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24
Chloe lay sprawled across his body, drained, exhausted, in a deeper, more abandoned sleep than he’d given her with his cocktail of drugs. She was practically boneless, so relaxed that he doubted even gunshots would wake her.
He couldn’t afford to test that theory. He’d lived to the ripe old age of thirty-four always being aware that failure was an option, and looking out for it. If a stray bullet managed to hit him then she was doomed, and he wasn’t about to let that happen. She was sexually infatuated with him, he accepted that with a strange combination of fatalism and gratitude, and he’d given himself over to her with single-minded dedication and a total lack of restraint. The result was that she was half-dead with pleasure and his own body still trembled occasionally from the aftermath.
She’d get over it. She was a practical young woman, a born survivor, and once he disappeared, either into the murky netherworld of the Committee or the more solid answer of a grave, she’d be able to move on.
But she was never going to get better sex in her life.
It was the one selfish bastard thing he’d kept for himself. He hoped and prayed he’d spoiled her for anyone else. She’d sleep with other men, she’d marry and have children and orgasms with someone other than him. But no one would ever be able to make her body sing as he did, and no matter how ruthless that was, he rejoiced in it.
He let his hand trail down her arm. Her skin was smooth, flawless, with Gilles Hakim’s brutality nothing more than a distant nightmare. If he ever returned to the Committee, Thomason was going to scream bloody murder that he’d wasted that liquid platinum on a civilian. Fuck him. He’d give Chloe anything he could get away with giving her.
Including the safety and freedom that could only come from his complete absence in her life.
Monique was the last danger. He still didn’t know how she’d managed to survive, but she was the most unstable of anyone he’d dealt with while he was working for the Committee. The most unstable of those still alive, that was. People like her didn’t last long in the business—you don’t let personal feelings get in the way of the mission, you didn’t kill for anything other than a job, you didn’t hate, you didn’t love.
But Monique was so eaten up with hatred that she’d managed to survive when no one else had. And instead of rebuilding her power base, she was hunting for Chloe Underwood, simply because she knew it would hurt him. Lure him out of hiding, so that she could kill him as well.
Once Bastien had stopped Monique there would be no more problem, at least for Chloe. Even if he had to go and cut Harry Thomason’s throat to make sure of it.
He knew when her heartbeat shifted, the faint shiver across her skin, and he knew her eyes fluttered open, even though her face was turned away from him. He was strangely attuned to her—they’d slept together only a few times and yet he knew her body, her pulses, the rhythm of her heartbeat and her breathing so well that his own matched hers. He let his hand dance along her arm, just the faintest of caresses, and he could feel her instant response. She wanted more. And, God help him, so did he.
“They’re coming soon,” he said gently. “We need to get dressed.”
She turned her head to look at him, and he could see the dried trace of tears on her face, the mussed hair, the total lack of makeup. She looked younger than ever, innocent in a way that had nothing to do with the inventive hours they’d just shared. Innocent deep in her heart, where he was nothing but an empty core.
“Do we have to?” Her voice was low, husky, sexy. He couldn’t believe he could be wanting her again, so quickly. It was a good thing he was going to be either dead or gone in the next few hours. Now that he’d let down his guard it was more and more difficult to build it up again. And their lives depended on his well-honed talents, that had nothing to do with vulnerability at all.
“We have to,” he said, pushing her hair away from her face. She reached up and caught his hand, bringing it to her mouth, her lips. He had bite marks on his wrist, where he’d had her use her teeth rather than make the noises he was drawing from her, and she’d drawn blood. It gave him a deep, strange satisfaction. “If we’re to have any chance of survival we need to be ready.”
“Any chance? How likely is it?”
He shrugged. “Stranger things have been known to happen.”
“You could always lie to me.”
“Why?”
She pushed away from him, sitting up in the bed. She looked beautiful in the moonlight, no longer self-conscious. He’d marked her as well—love bites at the side of her breast, the roughness of his beard scratching her thighs. It would heal. They would both heal.
“If we’re going to die there’s no harm in telling me pretty lies,” she said. “In the end it won’t matter, and I’ll die happy.”
“I have no intention of letting either of us die. And then where would the lies get us?”
“If you manage to keep us alive then I promise I’ll forget. Just tell me you care about me. If we’re going to die then how important is the truth?”
“It’s because we might die that the truth is particularly important,” he said, making no effort to touch her. “And telling you that I care about you is a waste of time. I wouldn’t have crossed the ocean, come out of hiding and tracked you down if you didn’t matter to me.”
Her smile was tentative, so sweet that if he had a heart it would have broken in it. “Then come up with a better lie. Tell me you love me.”
“You don’t need lies, Chloe,” he said. “I do love you.”
It took a moment for his words to sink in. And then, of course, she didn’t believe him—he could see it in the doubtful expression in her beautiful brown eyes.
“I shouldn’t have asked you,” she said unhappily, starting to move away. “Just forget it…”
He pulled her back, off balance so that she fell against him, and he took her face in his two hands and held it very still while his eyes looked down into hers. Somber, truthful, painfully honest. “I love you, Chloe,” he said. “Which is the most dangerous thing I could do.”
