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“Really?” Isabelle breathed.
“Got him up near Moran around four today. He had a rocket launcher!”
“Holy shit.” That was why Tom was late. That was why he hadn’t called. It had nothing to do with her.
“I’m sure glad they finally found him,” Jill went on. “A rocket launcher. No team of marshals could’ve stopped that. Poor Tom.”
“Is he okay?” she gasped.
“Yes! I just don’t like thinking about what could have happened.”
“Me, either,” Isabelle said, her throat thicker with emotion than it should have been. “Wow.” When her phone beeped, her heart skipped. “I think Tom’s calling. I’d better go. Thank you so much for telling me.”
As soon as she clicked over, Tom said, “I’m sorry I’m late.”
“I just heard!” she squealed. “You did it!”
“We did it,” he said, sounding deeply pleased.
“God, Tom. I’m so happy for you. You’re okay? Everyone is okay?”
“We’re fine. I’ve got about another hour of processing ahead, and then I’m sending my whole team to bed.”
“Including yourself?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice softer.
Her heart fell a little. “You must be really tired.”
“I am. Will you take me in?”
She sighed, letting go of the disappointed breath she’d held inside her. “Yes.”
Yes, she’d let him in. To her house. Her body. Maybe even her confidence.
She shook her head at her own thoughts. No. She couldn’t do that. It didn’t matter that she’d been fantasizing about a relationship with him. She couldn’t let it matter.
“I’ll see you soon,” he promised.
Isabelle hurried through packing the first few paintings, but her heart was no longer in it. She got the first box into her SUV and then rushed to her bedroom. She’d already showered and pulled up her hair, but she suddenly wanted to look nicer.
He’d caught Stevenson. He’d be moving on soon, and she couldn’t follow. A few more nights with him, and that would be it. A few more really good nights, and she would let him go.
It had been stupid to ever engage him. Stupid and dangerous, and she never should have done it, but God... She couldn’t quite regret it.
She’d told herself she was never lonely, but maybe she had been. Lonely for that deep, primal connection that wasn’t exactly sex. It was a profound demand to be wanted and seen and desperately needed. Something she’d never had and so hadn’t known she was missing.
This was that thing that kept a woman connected to a man she couldn’t have. The thing that kept a man with a lover he could barely stand. Some animal vibration that hit all of your chords with the exact right note. She barely knew him, but her body craved him already.
Maybe it hadn’t been stupidity that had led her to get involved with a man so likely to learn her secrets. Maybe she’d wanted him to see her. Everything about her. Maybe she was tired of the lie.
That was too bad. Tired or not, now that she was looking exposure right in the face, she wanted to gather all her secrets tight to her and hold on to them forever. If the FBI didn’t know about her, that was the end of her risk taking. She had to end it with Tom. Just not tonight.
She tugged on jeans and quickly painted her toenails bright red. Then she put on a blue shirt that looked deceptively modest, but she loved the way the loose, draped lines parted occasionally to reveal a deep, narrow neckline that dipped low between her breasts. She didn’t bother with a bra. He loved her breasts, and she wanted him thin
king about them.
She added a little color to her cheeks and her lips, and hoped that would be enough to make her look younger, prettier, more rested...whatever it was she was going for. She just wanted him to need her. To take one look and remember the taste of her on his tongue. That was all. Just the kind of need that would make him remember that taste forever.
