Complicate (Deliver 9)

They had no idea who they were dealing with.

If she intended to seduce him into cooperating, she should start by washing that shit off her face. But even then, she didn’t have a chance in hell.

He hoped she planned to use sex to get to him so that it could backfire on her with deadly consequences.

Lydia couldn’t ignore the thudding in her ears or the heat swimming in her belly. It produced a terrible glow inside her, giving rise to a complicated question.

What if?

Two simple words, known to spark monumental theories and discoveries. They could also lead to disastrous mistakes.

She wasn’t the only one asking the question. It took two to engage in eye contact, and when she and Cole stared at each other, both of them sizzling in the charged air, she saw her reaction on his face. She saw her shock, her curiosity, her what if?

Under no circumstances was she expecting his gaze to grab her and twist her up like it did. She wasn’t expecting the sheer intensity in his eyes as they imprisoned hers, seeing her as something other than an enemy.

Deep down, beneath the scars of loss and the vitriol that had led her here, she was a woman like any other, with longings and vulnerabilities and dreams that had nothing to do with violence and death.

She’d done well enough to bury that softer side over the past eleven years, and in one goddamn look, Cole Hartman brought it to life.

She blamed the dimples.

And his mysterious confidence.

Not to mention his alluring sex appeal, the rugged build of his powerful body, the sculpted flex of his ass, and the untamed beard that should smell disgusting in its unwashed state but instead only added to his masculine potency.

Damn him for being so devilishly, unfairly handsome.

And damn him for putting these foolish musings in her head.

Watching him heave stone after stone wasn’t helping her concentration. She shouldn’t be affected. This was a job. If she started warming to him, years of training and sacrifice would be forfeited.

She couldn’t afford to lose all the progress she’d made just because the job happened to be a sexy son of a bitch.

She. Could. Not. Fail.

No more what-ifs. No spontaneous explorations of possibilities. Any deviation from the plan was bad for her and this operation. Because one thing was certain. Cole was precisely the type of man who would use her and leave her for dead when he finished.

As he trudged between the pallets, his teeth clenched with exertion. He’d lost muscle mass, but he’d started out with so much. Far more than the average man.

He still had a decent amount of brawn flexing through his frame. And a golden complexion. Pillowy lips. A chiseled face. His expression, when at rest, wore a natural smile. Flirtatious without even trying. Dangerous to the core. He was a gorgeous, tattooed beast.

If she had a type, it was Cole Hartman. She imagined he was every woman’s type. Including the one he let go.

Danni Savoy.

The pretty dancer was inked on his forearm amid a collage of unrelated designs and symbols. She glimpsed a motorcycle, an inverted cross, several suns, a leaf, chains, a spider web, and dozens of other illustrations too small to make out at this distance.

The artwork sleeved both arms and half of his chest. And though she hadn’t stolen a glimpse of him naked, Mike had mentioned there was a large black snake coiled around his thigh.

This wasn’t a guy who put fortuitous ink on his skin. Every piece told a story, a secret, and she wanted to learn them all. Starting with the dancer.

She knew very little about Danni aside from his relationship with her. They’d dated for ten months. Got engaged. Then he took a job that separated them for three years. That job was the reason he lost her to his best friend.

It was also the reason he was here.

Danni was his greatest weakness. She was also untouchable. Married to an obscenely wealthy casino owner, she was surrounded by a team of bodyguards at all times and hadn’t left the security of the casino since Lydia’s team started watching her.

Cole must’ve alerted her husband of possible danger. Not that it mattered. Lydia had what she needed to coax Cole into compliance.

If he thought his time in that cell had been unbearable, he had no idea what she was saving him from. She was the only thing standing in the way of his unspeakable suffering.

But if she failed to hold up her end of the bargain, he was a dead man.

Keeping him in the dark—literally and figuratively—was for his own good. And hers. She needed him alive.

Strangely, though, he wasn’t demanding answers about why he was here and what they wanted. Wasn’t he wondering why she used isolation and thrash metal over common methods of torture? Maybe his silence was some sort of tactic.