The right-side driver’s door of the lead Rover opened, and a dainty foot encased in a nude stiletto heel lowered to the ground. The leg attached to the foot had his gut clenching. He’d tasted the arc of that calf, tongued the indention of that knee, and had his hands all over that thigh.
She stepped out of the Rover completely, and his gut clenched, then relaxed. It was a reaction he’d only had with her. Jude was a warrior, a soldier. He’d spent most of his adult life training, fighting, and killing. He was damn good at what he did. Had never even realized something was missing from his life until she’d stepped into his sphere and taken him over.
The wind caught her overcoat and tossed the ivory folds, allowing him a glimpse of a body that was thinner than he remembered but no less captivating. Through the scope, his gaze trailed upward over her hips and then higher across her breasts and up along the slope of her collarbone. Her skin was the same color as her coat but softer, glowing. The flavor of that skin danced like a phantom over his tongue.
The trees above him bowed to the wind, and in his spot on the ridge above the compound, his nostrils flared, a stallion scenting its mare. He swore he could taste her on the breeze. She moved to shut the door and, in an instant, froze.
She slowly lifted her hand and removed the dark sunglasses that hid the frost of her gaze from him. The scar at her temple mocked him. It was the only mark on the otherwise unblemished face that stalked his dreams. And then she angled her head toward his location.
His heart locked in his chest. No way she had any idea he was here. He hadn’t even told King where he was headed—had kept the information about Dresden’s supposed compound from the Piper, King, and his teammates. This was what he’d been reduced to. Spying on a woman who’d betrayed him…betrayed them. Desperate for a glimpse of her. Desperate to make her pay.
The wind settled at that moment, but still she gazed up toward him. The man who’d gotten out of the Rover on the other side must have called her name, because she glanced at him and her lips moved before she began walking toward the building. Jude was too far away to hear her words.
Six men got out of each of the remaining Rovers, each carrying a small metal briefcase. Jude would bet his left nut they were here to obtain some of Dresden’s horde of biochemicals.
He trained his gaze on her again, watching as her long legs ate up the distance between the Rover and the building, and for a crazy second, Jude remembered her as she’d been the night before his world had been blown to hell. He saw her walking on their beach in Virginia, the wind whipping her long ebony hair, the waves playing havoc around her delicate ankles. He saw her head turn as a grin broke across her face. He saw the flush of their recent lovemaking on her body.
A hawk screamed in the distance, and Jude was jerked to the present. Instead of seeing his woman through the sight of the scope, he saw her. A stranger. A traitor.
Jude’s sight remained locked on her, his finger caressing the trigger as he let the anger flow through him. He’d heard the whispers—maybe she was a double agent. Maybe she wasn’t the traitor he knew her to be. Maybe she was both and neither.
Maybe he hadn’t given everything he was to a ghost.
He needed the truth, and he’d resolved that he’d have to be cold and merciless in finding it. She’d led them on this path. She could damn well walk it with him.
The man entered the building, but before she stepped in behind him, she once again turned her gaze to Jude’s location.
She couldn’t see him, but for Jude, it didn’t matter. She knew he was there. He knew she knew. She raised both hands, holding up six fingers. It was so quick that Jude wondered if his mind was playing tricks on him as his heart threatened to burst from his chest. Had it been supplication or warning? He didn’t know—but the sadness that passed like a cloud over the contours of her face in that moment had him swearing.
Then she lowered her hands as the soft curves of her mouth lifted in a travesty of a smile.
Jude cursed again, the wind taking the foul word and tossing it to and fro. As she moved out of his sight, his gut clenched once more. King had warned Jude that all was not as it seemed, to give him time to figure it out.
Jude hadn’t been inclined to give himself that time. Until this moment.
Because there’d been one other emotion on her face just now that ripped a hole right through Jude’s shriveled heart. He’d seen it many times over the course of their year together but had despaired he’d ever see it again. It had been the truest of all the emotions she’d ever displayed with him.
It was the one thing that stayed his trigger finger. It was the only thing that could save her.
Love.
* * *
Her neck had been itching for weeks, as if a scope’s site was embedding itself into the skin there, and she knew why.
Jude.
Her past. She swallowed the agony of that truth. He would always be her past because the simple fact was that Ella didn’t believe she had a future.
As soon as she stepped out of the Rover, she’d felt him on her skin, tasted him on her tongue. Of course, that was fanciful. But she knew he was up there, watching. When she saw him at Dresden’s place in Beirut, she’d known he would
