Alpha One (Shadow Agents #1)(17)
Author: Cynthia Eden

“You kissed me in Mexico.” His words stopped her, but he regretted them the minute they left his mouth. He didn’t want to make her mad. He just wanted…

Juliana heaved out a long sigh. “I was half-awake. I didn’t know what I was doing.” No emotion in her words. “Don’t worry, I won’t make that mistake again.”

If only. “Maybe I want you to do it again.” Because they were alone, for the moment. And he was tired of pretending that he didn’t ache just looking at her. That her scent didn’t make him hard. That her voice—husky, soft—didn’t turn him on.

Everything about her got to him. Always had.

Logan was afraid that it always would.

Juliana glanced back over her shoulder at him. A guy could only take so much. She stood there looking so beautiful, reminding him of all the dreams he’d had—dreams that had started right there—and what, was he really not supposed to touch?

He wasn’t that strong.

He stalked toward her.

The bag he’d brought in—a bag of clothes that Gunner had prepared for them both—fell at his feet.

“Logan…” She held up her hands. “I said another agent should come. I told you—”

He wasn’t touching her, not yet. But he sure wanted to. “You’re a liar, Julie.” He knew—he’d been lying for so long that it was now easy to spot the lies that others told.

And he’d been watching her eyes when she lied to him. He said, “You don’t trust yourself around me. After all this time, you still want me.”

She backed up a step. “You’re guarding me. Nothing else. Got it? Nothing…”

“I remember what you taste like. For years after I left, I remembered…” She’d given him another taste just days ago. For a man who was starving, that taste had been bounty.

But Juliana had stiffened before him. There was a stark flash of pain in her eyes. “But you were the one who left, Logan. I was at the bus stop. Standing there for hours because I was so sure that you wouldn’t just abandon me. That you wouldn’t walk away and leave me there alone…”

He’d seen her at the bus stop. He’d had to go. She’d held a small black bag in her hands. Her gaze had swept the station. Left to right. A smile had trembled on her lips every time the station’s main doors swung open.

Eventually, the smile had faded. When the last train left, tears had been on her cheeks. She’d walked away then.

And I felt like my heart had been cut out.

She didn’t understand. There were some secrets that he couldn’t share.

Because the truth would hurt her too much.

“You always looked at me like I was some kind of hero.” A dangerous look, that. It had made him want to be more. Do more.

But the truth, the sad, sick truth, was that he’d never been a hero. He’d been a killer, even back then. And not good enough for her.

I walked away once. I can do this again.

So he didn’t kiss her, didn’t stroke her skin. He sucked in a breath, pulled her sweet scent into his lungs and moved back. “The bed is yours. I’ll take the couch.” He turned away.

A man could only resist for so long, and if he didn’t put some space between himself and the biggest temptation that he’d ever faced, Logan knew his control would shatter.

He could already feel the cracks.

* * *

“JULIANA JAMES has disappeared.”

Diego turned away from the window and its perfect view of the small city below. A city that still slept, for the moment. “That’s not what I wanted to hear.” He wasn’t paying his men for failure. He paid no one for failure.

Diego walked slowly toward Luis, deliberately keeping a faint grin on his face. Luis knew he didn’t accept failure.

Those who failed him paid with their lives.

And often the lives of their family members.

“One of those agents…he took her from the cementerio, stopped her from entering the car.”

Sí, he already knew this. He’d seen the video clips. The cameras had been rolling when the limo exploded, and Juliana James had been tossed back into the air.

The press had all wanted to be there when Senator James was laid to rest. Then when the car had exploded, the reporters had closed in even tighter.

Those reporters had done him a favor, though. They’d shown him the face of Juliana’s rescuer.

Diego strolled to his desk and picked up the photo that he’d had enlarged. The photo that his team had used to track down Juliana’s anonymous protector.

Only, the man wasn’t so anonymous any longer.

Logan Quinn. A SEAL. A SEAL who hadn’t been listed as officially in action for the past three years.

But I bet you are in action, hombre, under the radar, fighting dirty.

Diego could almost respect that. Almost. He didn’t actually respect anyone. What was the point?

“He’s the one we need to track.” Diego tapped the photo. This wasn’t some random agent. Just a man doing his job by protecting his charge. This was…more.

Diego knew how to get information out of people. Sometimes you used torture. Sometimes lies. With Juliana, he’d enjoyed a game of lies. The torture would have come, of course, but he hadn’t been ready to kill her.

He couldn’t kill her, not until he’d gotten the evidence back. A dead daughter wouldn’t have encouraged the senator to give up the secrets he’d stashed away. But a living daughter…one who spilled all her secrets so easily…she’d been a tool that he used.

Logan. Perhaps that had been her most important secret to reveal. He just hadn’t realized it at the time.

Everyone had a weakness. It was a lesson he’d learned so very long ago. Diego slanted a fast glance at Luis, not surprised to see the man shifting nervously. I know his weakness all too well.

The agent, Juliana—they both had weaknesses, too.

Weaknesses that I already understand.

Juliana had revealed so much to him in those hours spent in the darkness. Sometimes torture wasn’t the most effective means of getting what you wanted. Sometimes…sometimes you had to make your target trust you.

Only then could you go in for the kill.

“When we find Logan Quinn, we’ll find Juliana.” Simple. Diego dropped the photo. Weaknesses. They were so easy to exploit.

“You ever been in love, Juliana?” It had been a question he had to ask. If she loved, then she was weak. He could use her loved ones against her. So he’d waited, trying not to look eager, then Juliana had said…