“Right.” Angel nodded. “Pass along the information to the team. And call me at this number when everything is set and Sonya and I are safe for an evac.”
Emily said something else, and then Angel signed off. He immediately turned to Sonya. “Time to go.”
“Go where?” She looked around, seeing nothing but trees. The narrow strip of forest he’d driven into was dense and untouched. A thick blanket of last year’s leaves littered the ground, fertilizing the saplings and low bushes that competed for what little light dappled down from the thick canopy overhead. She’d expected they’d remain here, hidden among the trees in the cheesy-smelling rust bucket until, as Angel put it, everything was set and it was safe for an evac.
“Some place secure,” he said. “Some place hidden. Do you trust me?”
“You can stop asking me that.”
“Good. Then come with me.”
He exited the vehicle, and Sonya snapped her camera button back onto her turquoise blouse before slinging her purse over her shoulder. After palming the Glock, she exited and quietly closed the door. Angel was already in the process of pulling up saplings by their roots to cover their stolen…er…appropriated hunk of junk. After he finished, he held out a hand to her. “You ready?”
She glanced down at the pads of his scarred fingertips, at his wide, rough palm. Such tough hands. Hands that could end a life without a second’s hesitation.
There was a part of her that was scared of those hands. She’d asked Mark once, after she’d found out his mission to bring the synagogue bomber to justice meant he could take the man alive or dead, what it was like to kill another human being. The look that’d come over his face was etched in her memory.
He’d grown impassive, as if he’d donned a mask much like the one Angel always wore. Then he’d said, “The Mossad teaches us to put the good of the many before the good of the few.”
She’d taken that to mean he didn’t lose sleep at night.
“Sonya?” Angel’s eyes looked slightly wounded. “That right there is why I keep asking if you trust me.” He pointed at her face. “That Little Red Riding Hood look says I am the Big Bad Wolf and you think I might eat you.”
Alrighty then. Apparently she needed to take a page from Lady Gaga’s book, because Angel had no trouble reading her p-p-p-poker face.
“I’m sorry, but you’re scary,” she told him.
His eyes went from bruised to flinty in two seconds flat. “Why am I scary?”
“Because you’re Mossad. You’re trained to operate in enemy territory with the daily threat of capture, torture, and death, and you can kill a man a hundred different ways with your bare hands. Then there’s the whole Iranian thing.”
His chin jerked back. “Excuse me?”
“You’re Iranian by birth, right? That alone is enough to strike fear into the hearts of most Americans. Your motherland has made chanting death to America a national pastime. And then there’s this.” She made a sweeping motion with her hand, indicating his entire length.
He glanced down at himself, then back up at her. A small line appeared between his eyebrows. “What?”
“You’re huge and packed with muscle. You present a physical threat simply by breathing.”
“I told you I would never hurt—”
“I know. I know.” She flicked dismissive fingers. “And I believe you. But that doesn’t make you any less scary, and sometimes that scariness is going to get to me and I’m going to hesitate. Try not to take it personally. Now, take my hand.” She firmed her shoulders, and this time it was her offering him a hand.
When he slid his fingers between hers, she marveled at the warmth of his palm, at the latent strength she could feel in the bones and tendons. Perhaps he saw her pupils dilate on contact. Maybe he heard her heart skip a beat. Whatever her tell, he homed in on it instantly.
Heat flared in his eyes a second before he raised his free hand and brushed one rough fingertip down her cheek. When he got to the plump pad of her lower lip, he pressed gently, just enough to open her mouth. His gaze zeroed in on her exposed teeth, on the tip of her tongue.
“Do you want me?” he rumbled all low and seductive.
Chills raced over her arms. Flames licked through her veins. “What?”
“Do you want me? Because I want you, Sonya. And I don’t want you to mistake me. Once we get where we are going, I intend to have you unless you tell me otherwise.”
Well, küss meinen Arsch, she thought dizzily. Apparently, the man had never been introduced to the phrase beat around the bush. “I don’t want you to mistake me either,” she told him, blood pounding in her ears. And other places. “In some ways, you’re so much like him. Like the man I loved.” The man she still loved. The man she would always love. “I don’t know if this attraction I feel for you is actually for you or because I’m stuck in the past, projecting my feelings for him onto you.”
For a second, he stood and watched her. Okay, maybe not stood. It was more like he hulked above her like a dark, dangerous angel of doom. As always, she couldn’t read his implacable expression, but his words were clear. “Does it matter?”
Some of the tension drained from her. “I guess not. I mean, if you don’t mind being used as a substitute for—”
