Heat Seeker by Lora Leigh Page B

the unit completely hidden.
    He was still pissed that Noah’s and Micah’s wives were aware of not just the unit but also its operatives. He considered each one of them weaknesses. Which, in all likelihood, they were. But John often wondered if that wasn’t what madeboth Noah and Micah as efficient as they were. They had a reason to return from a mission, a reason the rest of them didn’t have or had lost.
    “We have Ian and Kira as backup as well as Kell Krieger and Macey March,” Jordan informed them. “Ian and Kira are playing within the upper crust of the rich and famous while Kell and Macey are working within the security details of two of the families. I’ll make certain you get reports as information comes in.”
    “Travis and I have checked in to one of the hotels in Aspen,” John told them. “We’ll be moving into Bailey’s mansion within the week.”
    “Confident bastard, isn’t he?” Nik grunted, bringing a round of chuckles from the other men.
    “Convinced,” John informed them all coolly.
    He knew Bailey, he knew the desire was still there, just as strong and just as hot as it had ever been. It hadn’t gone away any more than his need for her had gone away.
    It had begun five years before, only months before his “death.” When he had met Bailey on a joint US–Australian operation. He’d commanded the small team searching for pirates, and Bailey had been the CIA’s agent in charge. They’d struck sparks from the first second, and within days those sparks had grown to full-blown lust.
    They’d had one night. One night that he had never forgotten, never gotten out of his mind. A night that haunted him until he wondered if it would eventually steal his sanity.
    Seeing her in Atlanta had nearly destroyed him; letting her go had torn his heart out. He hadn’t told her in Australia what she meant to him—that he’d seen the end of his bachelor days in her eyes. And then fate had taken the choice from him. Trent Daylen had died and John Vincent had been created from the ashes. And John Vincent had no right to Bailey Serborne.
    Fuck.
    He clenched his fists and moved from the table once more as the other men read over their files and discussed various aspects of the operation as it stood.
    Everything hinged on Bailey and her decision to accept him as her lover. She wasn’t an agent who would sleep with any man for a mission. She might pretend to, and she could be a damned good actress. But John didn’t want an act, he wanted the woman. Just one more time. Just a few nights to store inside his soul and hold him over in the bleak, lonely days to come.
    She was like a ray of sunshine that he hadn’t known he’d missed until Atlanta. Until he had looked up and seen her haunted green eyes, her hollow expression as she watched Micah and Risa leave their apartment building.
    He’d known why she was there. The assassin Orion had been hired to kill Risa, an assassin suspected to have been involved in her parents’ deaths, and proven to have been involved in her cousin’s death in Israel. She’d lost everyone in her life, and she had hungered for vengeance, for absolution. It had been a hunger he’d had to deny her.
    Hell, he was fucked up here and he knew it. This mission had the potential to blow up in all their faces. The players involved weren’t just the richest men in the world, they were the most powerful. They seated politicians and had the ears of presidents and kings. They weren’t men whom any government agency dared to trifle with, which was why Jordan had taken the operation himself. It was one they had been working for years, gathering intel from various agencies, tracking movements, shipments, and weapons.
    Warbucks somehow managed to steal the information or hardware. From there, he engaged the services of a broker to auction the items and transfer the goods. John had handled several smaller transactions with exacting detail. Whoever Warbucks was, John was a trusted entity to