“Pine Street’s the closest location,” Kara said tightly, seeing this as an opportunity to get inside the restaurant she’d been scouting for some time, and perhaps inside the back warehouses the cameras kept her away from.

“Pine Street it is,” Blake said, lacing his fingers between Kara’s. “We’ll meet you there.” He didn’t give Ignacio a chance to reply. He pulled Kara with him and started walking toward the parking garage. His pace was steady and calculated, but she could feel the urgency building inside him, the fire about to combust. It was as if the instant they stepped away from Ignacio, something inside him snapped. Had something just happened or had he been containing this back there with Ignacio? And if he was, my God, how?

“What’s wrong?” she asked the instant she felt they were safely out of earshot.

“Not now. Wait.”

His tone was sharp, his grip on her hand tight. “Blake—”

“Not,” he ground out, “now.”

Tension crawled inside Kara and took root, and her hand went to her purse to once again grasp her weapon. She could only assume someone must be following them, close enough that he feared they would be heard if they spoke, or worse. That they were about to be attacked and he was trying to hear a perp’s approach. Ignacio was as low as they came. It would be nothing for him to kill them right here and now. And, as he’d said, he was good at getting rid of bodies. She knew that for a fact. Knew it in an intimate way she wished she didn’t.

The entrance to the parking garage came into view and Blake seemed to speed up, not slow down at the dimly lit tunnel it resembled. Kara relaxed marginally, seeing that as a sign he felt they were leaving the trouble behind.

Once the truck was in sight, Blake clicked the automatic locks and she rushed to her door and climbed inside, pulling the door shut. She turned to Blake as he did the same, intending to ask questions when he slammed his hands down on the steering wheel. Kara flinched.

“Fuck, f**k, f**k!” he exclaimed, raking fingers through his hair, long, dark strands falling from the tie at his nape and hanging around his face. His grip closed into a vice around the wheel and Kara could see his muscles quivering as he grappled with whatever had him in knots.

She held her breath, waiting expectantly, long seconds ticking by, while Blake clearly stood on the edge of a proverbial cliff about to jump. Kara could feel his tension and she actually felt herself tremble, her stomach knotting with the pain and torment that radiated off of him. Whatever the darkness was that she’d sensed in him the first time she met him had been triggered. Something had reached in deep and dragged it to his surface. It was crazy, but on some unexplainable level, she knew this man, and understood him, knew he was motivated by some deep hurt that carved him inside out. The idea that she could understand an enemy and make him human rather than a monster was a terrifying thought. She wanted to reject the idea. But she couldn’t. Not with Blake.

She didn’t give herself time to think. She reached for him. The instant she was about to touch him, it was as if he knew. His hand snaked out, fingers wrapping her wrist, and the next thing she knew she was flat on her back with him on top of her.

Chapter Two

She was soft beneath him, and Blake’s mouth came down on hers, his tongue caressing hers with desperate, hungry strokes, drinking her in, drowning the past in the present. He hated the past, hated the memories and the way they sideswiped him, controlled him. The past was controlling him now, and in a big way.

One minute he’d been with Ignacio, the next walking away, reliving Whitney bloody and dead in his arms. He’d made it to the truck without being overcome with the acid burn of hate and hurt that memory produced, but it hadn’t been easy. And when Kara had touched him and that image of Whitney had transformed, becoming her instead, it had been like a premonition that he was going to get her killed, too. Like she was going to matter to him and he was going to fail her, as he had Whitney. And damn it to hell, he didn’t want her to matter. He didn’t want to care about Kara or anyone else ever again. He wouldn’t let it happen. Kara was a tool for revenge, to get to Alvarez, and hot sex along the way. Which was exactly why he was going to f**k her right here in the truck, in the garage.

Blake curved his hand under her hips, shifting his hips to fit into the V of her body, nestling his c**k against her. She moaned and arched into him, so freaking soft on the outside, curvy beneath him, the floral scent of her delicate, and yet she was hard, tough, war-ready in a way he’d never suspected the first night in Denver.

Blake licked into her mouth, drank in the sweet honey flavor of her passion, of his passion mixed with hers, feeling the burn of insane need for a woman he barely knew driving him wild. He needed her, and he needed this right now. This was an escape from the rage going on inside him, the certainty he’d gotten Whitney killed, and that he was on the verge of getting Kara killed when he was only trying to save her. An image of Kara lying in his arms as Whitney had flashed in his head again. Damn it to hell, why was he thinking about this again? Why was he thinking at all?

He tried to deepen the kiss, to forget again, but it was too late. He was back into the acid burn of the past, the fear it would become the present. He didn’t trust Kara, but he trusted himself even less. Damn it, he was pissed. At himself. At her. At his inability to control what he was feeling and thinking.

Blake tore his mouth from Kara’s, staring down at her, their eyes connecting, the cabin of the truck a sauna of desire and lust, and for a moment he could once again think of nothing but how good it would feel to be inside her. She was making him crazy. “Who the f**k are you?” he growled through clenched teeth.