too selfish to deprive himself of the chance to touch her where he knew her olive-toned skin was smoothest and softest. He wanted to shut down all his senses except touch, wanted to know if her subtle warmth and the rhythm of her heartbeat under his hand would heal his gaping wounds. Intently he searched her face for rejection that didnât come.
That first brush of his knuckles down that open trail at the front of her dress almost weakened him to uselessness. Watching her, he saw her lashes tremble and her lips press together.
She wasnât the glittering young woman who tasted like tequila and could strip off her inhibitions grinding out a salsa on an overcrowded dive barâs sticky dance floor. She wasnât even the dogged special agent who fearlessly went deep undercover but always returned to him to remind that good still existed in this goddamn world.
She looked the same and rendered the same savagely primitive effect on his body, but sheâd changed.
Skimming his knuckles upward, he curled his fingers around the chain of her purse.
âShy, Zaf?â
He didnât find the boldness in her tone authentic but accepted the words as a gauntlet thrown. He wasnât shy; he was desperate and venturing into trouble he couldnât mend.
Zaf leaned, angled his head, and she met him halfway. Her glossy lips were slippery under his kiss, teasing him as if she was flicking a feather across his face.
âCanât seem to make a solid landing there, can you?â she uttered against his mouth.
The almost and not quite and close misses were a game to her.
But not to him. For Zaf, this was life and death.
âJoey...â
âShh. Tell me something. You hacked Willa Smartâs company to get to me. Was it for this, for a kiss from a woman you used to screw?â
Heâd done it because he was her protector. Compromising a matchmakerâs compatibility program was the means heâd taken to fulfill his obligation to her. Even if heâd lost his morality, he still possessed a sense of dutyâwhether he wanted it or not. âYou were more than that. Youâve always known it.â
âHave I?â
The love that had once breathed between them had been inconvenient and confusing, yet the realest element in either of their lives. It had struck them unexpectedly. Neither was willing to let it go, and for that they were both to blame. Because something that good couldnât last. Not for people like them whoâd done what they had.
âI got to you because Iâm on a job,â he told her. Yeah, it was a vague explanation, but he wouldnât divulge particulars now. âThe kiss is because I canât fight it. Iâve thought about you constantly since that night. It hasnât been never-ending death, but itâs been a never-ending mindfuck.â
âThey put you down, didnât they? DC?â
âIt needed to happen.â
âDown deep, Zaf. You didnât turn up at your parentsâ place in Jersey or even in Pakistan. There was talk that you were dead but I didnât think that. I knew you wouldnât get time, either, that theyâd rather have you on reserve than in a cell. About a year after... What Iâm trying to say is I tried to bring you back and I couldnât find you.â
His mind spun through the past five years. The US government had dragged his ass up for a few missions that needed a sharpshooter of his caliber on the front line, but had thrown him back afterward at his request. He was freelanceâoff record, off the FBIâs payroll, damn near a ghost. He wanted it that way.
âWhyâd you want to bring me back?â
âTo ask you why you went dirty. You cut a deal with those bastards when I thought we were on the same side. You killed me when you turned, damn it.â
So she still believed heâd defected to the drug-funneling terrorists heâd been quietly hunting since