There was no other option for her. There never had been. She’d been foolish to ever think otherwise.

She didn’t let herself ponder it further, didn’t let herself experience a single flicker of emotion about it. Not here, not now.

“Love,” Nolan said sadly. “I dream of a single taste.”

As had she.

“Once I have known love, I can die a happy man.”

Her gaze sought Jaxon. He was still watching Nolan, though she thought perhaps his peripheral attention was focused solely on her. Love. She had finally found hers, the one man destined to steal her heart. Now that the end loomed near, she could admit it wholeheartedly. She loved him. She did.

He’d given her everything.

In return, she would do everything in her power to help Jaxon with this case. She owed him that much. Then…yeah. Then.

CHAPTER 19

Jaxon remained in night’s shadows as Mishka escorted Nolan and his two guards to an upscale apartment complex. First they’d walked the busy sidewalks, then they’d caught a cab, and now they were walking again, striding past a spiked white gate. Only the guards seemed on alert. Nolan and Mishka were too busy chatting.

Damned irritating, that’s what it was.

The gate closed behind them automatically, and they soon disappeared inside the towering building of lovely red brick and mortar. Well, metal painted to look that way. After the human-alien war, most homes and businesses had been rebuilt to better withstand fire, bombs, and strange alien powers.

Though he, Mishka, and Nolan planned to meet again in the morning, Jaxon knew Mishka would leave Nolan tonight and come to him. At least, she had better. He glanced at the soft green glow of his watch: 9:27 P.M. He’d give her fifteen minutes before going in. If, during that time, Nolan touched her or she touched Nolan, Nolan would take his last breath tonight.

Five minutes, and Jaxon was going in.

He didn’t trust Nolan and didn’t want Mishka alone with the disease-carrying bastard. Especially now that he knew a fertile female was not needed to spread that living virus.

“I can get you in the building,” Eden said in his ear. The van and all the other agents had followed him. Easy enough, since he’d allowed himself to be injected with that tracking isotope a few days ago.

“Not yet.” He propped his shoulder against the wall beside him. The little side street bustled with apartments and shops. People meandered on the walkways, neon signs flashed, and cars purred past.

“Just kill them both.” This time, it was Mia’s hard voice in his ear. “Waiting around is dumb. We’re not going to learn anything new, and we’re probably being set up.”

“I know what I’m doing,” he lied. He’d removed the rubber from his nose and jaw, cleaned the makeup off his face. Not because Mishka and Nolan had recognized him, but because he wanted nothing in the way when he claimed Mishka’s mouth.

And he would claim it. Hard and hot and insistent.

First, of course, he would demand answers. The job had to take precedence over desire. Stupid job.

What would her reaction be when he kissed her? Would she want him to kiss her?

He’d never really had to work for anything. Well, except for females and sex, and those only because of his scars. He’d taken to A.I.R. like a baby took to breast-feeding. Natural instinct, as if he’d been born for it. Yet it hadn’t mattered. He could have been fired, and it would not have destroyed him. The women hadn’t mattered, either. They had left him, and he’d been happier for it.

Now, someone did matter. She was not easy, was proving to be the biggest challenge of his life, and none of his worth could buy her. But he was unwilling to move on. He had to have more of her.

For once, he was absolutely prepared and happy to do the work. For her. She’d probably reject him a thousand times; after all, self-preservation had been beaten into her. That just meant he had to pursue her a thousand and one times, he told himself.

Victory would be his.

“Well, well, well,” Mia said, tone heavy with disgust.

The white gate groaned open, and Jaxon snapped from his musings. Suddenly Mishka was there, only a few yards away. She had not changed clothes, had not removed the wig, and still looked like an expensive hooker, short hair slicked back to a high gloss. She remained in place, searching the darkness.

His heart galloped, his blood heated, his dick swelled, completely unconcerned about its potential audience. When it came to Mishka, he should have been used to that uncontrollable reaction.

He wasn’t.

His mouth watered for her; he’d been without her too long. He thought, fuck answers. Her first. Questions later.

Stepping from the shadows and into a beam of light, he strode to her, his long steps eating up the distance. Her eyes widened when she spotted him. Not in surprise because she’d known he would follow, but in arousal. Yeah, she wanted his kiss.

Without a word, he crowded her into the side alley and against the building’s wall. She allowed it without protest. Shadows swallowed her as he meshed his body into hers, lips swooping down, hot, so hot.

At first contact, she gasped his name. Her arms slid up his chest and wound around his neck. Their tongues thrust together, rolled, desperate to appease the addiction they’d been denied the last week.

Her feminine flavor filled his mouth, fired his arousal another degree. He cupped one of her breasts and realized she wore a padded bra, so delved under the scooped neck of her dress to touch actual flesh. Instantly her nipple hardened against his palm.

He hissed at the sharp, decadent agony. “Fuck.”

“Yes, please.” Her knee hooked around his waist, drawing him deeper into the sweet cradle presented. Her fingers tangled in his hair, nails scouring his scalp.

Over and over his tongue plundered. He could not get enough of her. More. He had to have more. Had been starving for this, for her, and now wanted to gorge.

“Did he touch you?” he growled, only when he had to pull back to breathe.

“No.”

“Did you want him to?”

“No.” She answered without hesitation, but there was self-loathing in her tone. Why? “Only you,” she added.

Only you. The words echoed in his mind, defusing the blistering core of his fury and helplessness at seeing her with the otherworlder and being unable to do anything about it. Lips hovering just above hers, he whispered fiercely, “You are mine.”

“Jaxon, I—oh, God.” As though his claim on her pushed her over the edge of control, she arched her hips against his dick, rubbing, sliding up and down. “I…I’m…”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re not going to shove me from your life again.”

Panting, she chewed on her bottom lip. “Just kiss me again. Please.”

“Tell me what I want to know first,” he insisted. “I know why you did it, and I understand. But I won’t tolerate it again.”

“I won’t shove you away. Can’t. I’m too weak when it comes to you.”

He kneaded her breast, wanting so badly to rip apart his pants and sink inside her wet heat, pounding and deep. “We’re going to be together.”

“Oh, God. Jaxon! You’re making me ache so badly.” Her eyelids closed, her lips parted on a raspy gasp, and he thought perhaps her nails drew blood in his scalp.

“—idiot male,” he heard Mia say in his ear, obviously still disgusted.

“Five minutes,” he barked at her.

“What? Oh.” Mishka’s gaze latched onto the tiny piece in his ear and her cheeks heated.

“Five minutes?” Mia said. “Damn, boy. Didn’t know you were that fast a worker.”

With his free hand, he jerked out the earpiece and tossed it to the ground. Not caring about privacy for himself but knowing Mishka would not want anyone else to see or hear her more than they already had, he did something he’d never done before. He purposely destroyed A.I.R. property by stomping on the earpiece and smashing it into little pieces.

“Just you and me now,” he said.

“Good.” She rubbed herself on him, soon becoming lost in the pleasure, unconcerned about anything else.

He moved his gaze over the surrounding area. Her protection came before his desire. Thankfully, no one paid them the least bit of attention. No one was headed in their direction.

Still, they needed to move this reunion somewhere else. In a few minutes, he mused as she hit just where he liked. The other agents had things under control, and the thought of releasing Mishka, even for a second, was abhorrent to him.

He returned his attention to her and drank in the desire glowing from her lovely face. Eyelids at half-mast, lips red and slightly swollen from the pressure of his, his moisture still glistening on them.

Leaning in, breathing in her erotic scent of pure pheromone and jasmine, he licked his way along her jawbone, down the column of her throat. “Miss me?”

“So much.”

He flicked the tip of his tongue back and forth over the erratic beat of her pulse. Then he plumped the breast he held and licked the upper swell. A tremor raked her.

“You’re not mad at me?” she asked. “I treated you horribly. I—”

“I had just left you bound to a bed. I treated you horribly.”

Unwilling to release her breast but needing the dress and bra out of his way, he turned his wrist until both pieces of material anchored underneath and hooked below, baring her completely.

Sweet Jesus. Her nipple was as pink and ripe as he remembered, begging to be sampled. Unable to resist, he sucked the little bud into his mouth. She cried out in ecstasy, then whimpered, and he nearly came in his pants. First time he’d touched her like this, she hadn’t trusted him enough to enjoy it. Now she trusted him; now she enjoyed. The knowledge increased his own pleasure.

Her head thrashed from side to side, her cheeks so flushed they were practically neon signs. “Jaxon,” she gasped out.

“Let’s take the edge off you,” he whispered. As he nibbled on her earlobe, he finally released her breast. He could have cursed at the loss of that perfect little mound, but consoled himself with the fact that he was about to enter paradise.

His fingers glided down the flat plane of her stomach to grip the hem of her dress. Up, up he lifted it, until the line of her blue panties was revealed. Ignoring the knives strapped to her thigh, he slid a fingertip along the material.

Her knee fell from his waist and she planted her feet as far apart as she could get them and still remain standing. An invitation. This desire was for him, only him. Not his money, not to convince him to forget a crime she’d committed, not to distract him.

Pride filled him. I did this. I made her ache. Nothing else mattered at the moment. Not the place, not the agents waiting, nothing.

“Hurry, touch me,” she moaned. “It’s too much.”

“I’ll make it all better.” Already her panties were so wet they soaked his hand. His swollen shaft jerked, all the more desperate to be inside her. Not yet, not here. Knowing he was pushing himself to the limit but caring about her more, he slid two fingers under her panties, through the slick, wet heat, and all the way home, thumb pressing against her clitoris.

She belted out a scream, but he captured the sound with his mouth, resuming their kiss as if it had never ended. Again and again their tongues stroked together. Passion was a wildfire, spreading, scorching everything in its path, and the kiss became all the more fervent. Their teeth scraped, and then she was biting down on his lower lip, so consumed with need she’d lost control.

All the while he pumped his fingers in and out of her.

When her climax hit, it hit hard. She clutched at him, pinched his shoulders, scratched and bucked. Her inner walls clamped down, holding him captive.

“That’s it, sweetheart.”

His dick throbbed as he pulled his hand away. Get. Inside. Her. “Do you have a room nearby?” There was so much arousal in his voice, the words emerged slurred, as though he were drunk.

“Well, isn’t this just sickening?”

At the sound of Mia’s voice, Mishka stiffened and Jaxon’s head whipped to the side. Seeing Mia, Dallas, Eden, Lucius, and Devyn lined up at the end of the alley, he pushed Mishka behind him while she righted her clothing. Should’ve known they wouldn’t give him five damn minutes alone.

“Get lost,” he snapped.

The average person would not have been able to see him. But agents were trained in the dark and saw better than most, shadows mere curtains to be swept aside. The agents in front of him could make out every detail, he knew. From the sweat beading on his brow to the trickle of blood flowing from his lip and down his chin.

“She’s playing you, Jaxon,” Mia said. “Why can’t you see that?”

The fires of his desire morphed into fires of fury. “I seem to recall that a few months ago you were screwing a murder suspect, Mia, so you can shut the hell up and back off.”

“Kyrin was not and is not a murderer!”

“You didn’t know that at the time,” he reminded her.

“I knew in my heart.”

“Well, I know in my heart that Mishka is not the coldhearted bitch you think she is.”

Mishka stepped beside him. He glanced down and nearly cursed. No longer was she the sweet lover he’d held and pleasured. She stood there, cold and emotionless, completely discounting his claim. She’d palmed a blade, which glinted at her side.

“Let’s finish this,” she said to Mia.

Mia smiled and revealed a blade of her own, more than happy to comply.

Le’Ace was shaken deeply, unequivocally. One moment she’d been looking at Jaxon, filled with yearning and need, and the next she’d been in his arms, coming with breathtaking abandon.