Rocco hadn’t seen Jemma in five days.
The rest of the grueling test of his abilities had been performed without her watchful eye. As much as he tried to put her out of his mind, he found himself looking for her each day in case she showed up. But he knew she wouldn’t. They were dangerously close to plunging off a cliff into an abyss that shouldn’t be explored. He wastoo close to realizing his dream of being on the front lines of taking down a major cartel. He couldn’t let his libido ruin things for him.
Rocco stared down at his fifth, or was it his sixth, rum and coke and wondered why the liquor was having little impact on drowning his memories of Jemma. Purging an attraction was handled in only one way: fucking the woman’s brains out until he proved to himself that she wasn’t anything special after all. That was how it always turned out when he was consumed by a woman. It wouldn’t be different with Jemma if he could execute the purge.
Sadly, that would never be an option.
Crossing the line with the group supervisor of the team he wanted more than anything to join was reckless, which explained why his mind was playing tricks on him. He’d found a woman that was damn near close enough to fill the role. But would a Jemma substitute suffice?
He swallowed a mouthful of his drink, barely tasting it as he glanced across the dance floor.
The woman in the clingy yellow minidress stood out from the crowd. He wasn’t the only man in the room riveted by her radiating beauty and confidence. She appeared like a replica of Jemma, but the more he stared, the more he realized this woman was a step above his future handler. She was sexy and carefree, playful and teasing as she leaned against the bar and allowed herself to be ogled.
They were separated by the dance floor, but he could see the sheen of sweat coating her chocolate-brown skin. A solitary bead slid down the side of her face to her neck, then caressed its way between her sexy breasts. The trail paved a path for his tongue to follow, to revel in her salty sweetness before he pressed his face between her thick thighs.
Placing his empty tumbler in the bin of a passing busboy, Roccomade up his mind. He wasn’t going home alone. He was taking the woman in the yellow dress with him.
The other guys falling all over themselves for her attention were no competition. He’d caught her staring at him almost as much as he’d stared at her. It was time for him to end this madness and give in to what his body craved. All thoughts of Jemma were long gone.
Deciding against fighting through drunk dancers, Rocco walked along the perimeter of the dance floor. He lost sight of her a few times but knew she wouldn’t get far. Reaching the end of the bar, he pushed past a rowdy bachelorette party and set his sights on the woman.
Only a few feet away, the woman in the yellow dress was surrounded by the throngs. She danced, swayed, and rolled her body to the music, turning his dick into stone.
But he was too fucking late.
Tall, muscular, and dressed in a suit that likely cost Rocco’s monthly salary, a dark-haired man pushed against the woman in the yellow dress, tugging on her elbow as he whispered in her ear. She looked up at him, recognition in her eyes.
A former lover or, worse, a current boyfriend.
Rocco took a few steps away from the dance floor. His gaze followed the couple as the man led her toward the back of the club, probably for a quickie. He would give anything to trade places with that bastard right now. The woman in the yellow dress jerked her head around, eyes full of panic as if she was searching for someone.
And that’s when it struck him.
He stepped forward, staring at her.
She wasn’t a Jemma lookalike.
His heart thudded in his chest.
That was … Jemma.
And she needed him.
Chapter 13
The warm air that clung to her skin was now icy. Jemma shivered uncontrollably, looking into the obsidian eyes of Nomar Ortiz.
The past rushed back like a tidal wave—coy smiles and subtle flirting as she reeled Nomar in, tricking him into believing her cover as an au pair for his young son. The boy’s mother had been stabbed, beheaded, and posed like a scarecrow in the yard of the mansion as a message for the Ortizes to stay true to their agreements with the cartels of Mexico. He was devastated and lonely, struggling to care for his baby boy while maintaining a tenuous grip on enforcing loyalty within his father’s drug cartel.
He’d needed Jemma to relieve the stress of caring for the baby he loved dearly. She’d been his lifeline. Jemma had ingratiated herself within the criminal organization by slipping into the bowels of the family. Nomar was blinded by his feelings for her and unable to fathom that there was any risk in keeping her by his side at all times. He was a jealous man and would kill anyone who threatened to take her from him. That was how she’d found herself in luxurious rooms with high-ranking members of cartels, aneyewitness to the crimes the Ortiz Cartel committed with their partners.
With that access and strategic hacking into the financial records maintained by Aurelia, Jemma had been successful in amassing evidence against Nomar’s father, the drug lord Manny Ortiz. It was estimated that Ortiz was responsible for fifteen percent of the cocaine trafficked and sold throughout the Caribbean. In less than two and a half years, she’d brought the man to his knees.
As Manny and dozens of his cartel members were hunted down, arrested, and sentenced to prison, there was only one blight on Jemma’s stellar record.
The death of Aurelia Vasquez by the one member of the Ortiz Cartel who’d vanished without a trace. Jemma believed the operation to infiltrate the Sombro Cartel would bring her closer to finding Nomar.
But he’d found her instead.
