Sinful Deception (Covert Affairs Book 3) (10 page)

Zoe glanced at Marcus and gave him a solid nod. “Strong.”

“Thank God.” Everything in his chest released. He tugged gently, slowly at the tape over her mouth. Her head rolled side to side. “Tova, honey, wake up.”

Her eyelashes fluttered, then opened, and she twisted away from Marcus. “No! Let me go!”

“Tova, it’s Marcus.” He held her as gently as he could while trying to keep her from tearing away. “You’re okay. It’s Marcus. You’re safe.”

She stilled, and her gaze focused on his face, terrified, her chest heaving, body shaking. “M-Marcus?”

“Hey.” He forced a smile and stroked her cheek. “Not the best way to meet for the first time, right?”

She whimpered, pushed to her knees, and flung herself at him.

He caught her, wrapped her in his arms, buried his face in her hair, and let gratitude swamp him. “Hey, baby, it’s okay now.”

Her whole body shook. She was small and fit, and she smelled amazing, a seductive, floral scent. He indulged with his face tucked to the side of her head, whispering, “You’re okay, baby. It’s over.”

Zoe cut the binding from her hands, and as soon as they were free, Tova threw her arms around Marcus’s neck and clung. The curves of her sweet, warm body molded to him. Her hands clawed into his hair, her face pressed against his neck, her hot breath swept over his skin.

And for that brief moment, he was in heaven.

Seven

Tova’s brain wasn’t working right. All she could do was cling to Marcus. God, he felt so good, so warm, so solid, so safe. She never wanted to leave the circle of his arms.

“Don’t let me go,” she whispered against his skin, voice shaking. “Please, don’t let me go.”

Now that the ordeal was over, her adrenaline had crashed, and she couldn’t stop trembling.

He pushed to his feet, and Tova locked on to him like a monkey, arms at his neck, legs around his hips. Still, she couldn’t get close enough. She knew there were other people here, maybe—probably—people he knew, but she just couldn’t let go.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured, holding her tight. “You’re okay now.”

He carried her all the way to the house, his sexy, deep voice smoothing away all the tight ripples along her nerves. His hair was short and baby soft. She might not have gotten a look at his body, but it damn well felt like warm granite against her own. And hell, he smelled like 100 percent man.

Nothing like a little distraction to chase terror away.

By the time he took the stairs to the front porch and sat down on the sofa in the living room, Tova felt like she’d found a sliver of her sanity. She kept her head buried against his shoulder, peeking over her arm only enough to see where they were going. He sat, sinking into the sofa’s cushions. Tova shifted tighter into his lap. Fisted one hand in his hair, one in the back of his shirt. She had to be choking him, but he didn’t complain.

“When she’s settled,” a female voice said, “we should get her checked out by a medic. I’m going to check on the pursuit.”

Then silence closed in, the voices and footsteps distant.

Her heart kept up a relentless beat in her ears. “Oh my God.” She wasn’t sure how many times she’d repeated that phrase between the time she’d thrown herself at him in the street and now. Close to a thousand, minimum. “You feel so good.” She squeezed her eyes tight against the burn of tears. “Thank you for coming.”

“Honey,” he said, his voice warm, compassionate, but serious. “Did they hurt you? Do you need a hospital?”

She shook her head as shivers continued to rack her body. Marcus pulled a blanket from the back of the sofa, curving it around her shoulders. Her world righted and stopped spinning. The trauma was over. She was safe. Marcus was here. Everything was okay.

Tova let the tension flow from her body.

“I—I’m okay.” Her mind drifted over her body, noting pain, but found more pleasure at every place she and Marcus intersected. The trauma was over. She was safe. Relatively unharmed. Freaking lucky. Yeah, she was okay. Slowly, she released her rabid hold on him. “They just banged me around some. Pansy sonsofbitches…” She choked out the last in a weak laugh, then sucked air through a tight throat. “They just…tried to scare me. I’m fine.”

“Did you hit your head when you came out of the car?” he asked, his fingers gently massaging her scalp through her hair.

“I…don’t think so.” His touch released tension all along her head and neck. “But you can do that as long as you want.”

She shifted her face against his neck, and the day’s beard growth scratched her lips, cheek, and chin. Mmm, what a delicious sensation. It had been so long… She drew in a breath of him, rich and male. One that opened a door of heat between her legs. She pursed her lips against the skin there.

He groaned and shifted beneath her. A substantial bulge rubbed between her legs, and Tova caught her breath.

“Baby,” Marcus whispered, the sound pained and harsh, “I think you’re going to have to move a little… You feel way too good right here.”

She didn’t want to move, but she lifted her head and slid back on his thighs. She pushed the hair from her eyes and looked at Marcus, really looked at him, for the first time. Her gaze traveled over his face, forehead to chin, back, then did it again. And, Christ, he was…
hot
. The kind of hot that knotted Tova’s belly. Jet-black hair cut short, deep-set eyes as dark as his hair, brows like heavy slashes of midnight, full lips surrounded with a day’s worth of black stubble. All fitted in a triangular face that created masculine hollows of his cheeks.

“God,” she breathed. “You’re…gorgeous.”

Marcus burst out laughing, and, hell, his entire face lit up. He pulled her close for another hug, ran his hands down her back. “I think you’re still a little dazed. Let reality sink in and take another look.”

She pushed off his chest, taking him all in, and realized for the first time that he was still in uniform—something dark, brown or olive green—including his badge, belt, weapon…everything. Dirty, mussed, shirttail half-untucked.

She tugged the loose tail of his shirt up, revealing a T-shirt that she pushed away to expose his abs. They were lean and hard, and she felt nerves rumble in. Marcus was way more man than she’d ever had before. “Oh,
wow
. This whole…badge-and-gun-and-six-pack thing you’ve got going…is
totally
hot.”

“Baby…” He laughed a groan, pulling her hands away by the wrists. “We have a lot to talk about, with a lot of people. Then we’ll revisit this—if you still want to.”

Oh hell.
The little bubble of relief she’d drifted into popped. She might be stressed, even wigged, but she was still in her right mind—he
was
gorgeous, and his body was a temple. So why in the hell had he been surfing sexcams? She glanced down and turned his left hand.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Looking for a wedding band. A man like you is never single.”

A smirk lifted one side of his mouth. Tova’s stomach did that flop-and-fold thing it hadn’t done in so long she’d forgotten how it felt. “Honey, I’m not—”

“How’s she doing?” A woman walked in. She looked about Tova’s age, maybe a little older, wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a jacket with an ICE emblem on the left chest and the words Agent Brooks on the right.

Tova rolled off Marcus’s lap, let go of his hands, and slid hers under her thighs. “I’m fine. ICE? Isn’t that Immigration?”

The woman smiled and sat on an ottoman nearby. When she shifted, leaning her elbows on her knees, Marcus made a similar move, threading his fingers together and eyeing Tova, causing a stir in her belly.

“Yes. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigations,” she said. “I’m Zoe Brooks. Marcus and I used to work together at Border Patrol.”

Cold shot through Tova. “Border Patrol. What…why…?” Her gaze shot to Marcus. “You said you were a—”

Before she got the word “cop” out, her gaze slid to his shoulder, where a round patch spelled out US Border Control.

“I’m a Border cop.”

A sick, hot sensation flooded Tova’s gut. “Like…like the ones that chase people back into Mexico?”

Marcus didn’t seem to notice the nervous break in her voice as he made a vague side-to-side motion with his head. “Yes and no. There’s a little more to it than that.”

“Is that why you’re here?” she asked Zoe. “Because you’re Marcus’s friend? Or…something else?”

“Is there another reason I should be here that you know of, Tova?”

Fuck. Her stomach free-fell to her feet. Fuck. Fuck.
Fuck.
Was helping an illegal immigrant get into the country a felony? Could she go to prison for even just conspiring to do it? Would she lose her enrollment at school if she were convicted of a crime? Would Marcus hate her if he knew?

Her mind was spinning so fast, acid churned in her stomach. She pulled a hand from beneath her thigh to cover her belly. “Cedro has tried to get into the country illegally a couple of times…”

Shame burned a path from her belly button to the top of Tova’s head. She couldn’t look at Marcus. She bit her bottom lip hard and focused on the carpet, willing herself not to cry out of sheer mortification.

Marcus’s arm slid around her shoulders and tightened. “Hey, it’s okay,” he said softly. “We deal with it every day.”

Somehow that information didn’t help, but his attempt to soothe her did.

Zoe asked, “Do you feel up to talking about what happened tonight?”

Tova straightened and fisted her hands on her thighs. “Yes.”

“You’ve got a few pretty good bruises on your face. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

Before she could answer, Marcus lifted his hand and slid his fingers over her sore cheekbone, soothing a few more unruly nerves. Worry filled his expression. “I’ll get some ice.”

He stood and walked toward the kitchen. Tova couldn’t pull her gaze away from his backside. He was all long legs, tight ass, and wide shoulders, with a gait that shouted confidence. He was the kind of guy who walked into the diner and looked right through Tova.

She turned her gaze on Zoe. “Is he married? Does he have a girlfriend?”

A slow smile turned the other woman’s mouth, but she pressed her lips together and cleared her throat. “No, and not last I’d heard.”

Tova nodded and glanced down at her hands, but a raging fire blew out her belly. She’d never wanted to jump a man, not in the way other women talked about. And she didn’t know if it was the fear she’d just suffered, or a sense of insecurity, or a desire to live out some fantasy she’d never even known existed in her psyche, but she wanted to jump Marcus. Right the fuck
now
. Taste him, touch him, ride him. She wanted to feel all that muscle sinking her into a mattress. Wanted to feel him deep,
deep
inside her. Hear him growl her name…

“Tova?”

Brooks’s voice startled her. She looked up just as Marcus returned, and his front view, with that uniform shirt formed to his torso, the light glinting off his shield, that menacing gun at his hip… Oh, sweet Jesus, it was all just too damned irresistible.

But…Border Patrol.

Shit.

On the sofa, Marcus wrapped an arm around her, pressed the ice pack to her bruised cheek, and asked softly, “You okay?”

Emotion made a sudden rush through her chest. Thickened her throat. “Yeah, sorry, just drifted a minute.”

“We could go over this in the morning,” Brooks said, “but it’s always better to do it immediately after the incident.”

“No, I’m fine. What do you need?”

Tova did her best to recall the events but was surprised to find parts of the incident so fuzzy in her memory, she couldn’t bring them back. And every time Marcus filled in a blank, she remembered him watching the whole thing from the webcam and was filled with vulnerability, shame, and…gratitude.

“Twenty thousand?” Brooks asked. “That’s more than I’ve ever heard of
polleros
charging.”

“They wouldn’t tell me why he owed them that much, just that he owed them. And…” she suddenly remembered, “that he’d betrayed them.” She shrugged. “Maybe Cedro’s tried to cross the border more often than he’s told me and built up debt.”

Brooks’s gaze made a stealthy dart to Marcus’s and held a split second too long. It was one of those shared-information glances, like they were communicating silently. But Brooks’s attention refocused on Tova so fast, she wasn’t sure it ever actually happened.

“Has your brother ever associated with a cartel?”

“We grew up in Mexico, in Knights Templars’ territory. We couldn’t walk down the street without associating with them. Me, Cedro, my parents, shopkeepers, laborers, everyone living within their territory. It’s not something you can get away from. But doing business with them? Cedro wasn’t involved as far as I know.”

“Has he ever been asked to bring drugs into the US?”

She shook her head. “Not that I know of. He’s gotten in his share of trouble over the years. It’s always stemmed from external pressures—not being able to find work, falling into the wrong crowd—and I know that’s not an excuse. I’m just saying…” She darted a glance at Marcus, then refocused on Brooks. “I think we’re all capable of things we never believed when the pressure gets too high.”