Page 11 of Extracted

If he got another runaround answer he’d flip. If she refused to trust him, it would tear him apart.

She pulled away from his throat. Cool air replaced the heat of her tearstained skin. One of her cheeks was rosier than the other from being pressed against him. This close, he could see faint creases of stress around her eyes and a channel of worry in her forehead.

Slowly, she dragged her focus from his shirt to his eyes. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

He forced his mouth into a wry grin. “Honey. I just about got blown up because of the people you work for. There’s not much you could say that I wouldn’t believe at this point.”

She rolled in her lips. “I work for the CIA. Their target was Silas Hawke.”

CHAPTER 4

Dallas’s smile slid from his face, taking with it a little piece of Gemma’s hope. She’d been beyond careless, sharing that with him. She knotted her hand in her hair and climbed off his lap. The movement made her robe part. Not that it mattered. The man had been on or in every inch of her body.

Except she’d just changed things on a massive scale. Taken their light, lust-filled relationship—or whatever it might be called—and stripped back the protective layer that kept him from knowing who she really was. What she really did for a living. There was no backing out of this. The magnitude of what she’d just done came crashing down.

People didn’t just violate the CIA’s nondisclosure agreement and walk away. If they knew he was someone important to her, they could hurt him. Panic bubbled inside her. They could do whatever they wanted. If there was any part of the government that was untouchable, she was tangled right in it.

Dallas scrubbed both of his hands over his face. He dropped his elbows to his knees, and a rumbling laugh erupted from his throat.

Gemma swung her gaze around the room in confusion then back to his shaking shoulders.

“Ah, Christ.” He let out another whoop and dropped his arms, staring up at her. “You’ve gotta be shitting me.”

“Uh. No.”

“I don’t know what’s fucking with my head more—that you’re a CIA agent or that your target was my contact.”

Bile climbed up her esophagus, which still burned from when she’d spilled her cookies hours before. “Your . . . your contact?”

He surged to his feet. “I can’t fucking believe this. How’d I miss that you’re a damn agent?”

She swallowed. “I’m not an agent. I’m an informant—well, kind of.”

“My brothers are going to crucify me.”

She quirked her mouth to the side. “I’m confused. What do your brothers have to do with anything?”

A sardonic smirk flashed on his lips. “Sorry, babe. I gotta be really careful what I say around you. Are you working with the FBI, too? Did you just use me to get close to my family all these years? Cole, I bet. Well, you can’t have them, and I’ll be no part of this shit.”

She held up her hands. “Hold on a freaking minute. A, I’m not working with the FBI, nor have I ever. B, all I know about your brothers is that you have a lot of them. And C . . .” Her dang lip trembled again. “C, you made me think I could trust you and here you are lashing out.”

“Apparently I don’t know who the hell you are.” His dark expression matched the stubble on his jaw, but it was anything but sexy.

Her heart beat in triple time. Dallas wouldn’t hurt her, but the pulsing vein at his throat told her he was reaching max capacity for holding his temper in check.

He turned away and marched toward the door.

Urgency pressed against her chest, prompting her to explain.

“Don’t you think if I wanted information about your family I would have come around more than once a year? Don’t you think I would have pried or asked questions?”

He stopped in his tracks. His broad back blocked her view of the door. His arms hung at his sides, his hands clenched into fists.

She wouldn’t try to stop him from leaving, but having him believe everything between them had been a lie was a pill she couldn’t swallow.

Slowly, he faced her. Something she’d said had made him pause. His jaw worked back and forth, as if it were taking him great effort not to punch a wall.

She rocked onto the sides of her feet. “To be fair, I don’t know anything about what you do either. You haven’t exactly been up-front and honest.”

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