“You wouldn’t,” Elizabeth whispered, shaking her head.
Oh, but he would.
He stopped when he was right in front of her. His hand lifted and brushed back the locks of her hair that had slipped over her cheek, then his fingers slid under that soft curtain of her mane as he tilted her head back. “I need a taste…”
Not of wine. Of her.
Her lips parted and his mouth closed over hers. This kiss wasn’t frantic. Wasn’t wild. Because he was trying to show her that he could be more. So much more. For her.
He licked her lower lip, then his tongue thrust inside of her mouth. She gave that little moan—yes—and she arched toward him.
But he still kept the kiss controlled. Sensual, but not desperate. He savored her. He caressed her. Even when his erect cock shoved at the front of his pants, his hold on her was light—just his hand, holding her through the curtain of her hair.
He kissed her. He licked.
And he wanted so much more.
That was why he finally stopped. His head lifted so that he could gaze down at her.
Elizabeth’s eyes blinked open.
“You taste better than the wine.”
Her tongue slipped out and swept over her lips. “So do you.”
She did not play fair.
“Let me take you home,” he said. Because if he didn’t. He just might wind up fucking her there. Right in that shiny new tasting room. He’d had the place remodeled when he took over, and it had turned out just as he’d hoped.
I can have everything I want now. Provided, that Elizabeth stayed safe.
Elizabeth hesitated. “Are you offering to take me home…as my lover? Or as my FBI guard?”
“I’m doing it as both.” Because that was what he was. Guard and lover.
“We’re safe here,” she said. It almost sounded as if she were trying to convince herself of that. “In this perfect place you’ve made, we’re safe, right?”
“With me, I promise, you’ll always be safe.”
Her lips curved in a faint smile. “I believe that, you know.”
Because she trusted him so completely.
“But you can’t take me home, I came in my own car.” Her smile stretched and tempted him to smile back at her.
So he did. “In that case, I’ll follow you.”
She nodded.
I’ll follow you any damn place.
***
Victor strode out of the prison. As soon as she saw him, Tracy hurried forward. “Sir?” Tracy called. “How did it go?”
She’d been cleared—after the FBI had ripped her life apart. They hadn’t turned up any sign that she’d been working with Gary. No bank transactions, no unaccounted absences, no whispers of impropriety at all.
But we thought Gary was clear, too.
Victor’s bosses had insisted he put Tracy back in circulation, provided, of course, that he kept one very close eye on her.
“It’s going,” he said simply. He didn’t want to tell her about Zoe Peters. He wasn’t going to tell anyone but Saxon about that woman. Because Saxon is the only one that I trust one hundred percent.
“A call came in while you were inside,” Tracy told him, the words a little breathless, as if she were nervous. “Gary Warren wants to talk with you.”
Wait, now the guy wanted to talk? Before Victor had left Miami, the guy had still been giving the old silent treatment to everyone. How was that for shit timing?
“So we’re going back down to Florida now?” Tracy asked.
“Not yet.” He marched toward their car. Tracy hurried to keep up with him. “Gary can damn well wait for me.”
“But—”
“I have other business to tend to first.”
He climbed into the car. Tracy started to follow him. “No,” he said flatly. “I called you a cab.”
Her body stiffened. “We’re working together—”
“Not right now, we’re not.” So much for what his bosses wanted. He had to complete this job on his own. For Saxon. “Go back down to Miami. I’ll be there soon enough.” He slammed his door, but Tracy jerked it right back open.
“You don’t trust me!”
He stared up at her.
“I freaking bled for the FBI to prove that I was legit. I told you every secret I had. No matter how humiliating. I told you everything!”
“We don’t get to have secrets in the FBI. That’s not a luxury we have—”
“Liar!” She snapped. “You have your secrets. You’ve going off on one of those secret missions right now.” Her breath heaved out. “Maybe there is a traitor in the FBI. Maybe I’m looking right at him.”
Her sharp words propelled him right out of the car as he faced off against her.
She backed up.
He advanced. “You don’t want to push me, Tracy.”
He heard the rasp of her breath.
“You really fucking don’t.” Lights flashed, and he turned to see the ordered taxi arriving. “Get in the taxi, then get on a plane and head back to Miami. If Gary is in the mood to talk, you make sure he stays that way, got it?”
“Got it,” she gritted out.
He nodded, then got back in the car. For a minute there, he’d seen red. He’d never been accused of being a traitor before, and Victor sure didn’t like it.
“Sucks, doesn’t it?” Tracy murmured.
He paused, with his hand on the car door.
“When people close to you don’t trust you anymore.”
His gaze sharpened on her.
“See you in Miami,” she muttered.
He slammed the door. Drove away a little too fast.
And didn’t look back.
***
Tracy Adams watched Victor’s tail-lights vanish. That jerk was cutting her out of the case. He didn’t trust her. Sure, she had supposedly been cleared by the FBI, but if her direct supervisor was keeping case secrets from her…
Then no one at the Bureau will ever really trust me again.
She’d find hersel
f demoted. Cut out of all the good cases. Cast aside.
That couldn’t happen.
“Hey, lady!” The taxi driver shouted. “Did you call for a ride?”
Ignoring him, Tracy turned back toward the prison. Victor and his secrets…she was about to discover them. Because she would not lose everything that she’d worked so hard to gain all these years.
No way.
“Lady!” The taxi driver tried once more.
“Screw off,” she tossed back.
Chapter Twelve
Saxon walked Elizabeth to the door of her cottage. He knew the place was equipped with a state of the art alarm system—after all, he’d had Victor install the system. But he still hesitated at her door. “Why don’t you let me go inside first?” Saxon asked her. “Just to make sure everything is safe?”
“Is that why you wanted to see me home? More guard duty?”
He shook his head. “I told you…the lover and the guard are the same.” He took the keys from her. Disengaged the lock. Her security system was beeping and he put in the access code.
“You know my code, too?” There was a sharp note in her voice, one that told him he’d just screwed up.
“Protocol,” he told her without looking back. He was busy scanning her cottage right then. “In case of an emergency, Victor had to be sure I knew it.”
He made his way through the little cottage, searching swiftly but thoroughly, going in all the rooms, stopping only in—
Her bedroom.
Damn, but the place already smelled just like her. Sweet and sexy. His gaze strayed to the bed. A four-poster. What he’d like to do to her in that bed…
“Is it clear?”
Her voice was close.
He turned toward her. “Clear.” But he didn’t move out of that bedroom. He wanted to stay right there, to fuck her all night long.
Forever.
I have it so damn bad.
Elizabeth was in the doorway, watching him carefully. “Who are you?”
“What?”
“Are you the man I met in Miami, the guy who could kill as easily as he could kiss?”
He stiffened.
“Or are you the poised businessman I met today? The guy who had me naked in his office within five minutes?”