Black Jack (Elite Ops 4)

“You’re wild and brave,” he told her softly. “Over the past years I’ve sworn you’d get both of us killed.”

And that only confused her more.

Travis watched the heaviness of her expression, the way her lips turned down, the sadness and loss in her gaze. He could read how lost she was, and for Lilly, that wasn’t something he was familiar with. She didn’t often show her emotions, no matter what they were. Unless it was passion. Damn if she hadn’t burned the night down around them.

“Come with me, Lilly,” he urged gently. “We’ll talk, uncensored. I can tell you who you are.”

He could tell her partial truths and half-lies. He could give her the explanations the agency had come up with. He couldn’t let her know who she was entirely, only the cover the agency had given her. It was a piss-poor offering, but it would fill in some of the blanks at least. Maybe wipe that lost look from her face, at least for a little while.

“If you wanted to talk uncensored, then you shouldn’t have brought your friends along for this meeting.”

She moved to pull away from him, to put the helmet on her head and to ride away into the darkness. But he wasn’t ready for her to leave quite yet.

Sliding his fingers under her hair, he gripped the back of her neck, catching her by surprise as he tipped her head back and lowered his own.

Travis caught the small gasp from her parted lips and took full advantage of the slight opening. His tongue brushed over her lips, then stroked inside in a teasing little thrust that had them both catching their breath when it deepened to much more than the gentle assault he’d planned.

Once his tongue touched her, tasted the trace of beer and feminine warmth, Travis was lost. He needed a hell of a lot more than a teasing taste.

As he held firm to her neck, his lips pressed down on hers, sipping from her lips, driving his tongue deep inside the honeyed recess.

She set fire to him; there was no other way to describe it. She made him burn with need and a hunger to possess her unlike anything he’d ever known.

There was something unique about Lilly. There always had been, he had to ensure that there always would be.

As he felt her hands sliding up the leather covering his arms, the ragged need to have her naked against him tore through his senses. He’d been too long without her. Now that he knew the taste of her, the pleasure to be found with her, he wanted more. He wondered

if he’d ever have enough of her.

“Come with me,” he ordered against her lips before nipping at them seductively. “I promise, you won’t regret it.”

Lilly had a feeling it would be the one thing she ended up regretting more than anything else. But she didn’t want to resist either. She wanted to be wild and free with this man.

She didn’t remember the past six years, but she did remember the years before it. She’d lived her life according to others’ expectations. Those of her parents, her friends, her associates.

Her father expected her to follow in his footsteps as a purveyor of information to British Intelligence and she had wanted that as well. She’d been trained young to step into the role, just as her mother had begun training her young daughter to take her place in English society. They had fought over that, she remembered. Her mother had no idea the work Lilly did with her father, but she had known her husband often advised Lilly not to marry, not to commit herself to another person.

She’d always done as she had been expected to do, as others had wanted her to do, as much as possible. She had never, that she remembered, lived within the moment. Taken a chance. Been wild and free. The woman Travis described wasn’t the woman Lilly remembered herself being. She needed to know who that woman was.

“No censors?” she whispered, as his lips brushed over hers again.

“None.” He demanded another kiss, another melding of lips, stoking the heat between them as Lilly gave into the pleasure.

It was incredible. No more than the touch of his lips on hers, his tongue stroking against hers. His heartbeat pounded against her breasts—how had he managed to pull her so close without her realizing?—his arms tight around her.

There was something about it that made her wonder if she had ever known passion before him.

Something warned her that she had known it with this man, and only this man.

Pulling back, Travis stared down at her shadowed features and knew she would follow him. He didn’t say anything. Instead he lifted the keys from the pocket of his jacket and moved to his own motorcycle.

Straddling it, he pushed the key into the ignition. The two bikes started simultaneously. Within seconds they were pulling away from the bar and heading through town.

Damn Elite Ops and the mission. It would end up destroying him and possibly Lilly as well.

This was exactly what he hadn’t wanted. To see the pain and confusion that filled her eyes, that was slowly tearing her apart.

There was instinct, suspicion, and what Travis knew was second nature. The fighter Lilly was was instinctive. It was as much a part of her as breathing. As being.