Page 86 of Until the End

“It’d be a hundred times simpler if I weren’t attracted to you.” Need churned inside him like a man possessed—to be near her, to touch her. It was only growing stronger. “I’ve never believed in chemistry, besides the kind to breach a site with explosive charges. Not until you.”

“You say the most romantic things.”

“Around you, the lines blur. The rules become fuzzy.”

“Is that a warning or an invitation?”

“Both.”

Maybe he got such a thrilling high from her because he wanted what he wasn’t supposed to have. If he gave in to temptation and slept with her, would the draw cease to exist?

Once Eve bit the apple, all she tasted was regret.

She slid her thigh between his legs and her hands up his chest. “I want you, Castle.”

The teasing whisper of his name on her lips made his cock thicken and ache.

He’d been dead inside for a long time, only invigorated when bullets were flying. Yet Kit was like heroin mainlined straight into his veins, eradicating any cold detachment.

She was the best rush.

He wanted her with every breath he took. A reckless, soul-deep longing that made no sense.

Just this once, he couldn’t deny himself. Not for duty. Not for country. Not for God.

Not for anything in the world.

29

Gray Box Headquarters, Northern Virginia

10:52 a.m. EDT

Sanborn sat behind his desk, watching the high-resolution live feed on his computer screen of Castle and Kit getting cozy.

None of his Gray Box operatives were aware of the hidden surveillance cameras in all the safe houses, smaller than the size of a screw head, housed in the smoke detectors, the PIR alarm motion sensors, clocks, AC adapters, Wi-Fi routers, kitchen cabinets, and headboards on the beds. Not even his second-in-command, Knox.

The bugs automatically activated voice and video surveillance fifteen minutes after someone accessed a safe house. In case someone did a sweep upon entry, no signals would be detected.

He had assured his people there were no monitoring devices. His housekeeping team did regular sweeps, ensuring supplies at locations were replenished and everything was clean of foreign tech, and they had taken his word as gospel. They had no reason not to.

Ultimately, it came down to a need to know, and knowing wasn’t in their best interest.

“Do you feel it?” Katherine Westcott asked, pressed up against Castle. Her chest surged with her breath, a flush creeping up the ivory skin of her neck. “Like rain in the air before a thunderstorm.”

Where did she get that line? From a John Hughes ’80s rom-com?

Only there was nothing funny about the scene unfolding before him. This was a tragedy.

“I feel it,” Castle said, sounding equally sappy.

The minx had turned Sanborn’s hardened battle-ax into a bowl of warm pudding. The lines blur. The rules become fuzzy.

She’d done a real number on Castle.

“I think it’s better if we get it out of our system,” she said. “Take the edge off.” She curled an arm around Castle’s neck, bending his loyalties to her will. Those plush pink lips went to his throat, trailing a line of enticing pecks up to his jaw. “Don’t you?”

Castle responded by lowering his mouth to the devious little hacker’s.