Chapter Five
LUKE
I don’t even bother to eye the caller ID. I know it’s Blake. “Yeah, boss,” I say, answering on speaker. “You’ve got me and Ana.”
“Parker never showed up at the airport. We can’t reach him.”
Parker was one of the men working with me that night in Egypt when I was forced to kill Kasey. They went after him, too, but unlike Jake, he got away alive.
My fingers curl on the steering wheel with this news.
He was a good man.
“He wouldn’t no-show,” I say tightly. “He was either forced to go off the radar or he’s dead, most likely dead. Where are Adam and Savage?”
“They’re following a vehicle I captured on the street feed. What do I need to know on your end?”
“Darius dropped a phone in Ana’s pocket. When it rang, I answered. It was the same bastard who killed Jake. He wants the package. I told him I want a payday. He was desperate enough to buy my story. Obviously, he’s beholden to someone he doesn’t want to disappoint. He gave me five days. The interesting part of this story, though, is where he wanted to meet up. He chose Ana’s property. Anyone who knows Ana’s father and the facility she inherited knows it’s booby-trapped out the ass.”
“Unless they were close enough to the family to know the traps,” Blake suggests. “Who would that be, Ana?”
“No one comes to mind,” she says, “but I also don’t know who my brother might have let in on the family secrets.”
Trevor,I think, considering he and Kasey were the ones running the dirty job behind my back. “Any word on Trevor’s present state of life or death, Blake?”
“As soon as you two stop getting in fucking trouble, I’ll finish looking for him. On that note, go rest. We’re now operating on a clock. By my estimation, we have four days and twenty-three hours until D-day.” He disconnects.
I reach for the door. Ana catches my arm, her touch burning through me, my cock instantly hard. I’m on edge and I know myself well enough to know I need to come down. I need an outlet. Just that fast, I want to pull her to me, to feel her warm and wet body squeezing my cock, right here in the car. I’m about to make it happen, to yank her across my lap, when she asks, “You think Parker is dead?”
Fuck. We’re having this conversation. “He’s dead.”
“How does that help them find the package?”
“It reminds me that if I don’t deliver the package, more people die.” My lips press together, my nerves ticking with a mix of anger and self-blame I was working real fucking hard to escape a few seconds ago. Now I’m swimming in all kinds of bullshit.
I told the men who worked for me that the jobs we took were safe. Ana trusted me to bring Kasey home. I failed on all counts. Suffocating in my own emotions, I open the door, exiting the car.
Ana is out before I can round the car, joining me at the door. I open it and allow her to enter first. She hesitates, studying me, and I feel the push of words she wants to speak but bites back. Does she want to call me a killer? Maybe she won’t say it, but I know she’s had that thought. She enters the house. I follow her down a small hallway and into a kitchen with a connected living room.
The place is nice, I guess, modern, with a giant white island and a whole lot of navy blue everywhere. Not that I give two fucks about décor right now or ever. Ana takes it all in beside me for about thirty seconds and then turns to face me. “You were deep ops,” she says, her segue to logic I’m never going to hear right now. “Easy jobs or not, the work comes with risks and they all knew the risks, including me. You know you didn’t get Parker or anyone else killed.”
She’s wrong, but she doesn’t want to hear that right now, and I’m not in the mood to have her dogmatic desire to win this battle. Because she won’t. Then we won’t. And I’m pretty damn tired of us losing together.
I reach for her, pull her into me, mold her close, and despite everything hard and harsh about this night, she is a soft, heady mix of past and present that both torments and soothes in one hot minute. My cock is hard, pressing against my zipper, my body tense with the adrenaline rush of wanting her like I never wanted anyone but Ana. But then, me craving her, everything about her with all-consuming need is nothing new, nor is it anything I’ve ever attempted to resist. That’s another battle with Ana I’d lose but do so happily. This, her and I naked and wild for each other, won’t erase the pain or anger of the past, or even my guilt about the men we’ve lost, but it damn sure offers a really fucking amazing outlet.
My hand frames her jaw and tilts her head back to look at me, but I don’t reply to her words. Kissing her makes a whole hell of a lot more sense. Her breath is warm, her lips tempting, and I savor how familiar and right this feels, no matter how much our history tells me it’s wrong.
I lower my mouth to hers, a prelude to getting her naked, which is where I do my best talking.
“Kissing me won’t end this conversation,” she promises.
“It will,” I assure her. “It abso-fucking-lutely will. At least until we get our clothes back on.”
With that, my mouth closes down on hers in a kiss meant to seduce her and drug me in the way only Ana can.