Targeted

dress again . . .” She mock shuddered.

His throat dried up at her state of dress—or undress. She was completely covered, but the thin cotton towel did little more than the sheet had done earlier. Though she was short, her tanned, toned legs seemed to go on forever. He could see the outline of her hard nipples too. The thought of sucking one into his mouth, running his tongue around—

“Uh, Jack?” Sophie’s voice jerked his gaze back up to her face.

“Yeah?”

She clutched the towel tighter. “You okay?” She hugged whatever piece of clothing she’d chosen to her chest and watched him with those big brown eyes, obviously waiting for some sort of response.

He cleared his throat and motioned to the bathroom behind him. “I’m done if you want to get in there.”

Without a word she brushed past him and shut the door with a quiet click.

Jack rubbed a hand over his face and stared at the closed door. He had to get past this stupid Sophie thing. Nothing could happen between them. Didn’t matter how bad he wanted it.

While telling himself not to think about Sophie, he quickly dressed in dark jeans and a dark sweater, then turned on his laptop. Before he contacted Wesley he wanted to see if he could find out more about Levi on his own. His gut told him there was no way Wesley was involved. The man bled red, white, and blue. Still, he’d always thought the same thing about Levi.

After sending out feelers to see if he could pick up any chatter on Levi’s whereabouts, he stopped when he heard the bathroom door open. He’d heard the shower shut off, so he’d been expecting her. He tried to brace himself to see her again.

Sophie walked out wearing a snug pair of jeans and a thin green sweater. She rubbed her hands over the jeans pockets and smiled self-consciously. “These are a perfect fit.”

“Good.” As they’d arrived at the motel last night, he’d seen a drunk couple laughing as they stumbled from their room, heading God knows where. The bars in the Keys were notorious for staying open until dawn, so he’d taken a chance and slipped into their room.

Jack started to close down his computer. “You ready to leave?”

“We’re going now?”

“I want to do some reconnaissance of SBMS, you need to call your boss, and I’m going to call Wesley.”

“I thought you were going to wait to make any calls.”

“I am. I’m waiting until we’re out of the Keys. If they do track us down, there’s only one road in and out of here and I don’t like those odds. Once we hit 95, we’ll be able to blend in better.”

Her pretty mouth pulled into a thin line, but she didn’t argue. He stared at that mouth for a long moment until she nervously moistened her lips. Forcing himself to look away, he packed his stuff while she folded the rest of the clothes he’d acquired for her.

Once they were out of the motel room and on the road, Sophie was quiet, only asking him if it was okay to change the radio station.

When they hit Key Largo he stopped at a cell phone shop and picked up a dozen throwaways and two handheld radios. Sophie stayed in the car. While he hated stopping anywhere that had video surveillance, there weren’t many choices and he needed the phones. He managed to avoid looking directly at any cameras.

“Did you get everything we need?” she asked as he got back in.

Jack didn’t miss the anxious note in her voice. “For now.”

“What made you want to do . . . this?”

He shot her a quick glance as he steered back onto U.S. 1. “What?”

“You know, be a superspy or whatever. Is that the right word?”

A rumble escaped from deep in his gut and he realized he was actually laughing. “I’m not a spy. Not exactly.”

“Then what are you?”

“I do a lot of undercover work.”

“So you’re sort of a spy. Kind of like James Bond?”

“Sort of.” A smile tugged at his lips. He wasn’t a spy. Not in the sense that she was thinking. So-called spies worked for the CIA or MI6 or a dozen other countries around the world.

“So how’d you get into it?”

Considering that his boss had sent him on this mission when he should have sent him on vacation, Jack actually got perverse pleasure from opening up to her. Sophie already knew who he worked for. When this was all over, she’d be debriefed for hours—or more likely days. And they’d make her sign more than one confidentiality agreement that promised imprisonment and worse if she told anyone what she knew. “I was recruited.”

“Were you in the military?”

Her eyebrows were knit in curiosity and he wished he could figure out what was going on in her head. She couldn’t possibly know who he was, yet all the hair on the back of his neck stood up as she watched him. “Why?”

“Your tattoos. I saw one on your back. And your . . . bullet. I figured that had some sort of military connection.”

Or she hoped it did, was the implication in her unspoken words. Most of his tats had been covered or removed—and the one she was referring to he should have had removed, but he’d kept it out of pride. He’d made it work with all his cover IDs so far, so it hadn’t been an issue. The places he’d infiltrated had loved “recruiting” him when they found out he had official training. The bullet he wore around his neck—his hog’s tooth—he hadn’t worn on his last mission, but he’d snagged it before heading to Miami. He hadn’t planned to take his clothes off around Sophie, and the thing was like part of his skin. He hadn’t even thought about it this morning, but she’d obviously seen it. Even if she didn’t know exactly what it was, she was smart enough to figure it out eventually.

“I was in the Marines.” Years of training flew out the window as the admission slipped out. Yeah, he was a real superspy today. Tension hummed through him as he told her way more than he ever should have. He was having a harder time than he’d imagined distancing himself from Sam. Who was supposed to be dead. But being with Sophie made him want to be Sam. He wanted her to look at him the way she’d looked at her high school boyfriend. Not look at him as if he were a fucking stranger who could ever hurt her.

“Oh.” She bit her lip, then looked out the window.

“What?”

She looked at him again. “It’s just . . . I told you that you reminded me of someone and he was a Marine too. That’s all. It just freaks me out a little, I guess.”

“Why do I remind you of your friend?” He was playing with fire, but he couldn’t stop himself. And fuck all his years of training and even his boss, he didn’t want to.

Her shoulders lifted noncommittally. “Your eyes. They’re . . . unique.”

“What happened to your friend?” Oh yeah, he deserved a goddamn medal for his superspy abilities today.

Her jaw twitched once, but she answered, “He died. Roadside bomb in Afghanistan or somewhere in the Middle East. I didn’t know, but he’d listed me as his emergency contact, so the military automatically contacted me. I never got the full story and truthfully, I didn’t want to know the details. The fact that he’d died was hard enough to deal with.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” she said quietly.

Jack’s fists tightened around the wheel. Just because she was sorry about his death didn’t mean shit. Time to change the subject. “As soon as we get to Miami, we’re ditching this car and finding a new one. And we’re going to get into the building before the nighttime security arrives, so we’ll have time to kill before meeting with Weller.”

“How do you know the security schedule?” Her voice was cautious.

He lifted an eyebrow at her. Did she even have to ask?

Sophie just shook her head, so he fished out one of the burner phones and handed it to her. “Are you ready to call your boss?”

“I guess.” Her words didn’t inspire confidence.