Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 149137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
Shane’s brows rose as he considered that. “All right, so if Ezra’s here to watch over you and handle the relationship with McKay-Taggart, why’s Levi Green riding shotgun? Agents don’t normally come in twos. They tend to be known as lone wolves.”
“Levi is the expert on the Commander. That’s the code name for the drug dealer Josh is connected to. Levi’s been working in that part of the world for a couple of years now. He took over that territory after my old boss died in the line of duty.” It was hard to think that it had been years since she’d heard the news that John Bishop was gone. The Agency had simply handed over the reins of her op to Tennessee Smith and moved on like John Bishop had never existed, but she’d missed him. Even as cold as he’d been, he’d managed to take care of her. Bishop’s death had opened up a spot for Levi Green, and now they were all here and working together.
She remembered thinking if they’d taken out Bishop, she likely didn’t have long. Bishop had been cold and calculating, the best of the best. If he’d made a mistake it was only a matter of time before she did, too. In the moment, she’d kind of welcomed it. Not Bishop’s death, but the inevitability of her own.
She hated thinking about losing Bishop.
“Why not go at this straight?” Shane sat back with a groan. “Why all this subterfuge? Why not simply tell Hunt what’s going on and why we need you in there? He’s not a bad dude. Weird and a little on the twisted side, but not bad.”
“Do you think I didn’t try to go that route?” Of course, then she wouldn’t have had the most amazing orgasm of her life. Damn. She needed Penny. Or Ariel. Ari and Pen were her girls. Someone should know she was making time with a superhottie. “Ezra shut me down. I don’t think he trusts Josh.”
“I don’t feel right playing a civilian this way,” Shane said with a shake of his head.
“Because you’ve always gotten to be Captain America, and some of us have to play Batman and go undercover and do nasty things to get the criminals. You were a cop. You got to be one of the good guys. I was Agency. I was literally one of the bad guys for years. I get that sometimes you have to be willing to get your hands dirty in order to do right. Besides, this is about taking down a man who’s killed more than one agent, and now Levi thinks he’s holding another operative.”
Actually, when she thought about it, she kind of owed the Commander and his friends. Maybe she would give the man a gift on her way out. The gift of peace and rest. The eternal kind. But not until she’d given him the gift of lots and lots of pain.
She could see how that conversation would go. Hey, Joshua. I need to put you in actual serious danger with a drug dealer who’s holding a CIA agent hostage, and then when we get that dude out—and he will likely be twelve kinds of fucked up—but on the way out, I’m going to do some assassinating. Then we can totally go for an ice cream and maybe have some sex.
Yeah, she probably should play this Levi’s way.
“If they have one of our operatives, then we’re working on a clock,” Shane mused. “Another reason to get this thing done fast.”
“Which I suppose is why Levi is likely trying to push Josh to the breaking point.” When she thought about it, it made sense. Put Josh in many situations that would lead him to make poor choices. Shove the mark in a pressure cooker and turn up the heat until he would do anything to get out of the kitchen. She would have appreciated a heads-up though.
Shane sat back. “Well, I think we should expect something to happen and fairly quickly.”
She sat back, too, a comfortable silence coming over them.
It wasn’t fair. She was the sexual plaything of an actual Hollywood megastar and her squad wasn’t here to talk about it. Of course, sometimes her squad could be all adult and rational. Pen would worry that she was being used and that she might feel dirty afterward. She totally felt dirty, but in a hot way that made her want to get dirty again. Ariel would likely think she needed a therapy session. She would go all intellectual on the subject. She needed Teresa or Nick’s new wife, Hayley. They wouldn’t mind talking about her suddenly hot sex life. Hell, even Tucker would listen to her. He would grab some popcorn and ask all kinds of super-invasive questions, but he would listen to her. Damn it. She needed to talk and Shane was the only one here.