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“There’s so much you don’t know,” he finally sighed against the shell of her ear. “Why I’m here. What has to be done.”
“Then tell me, Noah.” She lifted her head and stared back at him, her gray eyes dove soft, filled with anger and with need. “I’m not a child. I’m not some little ditz that can’t understand or handle the realities of life.”
Noah stared back at her, feeling the wild pulse of hunger tightening between them, and the need for answers blazing in her eyes.
“I already know part of it,” she said softly. “You can sleep with me? Torture me with everything I can’t have, but you can’t tell me the truth?”
Only so much of it, and he knew it. But parts of it, considering what was coming tomorrow, parts of it she had to understand. When this operation started moving, it would move fast. He needed to know she could protect herself, she had to know she needed to stay safe. For him. For his sanity.
“Ride with me,” he invited her, knowing that the partial truths would have to come tonight. Who he was, what he had been, would have to remain a secret, forever.
“I wore shorts.”
He shook his head. “I’ll be careful. Come on.” He pulled back as the music stopped. “We’ll ride.”
Sabella took his hand, her heart thudding in her chest, a feeling of hope rising inside her, though a part of her knew, a part of her accepted, he wasn’t going to tell her who he was.
But she couldn’t stop hoping.
She was aware of the eyes watching them as they left that bar. Rory and Toby stood as they passed. She took a second to shoot Rory a narrow-eyed look. The day was going to come when they were going to talk. Hard and deep. And that day wasn’t far off.
She didn’t confront him now, wouldn’t confront him until Noah left, because she needed to know. She had to know what had happened to her husband, why he hadn’t come back to her as he should have. But even more, she needed to know that he wasn’t leaving her. That no matter the things he needed to sort out, that he intended to stay. That he intended to claim her again.
“Rory called you, didn’t he?” she asked as he helped her on the back of the Harley before straddling the machine himself.
“Rory called.” His voice was harder now. Cool. “How do you feel about a ride to the city park?”
He pulled off his jacket before turning and helping her into it.
She nodded slowly. “The park sounds fine.”
The Harley throbbed to life. The motor vibrated with throttled power before Noah kicked up the stand, kicked it in gear, and pulled out of the parking lot.
The summer air whipped through her hair. The remembered sense of freedom that overcame her brought a smile to her face as she wrapped her arms around Noah’s lean waist and held on as he headed to the small park.
Medina Park was small, beautifully kept. Noah pulled into the deserted parking lot and helped her off the motorcycle.
Holding her hand, he led her along a narrow walkway until they turned into a small sheltered picnic area. A lone table sat in the shadowed area, together with the dim outline of an iron barbecue grill.
Sabella shoved her hands into the pockets of the jacket as she stepped up on the seat of the table and sat on the wide bench of the table itself.
“Why here?”
“No ears to listen,” he said, sighing. “And if there were, I’d know it.”
His head turned as though probing the shadows.
“You can see that well in the dark then?” Nathan had always had exceptional sight, even in the dark.
“You know I’m here for a reason, Sabella,” he finally bit out, moving until he was sitting behind her, his powerful legs bracketing hers, his arms looping around her as he pulled her back against his chest.
“Have you heard about the bodies they found in the national park?” he asked her then.
Sabella nodded carefully.
“Legals and illegal aliens alike, as well as three FBI agents, have died over the past year or so, victims of a vicious hunt. I’m trying to track the men who did this, get the evidence needed, and turn it over to the federal agents working the case.”
“You’re not an agent?” Something inside her tightened into a hard knot of pain.
