Chapter 12 #2
Sinner’s gut clenched with desire. The need to pick her up and carry her seven steps to reach the bed blazed hot inside him.
He wiped his fingers on a napkin. “What do you have in mind?”
“We need to go out. But we can’t look like we have money. No dinners out. No Broadway shows or concerts.”
“Movies?” He arched a brow.
“You’d have to pretend to sleep through it.”
He flattened his lips, thinking. “You can go on a romantic drug deal stakeout with your pill-head husband.” He shot out of his seat and crossed the room. He swung open the bathroom door to reveal the shower stall. “Since bubble baths are out.”
She offered him a faint smile. “Still better than the rat hole I grew up in.”
A small pang of pain twisted in his chest.
He could see the wheels turning behind her eyes. “What are you thinking?”
“We have to go out this evening. Score some pills.”
He slanted a look at the bed. “That means we have some time to kill before dark.”
She threw him a look that was part intrigue, part exasperation. “There is one thing.”
“I’m listening.” He slowly folded his arms across his chest.
“I…” She lowered her gaze to her plate before continuing, “Felt a little out of place at casino night at the base. I don’t know how to play cards. Smith taught me how to shove a knife under a man’s ribs and hit the kidney, but he didn’t teach me cards.”
Sinner issued a low snort. “I’ll teach you.”
Something unspoken passed between them. She was trusting him with her vulnerability. Giving him a peek at what she considered a weak point.
He drifted back to the table and cleared away their plates to make room for a game of cards. “So, cards followed by drugs?”
She nodded.
“What would you like to learn? Five-card stud? Blackjack? Rummy?” He leaned close, brushing his lips over her earlobe just to feel her shiver. “Go fish?”
Her breath stilled, and she brought a hand up to his jaw. The touch was fleeting, but he felt it like a bomb blast.
“Poker.” She fixed her stare on his lips, then tilted her face up for a kiss.
The word wasn’t a challenge so much as an invitation.
Sinner smiled against her mouth, slow and knowing. “Careful, Opal. Poker’s all about reading people.”
Her fingers tightened briefly at his jaw. “I guess it’s a good thing I’m used to hiding things.”
He pulled back just enough to meet her eyes, dark intent sparking in the depths. “Pretty sure we both are.”
Warmth moved through him as he realized this wasn’t a lesson—it was a beginning.
* * * * *
Opal didn’t need to throw a look over her shoulder to know that Sinner was watching her walk to the car.
As she approached the vehicle, two guys were changing a flat tire on a beat-up Chevy beside it. One was leaning on her car, watching the other remove the bolts.
He shot her an oily smile when he saw her. “Here’s a pretty one.”
She eyed him. “Get off my car. You’re leaving grease stains on the finish.”
He pushed off it and took a quick jump-step toward her. She’d seen men make that move time and again in her life and she held her ground now—just as Smith taught her.
“What did you say to me, lady?”
She didn’t shift her stare from his when she spoke to his friend. “Tell your sidekick to get out of my face.”
The guy kneeling next to his tire chuckled. “Leave the lady alone, Andre. Don’t you see she’s too good for you?”
Skirting around them, she slipped into her car and started the engine. The dollar store sat two blocks away, the kind of place that smelled like plastic and disappointment. When she walked in no one looked at her. People came in, grabbed what they needed and left.
She located the few things she came for and paid in cash. Out of habit, she declined the receipt.
When she got back to the hotel, the guys were gone, the car on a block and the tire missing. She entered the hotel room and locked the door behind her.
Sinner glanced up from arranging snacks on the table. “They give you trouble?”
So he had been watching.
The thought sent a shiver through her, sinking low in her belly…then lower, between her thighs.
“I handled it.”
The faint crease between his brows wasn’t aimed at the snacks he arranged on a paper plate, but he didn’t question her further.
She set the bag on the table and began unloading it, lining things up without really thinking about it. “What’s with all the food? We just had pizza.”
“Need snacks for poker.”
When she set out the deck of cards, his lips curved. “No poker chips? This must be strip poker.”
She snorted and reached into the bag, producing a roll of cheap plastic chips. His smile shifted to surprise.
“You came prepared.”
“Always.” She dragged out a chair and sank into it. He placed his chair opposite her and picked up the cards. As he shuffled with practiced hands, she watched his fingers. Long, callused. Capable and beautiful, too.
There was a scar running down the side of one index finger, white and jagged. The backs of his knuckles were sprinkled with dark hair.
He was a good teacher, explaining the basic rules before announcing that she’d learn best by diving right into playing.
He popped a pretzel in his mouth, crunching as he studied his cards. “You’re picking this up really fast. Sure you didn’t know how to play before?”
She laid a card down, watching his face for a twitch of an eyelid or the flick of a brow. He gave nothing away.
“Smith gave me skills. He made me play memory games and he’d drill me.” Some of those moments rolled through her mind. “He’d make me tell him what people were wearing after they walked by. I had no choice but to be observant. I guess those skills are helping me kick your ass at cards.”
With a flourish, she laid down a spread that made Sinner…Sinclair…Caius…grin. He didn’t say a word as he slid a stack of chips toward her.
“What else did Smith teach you?” His tone was casual, but she sensed the restraint behind them.
Opal considered deflecting. Instead, she answered him.
“How to assemble and disassemble guns. How to shoot behind the motel. Knife skills. Mind games. He’d let me see a room for a split second before cutting the lights and making me navigate my way out. But he made it fun, not scary.”
A vision of her friend rose up in her mind, so real she felt like she could reach out and touch him. A small knot formed in her chest, so she turned her attention to shuffling the cards and watching them ripple in her hands.
Her fingers stilled even though she didn’t direct them to. “I miss him,” she said quietly.
“What happened to Smith?” Sinner’s voice was low and soothing.
The room shrank, the walls suddenly pushing in.
She flipped a card at him. One to her.
“I wasn’t there. That day.” She swallowed hard.
“I had a fight with my mom. I was eighteen. One of the big things we argued about almost daily was that everyone my age had real jobs with real money. But I didn’t have an ID.
No social security card to get a job. So I was stuck babysitting the neighborhood brats for pennies.
After the fight, I ran out. When I came back…
Smith was down on the ground. Some guys came for him.
Mom tried to save him. I saw her doing chest compressions, but there was blood everywhere and I just knew. ”
She gulped down the emotion she’d never let out, along with the words she’d never spoken. The print on the cards blurred in her vision, then cleared.
“Smith always told me if anything happened to him to go to the FBI and tell them…” She lifted her gaze to Sinner’s. “Project Lazarus.”
He didn’t speak, but she didn’t need words of comfort. She just needed someone to listen.
No, not someone—she needed Sinner to listen.
Finally, he exhaled slowly. “I’m glad you had Smith to watch over you.”
She nodded, blinking hard. “And you?”
He didn’t hesitate. “I had an uncle. He owned a pizza shop and taught me everything I know about pizza. When I turned eighteen, he told me to go to the FBI and get an ID. As soon as I got there and stated my case, the FBI said, ‘You’re Lazarus. You’re entering the next class at Quantico.’”
Her breath caught. It was the same story. Different details. Same erasure.
But even though he was Lazarus too, and now Blackout, he’d lived a pretty good life.
It was clear that the Charlie team had become his family. Maybe…just maybe she could have that too.
Someday.
Maybe.
After a few rounds of cards, she stacked the deck and set it in the middle of the table.
Sinner reached across the space and skimmed his thumb across her knuckles, making her skin prickle.
“This was the best date,” she murmured.
He scoffed softly. “Your expectations are too low.”
She smiled. “I admit I don’t have a lot to compare, but I know what I want to do on the next date.”
He swished his thumb down her wrist. “You mean after the drug deals and finding a terrorist?”
Smiling, she nodded. “After that.”
“I’m up for anything. Especially strip poker.” His brows gave a seductive twitch.
“How about…a tattoo?”
He stared at her harder. “You’re not supposed to have any identifying features.”
“I’m not.”
The smile she wore was certain. She was prepared to take the next step in her life—the FBI, Project Lazarus and WitSec be damned. She was going to start living for herself.
And looking at the man across from her, she knew she wouldn’t be stepping into it alone.