Page 125 of Summer Heat
“Someone needs to read you in.”
“Nicola, you have two seconds. Then I get pissed.”
Hmm, not pissed yet? Could have fooled me. “Me and Jared.”
“You and Jared?” He stared hard. “You and Jared, what, Nicola?”
“We’re working together on this one.” She shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t. Why was he acting like this? See, this was the problem that scared her, that kept her from wanting to get too close to Cash.
“The hell you are.”
“I already told the CIA and Jared I’d do it. We’re going after the butler.”
“No,” he growled.
“Yes.”
“Fucking Jared.” That’s what she said. Wasn’t he listening? He slapped the steering wheel, then threw the truck into gear.
“Cash, calm down. Why are you mad? This is my job! This is my assignment.”
“Nic, you can’t do this shit. You can’t go running around with guns and spies and infiltrate fucking arm dealing networks. You cannot. End of discussion.”
And there it was. He didn’t trust her to work for no other reason that he didn’t think she should be in the field.
She knew it. Tears stung behind her eyes. Her throat was raw, and she tried like hell to swallow the boulder, but couldn’t. “Why?”
It came out as a whisper. He hated her. He didn’t trust her. Now, he wouldn’t respect her on the job. Her mind and her body hurt from the rejection. Her biggest fear and the truest love slammed together. Pain overwhelmed her thoughts.
“So many reasons why this—you and me—is a bad idea.”
“None of what you just said matters, Cash.”
He looked up, seeming almost relieved, as though she’d provided the secret code word to cool-rinse their heat. Then he laughed, a hard and unfeeling sound. “All of them matter.”
He slammed the truck into gear. Cash parked near the bonfire, jumped out, and left her alone in the truck with all of her insecurities.
***
If there were two things Cash could control, it was the cadence of his heart, and then in turn, his breathing. The simple in and out of air and the pace of his blood pressure. He was a sniper. His life depended on it. Control all the things and live to see another day. But as he pounded grass, putting as much distance between him and Nicola as possible, he couldn’t.
His pulse thumped in his temples. His heart exploded with every single beat, lust and memories of love ricocheting off every inch of his body.
Forget taking his blood pressure. He could tell that it was sky-high, and he had a beautiful, confused, lost, wanting-to-prove-herself blond CIA agent driving the numbers higher and higher.
That woman! Damn, that woman…
He wanted hands on her in the worst of ways. Damn it. He had to go and remember years ago when they’d had their first fight as a couple. Or not a couple. No one had known they were together, eerily similar to tonight.
That was the night he’d decided, as some bleary-eyed-in-love frat boy, that he was going to marry her one day. Because they fought like champs, for all the right reasons. Because she loved him, and he loved her, and they couldn’t get enough of each other. All they had to do was chill out and grow up.
Cash bunched his fists. Damn her for fucking up their lives.
But God. That night, what a fight, and how they’d made up. Holding her against the side of his truck, he’d kissed her until she was wet and moaning. Smiling, Cash could almost feel the bite of her teeth when he pressed his cock deep inside her. That innocent beauty of a girl transformed into a wild woman. That was his Nicola.
Too bad she was now a CIA spy, someone who Jared called for jobs, a person who Cash had to look at objectively as a field agent.
His lonely heart hurt, and he just wanted a beer.
