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She scanned the open and drying passports, hanging from a wire like a mini-clothesline strung over the desk, and spotted another familiar face. Rosa’s son. Sion had made a passport for him, too. And there were others. Men and women she’d seen at the soup kitchen.
Sion was making false passports to get Central American refugees out of Mexico into safer countries. At one of the printers, she picked up a stack of plane tickets for destinations all over the world, not just the U.S. and Canada.
“Sister?”
Dada jumped a mile. Swinging around, she dropped the passports. Sion squatted on the fire escape, staring at her through the window, his mouth set in a firm, disappointed line.
She brought a hand to her chest. “You scared the life out of me.”
He climbed into the window. “Sorry about that.”
Hard to miss his sarcasm.
“Don’t usually have guests break into my flat. Not sure of the protocols.”
Dada shook her head. “I didn’t break in. The apartment was...”
She trailed off. The apartment couldn’t have been unlocked if he’d left from the fire escape. And, apparently, he had. She turned back to the door, scanned until she spotted the small, nearly invisible device that had registered her entrance. No wonder she’d missed it.
That was very high tech. Hmmm. He used his money for the oddest things. Judging by this room, not really to enrich himself. A gorgeous forger with a big heart. There was definitely more here than met the eye.
She turned back around, smiling. “I need your help.”
Shaking his head, Sion swallowed the distance between them with his sexy swaggering gate. “You broke into my flat because you need my help?”
Silent, he stopped feet from her. She had to crane her neck, which was rare—and uncomfortable—for her. She often thought an unconscious reason women wore heels was to have the advantage of looking a man in the eyes. It made sense. At least to her. Height gave her a better sense of control and situational awareness.
Not having that advantage made her supremely uncomfortable. Not only that, but the heat he directed at her rolled forward like lava, enveloping her senses. Parts of her body tingled, moistened. Her mouth for one. And lower.
He stared down at her with those give-me-a-sign brown eyes. “Want to try again, luv?”
Seemed wrong to lie to eyes that beautiful. Maybe lying wasn’t the way to go. No way to deny what he did to her, how his physical presence made her feel. Gooey. “Help might be the wrong word.” She licked her lips. “I felt a strong need to be near you. With you.”
Feminists everywhere would be cringing at her using her sexuality to get out of this situation. And, internally, so was she. Well, a little.
He was so very hot.
“Really,” he smirked, leaned closer. “Is that how you intend to play this?”
He had a right to doubt her. And she had a right to make his doubts disappear. Quick as a hot second, she fisted his shirt and pulled him to her. Her lips took his, eager and hungry and wild and so very happy to finally, finally be kissing him.
For a breathless moment, his lips were still against hers. But then he moaned. His tongue pushed into her mouth, played against hers. A bare moment of heat and naked desire raked painfully through every cell in her body.
A flash, a millisecond of surrender. So good. She had not felt heat like this... desire like this... well, ever.
Sion jumped back, leaving her breathless and hot and wet. He began to pace the room. “Oh, fuck. Sister. Sorry, I’m... I just can’t...” After a few moments, he turned to her. “You’re not a nun. You don’t kiss like a nun. Tell me the truth. I need to hear it.”
As modern a woman as she was, the idea that he would be so consumed with the desire between them that he would cross that line thrilled her.
But also, seeing his genuine pain and shame, she felt guilt and unease. Such was the life of an undercover agent.
Licking the taste of him, as sweet as any dessert, from her lips, she shook her head. “I can’t absolve you or your sins. If that’s what you’re asking”
He angled his head. “I can’t believe you’re a nun.”
“What do you mean?” She could usually disappear into a role. Was she losing her touch? Or was it that hard for her to play a woman of God? “Why not?”
They stared for a beat. Two. He looked away. “Other than you breaking into people’s flats to ask for…” He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “It’s, you know.” He waved at her.
“Clarify, please.”
Desire was back, filling his eyes. And she could see how hard he was against his jeans.
“If you make me say it—”
“Say it.”
“Surely, Dee, you’ve had men stare at you. You must’ve had people tell you. Surely, you realize how…”
People stared at her. Yes. But she had no idea what people saw when they looked at her.
Unless it seemed a danger, she had no time to waste on looks. “Are you suggesting I’m too beautiful to be a nun?”
That was insulting. She was insulted for nuns everywhere.
“Yes. No. I’m… It’s not your beauty alone. It’s…. You give off a vibe, an energy.”
A vibe? She was giving off a non-nun vibe? Come on. That wasn’t her doing. “If my vibe isn’t pious enough, doesn’t that have more to do with the un-pious inner workings of your own mind?”
“I didn’t break into your flat, rifle through your things, and then give you the hottest kiss of your life. It’s not me who has a piety issue. So let’s try again. Why are you here?”
Chapter 8
Standing in a room full of illegal documents passed to him by his mum, challenging a nun after a kiss that had him as hard as he was confused wasn’t how Sion had thought this day would go.
“I told you why I came.”
“Right. Sure.” He strolled back to her. “Looking for a tumble? Okay. I’m your guy.” Let’s see what she did with that.
Her eyes widened and then traveled the length of him. For a moment, he thought he’d have to put his mouth where her honey was and found he liked that idea. A lot. But she looked away, down, then grasped the bracelet on her wrist. Bugger. Just as he’d feared, she’d broken in for another reason.
Her posture shifted so she stood with one hip slightly out. “You’ve made no secret that you create documents for Walid Grimale. I came here looking for leverage. A way to blackmail you into helping Rosa, but I see now…” She motioned around the room. “Why are you helping her and these others? Guilt?”
Guilt didn’t cover it. He felt sick to his stomach every time he was asked to create a false identity for Walid or one of his goons. But he’d spent six months creating a relationship with Armand, getting his mum to use her
contacts to send him passports, in the hopes of finding Sophia. He scrubbed a hand across his face. “Why would a man help people fleeing a desperate situation find safety? Seems obvious to me.”
Her eyebrows drew in. “But this is at odds with what your boss does. He takes advantage of the turmoil in those areas, no? You do know that that is where many of these women trafficked through here come from? Some are coerced, tricked. Others are taken. Can you even imagine the reality?”
A lump erupted in his throat as he tightened his jaw. He didn’t need to imagine. He remembered. “So this is about Rosa? You broke into my apartment, kissed me, admitted to wanting to blackmail me all to help Rosa. I don’t believe you. Try again.”
She exhaled a sound like surrender. “It’s not just Rosa. I was hoping to use you as an asset.”
That sounded ominous. “Who do you work for?”
Although her eyes never strayed from his face, she grasped that leather bracelet again. Odd. And the only bit of jewelry she seemed to wear.
“I’m an undercover agent, part of the U.S. Catholic Working Group on Global Compacts on Refugees and Migration. The sisters here reached out for assistance. They’re worried about the refugees passing through here. As the woman said yesterday, some have gone missing. We are looking to discover how and put a halt to this.”
Sion’s brow furrowed. “You’re a spy? Sent by the Church to investigate the abuse of refugees?” Wasn’t the Church a bit more patriarchal than that? “I find it hard to believe they’d send a woman.”
Her shoulders straightened. “The Church has a long and deep history of helping refugees globally. And if you doubt that nuns have a hand in that, that we do the difficult work, you need to go back and educate yourself about us.”
She was probably right about that. He knew next to nothing about nuns. But his instinct… Can’t rely on your instinct here, mate. Not when you get tingly every time you look at her.
Right. His judgment was clouded.
