Page 14 of Avenging Jessie
“Hurts?” he asked.
“No, feels great, Spence. Please do it again.”
When he cocked a brow at her, she relented. “Only when you touch it like that.” She’d still gone for derision, but her voice betrayed her, coming out too soft, almost erotic, to pull it off.
His gaze dropped to her lips. She cleared her throat. He dragged his attention from them, and their eyes locked. The moment suspended—quiet but volatile.
He didn’t say a word. But he knew she felt it, too.
His own voice came out like his vocal cords had done a two-step with sandpaper. “Soft tissue injury. A strain.” He wrapped a support bandage around it, not rushing, his fingers brushing against her skin with more care than he’d allow himself to admit. When he secured it, she left it in his lap. His cock was hard, and her eyes lingered on the bulge just inches from it under his zipper.
“That kiss at the gala,” she said suddenly, eyes refocusing on his hands where he still held onto her foot. “Don’t read into it.”
Damn. Of course, she’d tackle the elephant in the room right now. And of course, it would be to shut down any possible feelings he had for her.
His jaw tightened with words he wouldn’t allow himself to say. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
She flinched, and he hated himself for saying it like that, but screw it. He had feelings for her. She knew it. He wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.
He checked her over once more, then grabbed a cold pack from the freezer, adjusting his pants as he went. Returning, he handed it to her. “Put this on it. Keep your foot elevated. You need rest.”
“What I need is to know who those men are, and what the hell they’re building.”
“That’s my job. I’ll figure it out.”
Another flinch. He set his jaw and didn’t let it get to him. She wanted him to be impersonal and stay on task? It was a load of tosh, but fine.
In the small, cramped corner filled with bookshelves and smelling of must, he powered up his laptop. It took ten minutes to establish a secure connection to a satellite, then he routed the data through ghost servers and encrypted lines.
While he waited for facial recognition to process the photos from the gala, he toyed with the vintage Queen Victoria shilling he carried with him. The silver edges had gone smooth from years of rubbing—habit, ritual, a tether. It was the only thing he’d kept from his mother after she shoved him out the front door at age eight with a busted lip and no coat. She’d handed him the coin like it meant something.
Maybe it had. Maybe it was her version of goodbye. All he knew was, he’d carried it every day, his whole life. It wasn’t worth much, just like him. But it was all he had of that previous life before Ian Bastion, the mucker, had taken him off the London streets and become his mentor.
Another life. Another false identity. Another fucking trainwreck.
Spence rubbed a hand over his face and set down the coin, staring at it. Not tonight. He wasn’t going down the rabbit hole now.
He picked up the shilling again, rubbing a thumb over the queen’s face. Victoria was his sister’s name, and Spence had carried the damn coin into every part of his life. Every mission.
For Vicky. For him. For a life they’d never gotten to share.
A superstition? Sure. But also a promise. He still didn’t know what had become of her after his mother’s ex took Vicky away. And until he found her—until he fixed what had been broken—he wasn’t losing this coin. Not ever.
His computer pinged, and there it was—the identity of the man who’d attacked Jessie. Darian Voss.
He dropped the name into a database, knowing it would trigger things on Langley’s end. He’d been expecting a call from Flynn anyway. At least now, he might have something to tell him.
Minutes ticked by before the file revealed a plethora of intel. Voss wasn’t just a muscle-bound brute—he was a former DARPA contractor with clearance higher than God and a specialty in AI-driven weapons systems.
Spence’s gaze snagged on one section. Voss had been declared officially dead six months ago.
“Of course he’s not dead,” he muttered, clicking into another file. “No one ever stays dead anymore.”
He froze for a second, listening to the sounds behind him. All he needed was for Jessie to have heard that off-the-cuff remark and get all up in his face about it.
But she didn’t say anything. When he glanced over at the couch, he saw her stretched out on it, her arms hugging a pillow and her eyes at half-mast.
He let out a slow breath and went back to his digging.
