Page 57 of Killer Secrets (Tempting SEALs 5)

"I didn't say Jason was covert." Her hands tightened in her lap.

"No more than you told me that Durango team was in Aruba." He leaned forward slowly, his voice turning to ice as he glowered back at her. "You were discussing them with Daniel this morning. You were discussing the fact that he would be sent away and his knowledge that Durango team was here."

Surprise and nervousness flickered over her expression then.

"I have the balcony bugged." He leaned back in his seat. "I checked the recording while you were in the shower."

"Then you know I have no knowledge of the team being here."

"But you know Daniel. And he does know where they are. So the first question is, where would Daniel set them up and how would he help them?"

Silence filled the back of the limo. Their gazes clashed, tension exploding in the back of the limo as they battled in a silent war Ian was determined to win.

"Why does it matter, Ian?" she finally asked him. "If they're here, they havent disobeyed direct orders not to strike against you. They haven't struck. Maybe they've figured out you're not the loving son you've tried to appear to be, and they're here to help you."

"And do you think I need their damned help?"

If she had thought about his possible response to knowing his former team lay in wait to help him, then Kira knew she would not have expected the fury that burned in his eyes or the hard hand that wrapped around the back of her neck and pulled her nose to nose with him as he came forward once again.

"You will contact Daniel," he told her icily, his voice harsh, his expression forbidding. "And you will tell him to give Reno a message for me. Reno only. You tell Daniel to tell him, 'Killer Secrets.' He'll know what it means, Kira. And you tell Daniel to warn him, I mean every word of it."

Killer Secrets. There were too many personal threads, too many enemies posing as friends, and no way to sort the differences before striking. It meant he was working alone, period, and the situation was too volatile for interference.

Kira stilled. Nathan Malone had mentioned that codeword the month before when she questioned him in the hospital. The threads leading into and out of this operation could get them all killed, and Ian wasn't sharing information. Whether it was because he couldn't share, or wouldn't, she could only guess.

"Did they tell you what that means?" Ian released her slowly, sitting back in his seat with a deliberate relaxing of his body that didn't fool her in the least.

"What?" she asked though she knew what he meant. What he meant wasn't nearly as important to her as what she was seeing in him right now.

Cold, hard purpose. There was none of the arousal, none of the hunger or the need she had glimpsed in him to this point. This wasn't the playful lieutenant who had identified her during the ops where they had connected. He wasn't the frustrated lover trying to p

rotect her. This was the SEAL. And he was determined that nothing would stand in the way of taking Sorrell's and Diego's heads back to the man he called brother.

"Did the team tell you what that code word means?" He didn't blink, his eyes didn't burn. They chilled her to the bone.

"They told me," she admitted, wondering if she was hurting or harming her cause with the admission.

Emotion flickered in the back of his eyes then.

"And you came anyway?" His lips flattened with the first sign of emotion. Anger sparked in his gaze. "Have you lost your fucking mind, Kira?"

Had she? No, he was just that important to her. And when exactly he had become that important to her she wasn't really certain.

"Would you leave me in this battle alone?" she asked him instead. "If you stumbled into this situation and learned the danger I was in, would you walk away from me, Ian?"

"That's different." More emotion. A tinge of stubborn determination and a flash of latent hunger.

"How's that different?" She leaned forward, her chest tightening with emotions she was still trying to make sense of. "How's it different that you couldn't walk away from me, but you expect me to walk away from you?"

"You're a woman." He cleared his throat then grimaced at the unconscious flash of nervousness he would have known she saw in that action. "You don't desert a woman in trouble."

"But I wouldn't believe I was in trouble," she told him. "I'm a trained agent. I would believe I was handling it fine myself. That I didn't need you to protect me. Why would you want to stick your nose into it?"

And why did she need him to admit that he cared more for her than he would any other female agent that his male chauvinism would insist he help? She was the fool he called her if she needed that. Because Ian Fuentes wasn't a man who let himself get involved emotionally with many people. She knew he loved his mother. He respected his stepfather, and he had sworn his life to Nathan Malone after the preteen Nathan had been instrumental in saving Ian's mother's life.

From what she had learned, Ian had a team bond with the other SEALs of the group he had fought with. He respected them, he would have died for them. And he protected them, as he was protecting them now.

He was an island unto himself, the team had revealed. Friendships were all work related, and female relationships lasted only weeks. Ian scratched an itch, nothing more, when it came to those women that he so easily walked away from.

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