14. Mira
fourteen
Mira
" T alk to me."
His voice cuts through the white noise in my head. No commands. No manipulation tactics I can identify and counter. Just... patience.
The rooftop offers escape from Cole's tactical briefings and Vanessa's keyboard symphony—twelve hours tracking container GPS signatures we'll never officially acknowledge.
Ocean breeze carries salt from the cliffs below, mixing with jasmine from the garden.
City lights spread like scattered diamonds below.
Twenty-three distinct voices he could make out through the steel. Jax counted each one.
His hand finds my shoulder—not sexual, just contact—but my body responds anyway. Heat spreads from that single point, making my breath catch.
"Nothing to discuss." My fingers grip weathered wood until splinters bite. "Mission parameters achieved. Intelligence gathered."
"Bullshit."
The word hangs between us without judgment. Just fact.
He shifts closer, his hand sliding down to my elbow, fingers wrapping loosely. That innocent touch makes my whole arm tingle "You've been up here an hour. You only isolate when something's really wrong."
How does he read me so easily? I've spent thirteen years perfecting emotional invisibility.
My training kicks in automatically. Study his posture, vocal patterns, micro-expressions for manipulation. But Jax's other hand runs through his hair, making it stick up at angles that shouldn't be so endearing. The nervous energy radiating from him creates an odd flutter beneath my ribs.
He's not pushing. That's... new.
"Katka." The name escapes him, raw and broken. "That was her name. The girl in container two."
My hand moves without permission, covering his where it rests on my elbow. His skin burns fever-hot.
"You couldn't have—"
"I know." His fingers interlace with mine, desperate pressure. "Doesn't make her voice stop echoing."
Our bodies drift closer without conscious thought. Arms pressing together from shoulder to wrist, and that simple contact fractures my concentration.
He's offering comfort, not taking anything.
"Maintaining cover requires emotional compartmentalization." The clinical response flows automatically even as his thumb traces my knuckles. "Personal feelings compromise operational security."
"Fuck, Mira. You sound like a training manual."
Heat floods my face. Nobody calls out my defensive mechanisms so directly.
"I am what the situation made me."
"No." He steps behind me, chest barely grazing my back, hands bracketing mine on the railing. Not trapping—I could move easily. But the warmth of him makes my knees weak. "You're what someone else made you believe you had to become. That's different."
Don't let him see how those words hit. Don't give him that weapon.
But something breaks in my chest anyway. Some wall I didn't know existed until it started crumbling.
"A child in container three couldn't stop coughing." His breath warms my neck. "Maybe tuberculosis. Maybe just terror. I'll never know."
I turn in the cage of his arms, back against the railing. Red-rimmed eyes, jaw clenched so tight the muscle jumps. Without thinking, my hand rises to cup his face. He leans into the touch immediately, desperately, eyes closing.
"Vanessa's tracking them. We'll get them back."
"Not soon enough for some."
"No. Not soon enough."
His forehead drops to mine. The contact shouldn't affect me, but my whole body responds—nipples tightening against tactical fabric, breath shallow, pulse racing at my throat.
"You don't have to carry everything alone, you know." His hands find my waist, thumbs moving in restless patterns against my ribs. "That's what... partnerships are for."
Partnership. Not relationship, not something with expectations and emotional landmines. Just... shared burden.
My pulse hammers harder. This feels more lethal than any assassination contract. More terrifying than facing Alexei Petrov with ceramic blades and rage.
He makes me want things I can't afford to want.
"I've never had a partner. Not really." The admission escapes before I can stop it. "Everyone wants something. Everyone has an angle."
"What's mine?"
I search his face for tells. For the calculation behind the question. Find nothing but genuine curiosity mixed with exhaustion and something that looks suspiciously like concern.
He should want something. Everyone wants something.
"I don't know yet. That's what makes you unpredictable."
His laugh carries no humor. His hands tighten on my waist, pulling me flush against him. The sudden full-body contact makes us both gasp.
"Unpredictable, yeah. That's me." His voice turns bitter. "Ask Tommy how well that worked out."
There it is. The guilt eating him alive.
My hands slide up his chest, feeling his heart race under my palms. "What happened to him?"
"My fault he's dead." The words come out cracked. "My fuck-up, my responsibility."
"That's not—"
"Don't." He pulls me closer, burying his face in my hair. "Just... don't tell me it's not my fault. Not tonight."
The raw need in his voice makes my breath catch. Not just sexual hunger, though that burns underneath everything between us. This feels deeper. More consuming.
He wants to protect me. Not use me. Not control me. Protect me.
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why do you care what happens to me?"
He pulls back enough to meet my eyes, hands sliding up to cradle my face. "Because you could disappear tomorrow. Start over anywhere. But you're choosing to stay and fight."
The simple acceptance hits me harder than any weapon. No one has ever separated my past actions from my present worth. Everyone wants the gory details, the kill count, the method. They want to consume my darkness or save me from it.
Jax just wants me safe.
"You know what's strange?" My fingers trace patterns on his chest, needing something to do with the strange nervous energy building inside me. Each touch makes his breathing change. "I've spent years working alone, and suddenly having backup feels..."
"Different," he finishes. "Good different or run-screaming different?"
His tone stays light, patient. No pressure behind the question. His hands drop to my hips, thumbs finding bare skin where my shirt has ridden up. The contact sears.
"Most people want to know what I've done, how many, what it feels like." I study his profile in the moonlight. "You just... don't."
"Because that's not who you are now. Not who you're choosing to be."
My body responds without permission—pressing closer, seeking more contact. His breathing catches, hands tightening on my hips.
"I don't know how to trust people." The confession tears out. "Last time I did..."
Stop. Don't give him weapons to use against you.
But he doesn't lean forward hungrily for details. Doesn't probe for the story behind the pain.
Just nods, pulling me against his chest. "Takes time. Trust isn't built in a day."
"What if I'm not worth the time it takes?"
The question hangs between us, carrying more honesty than I've shown anyone since I was sixteen.
Please don't prove me right. Please don't confirm what I already know.
"Mira." He tilts my chin up, those intense eyes steady and sure. "You chose to help when you didn't have to. That makes you worth everything."
My breath catches. The certainty in his voice, the way he says it like fact instead of opinion, creates a rush of desire so intense my knees actually buckle.
I want to deserve that faith. I want to be worth his patience.
"You're not going to push for more, are you?" The question escapes before I can cage it. "Demand details, timelines, body counts?"
"You'll tell me what you want me to know, when you're ready."
That's it? No interrogation? No price for his patience?
Something uncoils in my chest. Not the familiar tension release of completed missions or eliminated threats.
This feels like breathing after holding my breath for years.
The feeling stems from something completely foreign.
Safety. Actual safety, not the illusion I create through weapons and preparation.
He actually means it. How is trust making me want him more?
"That's..." My voice catches. "No one has ever said that to me."
"Then they were idiots."
The simple statement, delivered without drama or demand for gratitude, makes heat spiral through me. Not the calculated arousal I've weaponized for years. This hunger comes from somewhere deeper, rawer.
He's not taking anything from me. That makes me want to give him everything.
I close the final inches between us, drawn by gravitational pull I can't analyze or resist. His breathing changes as our bodies align completely, but he doesn't grab. Still waiting for permission even as I feel him hard against my stomach.
Even now, he's not taking.
"This is—"
"I know." He doesn't make me finish. "Everything about us is."
The kiss ignites instantly, not gentle exploration but desperate hunger. Years of emotional starvation demanding sustenance. He tastes like copper and vodka and guilt. My hands thread through his hair while his find my waist, lifting me onto the railing.
Forty feet up, I should be calculating escape routes. But I wrap my legs around his waist, trusting him completely.
His mouth finds that spot below my ear that makes rational thought dissolve. For blessed seconds, the voices stop. No Katka, no Tomá?, just us.
My shirt parts under his desperate hands, cool air hitting heated skin. His fingers trace the scars across my ribs, old wounds from Alexei's training.
"Jesus, you're beautiful."
He sees me. Actually sees me, not just what I can do for him.
The desperate ache of being truly wanted—not used, not feared, but genuinely desired—overwhelms every rational thought. My hands explore the hard planes of his chest, mapping territory that feels simultaneously foreign and inevitable.
His mouth claims mine again, tongues tangling while his hands span my waist. Some distant part of my brain notes the danger, but the rest drowns in sensation.
This was supposed to be manipulation. When did it become real?
But as his touch grows bolder and my control dissolves completely, survival instincts crash through desire like ice water.
What am I doing? This is exactly what gets people killed.
My hands freeze against his chest as reality crashes through the haze of need.
I push against him, not hard but firm enough that he immediately loosens his hold. The space between us fills with cool ocean air.
"I can't. Not yet. Not..."
The words stick in my throat because how do I explain that safety terrifies me more than any weapon? That thirteen years of survival have taught me that caring equals weakness equals death?
"Hey." His voice stays gentle even as confusion flickers across his face. "We don't have to do anything you're not ready for."
He's not angry. Why isn't he angry?
Most men would push. Demand explanations. Use my moment of weakness against me.
Jax steps back, giving me the space I need without making me ask for it.
That understanding makes everything worse.
I smooth my shirt with shaking hands, rebuilding walls with practiced efficiency. Distance. I need distance from his patient acceptance and the way it makes me want to crumble completely.
"This is reckless." I gesture between us while my body still aches for his touch. "Not the mission, not the criminals. This."
God, I can still taste him. Every cell screams to go back, to finish what we started.
The part of my brain that's kept me alive for thirteen years starts calculating all the ways this connection makes us both targets.
"Alexei Petrov would use you to break me." The words taste like ash and truth. "That's what caring costs."
Jax leans against the railing beside me, close enough that our arms brush. Even that minimal contact makes my skin burn.
"So, we're just supposed to pretend this doesn't exist?"
Yes. That's exactly what we're supposed to do.
But watching him process my withdrawal, seeing disappointment flicker across his features before he carefully schools them neutral, creates an ache in my chest that has nothing to do with physical desire.
I want to give him everything. That's the problem.
"I don't know how to do this without someone getting hurt." The admission tears out. "Everyone I've ever cared about..."
Stop talking. Stop giving him ammunition.
But he doesn't lean forward hungrily for details. Doesn't probe for the story behind the pain. Just takes my hand, fingers interlacing with mine again.
"So, we figure it out as we go."
He makes it sound simple. Like caring doesn't have to equate to destruction.
The rational part of my brain screams warnings about vulnerability and tactical disadvantage. But something deeper responds to his quiet patience with desperate hunger.
I want to believe him. That's the most terrifying part.
"Viktor wants to meet tomorrow. Casino." I force the words out, trying to restore professional distance. "Full team surveillance."
"I know." His thumb traces circles on my palm. "Cole told me."
"We should prep. Review the building schematics—"
"Mira." He turns to face me fully. "Seventeen days from now, when this is over—"
"We might be dead in seventeen days."
"Or we might not." His free hand cups my face. "What then?"
The question hangs between us, heavy with possibility and threat.
"I don't know." The honesty hurts. "I don't know how to be anything other than this."
"Then we'll figure that out too." He presses a kiss to my forehead—gentle, nothing like the desperate hunger from moments ago. "When you're ready."