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Risa turned from them all and moved to her bedroom. She couldn’t deal with them. She couldn’t deal with herself at the moment.
As the bedroom door closed behind her, Micah grimaced and turned to Nik and John. The Russian and Australian rarely worked well together, but today it seemed as though they had come to blows.
“Thanks for letting her know about the damned bug in the bedroom,” Micah snapped at the shorter agent.
John’s brows rose. “Mate, you’re getting a little intense, aren’t you?” he drawled, a frown working on his tanned brow as his accent grated across Micah’s nerves. John only let that accent slip free when he wanted to piss someone off.
“I’ll worry about my intensity,” Micah told him. “You worry about getting those bugs to Jordan. See if he can get anything off them.”
“On our way then.” John nodded, though he continued to watch Micah carefully.
John moved for the door as Nik held back. When the door closed behind John, Micah turned to the Russian and lifted a brow questioningly.
“We have base set up across the hall,” Nik told him. “As well as surveillance. Tehya and Kira are on-site and want to discuss Risa’s medical records with you as well as the psychological report. They asked that you come over as soon as possible.”
Micah nodded. He had some questions he needed answered and he knew the two women had consulted with one of the government scientists working to understand the drug and exactly how it worked on the human body.
“I’ll be over there in a few hours.” He nodded as he glanced toward the closed bedroom door where Risa had disappeared.
She was too calm. From the moment she’d backed down from him and agreed to the operation, she had been too damned calm.
“I’ll let them know.” Nik nodded. “We have surveillance on her apartment from across the hall, and we’ll have someone on you whenever you leave. We have Black Jack and Wild Card with the grandmother providing protection there and the Durango team is providing backup here. We should have all our bases covered.”
Should have. If. Maybe. Son of a bitch, Micah didn’t like this. He hadn’t liked it from the beginning, simply because he’d known that even if she survived, Risa would be damaged again by the whole op.
And he’d been right. Last night had been a fucking fiasco. He should have never walked away from her and left her alone in that bedroom, no matter how shaky his control had been.
Two minutes, he’d told himself. All he’d needed was two minutes to get a handle on the need to fuck into her, regardless of the tension that had begun building in her. That tension hadn’t been sexual. It had been fear. Each time she had come close to release, she had locked up, fought it back, and managed to escape the explosive release he had felt building inside her.
Two minutes had given her just enough time to run from him. Just enough time to escape before he could return and ease her into her climax.
He’d been too damned hard, too horny. The need for her had risen inside him like nothing he had ever known before. No woman had ever made him as hungry, as fast, as Risa had.
Micah locked the dead bolts after Nik checked the hall and left the apartment. Turning, Micah stared around the room, wondering how the hell he was supposed to handle this one.
He’d managed to fuck up last night. The combination of the minute quantity of Whore’s Dust that he hadn’t known was in her system and her fears mixed with his own needs had made for a fiasco that had obviously ended up frightening her away. Thank God Nik and John had been outside, seen her leaving, and followed her. With the presence of the bugs in the apartment, it was obvious Orion was already on the job.
And it was obvious Micah and Risa were going to have to talk, very soon. He’d deliberately provoked her earlier, pissed her off, and pushed her into anger rather than shock.
That look of blank horror on her face had stripped his control. For the first time in years, Micah had felt something other than the need for vengeance. The need to protect, the fury at her pain, the control-stripping need to shelter her, had taken hold of him with a stranglehold he had been unable to break. It was no wonder the other members of the unit were watching him warily now.
Pushing his hands wearily over his hair, he stalked into the kitchen, checked the refrigerator and pantry for groceries, and spent time making a grocery list. Next, he moved around the apartment, except for her bedroom, and checked the windows and shades.
Then, he broached the bedroom.
Risa was on the bed staring up at the light fixture curiously. Where would someone have planted a camera? The decorative glass light cover was frosted with a series of designs cascading over it. It took her a while, but as she stared at it, she noticed that within the pattern of raised rosebuds, one was missing. Right in the center.
A glass rosebud for a camera? She imagined it could be done; technology was clearly able to produce one. Too bad that the men who used that technology couldn’t be sane.
Maybe sanity, like beauty, though, was in the eye of the beholder.
God, she was a mess. She could feel herself shaking from the inside out. It had been all she could do to sign her name to the papers the attorney had given her at the Federal Building.
Running and hiding wasn’t an option, he had assured her, as though he had known that was exactly what she wanted to do. Unfortunately, there didn’t appear to be a hole deep enough or dark enough to protect her from the man they called Orion.
A killer. A man who strapped his victims down and drained them of their blood. Watched them die and probably found immeasurable pleasure from it.
She had to press her hand to her stomach. Again. She fought back the need to gag, because there was nothing in her stomach to throw up.
