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That extra instinct she possessed was screaming at her now, warning that she was about to dive headlong into dangerous territory...delve past some unseen boundary of no return, and still, she couldn’t stop herself. She looked into those ice-blue eyes, letting him see every confusing emotion she felt at that moment.
“Still think I’m cute?”
Right now—this moment—was the turning point. Her response to him now would determine whether or not he allowed her full access. He refused to trust her, but some part of him wanted to believe that she was telling him the truth.
Her future depended upon this one defining second.
She went up on tiptoe, and even then, reaching that grim mouth was a task. He stood several inches taller than her. She brushed her lips lightly to his. Something electric zipped through her...startled her.
He pulled away...eyed her suspiciously.
Just when she felt certain he wouldn’t respond, he grabbed her, whirled her around and pinned her against the wall with his big body. His mouth came down hard on hers. The kiss was punishing, savage. A mixture of desire and fear surged through her veins. She couldn’t deny the attraction, but his touch was brutal.
She shoved at his chest. Every muscle her body encountered was like granite. Her lip burned, the wound reopening beneath his onslaught. The tang of blood had her pushing harder against him.
“Wait,” she murmured breathlessly when he broke the seal of their lips just long enough to take a breath. She touched her lip, swiped at the trickle of blood. He watched her intently, his own breath ragged, but a good deal more controlled than hers.
Just then she remembered the monitor and made a conscious effort to slow her respiration...her heartbeat. If Maverick was still monitoring her activity, she didn’t want him barging in.
“Not like that,” she whispered. “Like this.” She told herself it was a mistake, but that didn’t stop her. She kissed him tenderly...slowly. He didn’t move a muscle...held perfectly still. She kissed those firm lips until her own unexpected reaction forced her to break the contact. Not taking the time to evaluate her motives, she pressed her lips to the tiny scar on his cheek and then moved lower. Scar after scar she acknowledged with her lips...tracing each with her tongue. Her fingers fisted in the worn soft cotton of his shirt, and she fought the crazy need swirling inside her. This was work, she repeated mentally over and over. She dropped down to her knees, careful not to break the contact of her lips against his skin.
She was winning this battle. He braced his hands against the wall, his eyes closed and for the first time since she’d met him, the hard lines of his face softened just a fraction. But that was the only thing soft about him. Flirting with danger, she drew her tongue along the warm flesh just above his waistband. If she didn’t stop now...she might have to finish this but every instinct told her that seduction was her only chance of reaching this guy.
Without warning, he grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet. When her gaze collided with his, he looked totally unaffected. Anything he’d felt was long gone.
“I’ll take you home now.”
He released her and walked out of the room. Tasha let go a shaky breath and sagged against the wall to pull herself together. She was hot...damn hot and wet. She’d enjoyed that more than she should have—definitely more than he had, it seemed.
Damned fool, she railed at herself silently.
She knew better than to let that happen.
Staring at her reflection in the mirror, she just shook her head. The chance of a lifetime and she was going to screw it up playing amateur psychologist.
Whatever this guy’s problem, it wasn’t her job to save him. Her mission was to deliver him up to Lucas Camp for one thing and one thing only.
To die.
Chapter 14
When he pulled the SUV next to the curb outside her apartment building, Tasha couldn’t help thinking she’d had her chance and now it was over.
This wasn’t the kind of guy to allow any sort of strings. She most likely would not see him again. But at least she knew where he lived, for the moment. She had his license plate number and a damned up-close description. But that’s it. She knew absolutely nothing else about him.
“You didn’t tell me your name,” she said in the silence that ensued after he’d shifted into Park.
He turned toward her, his gaze cutting right through her like cold, hard steel. “Does it matter?”
She nodded, feeling startled by and wholly unprepared for the emotions he wrought in her.
“Seth.”
“Seth,” she echoed, thinking that it somehow fit. Some Egyptian slayer or something. “I like that.”
He stared at her for a second that turned into ten before she started to squirm. There was something about his eyes...
She couldn’t just get out now...she had to leave him with some reason to contact her again. She grabbed a pen from the console that separated them, then reached for his hand. He resisted at first, but eventually allowed her to draw it to her lap. She jotted her number on his palm.
He stared at his open hand for a moment then at her, but he didn’t say he would or he wouldn’t use the number.
“Bye, Seth.”
She opened the door and climbed out, but his voice stopped her before she walked away.
“Just one thing.”
She looked at him expectantly, her hand on the door ready to push it closed.
“Tell your roommate if she touches you again she’s dead.”
* * *
Tasha entered the building without allowing herself to think. She needed a long, hot bath. She needed to think...but first she had to get that final look she’d seen in his eyes out of her head.
He’d looked directly at her and issued that warning as if she belonged to him, and anyone else who touched her would be risking life and limb.
It didn’t make sense.
On the elevator she stabbed the button for floor fourteen and leaned back against the wall. God, she was exhausted, mentally and physically.
The lift stopped on thirteen and she opened her eyes to see who would be boarding an upbound elevator with only one floor to go.
The doors slid open and Maverick waited in the corridor. “This way, North,” he instructed.
Coming to immediate attention, she exited the elevator and followed the big cowboy down the quiet corridor. Though he didn’t wear a hat, he had the boots and the attitude. She’d never been so glad to see anyone in her life. He was tall, broad-shouldered and had just a sprinkle of gray in his dark hair. Just enough to tell a girl he’d been around the block a time or two. She was glad to have him on her team.
At the fourth door on the right, he opened it and stepped back for her to enter the apartment before him.
“This whole floor is ours,” he said in answer to her questioning look. “The escape route I showed you in your apartment upstairs will bring you here.”
The escape route he spoke of was an oversize laundry chute accessed from her walk-in closet.
Inside the thirteenth-floor apartment, Maverick’s partner, Ramon Vega, waited. He was much smaller in stature but quite confident and capable looking as well. His Latin heritage showed in his good looks, but he’d long since banished any accent from his dialect. He pressed a couple of buttons on a remote control and a wide-screen monitor came to life. Lucas Camp behind a desk blinked into vivid focus, his gaze zeroed in on her as if they were face-to-face in the same room.
“You look like hell, North,” Lucas said by way of greeting.
She noticed the Webcam then and knew that, for all intents and purposes, they were face-to-face. She plopped down on a chair directly across from the screen and accompanying camera. “Feel like it, too.”
“Tell me what you’ve got.”
Before Tasha launched into a detailed report of the events since making contact with her target, she needed to get one thing out of the way.
“Something isn’t right with this guy,” she said, confusion lining her brow. She could feel it but couldn’t quite label it.
“You mean something besides his being a sociopath?” Maverick ventured.
She nodded. “Yeah. Something besides that.”
“Give us a profile on how he lives,” Lucas said, setting the direction of the briefing. “Maverick has already told me where he lives and a brief summary of the neighborhood, but what did you see inside?”
“Not much at first. The lights were out when he took me in and he locked me in the basement until this morning.”
Lucas frowned. “Locked you in the basement?”
“Shackled me to a cot down there. The cot was bolted to the concrete floor. There was no way to escape. I had my doubts as to whether or not I’d see the light of day ever again.” She sighed wearily. “I can’t be the first person he’s held prisoner down there. His preparations were too well thought out.”
“That’s why we couldn’t get your signal back,” Maverick concluded. “I’m certain he had a jammer in his vehicle, but after that I couldn’t be sure what happened. He stashed you underground, that explains it. You had me worried for a while.”
She nodded. She’d been a little worried herself. “This morning he brought me back upstairs. I didn’t get a good look around, but the place looked fully furnished with the usual household goods. I imagine his private space was on the second floor. I didn’t get that far.”
“Do you think you made enough of an impression to see him again?” Lucas wanted to know. He was watching her closely, assessing her state after her first encounter with the target.
She moved her hands over her face and through her hair. “I think so. Maybe. It’s difficult to tell. He’s so guarded.” She looked directly at Lucas then, or at least at his image. “There’s something wrong with this guy, Lucas. Something really wrong.”
“Anything you picked up on could be helpful. I’ve got a profiler standing by.”
She nodded. “It’s more than just the fact that he kills for a living, obviously.” She tried to think how to label it...but nothing that came to mind felt accurate. “He’s deeply troubled. I got the distinct impression that he’s not afraid of anything, death included.” She shrugged. “It’s weird. It was nearly impossible to get any kind of reaction out of him. It’s like he blocks all emotion. Doesn’t feel a thing. And the scars.” She shook her head as she thought of the marks on his body. “I’ve never seen so many. He’s had it rough at some point. But the lack of emotion was the biggest thing I noticed. I could scarcely get a reaction out of him at all.”
Ramon lifted a skeptical brow and eyed her skimpy attire. “Are you sure he isn’t dead?”
A pained laugh burst from her. “Oh, no. He’s very much alive...just buried somehow.”
“What about prints?” Maverick tossed into the conversation. “We could ID this guy if he’s in the system.”
Lucas nodded. “Possibly, but we’ve run his picture through the system and didn’t find anything. Still, there’s always the possibility that he’s had his appearance altered. Did he give you a name?”
“Seth.” Tasha tugged off first one boot, then the other. She reached into her right boot for her cell phone, handling it carefully. “He handled the boots and the phone.”
Maverick and Ramon took custody of the items.
“I don’t think that’s his real name, though. Not that I expected to get the real thing,” Tasha said to Lucas. “But I studied Egyptian mythology as an elective in college. Seth was a sort of dark god, a slayer. The irony of it is too coincidental I think.”
Lucas nodded his agreement. “We’ll see what we can find on the name Seth. It may be an alias he’s used before.”
“What now?” she asked Lucas, then glanced at the two men who served as her backup.
“Now we wait,” Lucas announced.
That felt like such a waste of time. Tasha spread her hands in a gesture of uncertainty. “Maybe I should have tried to plant some sort of tracking device on him. He could be meeting with the guy who hired him right now and you can’t allow a tail to get close enough to find out.” She didn’t want Lucas disappointed in her performance and he certainly hadn’t given her any real reason to think he was pleased at this point.
Maverick spoke up first. “No way, little lady. This guy’s a pro. He’d have found it, known you were the one who planted it, and that would have been the end of that, if you get my drift.”
She nodded. The end of her, no doubt. “You’re right. It just feels like I should have done more. He has my number, but who knows if he’ll call.”
“You got a lot farther than we expected for a first encounter,” Lucas said pointedly. “And you’re alive to tell about it. He’ll call.”
She supposed that was close enough to a pat on the back. And she sure as hell hoped he was right.
There was only one thing she could do now.
Wait.
Chapter 15
Tasha moaned softly as the steam rose around her. It felt so good to just soak for a while. She’d taken a shower after her debrief this morning, then a power nap that lasted for three hours. But this...this was pure luxury. She needed this. Her muscles loosened...relaxed as the heat chased away the stress and soreness. It might just take hours to soothe all the kinks and stiffness.
She apparently had the time. He hadn’t called.
Her eyes opened and she lay there, her gaze searching for anything in the foggy room to focus on. She didn’t want to think about him...not yet. Draping her arms along the sides of the tub, she forced his image away.
But not quickly enough. An entirely different kind of heat coiled inside her. She cursed herself for allowing it. He was a killer...the enemy. And yet, somehow he’d gotten to her on a level over which she had no control. It was totally unbelievable. She tried hard to pinpoint the precise root of the feeling. It wasn’t sympathy. There was a definite physical attraction, despite his lack of personality. But that wasn’t such a big deal. As Ramon would say, she wasn’t dead. Any woman breathing would be attracted to Seth on a physical level. But she could handle that. He was an assassin...a very dangerous man...a bad guy...the enemy. Taking him down wouldn’t be a problem.
That last thought echoed hollowly. “Shit,” she muttered. This couldn’t happen. She’d just met the guy. Taking him down was her mission...but something felt wrong.
How could she even think about screwing up this badly? She shook her head slowly from side to side. This was the opportunity of a lifetime. Lucas Camp had come to her! She couldn’t let anything get in the way. Why the hell had she chosen psychology for her major, anyway? If she hadn’t, maybe then she wouldn’t have bothered looking beneath the surface.
She scrubbed a hand over her face and cursed herself again. This wasn’t about what made the guy tick. This was about stopping a killer—a hired assassin—before he accomplished his mission. Her primary goal, outside seeing that he didn’t accomplish his, was making the connection between him and the man who hired him. Nothing else mattered. All those scars... The overwhelming feeling that he was as much a victim as those he hunted was of no consequence.
He would be stopped, one way or another. And so would the man who’d hired him. Lucas’s intentions were crystal clear. He wanted this guy dead. Tasha felt it all the way to her bones. It was personal somehow.
A knock at the front door jerked her from her troubling thoughts. Water sloshed as she pushed upright. Her heart kicked into a faster rhythm.
She shifted to her feet, the steam rising off her skin, and stepped out of the tub onto the fluffy bath mat. Shouldering into the robe without bothering to towel dry, she reached for her weapon next.
As she padded down the short hall, her bare feet leaving a trail of water, she chambered a round in the weapon Maverick had given her. Another knock rattled the hinges as she crossed the living room. She peered through the peephole, her heart pounding, and saw Maverick.
Heaving a relieved sigh, she shook off the tension and opened the door. “What’s up?”
Maverick stepped inside, and she closed the door behind him. “Just wanted you to know that we lifted his prints from your cell phone but they were useless.” He passed the phone back to her.
A frown nagged at her forehead. “He wasn’t in the system?” The guy was clearly a high-end professional, getting caught wouldn’t be in keeping with his skill level. And unless he’d been caught and charged with some crime, he wouldn’t be in any system.
He shook his head and handed her the boots she’d worn last night. “Can’t tell. There’s too much alteration, not enough legible lines to go for a match.”
“He doesn’t intend to be ID’d.” This just kept getting better and better. Seth was really on top of his game. He’d had his fingerprints altered.
“It’s professional work, too, not a homemade job.”
