Eve sucked in a breath. Muttered, “Shit.” Then her eyes slid closed. Her struggling stopped. She rested her head back against him as he palmed her, and she rocked her hips ever so slightly into his hand. “You make this impossible, Archer.”

He smiled against her neck and kissed her again. “Make what impossible?”

“This. Telling you to stop. You know this isn’t going anywhere, right?” Sighing, she ground against him, caught between his erection and his hand. “Oh God, that feels so damn good.”

An uncontrollable urge to prove her wrong whipped through him. He let go of her, twisted her to face him, and then lifted her quickly and sat her up on the counter. Her mouth fell open in surprise, but he pushed her legs open and moved between them before she could close him out. “Look at me, Eve.”

Her mouth slid closed.

He braced his palms on the counter on each side of her. “Stop. Okay? Right now, just stop running from me.”

She scowled. “I’m not running. I’m here, aren’t I? If I’d wanted to run, I’d have ditched you this morning when you were dead to the world.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” she repeated. “Because I told you I wouldn’t.”

“More.”

“Because you saved my life.”

“More.”

She sighed in clear frustration. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Archer. I’m here, dammit. That’s enough.”

“No, it’s not.” It wouldn’t ever be enough for him. “You’re here, but you’re still hiding from me. I want to know the real reason you stayed. And don’t tell me it was because of last night. Because you could have easily fucked my brains out and then run from me this morning and never looked back. Tell me the truth, Eve. Let me in. Why are you still here?”

She opened her mouth. Looked down at his bare chest. Pressed her lips together.

“Tell me,” he said, moving in closer, until the heat from her body swirled around him to make him light-headed.

“I . . . I . . .” Unease trickled through her dark gaze as it focused on his skin. “Because I . . .”

“Because you care about me.” Her eyes shot to his. Wide, suddenly frightened eyes. Eyes that told him, Bingo! He was right. “Say it, Eve. It’s not a bad thing to care about someone else.”

“I . . .” Her gaze searched his, and this close, he could hear the rapid beat of her pulse. “I . . .”

He moved even closer, until his hips were flush against hers, his arms were circling her waist, and her legs were sliding around his hips. “Just tell me, Evie. I’m not gonna bite you. Well, not hard, at least.”

Her hands landed against his bare shoulders, and she whispered, “I hate you, Archer. I really do.”

He leaned in and brushed his mouth gently over hers. Loved the way her whole body tightened against him when he got close. “No, you don’t.” He pressed his lips to the corner of her mouth. “You’re crazy about me. You always have been.”

Her hands pressed against his shoulders. “Zane—”

Pain zipped through his wound, but he ignored it. “It’s okay if you can’t say it. Just seeing how flustered you are this morning tells me everything I need to know.” He kissed her jaw. Reveled in the way she started to relax, muscle by muscle. “And I’m a patient guy. I waited for you all these months. I’m willing to wait a little longer until you figure it out on your own.”

He skimmed his lips to her ear, then slowly down her neck. And right then he knew what he wanted. Her. Back in his life. This time for good.

She groaned, and tiny vibrations shook her body as he unbuttoned her blouse one button at a time, as he continued to tease her throat with his mouth and tongue and teeth.

“You’re certifiable, you know that?” she mumbled, tipping her head to the side to offer him more. “Any sane man would run from me the first chance he got.”

Grinning, he pushed the halves of her blouse apart, pulled away from her throat, and looked down at her perfect breasts, spilling from the practical, white cotton bra. “Yeah, well, my psych profile’s always been a little fucked up. God, Evie. You are gorgeous.”

She straightened her head. Blinked several times. His gaze came up. But when it focused on hers, he didn’t see arousal. He saw sadness.

“Zane,” she said softly. “You don’t know the real me. You know the person I was in Beirut, the one who was pretending not to be investigating you, and you know the woman you blamed for your injury when that op went wrong in Guatemala. But neither of those is the real me. Yes, I care about you, and yes, that’s why I came back. Because I don’t want to see you hurt anymore because of me. But incredible sexual chemistry—which we have—isn’t a real relationship. And it sure isn’t a basis for any kind of future. It can’t be, because you don’t know who I really am.”

“So let me know you. Let me in, Eve.”

She exhaled a long breath and looked over his shoulder. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t like the real me. And you won’t either if you get to know her.”

He didn’t know what she meant. He only knew that she was moving away and erecting a barrier between them. One he thought he’d chipped away at last night.

Carefully, she eased off the counter and moved out of his grasp. “Listen, let’s just focus on what we have to do next. I need to finish getting ready, and you need to re-bandage that shoulder. Looks like water got in it last night. The last thing you need is infection setting in.”

He didn’t care about his shoulder. He didn’t care about anything except her. “Eve—”

She held up a hand to keep him from reaching for her and stepped back. “No, don’t. Just don’t, okay? Let me focus on what I need to do today. That’s all I can handle right now.”

If he’d seen confidence in her eyes or even challenge, he’d have grabbed her, shoved her up against the wall, and kissed her until all thought rushed out of her head. But he didn’t see that. He saw fear. Stark fear, over a truth he wasn’t sure how to argue against.

She was right. He didn’t know the real her. Not all of her. And he’d been wrong about her before. If she let him all the way in and he didn’t like what he found, he’d be the one to blame for making things worse for both of them.

But that didn’t mean he was giving up.

“This conversation isn’t over, Eve. And whether you want to admit it or not, I know more of you than you think. I’m not the one you have to be afraid of.”

He moved out of the bathroom, and she quickly closed the door at his back. But before it clicked, he heard her whisper, “You’ve always been the one I’m afraid of.”


Eve’s skin felt three sizes too small.

Sitting in the passenger seat of the Taurus, she shifted away from Zane and stared at the scenery whizzing by her window.

She should have left. She shouldn’t have come back this morning. The more time she spent with him, the more he pushed her toward wanting a future she was never going to have.

Forget this morning. She should have been smart from the first and left him lying on the floor of that warehouse loft as soon as he untied her from that chair.

Her mind skipped back to the group of men who’d come barreling through that door, then to her meeting with Smith in Seattle. “Chechnya. I’ve never been to Chechnya. I’ve never investigated anyone working in Chechnya. So my being the target in Seattle couldn’t have been personal.”

“Unless you know something you don’t know you know.”

She harrumphed. “Okay, Dr. Seuss.”

He frowned. “You can be a real smart-ass sometimes, you know that?”

The hurt in his voice caused Eve’s gaze to slide his way. She watched the sunlight weave through his thick, dark hair, highlighting the strands and the bit of wave. His hair was longer than she’d ever seen it, brushing his collar and skimming his ears, but she liked the shaggy look on him. Liked the sexy scruff on his jaw from days without shaving too.

Focus, Eve.

She looked back out the window. “Yeah, well. It’s not easy being a woman in this business.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Whatever was on that drive is more than a simple list of compromised agents.”

“What do you know about something called Project Thirteen?”

Eve’s gaze shot his way again, this time in surprise. “It’s a top secret biological weapons program. Why?”

He still didn’t look at her. His gaze was focused out the windshield, and both hands gripped the steering wheel, accentuating the muscles in his arms and the strength in his shoulders. “Adam Humbolt, the target in that Guatemalan raid, was a scientist supposedly working on some top secret shit for the government. Turns out, Humbolt was working on Project Thirteen, but we were told he was a chemical weapons specialist who’d been kidnapped while vacationing in the Caribbean.”

“That cover’s a little convenient, don’t you think?”

“Now? Hell yeah. Especially when I heard from Aegis this morning that ADD Roberts specifically requested Aegis be the one to go in after him.”

That didn’t make sense. Eve’s brow dropped low. “Why would the assistant deputy director of counterintelligence for the CIA be involved in the rescue mission of a US scientist? That would fall under a different division.”

“That’s what I want to know.”

Slowly, Eve looked back out the windshield. There were too many questions. Too many threads to this that didn’t align.

As they pulled into the parking lot of Lake Padden Park, where they’d agreed to meet Eve’s Canadian contact, Eve’s stomach tensed.

The park was wide and green, with tall trees and a broad dog run. A running trail wound away from the parking lot and playground and into the woods. A handful of benches sat scattered through the area. Several young children swung on the swing set and ran around the bark chips near the play structure, and a few rambunctious dogs chased balls and returned them to their masters in the field.