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strike at her too-sensitive clit.
He thought she was beautiful? She stared back at him silently, her mouth dry, wishing she could come up with something flippant and teasing to return with.
“Thank you,” she finally whispered.
She felt like a fish out of water with this man. On unfamiliar ground. Almost innocent. He made her feel like a teenager experiencing her first crush.
His smile, though careful, was slightly warmer now.
“You’ve been stationed in St. Louis for a while, haven’t you?” he finally asked as he turned beneath the old bridge and followed the road that curved down to the scenic waterway.
“Occasionally.” She reminded herself bitterly of the rules. She wasn’t to give him personal information. She wasn’t to get personal. This was part of her assignment, to relay the information she had found to her contact.
The unit Lillian worked within specialized in gathering information for the other units. In gathering certain intel she had come upon a plot that she knew was directly related to another operation Black Jack’s unit was involved in.
That information was sensitive enough, imperative enough, that she hadn’t been required to go through regular channels to call this meeting. For that, she was extremely happy. It meant she wouldn’t be debriefed nearly as intently over this meeting. It would be a part of her report, nothing more.
They were silent then as he slowed the car and pulled into the paved parking area overlooking the edge of the water. A casino riverboat was passing by, drifting slowly as its paddle churned the water and the patrons laughed gaily from the decks.
How innocent they all looked, she thought. She hadn’t realized how jaded she had become over the years.
Putting the car in park, Jack cut the motor before turning to her. She could feel his stare, the way his gaze raked over her, causing a wave of heat to flash through her body.
“You called the meet,” he finally stated. “What’s the problem?”
All business.
Lillian lifted her lashes and let his gaze catch hers. She felt suspended then, held between duty and desire, between the rules and a hunger she couldn’t explain even to herself.
“Risa Clay.” She finally cleared her throat. “Daughter of Jansen Clay.”
“The traitor who conspired with Sorrell.” He nodded. “I know of her.”
Lillian guessed there wasn’t an Elite Ops member who hadn’t heard of her. Jansen and his ilk were the very reasons why the Elite Ops had been created.
“There’s a contract on her head,” she stated. “Two million, and word is that Orion has taken the contract.”
She watched his eyes then. They narrowed as his jaw tightened. It was a small reaction, but one that assured her that the search for the deadly assassin known only as Orion was still a priority with his unit.
“Why the contract?” he asked her.
“Rumor is, she’s beginning to remember things that someone doesn’t want her to remember. Things such as the man who conspired with her father.”
“The man who raped her.” His voice darkened in fury.
Risa Clay had been brutalized by her rapist, then again by her father when he’d had her drugged and institutionalized for nineteen long, horrendous months. The young woman had been freed upon her father’s death, when the truth had been revealed. But nothing, Lillian thought, would ever ease the nightmares that girl must surely have.
She nodded at the statement. “The man who raped her. Evidently, he’s more influential than first believed. Orion will be arriving in the States within an estimated one to two weeks. He has four weeks to complete the contract by knife.”
That was Orion’s preferred method of death. He’d been known to use a bullet, many times, but he normally liked to play with his victims, especially the women.
“Any hint to arrival point or his identity?” Jack asked.
Lillian shook her head. “Nothing. We’re still working on it, but we’ve been working on it for years with nothing new. I wouldn’t expect that to change in time to save her life. You know how it works, Jack. At least we have a warning this time. It’s more than we usually have when men such as he accept a job. We should count ourselves lucky.”
And she should know. A man such as Orion had destroyed her life, had for all intents and purposes taken her life. And now, she was wondering if the price she had paid for life might have been too high. It was a price that held her back, held her silent, and forced her to deny her need for a man who was just as dead as she.
* * *
