“I told Mercer to screw off.” Cale pulled her against him. The heat of his body seemed to sear her. “I’m not ready to give you up.”
Not exactly an undying declaration of love. But...
They weren’t talking about love, were they? They had need, desire, and it was a whole lot more than she’d felt in a long time.
“We’ll get your friend back. After that, I’ll take you someplace safe.” His head lowered, and his lips feathered over hers. “But then I want you.”
She could feel his need pressing against her. Rather hard for a girl to miss a sign like that.
“Mercer was right...I am dangerous. Violent. I’ve killed.”
She wanted his mouth back on hers. Not a teasing soft kiss, but hard and fierce and deep. A kiss that made her feel alive.
The way he seemed to so effortlessly do.
“I’m not a good man for you to want.”
He was the only one she wanted.
“But I can’t give you up. Not yet.” Then he was kissing her the way she wanted. With hot passion, stark need. His tongue thrust into her mouth even as his hands curled around her hips, and he lifted her up against his arousal.
She couldn’t ever remember being wanted that completely.
Mercer had asked Cale if he was becoming obsessed.
Cassidy wondered if she was because Cale seemed to be in her very blood.
Her fingers pressed into the broad width of his shoulders as she clung to him. They didn’t have time, didn’t have the privacy for what she wanted.
But she still kissed him...letting him taste the passion that she felt for him. So hot.
“Give me time,” he rasped against her lips. “Don’t vanish with him, not yet.”
She didn’t want to vanish ever again.
“Too many people have left before I was ready,” Cale said. His mouth was inches from hers. “I don’t want to lose you, too.”
“You won’t.” Because she was done running. Cale...she wanted to stay with him. Wanted the passion and the life that others had so easily.
With Cale.
It didn’t seem wrong to her. Nothing had ever seemed more right.
“I’m going to stay with you tonight. Every second, understand?”
Yes, she did.
“When this is over, it will be just you and me.”
That was what she wanted.
“You and me,” Cale repeated.
Those were the words she’d hold tight. They would get her through the danger that was coming.
* * *
CASSIDY’S TELEPHONE RANG as they reached the designated meeting spot. The peal made her jerk in surprise, but Cale had expected the call.
Sydney would be monitoring Cassidy’s phone, trying to track the call’s origin and figure out exactly who they were dealing with.
They’d tried to track the first call but had come up empty-handed. The call had been too brief for them to get a good lock on it.
Maybe this time they’d get luckier.
Cale knew that Gunner watched them from the shelter of the darkness on the left, up on the second story of the squat building located there. As a sniper, he always enjoyed a high perch that let him watch his prey.
As for Drew Lancaster, the man that Mercer had insisted accompany them, he was to the right, cloaked by the trees.
Cassidy fumbled as she yanked out her phone. “Genevieve?”
She hit the speaker button so that he could hear.
“H-he said you didn’t come alone.” Genevieve’s quivering voice. “He can see you, Cassidy. Y-you didn’t come alone.”
“You never said for me to come alone.” Cassidy’s voice was so quiet that Cale wondered if Genevieve could hear the response. “And he’s—he’s my boyfriend, Genevieve. He wouldn’t let me come alone. He’s stayed with me, ever since we met in Rio.”
Silence.
“The man...from the ball?” Then Genevieve sucked in a sharp breath. “No! Cassidy!”
The shot rang out then, blasting toward them. Cale shoved Cassidy out of the way, but then he realized that the shot hadn’t been aimed at her.
At me.
He tapped his transmitter. “Gunner, tell me that you’ve got eyes on the SOB.” Crouching, he backed Cassidy up, making sure to shield her even as he drew his weapon.
“From the northeast, using a rifle.” A low whistle from Gunner. “Taking aim on him now...”
A crack filled the air. Only this time, the EOD was the one taking the shot.
“Genevieve?” Cassidy’s frantic voice. “Genevieve, please, talk to me!”
He glanced over at her. Cassidy still had her phone out. The device was pressed to her ear as she desperately tried to get her friend on the line once more.
Her gaze met his. Cassidy shook her head.
He bit off a curse.
“Heading to the northeast corner now,” Lancaster said in his ear. Cale could hear the uneven thud of the other agent’s footsteps.
And then...
Another crack split the night.
The bullet sank into concrete inches away from Cale.
Cassidy screamed.
Cale returned fire, having seen the glint off the weapon too late.
Not one shooter, two. The guys had come prepared for the EOD.
Or else they’d come prepared to kill Cassidy.
Just how many men were they facing in that darkness?
It didn’t matter. Three EOD agents could handle just about anything.
He shoved Cassidy even farther behind him and took aim again when he saw that glint.
“I’ve got him,” Gunner said into his ear. “But I’m also seeing two more bodies moving on the ground. You need to get her out of there.”
“Northeast corner is empty, but there’s blood on the ground. Gunner got a hit,” Lancaster told them in the next instant. “There are motorcycle tracks back here. Fresh, from the look of them—”
He broke off, and the sound of gunfire had Cale’s eardrums aching.
A trap.
The hit from the northeast corner had been designed to draw out Cale’s team. And, sure enough, Drew had gone right back there—lured by the bait.
“Lancaster!” Now Cale was the one trying to frantically get a response.
“H-hit,” Lancaster responded weakly. “Get...out...”
The EOD didn’t leave a team member behind. That wasn’t how they worked.
But he wasn’t going to risk Cassidy, either. These bastards wanted her, but they’d have to go through him in order to get her.
“Give me cover, Gunner, and get backup out here—”