“Winston?” The Spanish in his voice was there only because she expected it.
Disliking him on sight, she watched him like a Mongoose watched a snake. They stared at each other; their breathing slightly elevated by the exertion. His black eyes seemed to eat the light and were completely unreadable as he took her in.
Her chin lifted a notch, and her lips tightened in irritation. She wasn’t the one in the wrong place at the wrong time. “I’m not dressed for work.”
His gaze slowly swept from her head to her toes. Then made the trip back up her skinny jeans tucked into high-heeled, knee-high, Christian Louboutin boots, paused for a nanosecond longer on the curve of her breasts beneath her favorite black cashmere sweater, and after what felt like an eon, his attention returned to her face. “I see that.”
Now she wished to hell that she’d dug deeper when she’d checked into his classified personnel file. At the time, she’d only wanted to assure herself that her boss would be in good hands. So what, he was a bomb disposal expert and considered the best T-FLAC had?
She
wanted to know his psychological profile before Jack went off with him to God knows where. Jack was Cybercrimes. A lousy shot, he was useless as a field op. Jack couldn’t strong-arm anyone even if his life depended on it.
Tonight proved that. Jack was dead.
Even knowing these limitations, Navarro had specifically asked for Jack for this op. She gave him a stony look. “I dressed for an airport run, not hand-to-hand combat.”
His gaze fell briefly to her lips. “Clearly not a Girl Scout.” His tone was cool and ironic, his gaze once again steady.
She purposefully took a moment to return his once-over before she replied. He looked like what he was. A warrior. Nose with a slight hook, dark eyes deeply set. His lean face was tan, indicating he’d just returned from sunnier climates. Glossy, almost stick-straight, black hair brushed his broad shoulders. He wore dark-washed jeans and a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up his muscled forearms. He was all about dark and foreboding and looked as though he’d never truly smiled in his life. She didn’t count smirking, sneering, or leering. She noted, with some satisfaction, that she’d put a dent in his all-too-perfect appearance; her bloody handprints stood out starkly against the white fabric.
He was a hotshot. A breaker of rules. A maverick.
She was methodical, by the book, and liked order. She also liked men who took the time to shave. At least at the start of an op.
“I kicked your butt, despite five-inch heels, didn’t I?”
“Let’s just say we’re evenly matched.”
“Let’s just say that despite you having the element of surprise
and
me wearing the wrong outfit, I handed you your ass.” She showed him some teeth in a parody of his smile.
“Don’t like to lose, do you?”
“Whoever said it’s not whether you win or lose, probably lost,” she told him coldly while smoothing her hair that had come loose from a neat ponytail. Her other hand was busy holding her weapon to his manly, unshaven jaw. “I’m sick of being held at gunpoint, Navarro. Shoot or back the hell off.”
His black eyes flickered from her to Jack’s body sprawled nearby in a pool of congealed blood. She turned her head to get her first view of the body in full light and barely managed to keep from wincing. Too many knife wounds to count under a ridiculous amount of blood. A male of Jack’s size would have approximately ten to twelve pints of blood in his body. It looked like ten
gallons
of blood on the floor.
She looked away. And damn it, the only other place to look was at Navarro. She took a step back, mirroring his movements as they both holstered their weapons. Tucking a stray strand of pale blond hair behind her ear, she was annoyed to find her heart still beating a little fast as his obsidian gaze skimmed over her again.
“Obviously,
I
didn’t kill him,” she told him coolly. “Given the disparity in our heights, I would’ve had to use a stepstool.” Jake was six five, and she, five ten in these particular boots.
“No doubt there’s one around,” he said dryly. “But I’m pretty sure that in those kick-ass boots, you could’ve reached just fine.”
Her blood pressure throbbed behind her eyes. It was a little harder to hang on to her cool when she wanted to slap him. Irrational, and totally unlike her to think of resorting to physical violence, even when provoked. “Are you implying you think I
did
kill Jack?”
He cocked his head; a supercilious move clearly intended to piss her off. “No blood on your clothing. No defensive wounds—”
Since the murder was no joking matter, she presumed, despite the lack of evidence, he was serious. “Go to hell.”
His face relaxed a little. “Someone dispatched Hansen. I know it wasn’t you, Winston; there wasn’t enough time. You didn’t kill him. Question is, who
did
?”
She was off the hook because there hadn’t been
time
?
Since it was clearly a rhetorical question, Honey didn’t bother responding to it or the insult. She’d personally track down Jack’s killer. She had some free time coming . . . That was none of Rafael Navarro’s business, however.
“We all have enemies.” Not Mr. Stallion, of course. Admired and fawned over, feted and treated like the prodigal son when he deigned to come into HQ, the man was a living legend. All other operatives wanted to team with Navarro. Herself excluded.
“Enemies don’t stroll into our homes twenty minutes from T-FLAC HQ and stab us multiple times. Unless you didn’t share something when you called in your hasty report?”
Honey’s dislike of the man raised two more notches. “I barely had time to
make
a report.”
She supposed some women would think his height and broad shoulders attractive. Certainly, the clerical staff at HQ gave him second and tenth looks on the rare occasions he came to Montana. Ha! He’d eat them for breakfast then spit their hearts out between his strong, white teeth.
Navarro had a reputation that had nothing to do with his admittedly sterling rep as a bomb disposal expert. No matter how hard Honey tried not to listen to gossip and the
oohs
and
ahhs
of it all, it was hard to miss hearing what a great kisser, lover,
stallion
the Spaniard was.
Catherine Seymour, her mentor and trainer, once confided to Honey that Navarro had made her come just by kissing her.
Honey gave a mental snort.
As if
.
Narrow-eyed, Navarro turned to look at Jack, giving her more time to look at
him
. The bump on the bridge of his otherwise straight nose indicated it had been broken a time or two. The razor-thin scar gleamed white in the bright light.
“My report, brief as it was, was complete and professional. This, however,” she pointed at the corpse, forcing herself to display a coolness she didn’t feel, “is sloppy. Rushed. Personal.” Honey paused before continuing. “The house is empty.” She avoided looking too long at Jack’s body, but her eyes inevitably drew to the dozens of knife wounds. Overkill in every sense of the word. The KA-BAR, eight inches of carbon steel, remained embedded in his heart. “I did a thorough sweep when I arrived.”
“How long have you been here?”
The left sleeve of his white shirt had come unrolled. Honey itched to tidy him. Not that she wanted to touch him. She most certainly did not. She liked things neat. He was anything but. She shoved her fingertips into the front pockets of her jeans. “Seven minutes. I was going to take him to the airport to meet you. He was dead when I arrived.”
She swallowed hard, the only indication she was in any way moved by the violent death of the man she’d worked with for five years. She’d seen plenty of dead people. Plenty of bloody, gory deaths. She’d caused some of those deaths herself in the line of duty. Affected to a certain degree but never this deeply.
Not that Rafael Navarro would get even a hint how deeply affected she was now. She did her job, didn’t fraternize with anyone she worked with, and minded her own business.
“Recognize the weapon?”
“I gave him that knife for his birthday last year—” Too personal. “What are
you
doing here?”
“Control notified me that Jack’s wife called in to say he had the flu and couldn’t meet me.”
“He’s divorced.”
“Yeah,” he agreed dryly. “I know. It sent up a red flag. What do we know?”
“I counted thirty-seven stab wounds- Unlikely an accurate count considering the amount of fluids and how close together the puncture wounds are,” she admitted, hating not being one hundred percent accurate before she reported anything. “The one to the heart killed him. He suffered before he died. Someone took their time.” It was almost impossible to be hardened when the person in question was someone she knew and respected. The thought of Jake suffering like this made nausea roll, and she swallowed, because damn it, she would not puke in front of Navarro. “Alarms disabled.” He’d opened the front door to the killer, expecting Honey.
When she’d fought with Navarro earlier, most of the blood had come off her hands, but she could still feel it between her fingers. Turning slightly away from him, she grabbed a slouchy, black leather tote from a nearby table, removed hand sanitizer, and wipes, and proceeded to clean up methodically. The adrenaline rush was starting to fade, and Honey was annoyed to find her hands shaking. She didn’t want Navarro knowing how freaked out she was over Jack’s violent death.
She turned to find him watching her. Before she thought it through in her usual methodical way, Honey strode back to him, reached up, and fisted his shirt, tugging him down to eye level. His eyes were almost black, illuminated by the overhead chandelier.
“Kiss me,” she demanded, twisting her fingers in the soft cotton to yank him closer. He angled his head, obediently pressing his mouth to hers. His lips were firm and cool. He tasted of something dark and unknown.
She did not climax.
TWO
I
nteresting.” She stepped back, clearly not finding the kiss that interesting at all.
“Wasn’t it though?” he said dryly.
He’d
found that brief brush of lips intriguing to say the least.
“The Garbage detail should be here in a few,” she said, voice crisp and even. “I’ll do another walk-through while we wait.”
“Have at it.” Rafael motioned for her to take the hallway to the left, and she stalked off, ponytail bouncing against her black sweater. He bet she’d be annoyed at how deceptively cute and perky that ponytail made her look.
Ice Princess.
Honey Winston was that minus a couple of degrees.
Not ice water in her veins. Liquid nitrogen.
That unexpected kiss held zero warmth. Experimental.
Then why, he asked himself, intrigued, had he felt a surge of heat, a white-hot spark of awareness as her cool lips touched his? He’d never been a glutton for punishment, and Winston looked like she was capable of administering punishment in spades, and with cool efficiency.
She looked Nordic with that pale hair and those icy blue eyes, but Frosty was as American as apple pie. Despite rolling about on the floor, fighting for her life, her hair remained scooped in a neat, simple ponytail. On her, it looked casually chic. A light sweater, with the feel of expensive cashmere, clung enticingly to her full breasts. Long legs, clad in slim, black pants, and tucked into the knee-high, glossy black leather, high-heeled boots had been wrapped around his throat just minutes before.
She was a dangerous package, this Honey Winston.
Rafe had never met a woman with a more direct gaze. Oh, yeah—one other. However, Catherine “Savage” Seymour, rogue ex T-FLAC operative direct look always gave him a weird chill up the back of his neck. Winston’s cool, blue gaze whispered a whole other message.
He was immune…to blondes, fellow operatives, women with the personality and charisma of an ice cube. ’Nuff said.
She was damned unemotional about the violent death of the man she’d worked with for years. Rafael watched her disappear into a room at the end of the long, wide hallway.
The tight-ass had a tight, sexy ass.
He walked through a sparsely furnished living room—one comfortable-looking, enormous, brown leather recliner, and a big screen TV. Wife must’ve taken most of the furniture, and Hansen hadn’t bothered to replace it. The room looked…lonely.
Rafe clicked light switches as he went. The sprawling, ranch-style house, thirty-some miles from T-FLAC headquarters, was too big for a man on his own. Hansen’s wife of nineteen years had walked out with their three kids a few years before.
Operatives shouldn’t marry. He thought that obvious, but apparently, some people needed hitting over the head to get the memo.
Rafe searched each room. Neat. Most of them sparsely furnished and unlived in. Other than the two of them, the house was empty. Other than Jack’s mutilated body right inside the front door, there was no indication that the killer had gone any farther than necessary. Rafael went back to the front hall just as Winston returned. “Clear.”