Chapter 28
No matter how much I dreaded this conversation, my discomfort didn’t stop the clock from ticking down.
Camile stirs and bolts upright in the bed, fists clenching the blanket I covered her with. The color in her cheeks is gone a second later. “What’s wrong?”
Shit.
I scrub my hands over my face again. “Plenty.”
I’m not a gentle man, but even I know that I should probably have eased her awake for this conversation. The rustle of bedding is followed by the sound of her feet on the tile as she approaches me. When I’m done clenching my eyes closed, I open them to find myself looking at her bare feet.
Slim, delicate feet with pretty toes. A memory of them hooked in my thighs makes me flinch.
Is this the last time I’ll see them… and the rest of her?
She touches my shoulder, just a light brush as if she’s testing the feel of a wild animal’s fur. “Lucas, please, you’re scaring me. Did something happen with the man… the guy who tried to drag me away?”
“Scout has him. I’m going to interrogate him shortly.”
Her hand flinches and she jerks it away from me. This time, I let my gaze move up the curves of her naked body to her face. The pain I see there makes me feel like a real dick. I just made a bad situation even more fucked up by not telling her more quickly this isn’t about having sex with her.
I catch her wrist and pull her toward me, dragging her to stand between my knees. Her body is rigid when I band her waist with my hands. The breath leaves her lungs when I press a kiss to the soft spot below her breasts. “You think I’m upset about what happened between us?”
“You look like I flushed your favorite pet fish.”
I inhale against her. “No, nothing like that, but I know you’re going to do serious damage to my heart.”
My face scrunches up and my eyes close in regret.
I can’t believe I just said that.
I’ve got my forehead pressed against her sternum and my nose resting between her breasts when a slow exhale stirs my hair. She frames my face with her hands.
I do combat with a groan that tries to build inside me, and I nearly lose when she slides those delicate fingertips into my hair.
“What happened?” she asks in a soft, concerned voice.
I don’t want to tell her. I want to hold onto what we shared. This is the stupidest, most selfish thought I’ve ever had.
She needs to know. This is her life, not mine. As much as I want to fix things for her, that is not my job. This thing isn’t going anywhere. I got those vibes from her loud and clear.
I pull her into my lap and bury my face in her hair. It’s wild and free, a riot of waves this morning. Tangled from my hands, curly from her sleeping on it when it was wet.
Her arm slides around my neck, delicately hooking me to her, and her other hand comes to rest over my thudding heart.
The rhythm is uncoordinated and extra hard, surely transmitting through the bone for her to feel.
She sighs fretfully. “You’re not okay, Lucas, and I want you to tell me what’s wrong. Did something happen with your case?”
“There’s been a new development.” I pull her tighter in my arms as I force a swallow. “In your situation…”
She inhales sharply and stiffens. “Oh my god, Lucas. Is everyone okay?”
“Your team is fine.”
She tries to twist out of my arms. Her voice rises as her fingers bite into my arm. “What’s going on, Lucas?”
“Another man was looking for you early this morning.”
In a flash, her energy shifts, turning cold. Her voice is low and oddly calm. “Who is he?”
“The guy says his name is Thomas.”
Tensely, she asks, “Did he come over here to this area?”
“No, he’s in town. Evan ran into him over by the FamFind set-up this morning when he went to check on things.”
A quiver sets loose in her muscles telling me exactly how upset she is about this news. But her voice is cold and distant. “What does he look like?”
“I haven’t seen him. Evan is the only one to talk with him.”
She forcefully pushes off of my lap and hurries across the room to her pack. “My boss said a guy was coming to meet with me about some things we have in our inventory.”
“Camile.”
She rifles through the clothes in her pack. Jerks on a pair of panties, then a pair of shorts. She’s about to pull her shirt over her head when I stride across the floor and press my front against her back. “Camile, listen to me.”
“I have to go.” She wiggles into one of her FamFind shirts—without even bothering to put on a bra—and pulls out of my hands. Her knee knocks her backpack off the small bench where it was sitting. It falls between our feet, spilling its contents.
Camile makes a startled sound and freezes. Probably because she knows exactly what I’m looking at.
A lock-picking kit. Not a cheap thing off Amazon. This is a pro-level setup. And next to it, a small digital recorder no larger than a tube of lip balm. And there’s a very small camera with one single purpose—photographing documents. But the fingerprint kit might just take the cake.
When she looks up at me, there’s something in the windows to Camile’s soul I haven’t seen before. Deceit.
She’s avoided my questions, she’s been vague and mysterious, but this is the first time that the woman I’ve got an unnerving attraction to is going to lie to me.
“Care to start talking?”
After staring at me for a loaded second, she looks away, biting the inside of her lip. Hands hanging limply by her sides, she looks out the window. “It’s complicated, Lucas.”
There has to be steam curling off of my body. “That’s all you’re going to say?”
With her features tightly masked, Camile walks to the mess on the floor and kneels down. She shoves the spycraft tools into her pack, pushes two satellite phones back inside, and zips the bag closed. When she’s done, she stands up and looks me right in the eyes. “Please, don’t ask anything else.”
Rigid from my toes to my scalp, with my throat bone dry, and my intestines bathing in ice-water, I stare down at a woman who seriously misunderstands who I am.
Fuck that.
Fuck, that noise.
I’m about to wade neck-deep in Camile’s shit. Whoever the fuck she is. Hell, Camile might not even be her real name.
Circuits in my brain crackle.
My nostrils flare—I could breathe fire—I’m so angry. Far angrier than I should be, but with this woman, nothing in my emotional control owner’s manual applies.
Seeing my fury, Camile takes a couple of slow, careful steps back.
I fight to keep my tone low. “You need to tell me everything. Who the fuck are you?”
She skirts past me.
I follow her until she’s against the door. We breathe angrily at each other. I plant my hand on the door above her head.
When she turns the color of chalk and blinks four hundred times in the span of sixty seconds, I cup her face in my hand. “Christ, I’m sorry.”
She licks nervously across her pale lips.
“I don’t hurt women. I would never hurt you, no matter what fucking bullshit is going on right now. But you owe me an explanation for everything.”
A pained wince tightens her features. She levels her gaze on the center of my chest and exhales raggedly. “When you were a SEAL, you had things you couldn’t talk about.”
This very true statement reverberates between us. My work still involves secrets that I can’t talk about.
“Who do you work for?”
“FamFind.”
I tip her chin up. The maelstrom of emotions in her hazel eyes kicks me in the gut. This woman is in deep. Probably over her head.
I feel sorry for Camile. She’s been through a lot. She’s the way she is because of what she’s experienced in life.
A lot of things click into place. If she really is an operative of some sort, that explains a lot about who she really is.
I’ve been around enough people in the spec ops and spy world to know that these individuals are chosen because they have broken foundations. Things that made them distrustful of the world.
Before I really fuck up and kiss her again, I step back.
She sags against the door and massages her temple with a trembling hand.
I never saw this coming. A fucking operative.
My own hand goes to the back of my neck, where I squeeze the strung-tight muscles. “Evan and Truck talked to him. He says he has a message for you from your boss.”
Camile seems to expect something bad. Her eyes close as she shrinks back into the door as if she wishes she could disappear into the wood. “What did he say?”
“Do you know someone named Ralph?”
Her eyes widen. Lips part. She gapes at me for a second as she clutches her chest. “Yes. Why?”
But no matter how prepared, her body jolts when I deliver the bad news. “The man that showed up said he’s here on behalf of Ralph. He said Ralph fired you and he’s been sent here as your replacement.”