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Night Hawk
3
He wasn’t exactly what she had expected. A killer shouldn’t be so handsome that he made a woman’s mouth water at the thought of tasting him. He shouldn’t be so rugged that her heart pounded at the thought of riding him hard throughout the night.
A killer shouldn’t haunt her dreams, her fantasies, or her desires.
Yet this one did.
Black Jack. That was his Elite Ops code name. What his true name was, she wasn’t certain. She wasn’t given that information, and she knew she would likely never know who he was, or who he had once been. She was certain, though, that like her, he had once been someone far different from who or what he was today.
She watched as he entered the dark little bar she had arranged to meet him in.
Mostly because it would afford her the chance to watch him walk in, to see that loose-limbed, confident stroll that drew her gaze to his thighs despite her best efforts.
He had fine, muscular thighs. They were encased in faded, soft denim, the material stretching around them, moving with each flex of hard flesh beneath.
Between those thighs. She blew out a silent breath of appreciation at the way the pale
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denim lovingly cupped an impressive bulge. No doubt, the man had no reason to be ashamed when it came to physical endowment.
It made a woman wonder, though - as with most handsome men, was it all packaging?
She almost laughed at herself. Of course it was. It didn’t even matter if the man was handsome. In most cases, ego was his best friend, and of course, he was always the best, no matter what endeavor he set out to accomplish.
Lillian Belle gave a regretful little sigh as her target moved through the shadowed room, his blue-gray eyes sweeping the darkened corners as his well-toned body moved with careful precision.
He was a man on guard, a killer who well understood the rules. But should she judge him for the fact that he did, and would kill again? After all, was she any better?
They had both signed twelve years of their lives away to the Elite Ops in exchange for another chance to live. Elite Operations agents often joked that they signed their lives away, because their missions were often nothing less than suicidal.
She had survived three years of those missions. Three years in which she had sold her soul more times than she had during the five years she had spent as an agent in Europe. She was a ghost. Not really living. She hadn’t really lived in so many years.
Until she met Black Jack.
Blue-gray eyes pinpointed her. Like shards of ice but also burning with an inner flame. Hot and cold, flickering over her with just enough male interest to send her hormones crashing through her system. Just enough interest to remind her that, despite the circumstances of her life at present, she was still a woman. Woman enough to want all the things that she had once promised herself she would never want again.
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5
She didn’t even know him, she told herself as he drew nearer. She knew nothing about him. Jordan Malone, head of the Elite Operations, refused to give her any information. Her own commanding officer acted as though she were committing a sin by even asking.
She shouldn’t concern herself with agents outside her own unit, she was told. Yet, she couldn’t help but concern herself with this particular agent. With this particular man.
She couldn’t stop her heart from beating faster. She couldn’t keep her fingers from trembling in his presence, and when she slept, she couldn’t help but dream.
“You’re early.” His voice was like aged whisky, dark and smooth, caressing the senses even as it heated them.
“I’m always early.” Lillian uncrossed her legs and straightened from where she had leaned against the wall, watching him approach through the dimly lit bar. “You should be used to it by now.”
His lips quirked. Lips that had to have been created with kissing a woman in mind.
Finely molded, not too thin, not too full. A three-day growth of beard covered his lower face, tempted her to touch. Shades of light brown and blond blended together, giving him a rakish, wicked appearance.
“So I should be,” he agreed. His voice, like all Elite Ops agents’, was well-modulated. There was no hint of an accent of any sort. No hint of where he had come from or what nationality he was. There was nothing for her to hold on to, no way to identify the man she was desperate to learn more about.
Pushing her hair back from her shoulder Lillian glanced around the bar. It was one location that she could be fairly certain was safe, but lately, even here, she couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. As though the sights of a gun were constantly on her, a finger caressing the trigger lovingly.
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Paranoia? She wished she could shake off the feeling with such a simple explanation.
“Shall we go for a drive?” she asked, looking up at him as he towered over her, his six-plus feet giving him quite an advantage over her five feet and five inches.
His brow lifted curiously, though there wasn’t so much as a hint of the surprise that he must surely be experiencing. After all, she had never been reluctant to hand over the information she had uncovered to him here. She had personally vetted this bar herself, become a regular, made certain that each inch of the property was familiar and safe.
She didn’t feel safe any longer.
