weren’t here for a garden party. They were here to kill them, no questions asked. There was no remorse on their side, and if he wanted to stay alive, there couldn’t be any on his.

Fear gripped icy fingers around his heart and squeezed when he realized Eve was somewhere near the kitchen, walking into . . . he didn’t know what. If she got herself killed right now, before he’d decided what the hell to do about her—about them—he’d never forgive her.

A twig cracked just outside the window at the end of the hall. He swiveled, lifted his gun, and fired.

11

The gunshots echoed a split second before Eve cursed Archer for his bad timing.

The soldier decked out in black ops gear with an assault rifle poised at his shoulder swiveled in the kitchen and aimed her way. Her fingers closed around the knife she’d quietly pulled from the butcher block, and she hurled it hard.

A grunt echoed as the blade sank into his neck. His finger hit the trigger as he fell backward, and gunfire lit up the kitchen, tearing into the ceiling.

Eve ducked behind the cabinet. Plaster and wood rained down around her. She bit her lip and kept her curse to herself while chunks of wood cut into her shoulder. Her pulse raced. As soon as the gunfire cut off, she pushed to her feet. Broken glass dug into her foot, but she tiptoed through the kitchen as carefully as she could and stepped over the man choking on his own blood. He was wearing a black ski mask—not that she’d expected to see his face—and she wasn’t tempted to look beneath it. Averting her gaze, she holstered the Glock at her lower back and picked up the rifle.

Footsteps pounded from the direction of the living room. Adrenaline surging, Eve opened the steel fridge door, slung the strap of the weapon over her shoulder, and reached for the chilled bottle of champagne.