Alpha One (Shadow Agents 1)

He couldn’t afford to have Juliana turn away from him, not now. It would be too dangerous for her.

“Dawn’s close,” she said, her voice husky. Sexy.

Dawn was coming. He could see the sky lightening behind the big picture windows. Faint hues of red were streaking through the darkness.

They’d have to get ready for her press conference soon. More plans. More traps.

Her fingers were on his back, tracing lightly over the scar that slid down near his spine. “What happened here?” she asked him softly.

Her touch was light, easy.

Logan swallowed and tried to keep his body from tensing. “A mission in the Middle East. Hostage rescue. It didn’t go...quite as planned.” He’d had to take the hit in order to protect the hostage. At the time, he’d barely felt the pain. And he’d killed in response to the attack—

instantly. No second thought, no hesitation. In the field, there wasn’t ever time for hesitation.

Kill or be killed.

Her fingers slid around his side. So delicate on his flesh. Logan turned to face her.

“And here?” Juliana asked. She was tracing the jagged wound that was too close to his heart. As she leaned forward to study the scar, her hair slid over his arm.

Logan took a breath and pulled her scent deep into his lungs. “A bullet wound in Panama.” A drug lord hadn’t liked having his operation shut down. Too bad for him. And that shot had almost been too close for Logan.

Her head tilted back as she studied him and let her fingers rise to slip under his chin. “And here? What about this one?”

His smallest scar. He stared into her eyes. “That one came from a bar fight...in Jackson, Mississippi.”

A furrow appeared between her eyes.

Why not tell her? “One day, I lost my girl, so I got drunk in the nearest bar I could find.” The only time he’d gotten drunk. Won’t be like him. Can’t. “There was a fight.” His fingers lifted, caught hers, moved them away from the scar. “A broken whiskey bottle caught me in the chin.”

Her gaze searched his. “You didn’t lose me.”

“Didn’t I?”

She pulled her hand away. Logan saw that she was wearing a robe, long and silky. He wanted to pull her back into his arms but—

The phone in his back pocket began to vibrate. Logan pulled it out, keeping his eyes on hers. “Quinn.”

“We just found McLintock,” Jasper said, his voice rough.

“Where?”

“Cemetery. They dumped his body on the senator’s grave.”

Hell, that was a pretty clear message.

“He was carved up. Someone sure took their time with him.”

Because Guerrero had wanted McLintock to talk, and Logan was betting that the guy had talked plenty, before his attackers killed him.

Guerrero and his men liked to get up close and personal with their targets. From the cases that he’d worked before, Logan knew that Guerrero’s weapon of choice was a knife. He liked the intimacy of the blade. The control it gave him as he slowly tortured his prey.

That was why the cemetery bombing had never fit for him. Not up close and personal enough. The guy enjoyed watching the pain on his victims’ faces.

“I’m going with the ME now,” Jasper said, and there was the rumble of another voice in the background, “but I’ll meet you at the press conference.”

The press conference. Right. They still had their show to do. Logan ended the call. His eyes never left Juliana’s. “You heard.” She’d been too close to miss Jasper’s words.