She couldn’t have fought anyway. Her head had been muddled from Dresden’s blow, and once the woman Jude had sent dumped her in the laundry chute, Ella had passed out for good, not waking until a few minutes ago. She’d dreamed she’d woken on a plane, meeting the gaze of her lover and seeing him smile at her the way he used to. But that’s all it had been…a dream.
Because the resolution that had masked his face moments ago told her just how deep in the shit she was. Jude Dagan wasn’t a man to play with, and she knew that’s what he thought she’d been doing.
Ella stared at the gorgeous cedar wood that comprised the ceiling and closed her eyes against the pain of her circumstance. He wanted the truth, and that she couldn’t give him. Not yet. It had nothing to do with trust and everything to do with her mission. The Piper had made it very clear she was to tell no one her mission objective because, he’d said, all of Endgame Ops would try to stop her. King and his men wanted to kill Dresden. The Piper wanted Dresden so he could interrogate and dismantle him.
And the Piper had another huge reason for wanting Ella’s mission kept quiet…his daughter, Anna Beth. The thought of the other woman sent fear tripping through Ella. No one knew better what it was like to be at the horrible tender mercy of Horace Dresden. Ella needed to contact Brody as soon as possible. The woman needed extraction the moment they could discern that Dresden was away from his mansion.
She sat back up and glanced around for a clock. The one on the bedside table said it was five in the afternoon. Darkness was falling outside, and the clouds above them were beginning to drop their load of snow. She had no idea where they were, but if she had to venture a guess, she’d say New Mexico. The Cimarron subrange of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, to be specific.
Jude had told her stories about him and his great-uncle hunting these mountains and their passes. He’d always spoken of New Mexico as home, even though his mother had left the state when he was a baby. Jude hadn’t returned until he was a young teenager. His mother, sadly, had not returned with him. Too eager to become Mexico’s next soap opera star, she’d let Jude return to his father’s people in New Mexico and never looked back.
He hadn’t told Ella much else, but his mother’s desertion had hurt him. Hell, she’d hurt him so much that he denied her existence to most people. Ella had heard their teammates ribbing him about his beautiful mother. Jude tried to ignore it, shrug it off, but sometimes it got to him.
The sound of his footfalls coming back up the stairs tightened her muscles. She didn’t know how to breathe with him so close to her. All she wanted was to sink inside him and never come back out. Would he let her?
The answer rang through her mind unequivocally… No, he wouldn’t. Not until he had the truth. And that she couldn’t give him. Hell, she didn’t even know it now.
“I brought you some soup,” he said as he walked in and placed a heavy-looking ceramic bowl on the bedside table.
“I’m not hungry,” she responded, a part of her just wanting to be contrary. She was frustrated at getting caught. But how could she have anticipated that Jude would come for her inside Dresden’s house?
“Yeah, you are.” He laughed, and the sound rolled through her tummy. “I can hear your stomach growling.”
“That’s anger you’re hearing,” she sniped back.
He laughed again and sat down in the chair he’d taken earlier. “Eat, Ella. It looks like you haven’t been doing much of that lately.”
The smell of potato soup wafted through the air, and her stomach growled loudly, again. She sighed and reached for the bowl, coming close to grabbing it before Jude grunted and beat her to it.
“It’s hot,” he warned her, placing the oven mitt that lay beside the bowl in her hand.
She put the mitt on and grabbed the bowl. He towered over her, and her gaze rose, roving over his strong features until she met his look head-on. Something flared in the depths of his ebony orbs, warming Ella in a way the soup in her hands never could. Then he veiled his eyes, long, dark lashes falling as he made sure to brush her fingers before releasing the bowl into her hands.
Electricity arced between them. She wanted to touch him, to feel that lightning zing between them and settle between her legs before spreading throughout her body. It had been this way between them from the first moment she’d seen him. He’d had his back to her when King had introduced her to the team. Gray Broemig had warned her that King didn’t play well with the CIA but that he’d be fair. Broemig had just wanted someone inside Endgame who could report to him. Vivi had defected and wasn’t forthcoming with intel on Endgame anymore. He’d needed a new patsy. What he hadn’t anticipated was that Ella would become Endgame in her bones. Broemig had lost Ella the moment Jude Dagan had turned around and looked her up and down, his gaze finally centering on her own. Ella had never experienced that type of connection before—had never even known she wanted it.
He had owned her in that moment, and the men he called brothers had become hers as well. She took a delicate bite of the soup and nearly moaned. She’d forgotten how well Jude cooked. His great-aunt had taught him everything she knew, and he’d kept practicing long after he’d grown up.
He said cooking kept him
