Spy Hard

“I just want to be more comfortable,” she was saying.

Silk pillows, fans, a sprawling bed with mosquito netting, books and stacks of magazines filled the large space. The Don had clearly settled her in for a long stay. She could have run a small convenience store out of her room.

He tried not to think of the stark contrast between the barracks and her room, between what she had at her disposal and what Mochi had, sleeping on the floor next to the stove in the kitchen. She was the boss’s pampered girlfriend. She lived in a different world from the rest of them. That bothered him, but he didn’t let it show.

He grabbed the end of the couch and dragged the damned thing to where she pointed. Took him about three seconds. But she didn’t look pleased. She looked disappointed.

“Wrong spot?”

She shook her head, looking at him with something akin to panic. Which made him wonder just what was going on in that beautiful head of hers. Then the next second, her whole demeanor changed, as if she’d just thought of something.

“Thank you.” Her full lips stretched into a smile. “Would you like a glass of cold tea?”

Definitely. Especially if she kept smiling at him like that. But that quick change in her demeanor made him uneasy. “I better get going.”

“It’s just—” She looked away. “It’d be great to talk to another American. I get lonely up here.”

The bossy attitude she’d displayed on the balcony was gone. Maybe she only used that tone around the men to assure their respect and to make sure they wouldn’t perceive her as weak. But she seemed to be letting her guard down around him. Whatever the reason, her vulnerability grabbed him as nothing else could have, and somewhat mollified him. She did look lonely, and desperate, suddenly, in some way.

“I can’t imagine Don Pedro would neglect a woman as beautiful as you are,” he told her in a light tone, still feeling that more was going on here than what was being said.

But instead of lightening the mood, his words made her frown.

“I’m not his…” She actually blushed.

He couldn’t remember the last time he saw a woman do that. Certainly didn’t expect it from a drug lord’s live-in girlfriend. Interesting.

“I was married to his brother,” she told him.

Huh. And the plot thickens.

He’d damn near memorized the Don’s file while preparing for this op. The man had a brother, Julio, in Brazil, who’d been killed a few months back in a car accident. Jase didn’t remember any mention of a wife.

Did her existence and presence here change anything? Was this something he could use to his advantage? More specifically: was she a threat to his mission or an opportunity?

“Do you like it here?” he asked noncommittally. Better tread softly until he figured her out.

The abject misery that crossed her face couldn’t be faked. Her slim shoulders sagged. “I wish I could go home.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Don Pedro prefers to keep me safe, close to him.”

Now that was a carefully worded sentence if he’d ever heard one. Could or could not mean that the Don was holding her against her will.

He didn’t have to think long to find a reason why that might happen. Since the Don’s family had been ravaged in years of drug wars, her child would be the man’s closest living family. In a patriarchal society, that meant everything. The Don would take the relation more than seriously.

“You’ve known him long?” Jase asked her, still not fully understanding why she would ever come to a jungle camp like this in the first place, especially in her condition.

She sank onto the couch, graceful despite the extra weight she carried. “I met Julio, my husband, in Rio. He saved me one night when my car broke down in a bad neighborhood. We were married before I knew it. Then three weeks later he was killed in a car accident.”

“What were you doing in Rio?”

“Finishing my master’s on sustainable high-density housing in developing nations.”

The slum recovery projects. He’d heard of those. Building them gave people jobs, then when the buildings were done, it got them off the streets. “Don Pedro was there?” That he couldn’t picture for anything, not unless he’d been recruiting runners for his drug trade, but at his level in the organization, he wouldn’t do that personally.

She shook her head. “When Julio died, I called the number he had for his family. Don Pedro asked me to bring Julio’s ashes to Bogota for a family funeral. That’s when I met Pedro. I was a guest at the family mansion in the city for a while. Then he brought me here.” She winced. “I didn’t exactly understand what this place was. He told me we were going to his house in the country.”

The tone of her voice said she hadn’t been given much choice about coming. So maybe she was being held here against her will. He didn’t like the way that thought brought out his protective instincts.

As far as he knew, Julio had been a two-bit restaurant owner in Rio. He’d gone there in his early twenties to get away from the family business. Meeting the Don must have been a pretty big shock for his widow, if he hadn’t told her anything about his brother—which seemed to be the case.

He watched her with renewed interest, trying to figure out whether she was the snooty señora who’d ordered him around just minutes ago, or a woman out of her depth, in serious trouble.

Her shoulders straightened under his scrutiny, and a smile came onto her face that looked more forced than real.

“Why don’t you sit?” She motioned to the spot on the couch next to her.

Suspicion pricked his instincts. Until now, he stood in line with the open door, visible from the outside for propriety’s sake. He’d assumed she would want that.

Maybe he was mistaken. He sat next to her, still leaving a respectable amount of space between them, curious where this all might lead. He was almost sure now that she was plotting something and calling him up to move the couch had only been a ploy. She clearly wanted something from him, but wasn’t sure how to go about it.

She bit her full bottom lip. And put her hand on his knee.

He nearly jumped right off the couch as heat shot up his leg.

Okay, he hadn’t expected that.

If he were a gentleman, he would have stopped her right there, would have told her to come right out with it and tell him what she wanted from him. But he’d been too long without female companionship, so he stayed where he was and put an expectant smile on his face.

He waited to see her next move. At the very least, it should prove to be interesting.

She pulled her hand back and cleared her throat. He could almost see the wheels turning in her head. She was trying to figure out how to go about getting him to do whatever it was that she wanted from him.

A seductress she was not, which made the situation even more intriguing. And turned him on completely. He leaned back, watching and waiting. Leaving his knee within easy reach.

A man could hope.

She gave him another tremulous smile as the air between them filled with tension. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and she licked her lips in a nervous gesture.

Which brought his X-rated dreams about her to mind. Was she thinking about kissing him?

The temperature in the room shot up a couple of degrees. She had the most kissable mouth he’d ever seen, with a slight crease in the middle of the bottom lip. And all of a sudden he couldn’t take his eyes off her full lips.

She leaned a little closer.

He couldn’t believe it.