Page 9 of Covert Temptation

Reaching into his inside pocket, he pulled out a long zip-tie. “Then we do this the hard way.”

Her lips curved. “Usually my date buys me dinner first.”

His jaw clenched. He wasn’t prepared for the flicker of heat behind her words—or how it made his gut tighten.

She smirked.

“Let’s go.” He kept his voice flat.

He didn’t touch her, and she walked beside him like she knew better than to try to run. The low thump of the chopper in the field near the station was loud, but he still picked out Kennedy’s resigned sigh.

As they approached, he reached up to cradle her head and urge her to duck beneath the moving blades.

She threw a look over her shoulder. “I’ve flown in helicopters before.”

He pulled his hand away without ever touching her.

Once they were seated across from each other, she met his glare with one of her own.

“Where are we going?”

He turned the tables on her. “Don’t you mean your place or mine?”

That earned him a blink…then a little twist of her lips, the closest he would get to a smile.

“Touché.”

He leaned back in the seat, eyes trained on her. “And the answer is mine.” He handed her hearing protection, and she placed the earmuffs on, taking care to smooth her hair around the band across her head.

They didn’t speak on the return trip. Only emotion vibrated in the silence between them.

It wasn’t trust.

It wasn’t hate, either.

It was something murkier. Enemies with some business to finish.

Dante watched her from hooded eyes. The woman across from him might be a traitor, and she might not.

Despite his irritation, he had to face facts. Shewastheir only shot at finding Cipher.

And she really might be the next target.

* * * * *

Kennedy’s career was filled with a flurry of ringing phones, answering texts, sending emails, and sitting in on meetings to take notes on important diplomatic issues. But the past few weeks, all the chatter, all the noise, turned to silence.

Dante sat across from her in the helicopter, his stare never shifting from her, as if she was planning to leap out of the aircraft somewhere over the state of New York.

He didn’t speak to her, and the comms device built into the earmuffs she wore was just as silent.

She turned her attention to studying her companion. During the few times she was forced to be in the presence of Special Operative Dante King, she found it difficult to ignore him. He was so…big.

And not just physically—he walked into a room and all eyes turned to him as if he owned it.

If he weren’t such a colossal dickhead, she’d think he was handsome.

Okay, gorgeous.

---