hard length press against her.
“No, because if I come into your room, that robe will be on the floor faster than you can say ‘Yes, please.’”
And does it need to stay on? Probably. Maybe. Well, for now. She had zero regrets about what happened at the pond. But on the other hand, what sane and rational person got down and dirty and had oral sex when her very life and reputation were on the line? I was living. Feeling, she reminded herself again, hating the buttoned-up, straight-edged FBI agent who kept taking over inside her head.
Maybe instead of a checklist of everything that’d gone wrong, she ought to make one for everything that had been going right? A.J. showing up in her life when she needed him, for starters.
Memories licked her mind with furious intensity once again about what happened at the pond. The soft strokes of his tongue coupled with the scratchiness of his beard along each thigh.
“My team is settling into their current location. They ended up finding a place about twenty minutes away,” A.J. said, sounding regretful that he had to force himself back into operator mode. “I gave them the Cliff’s Notes version of what we already told Jessica and Asher.” He pushed away from the frame of the door to stand straight and scratched the back of his neck. “My team knew some of your story already. And your unit is now aware of your real name and the new identity given to you by the FBI when you turned eighteen. They also know what happened to your parents.”
This was to be expected, and yet, it had her shaking on the inside a little. “They think I’m the spy, right? The leak?”
“Which ‘they’? My teammates or yours?”
She’d seen a touch of doubt in Jessica’s eyes earlier when Ana had shared her story. Not so much Asher because she’d swear that man was rooting for her and A.J. to be more than “on the run” together. “You pick which one to tell me about first.”
A deep inhalation through his nose probably wasn’t the best of signs. “I’ve convinced my people you’re who you say you are, and they’ve promised to trust my judgment.”
“Because you trust me, they’ll trust me?” She leaned forward slightly and brought her hands to her bare knees, the silk sliding higher up on her thighs.
“Right,” he answered, slowly nodding. Ana was becoming quite fond of A.J.’s Southern accent, especially when he said this word in particular. Riiiight. She kind of loved that drawl. And she was now stalling as to how to respond.
“And my team?” Halle and Dean might give Ana a chance to explain, but her disappearing act wasn’t going to do wonders for her innocence. “Aside from Porter, we still don’t know who else is aware of my UC assignment.”
“You may not believe this, but Director Mendez admitted he was the one to sign off on your hire six years ago. As well as your promotion to HQ. He hasn’t mentioned your UC assignment, but that might mean he was the one who gave Porter approval in the first place for you to infil the Volkovs.”
“Mendez hated me back in Charlotte.” Her tone was weak as she recalled working with the FBI director.
“Don’t take it personally. He sure as hell hated my guys then, too. And I may not like Mendez, but if you’re going to have someone on your side at the Bureau, he’s the guy to have.” A.J. added a nod meant to make her feel better, but she was still swimming in a sea of doubt about who to trust at the Bureau. The memory of the pond was quickly slipping from her mind when all she wanted to do was wrangle it in and think only about her feelings for A.J.
And maybe now wasn’t the time to tell A.J. the USB file from Porter’s safe contained the evidence of her UC assignment, which meant someone out there knew where her loyalties truly lay.
“Your, um”—A.J. cleared his throat—“ex-husband is leading the not-guilty charge. He insists I hijacked you or hurt you.” A smile curved at his lips. “Not that he knows who I am, but his description of me to your unit was colorfully inaccurate.”
She could imagine what Kyle had said. “Are you going to be okay? I don’t want your work with me coming back on you.”
“Natasha has me covered. Plus, I’m pretty good with POTUS.” He winked, and it was exactly what she needed. A