Seek and Destroy (24 page)

    
Up yours, Super Spy.
She balled her hands into fists.

    "Angel?" he sang.

    Why did he keep calling her that? It really started to grate on her. If he knew her codename, why not just come out with it? Quit hinting at it, already.

    "Can I ask another question?"

    "If I told you no, would you still ask?"

    "Probably."

    "What, then?" she bit at him, ticked her emotions displayed in her actions. Which, at the moment, bordered on something she couldn't quite identify. Irritation. Anger. Want.
Crave
.

    Hunger. Her mouth started to water. She tightened her fists until she felt her short nails dig into her palms.

    "Was I just another job to you?" He shuffled his feet, not really looking at her. At first. But then his brown eyes sank into her. "Last night?"

    She looked at him, completely baffled at the question. The way he riveted his gaze to her, looking for any sign on the truth in his question irritated her. Did he honestly think she slept with him as part of her assignment? He actually believed something like that? The look in those hooded eyes told her he did.

    The insult sank into her resolve, threatening her with burning tears. How could he think something like that? Nothing could be farther from the truth. Besides the fact she didn't sleep around-she'd only had sex with two other men in her life, for crying out loud-the thought of sleeping with a perfect stranger mortified her.

    But then again, she had no problem with that last night. David Snyder
was
a perfect stranger. Just because she'd spent every night with him back in the hospital, and every waking moment during the day, did not make him any less of a stranger.

    So why did she feel closer to him than any other man she'd ever known?

    "Do you honestly believe that?"

    He grunted. "I don't want to, but you did have a job to do. I was your target. You did what you needed to do. For the record," he added as if he hadn't driven the knife in far enough. "I don't like being played like that. Next time you need to negotiate, try
talking
to me."

    Charis realized his comment made her jaw drop. She snapped her mouth shut before she really told him how she felt.

    
Too late.
Before she lost her nerve, she spun and pointed her index finger at him. "I did try talking to you! You were too busy feeling sorry for yourself to listen."

    His eyes narrowed on her. "So you did sleep with me as part of your job? All to get me home?"

    Oh, this man was so close to having a high-heeled shoe shoved so far up his ass he'd have to cough it out. "If you think I would ever," she said and jabbed her finger into his chest to drive home her point, "
ever
sleep with you to get what I want then you are not the man I thought you were."

    She spun back around and glared at the double doors. What in the hell took the elevator so long? The building hardly had a soul in it, so it couldn't be in high demand. She labored her breathing so she wouldn't tear up,
hated
that she cried every time she got angry. Turning away from him, she kept her eyes focused on the shiny white paint on the doors.

    "Okaaay," he replied slowly, rubbing the center of his chest where she'd just stabbed at him with her finger. "I may have been mistaken."

    "You are so far beyond mistaken, David." Her voice shook as she said his name. She swallowed down the lump in her throat. Damn it. Stop it. Stop thinking about it. Stop making your nose tingle. Your eyes sting.

    "I," he stopped, put his hand on her shoulder. She swallowed and kept her eyes straight ahead. When he attempted to turn her toward him, she jerked her shoulder back.

    "Don't."

    "Charis, listen to me."

    "I'm through listening to you."

    "Damn it. I didn't mean-I just thought-"

    This time she did turn and look at him. His eyes were soft, full of raw emotion. Whatever check she had on her emotions crumbled. Her eyes swelled with fresh tears. She blinked them back.

    Damn it if one didn't get away.

    "You're crying," he muttered.

    
No kidding
.
Thanks for pointing that out, Captain Obvious.
She swallowed and shook her head to dismiss his comment, both now and before. Easier said than done, but she gave it a valiant effort.

    "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

    "You didn't," she lied. "I cry when I'm angry." Eyeing him, she added, "and right now I'm furious."

    "I just assumed-"

    "Don't ever assume you know something about somebody," she cut him off, ticked so many people in the world assumed the worst in someone. Why wasn't it ever the other way around? "You have no idea the damage that can do."

    She knew better than to ever assume anything about a person. If her assumptions were wrong, it could prove to be fatal. She'd almost been killed that day in the field when she assumed Thomas Macy had been telling the truth when he'd said he wanted to negotiate the terms of his surrender.

    As a key negotiator and intel retriever, ICE had sent her in to do what she did best. Talk. She
assumed
he wouldn't have a landmine set to detonate if she came within five hundred feet of the shack.

    She tightened the muscles in her right leg. Although it had dulled to nothing more than an irritation now, she still felt the injury when she tensed her leg.

    He let out a deep breath and nodded. "Point taken. I'm sorry."

    "So am I, David," she responded crisply.

    They stood in awkward silence, waiting for the elevator. If she knew where the stairs were hidden, she'd have spun on her heel and left him standing there. But, damn it, she didn't know the building. Having no other choice, she remained planted in front of an elevator that seemed to have disappeared.

    "Tell me what you know about Surreal," he stated after allowing the silence to patch the air between them.

    "Surreal?" She wanted to stay pissed at him for his comment, but hearing a name she hadn't heard in almost five years-not since that fateful day in the field where the maniac tried to blow off her leg-made her refocus. "He's dead."

    "He took out a weapons facility three weeks ago. Dead or not, he's back."

    "But," she stuttered. Surreal was dead.
Dead
. She watched him blow himself up. He said he'd do exactly that if anyone ever got close enough to bring him in. That should have been her first clue. He lied when he contacted ICE to negotiate his surrender, asking for her specifically to bring him in.

    She knew people, knew them better than they knew themselves at times. And she saw through Thomas Macy long before even
he
knew he'd be capable of the things he eventually did, all under his cover of his codename of Surreal. She saw it in him when he was still a new recruit.

    Handsome and charming. Maniacal and deadly. As soon as she realized the dangers lurking inside the man's heart, she had him banned from ICE. Looking back now, she should have placed a tracer on him long before she eventually did.

    "I don't believe it," she breathed.

    "That makes two of us."

    "Tell me what happened. How do you know it's really him?"

    "Not now."

    She turned to him. "Why the hell not now?"

    "I've been instructed not to discuss the assignment inside the building, for whatever reason."

    "You brought him up."

    "I know. Just not now."

    "Fine," she sighed. If Surreal survived the blast that demolished his shack, where has he been these past five years? Not that she minded him staying in hiding, but why resurface now? "What now?"

    "We could go back to talking about last night."

    She threw him a glare.

    "Come on," he urged. "You know you want to."

    "I don't think so. Not when you think I could do..." She motioned with the flat of her hand. "
You
. All in the name of a job."

    He kept her locked in his gaze. He seemed to be reading into her soul. "I know that now." He drew in a breath and let it out slowly.

    "If you would have taken a minute to get to know me, you would have already known that."

    "When were we supposed to get to know each other? Before you took a swim? Or how about after you seduced me in your room?"

    "I didn't-" She stopped. Of course she did. He laughed. The gesture made her laugh as well. "Yes, I did." After several seconds, she added, "You put up a lousy defense."

    His dark eyes traced her frame before resting his gaze on her face. "You put up one hell of an offense."

    Instead of being offended by his comment, she hummed in the back of her throat as her mind drifted back to last night. "Thank you."

    "How about this-and I'm going out on a limb here-but you just might...maybe...just a little bit..." He pinched his thumb and forefinger together. "Want it to happen again? You know, to get out all that sexual frustration you have pent up inside you."

    Charis had to blink twice at his comment. "I-didn't we take care of that last night?"

    "Sure, but that was yesterday's frustration. You've had an entire day's worth of events to frustrate the hell out of you." David said it with humor in his tone, mirth in his eye.

    "Right now, the only thing frustrating me is that this elevator seems to be stuck. That and the fact you won't quit bugging me about last night."

    "You could take the stairs."

    "I don't know where they are."

    "You know," he started slowly, his tone low and husky. "You seem so tense. Let me take care of your frustrations."

    She spiked her brow as she eyed him. "By going away?"

    "Ah," he grinned and nudged her. "You don't mean that. I think you kinda like me." He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

    She cocked her head and gave her best attempt at a sultry look. "You don't say." She didn't deny it. She couldn't. As a student of propriety, she knew not to lie. Besides, she was a terrible liar. When she broke her mother's favorite strand of pearls, she tried to blame it on the twins. Who would punish four year olds? So when her mother asked, she'd started in with her story.

    "The twins did it," she'd told her mother. She'd said they played with the necklace and it broke. Her mother had simply looked at her, waiting for the truth. When she had stuck with her story, her mother reached over and pulled the matching pair of pearl earrings out of Charis' ears. As if that hadn't been bad enough, she had then informed her daughter the twins hadn't been home all day. After that, she sang like a bird.

    She'd never lied to her after that, or anyone else for that matter. The feeling of getting caught, of her heart in her throat as she tried to pass off the lie as the truth, had made her stomach hurt for hours. When she'd tried to lie to David, in the name of national security, she couldn't even do it then.

    Good thing they didn't have her in the field that often.

    They stood in silence as the elevator seemed to take forever. Even the elevator back in Maui didn't take this long. Considering there were no other occupants in the building, it should have been here by now.

    The fingerprint scanner. Damn it. She reached forward and allowed it to scan her thumb, her gaze sweeping up to him.

    "I was wondering when you were going to get around to that."

    "You could have said something."

    "You looked deep in thought. I didn't want to disturb you."

    "Oh, why thank you. You could have always used your thumbprint."

    "I don't have clearance."

    "Didn't stop you from getting in."

    He gave her a wink. "Didn't think I'd need to break
out
."

    She ignored the jump in her pulse from the gesture. "And you couldn't figure out how to break out in the time we've been standing here? I guess you aren't such a Super Spy after all."

    "The hell you say," he grunted. When she looked up at him, he winked again. She really wished her heart didn't leap every time he did that.

    "I guess you're right. NASSD wouldn't have gone through so much trouble to get you back if you weren't some Super Spy with magical powers."

    "Oh yeah. You already accused me of being able to fly."

    "I did?"

    He nodded. "Back in the hospital." With a grin he added, "Any other powers you'd like to bestow upon me?"

    "Lord knows you are definitely magic with your hands."

    "My other assets are even better."

    "I'll say."

    David smiled in return. "That's the Charis I know and lo-" he cleared his throat before he said something she would have just about fallen over if he'd actually admitted. "Long for."

    
Riiight
.

    

    

    "Let me ask you a question," he said.

    "Another one?"

    "Yep."

    "So ask," she answered. "I have this really bad habit of speaking my mind." And apparently the truth, no matter how brutal and/or painful it might be.

    He accepted the challenge without hesitation. "Why did you sleep with me last night if it wasn't all for the love of your job?"

    Don't do it. Do
not
open your mouth. "I wanted to be bold. I saw you and thought, 'what the hell', you know?" That wasn't so bad. "It had nothing to do with my job."

    He nodded, seemingly satisfied with her answer. Or so she hoped. "And do you want it to happen again?"

    "With all my heart," she answered, inserting her foot. Crap. With wide eyes, she quickly found interest in the way the overhead lights shined in the polished floor. So much for the new Charis. Apparently
old Charis
and her habits were hard to break. "But," she quickly recovered, "it was just a one-time thing."
Right?