it into town today,” Zoe interrupted herself. “The team was starting to make plans to liberate you. You had us all worried.”
Jake swore softly. “Why can’t they just sit tight and trust me?”
“They care about you.”
“They think I’m too old.”
“You think you’re too old.”
Jake pulled back slightly. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Zoe shook her head. “Nothing. Look, Jake, I’ve been—”
“Nothing, my ass! You wouldn’t’ve said it if it meant nothing.”
“Okay, it meant something, but it’s a personal something, and if we’ve got limited time to talk here, the personal stuff should be the last thing we get to.”
He couldn’t argue with that. Unfortunately it didn’t make him wonder exactly what she’d meant any less. He thought he was too old. Jeez.
“I’ve been thinking about alternatives to this whole setup,” she said. She pulled him close, breathing into his ear as if her words were seductive promises rather than a plan for an alternative operation.
God, he’d forgotten for a moment—he’d been standing there arguing with her. They were supposed to be just short of making out on the dance floor. He held her closer, and she moved toward him willingly, her breasts soft against him. He buried his face in her sweet-smelling hair. Oh, God.
“What’s your take on the hierarchy of power inside the CRO?” she murmured, her breath hot against his ear. “I’ve always gotten the impression that Christopher Vincent’s it. That without him, the organization would fall apart. And if that’s the case, why don’t we just grab Vincent on one of his trips outside of his compound? Hold him hostage in exchange for the Trip X?”
“I’ve thought about that, too,” Jake admitted. He kissed her neck, ran his hands down her back to cup her rear end. Oh, God. Bad mistake. But once his hands were there, it would’ve looked odd for him to move them right away, wouldn’t it? What were they talking about? Hostage. Vincent. Right.
“It’s not an option,” he told her, hoping she wouldn’t notice the huskiness of his voice. He cleared his throat. “Vincent’s got contingency plans for all kinds of disaster scenarios. Everyone in the CRO compound has a battle station to go to if the Feds suddenly launch an attack. He’s stockpiled enough food to withstand a two-year siege. He’s got an escape route charted out of this bar, in case he suddenly finds himself a target while he’s here.”
She slipped her hands into the back pockets of his jeans, pressing his hips tightly against hers. “With or without an escape route, we could get him.”
“I know that. But what I don’t know is what his contingency plan is in regards to the Triple X. His lieutenants might not know what it is they’ve got. His orders might be for them to use it if he’s taken. So, no, we’re not going to grab him. Not without finding out more.”
Jake tried to shift back, extremely aware of the fact that when she pulled him that close, there were no secrets between them—including the secret he’d been trying to keep about the enthusiastic way his body was responding to her nearness.
He tried to make his voice sound casual, conversational. As if he weren’t affected by the sensation of her breasts against his chest, as if he couldn’t feel her heat as she pressed herself against his thigh. “Hey, have you heard from Mitch?”
“Not since he’s been arrested.” Zoe smiled, her hands traveling up his back. “We almost didn’t recognize him when we saw the news report on CNN.”
“Yeah, he’s good with disguises. I looked twice at that little old man sitting at the bar just to be sure it wasn’t him.”
“It’s not. Mitch is still in custody,” Zoe told him. She ran her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck and it felt impossibly, sinfully good. “He’s being held at the same federal penitentiary where Christopher Vincent’s stepbrother is doing ten to twenty for armed robbery.”
Jake laughed. “Well, jeez, that’s pure genius. I mean, I knew Christopher had a stepbrother who’d been in trouble with the law, but … Whose idea was it to send Mitch to the same prison?”
“I’m a fan of doing just that little extra bit of research,” she told him modestly. “We lucked out that the stepbrother was in a federal jail and—”
“It was your idea. Good job, Lange. So you’re the genius, huh?”
“Whoa,” she said, laughing. Her eyes sparkled and danced with amusement. She was so pretty, so full of life. The longing that hit him was so strong, it took his breath away. “Don’t go overboard. Yes, it was a good idea, but—”
She stopped short, her smile fading at the look he knew was in his eyes. He couldn’t hide it, and he prayed she would think it was only part of the game they were playing.
They’d both stopped moving, and they stood on the dance floor just holding each other. She gazed at him, her beautiful lips slightly parted, and when he didn’t move, she stood on her toes and kissed him.
It was the smallest of kisses, light and delicate, a feathery brushing of her lips across his. She searched his eyes again, then stood on her toes once more. This time she kissed him a little bit harder. This time she tasted him, gently touching the curve of his lips with the very tip of her tongue. And this time he kissed her, too, just as delicately, just as softly.
Jake’s heart was pounding, and he was dizzy from wanting more. But he took his cues from her, letting her lead, refusing to push her into harder, deeper, longer kisses, no matter how badly he wanted just that.
She delicately swept her tongue into his mouth and he groaned aloud. She took him right to the point where he knew they were on the verge of crushing their mouths together and positively inhaling each other, but instead, she pulled back.
“We’re both good actors,” she whispered, “but we’re not this good. Part of this is real, Jake, whether we want to believe it or not. That’s what I was trying to say when I told you I’d make love to you. That I also want to make love to you.”
Jake didn’t know what to say.
She kissed him again, hot and sweet and long. “That’s me kissing you, no games, no pretense. We can have it both ways, you know. We can do our jobs and get naked—if you can get past everything you need to get past, if you can come to the conclusion that you’re not too old for this sort of thing.”
“Ah,” Jake said, finally finding his voice as she pulled free from his arms. “We’ve finally come to the personal stuff.”
“I bet you look good naked,” Zoe told him as she picked up her tray and headed to the bar.
Jake wanted both to laugh and cry. He’d never met anyone as completely in-your-face honest as Zoe Lange. She knew what she wanted, and she wasn’t shy about asking for it.
She wanted him.
And his big problem was that he wanted her, too.
Even
