The brutal answer was yes.
“I’ve seen enough.Thank you.”She needed to escape this museum of death and breathe fresh air.
Too eager to leave, she bumped into him.
They collided hard, like running into a brick wall.
He dipped his head.
She looked up.
Their mouths clashed in a kiss that knocked the stuffing out of all her carefully made pledges.Whatever had happened in the past was irrelevant.His fist tangled in her hair, drawing her head back.Devouring her mouth, he kissed her throat, then the lobes of her ears, before driving his mouth down on hers.
Hardly a passive recipient, she slammed him into the steel cabinets, making the weapons rattle a tattoo.His hands found her hips, gripping and positioning.Yanking her hard against the thrust of his erection catapulted her back into the past.Heat roared between them?—
But it wasn’t the past.
And everything was broken.
Elijah tore away first.
“I trusted you,” he raged, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth as if to erase all trace of her.“Do you have any idea what that means?No,” he bit out before she could reply.“You knew I couldn’t refuse this mission, but don’t make the mistake of thinking you can walk back into my life.”
It hadn’t started out that way.She’d have done anything to avoid involving him in an operation deadlier than most, but she couldn’t let the slavers win or save their victims on her own.
Things were rapidly going downhill with Elijah.His expression said she was teetering on the brink.Desperate to salvage the situation, she said, “Trust doesn’t come easily for either of us, but it grew when we worked together.I know it can happen again.”
“You destroyed trust!”
“I’m determined to rebuild it.”She had no idea how, yet, with the taste of him still on her lips, and the imprint of his body on hers burning into her soul.
“How do you propose to do that?”he challenged.“By attempting to seduce me?”
“What?I’m not interested.”
“Not yet,” he derided.
Why had she ever thrown herself at a man who clearly didn’t want her, who offered nothing but sex?She had wanted more—she still did: more emotion, more connection, a life that didn’t involve violence and danger and sex.
Seven years ago, that knowledge had almost destroyed her.Tomorrow, she would fight with everything she had to save those without the power to defend themselves.To succeed in that mission, it was vital to forget wanting Elijah.
“Time to call a halt,” she said briskly.“I’d like to try out this weapon at your shooting range—if you’ll show me the way.”
“I think you meanyoushould call a halt to this,” Elijah countered scathingly.“I’ll have someone show you where you need to go.”
“Thank you.”Her tone was clipped, but her pulse was off the scale.He was ice.She was fire.She had to get away?—
She blundered into the corridor the instant the steel door opened.The lighting was merciless, like a spotlight on a stage.Her swollen lips and red cheeks were obvious to anyone.
“May I assist you?”
Could her face get any hotter?The ever-polite escort had just appeared on the scene.“My stateroom, please.”The shooting range could wait.She had to calm down first.
“Of course, ma’am.Please follow me.”
Not a flicker in his eyes betrayed that he knew exactly what had happened in the armory.There were cameras everywhere.The whole ship almost certainly knew.
With the most challenging mission of her career about to begin, she was still obsessing over the fact that Elijah could unmake her with a kiss.
