you’re entertained,” she muttered. Kate fought to pull the white shirt over her head without flashing Connor and the cabdriver. “I am trying not to get arrested for exposing myself.”
“Relax. You’re fine. Based on what we have planned, you should get used to me seeing you naked.”
Both her and the driver’s reactions were the same. Wide eyes, open mouths followed by an attempt to hide their shock. “Why do you do that?” she asked, getting the shirt on and pulling it as low as possible over her legs. At least Connor was tall and his shirt covered her to midthigh.
“Do what?” he asked.
“You say really rude, off-the-wall things. It’s like you’re trying to make me nervous or get a reaction out of me.”
“I’m not trying to do anything. This is who I am.” He turned and looked at her point-blank.
Was he waiting for her to remove her pants? She felt the challenge in his stare. If she was venturing out into the jungle with him, he would see her change clothes, assuming she managed to acquire more. Was this another test? To see if she had the nerve? She unfastened her pants and slid them down her legs. Heat flamed up her cheeks. She would prove she was capable of doing whatever came at her on this mission.
“All your clothes, Kate.”
Meaning her underwear, as well. Her mother had raised her to be a lady and that included wearing the appropriate undergarments. Even her sister, Elise, the A-list movie star, was known around Hollywood for her modesty and relatively conservative dress.
Kate strove for indifference. Her attempt was hindered by the look in Connor’s eyes. It wasn’t indifference written on his face. It was interest. His gaze trekked down her legs to her toes and back up again. By that time, she had removed her underwear and was pulling on his jeans. Kate pinched the waist. How would she get them to stay on? “Happy now?”
“Immensely. You have nice legs and it’s less likely we’ll be followed.”
His compliment both pleased and annoyed her. Most of the time, she downplayed her looks in an attempt to force the people around her to notice she was smart. Men found her attractive, but she wanted to be known as the smart girl, the resourceful one...not the hot one. Kate didn’t use her looks to get what she wanted. At least, not often and never when she was working. “I stay in shape.” She worked out at the gym before work two or three times a week and had for years.
“I can see that.”
His clothes smelled of him. Being in the small taxi, it was impossible to escape him or to ignore her attraction to him. He was Aiden’s brother, he was emotionally unavailable and he was dangerous. Though he didn’t make her feel threatened, he was a trained assassin. Such rationalizations didn’t destroy her attraction to him. Perhaps stress was making her crazy. “How do you suggest I keep the pants up?” Especially because she wasn’t wearing anything beneath them, she hated how they gapped.
Connor reached into his bag and withdrew a long piece of rope and pulled his knife from his pocket. He leaned across the seat and wrapped the rope around her waist. His hands slid around her back, guiding the rope through the belt loops. Where his hands brushed her bare skin, heat flared across her body. He cut the rope and then knotted it. The result was a belt she could tighten and loosen.
“Thank you,” she said and adjusted the rope.
“You’re welcome.”
Just when she thought she could use his rude behavior to demolish the crush she had on him, he did something kind. He was looking out for her. She didn’t appreciate how he spoke to her at times, but he was doing what he knew to keep her safe, and that counted for something.
Kate rolled the legs of the pants and sleeves of the shirt. At Connor’s pointed look, she removed her bra from under the shirt and pulled it out through the shirt’s sleeve. Being naked beneath ill-fitting clothes was not a feeling she enjoyed. She was far, far outside her comfort zone.
“What about my shoes?” she asked, meaning the question to be sarcastic and then regretting it because Connor might tell her to get rid of them, too.
“Keep them. It will be too hard to find replacements and you can’t run if you can hardly walk.”
She looked ridiculous in the oversize clothes, but it would have to do until she could get her hands on other clothes. When their car drew to a stop at a traffic light, Connor jumped out, jogged to a nearby trash can and shoved in her outfit. Getting back into the cab, he didn’t apologize. “If they’re tracking you by your clothes, best if they don’t know where we’re going.”
Her superiors at Sphere knew she believed Aiden was alive. She hadn’t shared the specifics her contact had told her, not wanting to endanger Marcus or his job. Sphere hadn’t pressed her for information. Now she wondered if they’d already known Aiden was being held by the Armed Revolutionaries. They’d gone to the effort to stop her and yet they hadn’t used those same resources to rescue Aiden. Curious. “They may know where we’re going. They could have the same intel,” she said.
Connor stabbed a hand through his hair. “Then we’ve got to get to Aiden first.”
“You know what the worst part about this is? To put this effort into tracking me when they could have put that same effort into finding Aiden.”
Connor snorted. “Whatever their agenda, it involves Aiden not being found. Tell me what else you know about my brother.”
A challenge. Kate wanted his trust. To get it, she would have to tell him what she could and trust in return that he wouldn’t ditch her.
* * *
Kate took a deep breath and switched to Italian. Smart. The driver wouldn’t likely speak the language and Connor did. “Your brother was hunting members of the Armed Revolution, trying to capture key players and to prevent a large-scale insurgency against the Tumaran government. His last verbal check-in was at a bar in Mangrove.”
Connor wasn’t familiar with either location. “What’s the population of Mangrove?”
“Hard to say. It’s a rural town in the middle of the jungle. Ballpark, maybe two hundred people.”
Depending on how friendly the residents of the town were with each other, gossip could spread quickly. They might find someone who remembered his brother and who could clue them in to the last moments before he disappeared. “Which bar? Do you have more details?” Connor wanted every piece of information that could lead to his brother. Connor looked around them. Traffic was tight and they could be boxed in. He wanted to be able to get out of the car and flee. He liked having options in case they needed to escape.
Kate shook her head. “I don’t know much about the bar. I wasn’t on shift when he disappeared. I don’t have access to the raw recording of that final conversation. If he named the bar, it wasn’t in the transcript I read. After I told my superiors about my belief that Aiden is alive, they revoked my security privileges on the files pertaining to that mission.”
Sphere was hiding something from her, but they were always hiding something. As the cab lurched forward, Connor felt his edginess move up a notch. He wanted to get to his brother quickly. “How many bars can there be in Mangrove? A town with two hundred people may only have one or two.”
Connor
