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Dakota leaned down and grabbed her blankets, covering herself as she sat up, wondering if he was even going to bother telling her good-bye. For his sake, he’d damn well better do that.
When he appeared in her doorway, he was fully dressed. She tried not to show her disappointment. If he wasn’t going to let her savor this moment, it was better for both of them if he left.
“I guess this means there won’t be a round two?” she said with an innocent smile.
He looked at her again as if she was insane. She probably was. After all, look how long she’d waited to have sex for the first
time. A sane woman wouldn’t do that.
“No,” he snapped. Then, he turned to leave and paused, facing her again. “At least not tonight.”
He didn’t say anything more after that, just turned and walked away. Dakota should have been furious, but she couldn’t keep the grin from spreading across her face. That had been the single most incredible moment of her life. And she wanted to relive it again and again and—
There was a knock on her door, and she smiled. He’d been gone for less than an hour. Guess he wanted round two after all. She thought about going to the door naked, but though she was confident, there might be some neighbors passing by, and that was a lot more of her than she wanted to show the world.
Grabbing her silk robe, she threw it on, barely taking the time to loosely tie the sash. She should make him wait, but she was too excited. She thrust open the door with a big grin that quickly fell away.
Maybe she should have checked to make sure it was actually Ace standing on the other side of her door so late at night.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ace had never been one to kick himself. He didn’t believe in wrong decisions, or regrets. Everything happened for a reason. But what he couldn’t figure out as he drove away from Dakota’s place was how he couldn’t have known how innocent she truly was.
He felt as if he’d taken advantage of her, and he really didn’t like the feeling. He wasn’t a man who slept with women who didn’t know the score. Sex was as natural to the body as food and water. He didn’t like going too long without it. But that’s why he was always with women who believed that as much as he did.
He’d never have guessed Dakota hadn’t been with a man before. And while he felt shame at having taken her so fast and hard, he also felt an immense sense of possession over her, which was making his brow furrow. She was now his—only his!
Ace wanted to push those feelings away, wanted to think of her as nothing more than a good time, but no matter how hard he tried to reset his mind, he couldn’t do it. He cared about this woman. She’d just given him a gift unlike any he’d ever been given before. It wasn’t something he could look at lightly. But there was still the problem of him having to leave again to get back to work. How could she be his, when he wouldn’t be around to be hers? When in the hell had he developed a conscience?
When his phone rang, he ignored it. There weren’t too many people who would be calling him, especially at night, and though it might be nice to get out of his own head for a while, he felt too powerless to do that.
He was consumed with thoughts of this woman who had appeared in his life, and whom he couldn’t seem to push away. It didn’t matter if he told himself all day long that he needed to walk away from her for his own sanity and her safety. That just didn’t seem possible.
A second later his phone rang again, and he glared ahead at the dark roads before him. The phone stopped, and he thought maybe the person on the other end of the line would finally take a hint. Why he didn’t just silence the damn thing, he didn’t know.
Maybe it was his years of training and having to stay alert that made him incapable of cutting off all communication with the outside world. He didn’t know. Ace would like nothing more than to get lost on some exotic island with no chance of talking to anyone, but he could never do that. What if something happened, like one of his brothers getting into another airline crash? He had to be able to access his family, even if he didn’t like the information he was given.
When his phone went off again, he cursed before lifting it, not recognizing the number on his caller ID. He thought about tossing the device out his car window and smiled, but instead he accepted the call and grumbled a very irritated hello into the mouthpiece.
“Ace, we need to have a meeting.”
The person didn’t need to identify himself. It was his boss from the CIA, Bill Hammond.
“I’m on leave,” Ace told the man, irritated. Ace hadn’t taken a single day off in so many years he’d lost track of the count. He deserved this much-needed rest. He wanted that to be clear.
“Not anymore, you’re not. Meet me at this address.” Bill rattled off an address of a lavish hotel in downtown Seattle.
The phone went dead. Ace thought for a moment about calling Bill back and telling his boss to go to hell. He’d dealt with enough in the last eight years. He didn’t owe any of them anything.
But Ace found himself exiting the side road he was on and turning around. The place his boss wanted to meet up wasn’t far from his current location. Ace wouldn’t be surprised if he was being tracked and the CIA knew exactly where he was at all times. It was their job to be informed.
Ace pulled up at the busy hotel and sat in his car for several moments. He was aware of people milling about, some just arriving, some stepping out in formal wear for a night on the town. No one looked suspicious. The situation was secure.
He handed over his keys to the valet attendant after checking him out, making the young man squirm. Ace knew he could be intense, but that kept people on their toes. He hoped he never lost that edge.
Once he stepped through the tall glass doors, Ace made his way through the lobby to the bar at the back of the hotel. It didn’t take long for him to find Bill. He sat down without saying a word, but he had no doubt Bill was reading the look in his eyes very clearly.
“Glad you could get here so fast,” Bill said. The man wore a long-practiced poker face that rivaled that of anyone Ace had ever known. There was no way to know what the man was thinking or feeling. Ace liked it, though. He’d tried perfecting the same look himself through the years.
