His lips tightened and he moved her hand to her leg. “I can’t focus on what I have to do and worry about you.” He started to get up.

She wrapped her arm with his. “Oh no. You were right. We need to talk. I’m FBI, Blake. I don’t need you to worry about me.”

“Believe me, Kara. I’m crystal clear on what your job is.”

“Are you? Because all this talk about protecting me says you’re not.”

“I am. And it’s part of why—” He stopped himself before he said too much. “You think because you’re FBI you know how to stay alive. You don’t. Not with Alvarez. So I’ll do it for you. You’re out, Kara.” His gut clenched, waiting for the impact of what came next. This was where her hating him came into the picture. “You either get out on your own or I’ll blow your cover and force you out.”

“What?” she gasped, shoving off the bed to whirl on him, her pale cheeks flushed red with anger. “I trusted you and you’re threatening to expose me?”

“I’m doing what I have to. I’m keeping you alive.”

“Oh right. Mr. Death Wish himself wants to keep me alive? Well, two can play that game, Blake. You expose me and I’ll damn sure expose you.”

Smack. He should have seen that one coming. “You’re getting out, Kara, and you won’t get the chance to expose me.”

“You underestimate me, Blake, or you wouldn’t have ended up drugged and asleep in Denver. Who else will you underestimate and end up dead while Alvarez is still alive?”

Double smack. His fingers curled into his fist, adrenaline pumping through his veins. She’d hit ten nerves, all of which had been raw since the night Whitney had died. “You’re right. I underestimated you and you aren’t the first.” He’d underestimated too many people, or Whitney would be alive today. “I won’t take the risk and I won’t do it again. You’re getting out.”

“Not without my sister, and not until I make sure you don’t go and get yourself killed. I might be furious with you right now, Blake, but I know you are trying to be a hero. I’m not a damsel in distress. I’m an FBI agent. You have my back. I have your back. That’s how this works. That’s how it is.”

She hit the big nerve, the raw, throbbing, aching one he wished he could just bury in the hell of his past, and Blake snapped. He grabbed her and took her down on the bed, covering her body with his, fighting a memory that was sure to shred him to pieces. “Don’t say that to me again,” he growled. “Not ever again. Do you understand me?”

Pain sliced through her eyes. “Right,” she said, her voice quavering. “Translation. You want a f**k buddy and nothing more. No partner. No…whatever else. Just a f**k buddy who goes away when you want her to go away. Check. Check. Get off me.”

Her hurt cut through the adrenaline and pain eating away at him, and then it punched in the chest. He didn’t want to get off of her. He didn’t want to hurt her. He didn’t want her to go away. “I’m sorry,” he breathed out. “Kara…I’m sorry.” He lowered his forehead to hers. “I am getting this all wrong. I’m just trying to keep you alive.”

Her fingers curled on his cheek. “I’d rather have you by my side, helping me. I’d rather not be alone in this anymore, Blake. Don’t make me be that again.”

Alone. He felt the ache in that word when she said it. Her family was dead. Her sister was missing. He wanted to make it better for her. He would. He’d get her sister back, no matter what that meant. “I’m the wrong person to count on.”

“Because you expect to die.”

“Because I’m willing.”

“I’m willing. There’s a difference between being willing to die and wishing you were dead.”

He inhaled sharply and lifted his head to look at her. She saw too much and he saw no point in denying the truth. “And that’s why you’re a problem, Kara. You make me want to live again and damn it, that’s dangerous.” Too dangerous. He had to find his control again. He had to do it now.

His mouth came down on hers, his tongue tasting her deeply, drawing in her sweet honey flavor. There was a desperation to his kiss, a need to get to that familiar place where there was only pleasure and escape. Blake skimmed a path up her slender waist, over her high, full br**sts, and she rewarded him with a sexy half moan, half pant, that thickened his c**k and set his blood on fire. Burning up, urgently wanting to be inside her, Blake shoved off the bed, shackled her legs and dragged her to the edge.

Wasting no time, giving her no chance to argue or challenge him, he undressed her. The sooner she was naked, the sooner he could feel pleasure and escape, not pain and the other things she stirred inside him that he refused to name. And still, with every touch, with every brush of their eyes, more than sex stirred in the air, in his body. In his chest.

He undressed, and disposed of his gun on the nightstand, and while it could protect them from enemies, he wasn’t sure who would protect him from Kara. She’d seduced him into every emotion he’d never wanted to feel again and he was desperate to gain back the control she’d stolen. His knees hit the mattress and he lay down, pulling her to her side, her back to his front, his body cradling hers. He didn’t want to look into her eyes, determined to make this just sex, two people surviving a small piece of hell. He nipped her ear. “Are you ready for me?” he asked, sliding fingers in the wet heat of her sex that told him her arousal matched his.