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“Hush.” I ran my fingers through Hux’s crazy hair. “I’m going to do it. You know that.”
“You’re going to have to… to… be with him,” he said brokenly, speaking aloud what we both already knew. The only way I’d be able to get Linus away from his Horn would require me to change my mind and tell him I was ready to spend the night with him. My “in” with Anomaly was going to have to be a seduction.
I remembered sitting with Hux, watching Champ kiss Vince—watching Quinn watch Champ kiss Vince—and telling him firmly that I was too possessive to watch my boyfriend kiss someone else. Now here I was, putting Hux in that same position, but with an added twist of awful. Linus was a murderer who’d probably be expecting far more than a single close-mouthed kiss.
I blew out a breath. “But then it will be over. Then we can move on. You and me, Hux.”
He lifted his head, and his eyes glowed, not just with the reflected light from outside but with all the things he felt for me. Affection and fear. Tenderness and concern.
Love.
The truth of it was so potent it nearly stole the breath from my lungs. Hux loved me. Loved me. Maybe as much as I loved him.
I bit back a whimper. The need to tell him, to say the words, was nearly painful. But a niggle in my gut, or maybe the last thin layer of self-protection I held stubbornly around my heart, told me this was not the time.
I wanted that to come later, when the danger was past. I wanted him to look at me—plain old Kev Rogers, complete with black glasses and endless awkwardness—and make his declaration so I’d never have to wonder whether he’d spoken too quickly in the heat of the moment.
Hux’s gaze searched my face, and then he nodded. “You and me. I like that.” He pressed a lingering kiss to each of my palms before pulling back.
He got to his feet, ran a hand through his hair, and inhaled sharply. “Okay. So we’re doing this. I’m gonna be with you every step of the way, in your ear and on the button cam—”
I shook my head. I understood what he was saying, the overwhelming protectiveness that made him say it, but just the thought of that made me want to puke. “No way. I’m not wearing standard surveillance gear with a federal agent who may have been trained on the same stuff. Not to mention…” God, I really hated that I had to bring this up. “Button cams only work when you’re wearing buttons, and earwigs only work when someone’s not gonna be up close and personal with your, um… ear.”
Hux looked close to vomiting. I was really, seriously hoping that I could accomplish this without losing a stitch of clothing or getting anywhere near Anomaly, but I had to be ready, and Hux knew it.
“Maybe you guys can get in beforehand and set some bugs or cameras? Or can you, like, snake things in through the vents?” I forced myself to shut up before I made it even more apparent that I didn’t know the difference between movie tech and real-life tech when it came to spy gear, because that only highlighted the other truth we both knew—I wasn’t trained for this.
My mouth stretched in a rictus grin. “Gonna be fine.”
He stared at me for a prolonged moment before leaning down to kiss me. It was gentle and slow, sweet and somehow heartbreaking. Like a just-in-case goodbye or a heartfelt apology.
I broke it off with a small smile when Hux would have deepened it. I didn’t have the emotional energy for a sad goodbye. Not when it was taking everything I had to be a strong, brave Champion Security team member who had his shit together.
“Let’s go,” I said, standing up. “Let’s do this.”
We spent the next several hours coming up with a plan. It was clear from the way they contributed that Laurel, Vince, and Buck were on our side. Their eagerness to bring the perpetrators of this scheme down was obvious in their willingness to stay and hash out even the most boring details.
Through the night, we learned more about how this clusterfuck had come to be. About how Buck had been leery of trusting Champ since he worked for HOG Corporate, the company Buck claimed had “stolen” his life’s work and then kicked him out. About how Vince’s anger and spite over Champ’s insistence on moving to “the backwoods” and the ensuing breakup had led him to start skimming money in the first place, leading to his involvement with the cartel, but that it wasn’t until Linus Dixon had ratted out an associate who’d ended up very dead at the feet of Gustavo Santiago that Vince had agreed to do what he did to Quinn that day at the farmhouse last month.
