Dark Cover (The DARK Files #2)
lower lip, moist and still yearning, she realized her hands were free, had been free for some time. She was clinging to his shoulders — his broad, naked shoulders. As he rolled away from her, her fingers slid, bereft, against muscle and bone. He was breathing as hard as she.
    Willing herself to resist the chemistry between them, she scooted away. She pushed to her feet on legs made rubbery by desire.Her heart raced as though she’d just completed a marathon. In a way she had.
    She shook her head. “No night work for us. No distractions that could jeopardize the mission. There can be nothing between us. I gave in to the heat of the moment. I admit it. But how can a man who puts so much stock in honor forget he belongs to another woman?”
    “Apparently I need reminding.” He rose to his feet as fluidly as the panther he resembled in the shadows. He padded on bare feet into the faint light cast by the gallery windows.
    She let her gaze skate over layered slabs of muscle and a flat belly dusted with dark hair that trailed down to the waistband of his pajama bottoms. The thin silk outlined his corded thighs and rampant masculinity.
    Ye gods, she knew his pajamas were silk because she’d run her hands down his sinewy back to his taut butt.Desire slammed her again, and her mouth went dry.
    “I’m going to pull on some sweats and have a brandy. Join me downstairs?” He disappeared into his room and left her alone to decide.
    Was he giving her a gentle out? Or was he so supremely confident of his appeal that he knew she’d agree?She shouldn’t. If she knew what was good for her, she’d toddle off to her cool sheets and barricade the door.To keep herself in, not to keep him out.
    He was rich and influential, a man women threw themselves at, a man used to having anything and any woman he wanted. He didn’t want her. Not really. Attraction, at least on his part, was due to proximity.
    She’d spoken the bald truth. Intimacy could jeopardize the mission. The larger mission of trapping the New Dawn leader and her secondary mission of making sure Nicolas Markos stayed on DARK’s side. Her personal mission of staying out of his life. And keeping him out of hers.
    Intimacy would compromise her impartiality and her emotions. Emotions blurred the line between an unwanted masquerade and her identity. Was she too burned out from all the deception to keep her emotions in check?Emotions, sensations, drives were sure running amok inside her at this very moment. Her belly quivered with unfulfilled need. Her heart bloomed with foolish hope. And her soul longed for what could not be.
    Damn the man for being walking temptation.
    He was engaged, for God’s sake. What kind of man hit on one woman when he was promised to another? So what did his indiscretion mean? Would her male colleagues see it as another reason to suspect Nick’s integrity? No, not guys who constantly thought with their anatomy.
    If he tended to forget he belonged to another, she wouldn’t. She didn’t poach. She wasn’t that kind of woman.But she’d use her resentment and latch on to suspicion as a talisman to protect her. The flutter in her stomach told her she needed all the protection she could muster. The list in her mantra was growing.Suspicion. Detachment. No intimacy.
    If she knew what was good for her… She did, but this wasn’t about her.
    She’d go have that brandy. For her reasons, not his. Wasn’t she bemoaning the fact that he wasn’t talking to her?
    Earlier he’d exploded with anger at his brother. Raised in many ports of call by a Greek ship-captain father, he had an old-world view of honor.That outburst wasn’t nearly enough of a peek at what made him tick. She needed a cozy chat to open him up about his life, his business, his family.Cozy, or intimate? Didn’t intimacy lead to confiding? No, she’d stick to cozy.
    Suspicion. Detachment. No intimacy.
    Sure.
    ***
    Nick left his room a few minutes later, dressed in a gray T-shirt and

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