Page 10 of Deadly Sights

“If I was sent to kill you, you’d be dead. I didn’t gain my reputation because I’m shitty at my job.”

“Okay, then explain yourself. And leave nothing out.” I stretch my neck and relax my pose.

“Where’s the fun in that?” His eyelids lower and smokey heat enters his golden irises. “Let’s take our time getting to know each other.”

When he is close enough, I grab his arm and toss him over my head, but he’s as agile as I am. He spins mid-air to land on his feet. Then he uses the momentum to trap my arms to my sides. My back presses against his broad, muscular chest in a hold that feels more intimate than it should, and he tumbles us to the ground. He absorbs the impact from the fall before wrapping his legs around mine and immobilizing me.

“As much as I love the feel of your arms and will gladly wrap myself around you if you ask, I’d prefer doing so with fewer clothes and more kissing.” His sinful voice is too close to my ear, causing my insides to run amok. His lips brush against my ear. “And sucking,” he says before drawing my lobe into his mouth and demonstrating the action he mentioned.

My body locks up while I try to understand what’s happening to me. I haven’t breathed a full breath since he caught me and my skin is so sensitive I feel the individual fibers in my clothes rubbing against me. My breasts swell and my nipples harden. When my eyes start to close, I jolt, pulling my ear away from his distracting mouth.

“And definitely more licking.” Undaunted by my evasive move, he takes advantage of the opening I’ve given him by twisting my face away, and he proceeds to the sensitive skin under my chin. With a flick of his tongue, he flays me. Untamed desire that I don’t know what to do with keeps me weak and at his mercy.

“I knew your taste would make me an addict.” The velvety softness in his voice winds around my will, imprisoning it, and my body loses resistance.

This man is an unknown. He could be my enemy, sent to seduce me before killing me. But all that begins to fade the longer I stay in his arms. He presses closer to me, and my head falls back further, as I unconsciously grant him more room to taste me.

With his arms and legs wrapped around me, my hips are the only body part I can move to get leverage. I need to get away from him and these unwanted desires. I brush against him and freeze when his hardening length presses against my ass.

He groans, and the sound travels to my clit, causing me to gasp at the sensation.

“Who are you?” I put together enough words for a competent question.

He pauses and drops his head on my shoulder. “I shouldn’t have started something I couldn’t finish.” He kisses my shoulder and his regret transmits to my heart. “When you wake up, come find me. My name is Julian Caddel.”

CHAPTER 5

JULIAN TAKES A VACATION

Julian

“You’re late.” My handler, Jason, takes a leisurely sip from a snifter.

We’re meeting in a bar owned by one of our information gatherers. It caters to an elite clientele, and the owner grants our operatives exclusive access whenever we have high-class targets in play.

“I’m always on time,” I respond and walk behind the bar to pour myself a drink.

Most times, the dim lighting and quiet atmosphere would present as intimate; romantic even. Not today. There is a sinister quality, almost a sense of distrust. This is new. For close to thirty years, I haven’t given the organization I work for a reason to doubt me. The one time was when I lost Nadira after telling her to come find me and she never did.

Creative Gifts, the orphanage we were in together before they moved me to one for older teens, said she ran away. I neverbelieved them because she wouldn’t have left without me. After losing the people in my life, she knew how much I needed her. No, she would never have run away on her own.

When the trainers at the new orphanage realized I didn’t eat up their excuses, their next tactic was to concede that someone might have abducted her. She was the prodigy they were most proud of, a MENSA genius. Already undetectable when stealing, she instantly grasped concepts that took most people longer to learn. So, it was understandable that rival organizations heard and wanted her for themselves.

Although believable, I didn’t buy it.

I must have betrayed my skepticism because they switched up again, finally declaring she’d died in an impatient demand for me to move on.

But how could I abandon the little hope I had of one day fulfilling the promises we made?

For years, they tried to make me forget her, going so far as to “find” newspaper articles to corroborate her death. My connection to her, as farfetched as it was, made it impossible for me to believe them then. And although I’ve toed the line over the years, it’s always been due to biding my time. All the covert snooping I’ve done, ended the night she showed up at Say Yes with a different name. As does my show of loyalty to an organization that did its best to make me believe the most important person in my life abandoned me.

Jason observes me as if secretly stripping the lies and deceptions to dig for my truth. After so many years of us working together, he should realize by now that I won’t give shit away, especially anything that would compromise Nadira’s new life.

“Did you have any problems with the hit?” Jason asks.

“Why don’t you spit out what you want to know so I can answer and get on my way?” I have no time for his roundaboutway of questioning me today. I need to return to Denver and the plans that have nothing to do with assassinations.

“Our client has access to the same news outlets we do as well as underground sources.”

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