“Not till too late. You went into some stupid panic mode and got all crazy. Look, if you’d done your job, I would have no problem tranquing and hauling her into our vehicle before her people even knew there was anyone after them. You fucked up and my partner here had to waste time calming you down. Precious seconds that we could have used to get us to that entrance. But no, he had to talk to you to get the garbled information out of you. So don’t sit there looking all snotty just because you could do this remote-viewing shit. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a loser, just like the rest of the ward...”
“Okay, okay, we’re going to calm down right now and have dinner.” His monitor gave his partner a warning look. “Enough. We aren’t going to make a scene. We’ll concentrate on Macedonia when the right time comes. Five-One, let’s eat and enjoy your night off.”
Jonah nodded. He was pissed. The rest of the ward...what did they think he was, some kind of lunatic? And were they idiots? His night off wouldn’t ever include two CIA clowns. But he would play their game right now. He needed them just as much as they needed him.
Catching sight of a beautiful couple entering the restaurant behind their table, he pretended to drop his menu onto the floor. He bent down to pick it up, covertly watching those two longingly. They had had sex that day, he was sure of it. Who wouldn’t want to fuck that beautiful woman? If he were on the serum, he would dip into theirenergy and record everything. Especially her, all naked and writhing for her man.
He sat back up, taking a deep breath. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What had he done to deserve eating dinner with these two?
Chapter Seven
Jed could feel her bristling as she walked beside him. She was well and truly furious now. Good. Keep that focus on him and let the subconscious do its work.
He tongued the inside of his bruised cheek, which was throbbing like a toothache. Fighting mad. He deserved everything she was going to dole out. The key now was not to push her so far that she’d hate him afterwards. He needed her willing cooperation. To a point. He suppressed the urge to smile. That would probably start her swinging at him again and he’d prefer to do that in private.
He hadn’t wanted to keep her hanging just now, but she’d challenged him with the five minutes comment. It had been a long time since he’d let a woman get under his skin enough that he’d considered all out sex in an elevator. He wanted her badly enough that he questioned himself about it, something unusual in itself.
Usually, he could step back and detach. With Elena, he found himself wanting more.
He blamed it on yesterday’s events. He always needed an outlet after finishing a mission. In his job, facing an opponent and taking care of business usually meant ending a life. He’d learned to be unemotional about it, to put his reaction on hold, and then, when the time was right, to channel all that energy into something more positive.
He’d wanted to come to Elena in a better mood, but instead, she’d come to him when he was at his most detached. Had to be, because he was getting ready to dissect the situation for debriefing and discuss the operation with his teammates. Not the time to get emotional about anything.
Elena showing up and challenging him was an easy excuse to make her the outlet for that tightly controlled coil of tension inside him that was patiently waiting for release. He could have put her off until he was in a less edgy mood, but her prickliness had pushed him When she’d confronted him, he could sense her discomfort and knew withoutbeing told her “problem” was still bothering her. The thing was, thinking about her “problem” made him hard for her, especially now that he knew just how wild she was in bed.
He clamped down on his straying thoughts of coming inside her and turned back to the next meeting on his schedule. So much at stake and he couldn’t get sex out of his mind. Sex with one woman, that was.
But what was she thinking now?
He’d known what she was up to yesterday, with that request for a session in the CAVE. He’d easily guessed her plans in her quarters. Sabotaging them was too much of a temptation to resist.
Karma was a bitch, though. He wanted to get to his own climax with this woman and he couldn’t. Not possible. It would be selfish to find release when she wasn’t cognizant of what their time together meant.
He wanted to be as honest as he could. He gave himself a mental shake of the head. That was something new—being honest and trying to sexually imprint another operative. When did he ever have the dilemma of his conscience tugging at him?
Jed glanced to his right. She was too quiet, a murderous look in her eyes, as she kept in step. A sudden urge to soothe her arose from nowhere, but he knew Elena well enough that words wouldn’t mean much at this point. He was used to pulling back and reacting later; she wasn’t.
“After the next two meetings,” he told her, “I’m all yours.”
Her hazel eyes flashed back at him. Still a little green in them, he noted.
“You mean you’ll answer all my questions?”
“Perhaps.” Never make a full promise to any dangerous woman.
“Will you at least let me hurt you the way you deserve?”
He ran his tongue against the inside of his cheek again, regarding her for a moment. The woman did have quite a punch. Her raised eyebrow amused him.
“That depends on how long you propose to have me sit there passively while you’re at it.” A deliciously devious image of her taking charge in his bedroom filled his mind.
Her brow rose higher. “Oh, I don’t care if you fight back,” she retorted. “I’m still going to hurt you.”
“Done,” he said, privately amused. A little aggression in bed could be exciting foreplay.
She was looking at him, her eyes narrowing as she studied the bruised side of his face. Her face was flushed and he knew she was thinking of other things besides injuring him. For an instant, hewondered whether she’d somehow caught the erotic image in his head. But they weren’t sleeping or hooked together by the BE machine. She looked away.
“Just answer this and I’ll wait till later,” she said. “Are you responsible for what I’m going through right now? Was the strange sensation in the stairway in Frankfurt your doing?”
