Page 4 of Entwined With You

“I don’t—” She cut herself off with a shake of her head. “Okay, yesterday, I … never mind. It’s stupid. I just got spooked.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing.” She squeezed his hand, then pulled her fingers free. She ran them through her hair, something she always did when she trying to avoid something.

“Brina, come on. It’s me. What spooked you?”

“Nothing.” She snapped the word out. “It’s just the job. This is huge. And we’ve never worked with Darrin or Jorge or Tim before. I’ve got a right to be nervous don’t I?”

“Sure. Of course.” He wasn’t sure what to think. He’d never seen her nervous. She was always ultra gung-ho for every job. He was just about to say something—he didn’t know what—when she reached for his hand again.

“I’m sorry. I’m not used to being nervous and it’s making me edgy.” She shrugged, then lifted their joined hands to her lips and kissed his knuckles. “Maybe it’s because I have so much to lose now.”

She met his eyes as she spoke, but she didn’t hold them. Instead, they dropped away, as if she wasn’t sure she should have said that.

“Oh, baby.” He cupped her head, then leaned over to kiss her softly, but she pulled him close in a kiss that was anything but soft. On the contrary, it was wild. Almost desperate. And he would have given anything to let it go on and on and on.

But they couldn’t.

They had a job to do.

He broke the kiss and was shocked to see tears snaking down her cheeks. “Dammit, Brina, what’s going on? And don’t lie to me.”

He watched as she composed herself. As she drew in two breaths and let them out slowly. As she sat up straighter. As she smiled, just a little too broadly, then wiped a finger under each eye. “I told you. It’s nothing—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he snapped. “This is me, Brina. Just fucking tell me.”

“It’s nothing,” she repeated, this time holding up a hand to keep him silent. “I just—I don’t know. I just have a bad feeling.” He watched as her body shook, like a small jolt of electricity had cut through her.

“Baby, why?” He took her hands in his.

“I don’t know. Everything’s on track. We’ve rehearsed this so much we could pull it off in our sleep. Everything’s in place. We’ve got solid partners. It’s the perfect plan.” Her shoulders rose and fell. “Dammit, I feel stupid.”

“Stupid?” She wasn’t making sense.

“I had a bad dream last night, okay? I dreamt the mission went south. It made me edgy, and I didn’t want to tell you because it was just a dream. A stupid, fucking dream.”

He frowned, looking around the area. Feeling suddenly like a sitting duck.

“If you have a bad feeling, we don’t have to do this. We can walk. We can just turn around and walk. Hitch our way across the country. Clean rooms on a cruise ship so we can get to Italy. We could start a whole new life.”

A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Neither one of us speaks Italian. And we already said we were quitting. We’re quitting after this job. When we’ll have the cash to afford to live.”

He nodded. She was right. This job was a means to an end. They had it all planned out. Hell, they even had documents ready to go for their new names. And their take would be enough to last a lifetime. Pretty sweet considering neither of them had ever held a real job or had actual life skills. Oh, sure, they had skills. But somehow forgery, lock picking, and hacking security systems weren’t the kind of things potential employers looked for.

“All right,” he said. “We do the job. We follow the plan.”

She grinned. “Good.”

“I just have one little condition.”

She tilted her head, one brow rising. “Oh, really?”

“Kiss me,” he said, his heart swelling at the sight of her slow, sexy smile.

“Well,” she said breezily, as she shifted on the van’s old bench seat to face him. “I suppose if you insist.”

The kiss was sweet and long and not nearly enough. It was interrupted by the chime of the timer on his phone.