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“Ahhhhh,” Leila moaned. “Again.”

Linc smiled to himself as he bit her earlobe again. He gave her hair one gentle tug so that her head and neck were exposed. He scattered kisses down her jaw, gently on the cheek that had been broken, then rained kisses and licks along her neck until he reached the boat collar of her cream-colored sweater.

She pressed her pelvis closer to his and did a little shimmy.

So sexy.

A phone rang.

Dammit.

“Dammit,” Leila sighed. “Please say that isn’t mine, because I specifically turned mine off.”

Linc looked down at the end table where the room service table was. “No, it’s the hotel phone. I’ll answer it, and we might as well order our food, too. See what you want to drink, and what you would like for dessert.”

“Hello?” Linc answered.

“Mr. Hart. I’m just calling to see if everything is to your liking. Is there anything that we might provide for you?”

Fancy.

“No, we’re covered. We were just going to call down to the restaurant for dinner. We wanted room service.”

“Let me connect you.”

There was a pause.

“Chocolate lava cake?” Leila asked hopefully. “Plus a side of vanilla ice cream?”

“Definitely. How do you want the meat cooked?”

“I usually like mine medium rare, but I’m open.”

Linc smiled. “A girl after my own heart.”

When he was connected, Linc put in the order. By the time he was done, Leila had found the sound system in the room and had connected her phone to it. This time the singer was someone that Linc didn’t recognize, but he liked him.

Leila was standing near the bay windows that looked over the woods they would hopefully hike through tomorrow. He went and stood next to her. She held out her hand and he gripped it. They stood there for a long moment.

“You know, I wasn’t kidding about you being a superhero. I was sure we were going to die.”

Linc thought about how he’d found her in that hole. There she was, shivering, her hair matted, two black eyes where she’d been obviously beaten, sitting on her knees in filthy water, holding up Katherine on her lap as she hummed YMCA.

“You weren’t going to die, Leila. I’ve never met someone who is more of a fighter than you are. I’m betting if you met the devil at the gates of hell, you’d laugh in his face.”

Leila turned and looked at him. “Then you’re seeing someone who isn’t me. I quit the CIA because I was scared.”

“But when the chips were down in Syria, you did what you had to do. That’s my definition of bravery.”

He could see her assessing him. “If you’re looking for someone like a special operations person to be in a relationship with, I’m not your girl. I’m average, and that’s all I want to be. Average. Dad’s the one in the FBI. I only did things with Elijah because he promised it would be translator work that wouldn’t be quite as boring as the political stuff I normally do. I trusted Elijah, that he would keep me safe. Did you know he was my godfather?”

Linc shook his head, waiting for her to say more.

“That time in Turkey was an anomaly too.”

“Are you done?” he asked.

She nodded.