“I can’t let myself lose control,” she said, keeping her knuckles pressed against his palm. “I can’t disappoint Nemesis. I can’t let
you
down.”
A throb made itself at home between his ribs, the pain much greater than the dull ache in his hands. “Won’t happen.” He closed his fingers around her fist. Held it against his palm.
She stared up at him. He lifted his free hand up to cradle the back of her head and kissed her, swallowing her doubt with his lips. She tasted of night and spice, and he drank her down, wanting her breath to replace his own, needing the feel of her mouth. He’d meant the kiss to be some kind of comfort, but hunger roared to life the moment he touched her.
She returned the kiss with her own sharp need. Her mouth opened to him, her tongue slicked against his, and he felt that stroke all the way down to his cock.
Releasing her fist, he curved his hand around her waist. When he pushed his hips against hers, she widened her legs. He walked them backward, until she leaned on the brick wall, and he pressed himself against her. Her hands gripped his arse, fingernails digging into him as she urged him closer. He groaned at the feel of her cradling him and her desperate demand. Not shy, his Eva.
Hazily, he was glad of the hour’s lateness. No one was in the park except him, Eva, and the nighttime. No one to hear her gasps as he rocked his hips into hers, or his animallike sounds.
Something seemed to drive them, some urge that pushed them both. A wild hunger that wanted to defy the danger looming ahead. Within the next few hours, either they’d win out against Rockley or everything would go to hell.
He wanted all of her. For as long as he could have her.
As she seemed to want him. Their kiss grew more urgent, starving.
With a brutal groan, he pulled back. “Need to be inside you.”
“Yes,” she gasped, undoing the buttons of his trousers. They kissed, mouths open, panting with need. His body pressed against hers as they leaned against the wall. She was slim and strong beneath him, her fingers wrapping around his cock the sweetest thing he’d ever felt. As he gathered up her skirts, he felt the shaking in his hands. Hunger for her shuddered through him.
If only the damn world could stop. If we’d just have this forever.
He stroked up her legs, over her stockings, until he found the bare skin of her thighs. She shook, too. He tugged her drawers down, and she kicked them away. And then he ran his hands over her hips, her arse. His fingers found her pussy’s wetness. They both moaned as he stroked between her lips and rubbed the hard bud of her clit.
“Now, Jack,” she demanded breathlessly. “No more waiting.”
Grateful for his strength, he lifted her up, his hands on her hips, fitted himself to her entrance, and then brought her down onto him in one hard thrust. Oh, God, she was so slick, so tight around him. She gasped, her breath hot on his neck and her arms around his shoulders.
For a moment, he couldn’t do anything, couldn’t move, only felt her surrounding him and the beat of her heart against his. Then she shifted, a slight movement of her hips, and he was gone.
He thrust up into her, using the wall for leverage. Her heels hooked around his calves. He sank into her with thick, deep strokes.
Too rough?
Yet she only held him tighter, and her gasps came quick and hot with every thrust.
“
This
is for you and me,” he growled. “We’ll never lose this.” He punctuated his words with his hips driving against hers.
She moaned his name—the best thing he’d ever heard. As contained as she kept herself, only he could make her feel this way, could push her beyond the limits of her control.
He shifted, making sure that with each thrust, he ground against her clit. Her whole body tensed, and just in time, he covered her lips with his, swallowing her cry as she came. But he couldn’t be satisfied, not until she cried out again, and once more.
As she continued to tremble, he lifted her up and off him. She was pliant, her eyes gone heavy-lidded, as he turned her around and placed her hands on the wall. Gazing back at him, she arched her back, lifting her hips in bold invitation.
“Never seen anything prettier,” he rasped.
He grasped her hips, then drove into her. Already pushed to the edge of his restraint, he couldn’t keep himself from moving hard and fast, his strokes into her almost brutal. Yet she met him eagerly, pushing herself back onto him as if she couldn’t get enough of him.
He could never have enough of Eva. The heat of her, this hidden wild woman who was his alone. That they were both fully dressed but bare in the most important places only sharpened his excitement.
It took more control than he knew he had to pull out a moment before his seed shot from him, his orgasm hot and relentless. God, how he wanted to come inside her. But even lost in pleasure and need, he had to be smart.
Still, he bent over her, her back curved against his chest, as they struggled to breathe. She felt small beneath him, almost delicate, but he wasn’t fooled. She was every bit as strong as him, maybe stronger. Such a fighter, his Eva, so full of fire.
He nuzzled her nape, inhaling the scent of her skin, her sweat, and when he scraped his teeth over the skin, she gave a little tremble of pleasure. His own legs felt shaky.
Time slipped away. Nothing either of them could do to stop it.
Fishing around in his pocket, he found a handkerchief, and used it to clean them both. Slowly, they collected themselves, righting their clothing.
“They’ll know what we’ve been up to,” he said, tucking strands of her hair behind her ear.
“Can’t bring myself to give a damn.”
He bent and kissed her. “That’s my lass.”
A flash of loss crossed her face, and he realized that he’d spoken of something that couldn’t ever be. She wasn’t his lass. Just as she’d said, surviving tonight meant they’d have to go their separate ways—her to the life she’d built for herself and him to an unknown future. He’d never given much thought to what the future held for him. As he and Eva left the park and walked back toward Nemesis headquarters, he saw that if he did live past tonight, the time ahead without her would be emptier than the heath surrounding Dunmoor Prison.
* * *
As Eva and Jack neared Nemesis headquarters, she felt herself sharpen and focus—as though she were a telescope aimed skyward and the blurred forms of stars were gaining clarity, precision. The riotous, angry pounding of her heart steadied with each step.
He had done that. Or rather,
they
had, with the heat of their bodies and the strength they drew from each other. She trusted her Nemesis colleagues, but somewhere during this mission, she’d learned to trust Jack with a conviction that reverberated all the way to her marrow.
Natural as oxygen, he’d taken her hand for the return journey to headquarters. She glanced down at the sight—his hand so much bigger than hers, roughened from hard labor—and a sudden, sharp throb pierced her calm. How had this happened? She’d been so careful. But it had. Losing him would be a wound she’d carry with her the rest of her life. But she had to stay here, in London, with Nemesis. This was her work, her life. She couldn’t turn her back on it. Not even for her own happiness.
She made herself concentrate on what was to come. If her thoughts strayed, she put herself and her team in danger. Yet both she and Jack were tensely silent.
They approached the chemist’s shop, and Marco and Simon emerged from the shadows. Simon had slung his rifle on his shoulder, as he had when he’d been in the army. It was the same Martini-Henry he’d used at Rorke’s Drift, and she knew he trusted the weapon far more than most people. He never lost his military bearing, but with the rifle on his back and his expression blade-sharp, he looked every inch the soldier.
Marco appeared unarmed, but she knew that he had a revolver in a special shoulder harness he’d constructed—his preferred method of carrying weapons. Where Simon favored forthright military tactics, Marco held fast to the methodology of subterfuge. The vestiges of being a spy.
Neither men spoke as she and Jack approached. Simon and Marco both gazed at Jack’s and Eva’s joined hands. Difficult to read her colleagues’ expressions in the darkness. They were all of them expert in hiding their emotions. Unblinking, Eva returned their opaque looks.
Jack, however, wasn’t as adept at concealment. His jaw formed a hard, square line, and he seemed to grow even larger, more intimidating. A deliberate challenge. His body language said plainly,
I’m not sorry, and if you’ve got something to say about it, I’ll make you hurt.
Damn, there was that pain in her heart again.
At last, Simon gave a brusque nod. He held something out to Eva. Her gun and a pouch of ammunition.
She took the weapon and bullets and tucked them into her pockets. “I didn’t bring you anything.”
“Next time.”
Marco handed Jack a revolver, ammunition, and a leather portfolio. “These are the forged documents.”
Rifling through the papers, Jack said without looking up, “He’s going to double-cross us.”
“Certainly he will,” she said. A man like Rockley would never hold to his word. Of course, Nemesis also planned on deceiving Rockley. He didn’t know that, however. Rockley would want his money back and his blackmailers—particularly Jack—dead.
“We’ll make the swap,” Jack continued, stashing the revolver in the inside pocket of his coat. “And he’ll give some kind of signal. The blokes he’ll have stashed somewhere will start shooting.”
“How will you recognize his signal?” Simon asked.
“I’ll know it when I see it.”
It was a measure of everyone’s faith in Jack that none of them questioned his instinct.
“When Rockley gives his signal,” Jack went on, “I’ll give mine. That’s when you lads lay down some cover for me and Eva.”
“What’s the signal to be?” Eva asked.
Jack thought for a moment.
“Bollocks,”
he said with a smirk.
“It couldn’t be something a little more elegant?” Marco complained. “
Bach,
perhaps? Or
Bernini
?”
“He’d know for certain something was up if I start talking like a toff.”
Marco glowered.
“
Bollocks
it is, then,” said Eva.
“No heroics, no attempts on Rockley’s life,” Simon cautioned. “We’ll provide enough cover for you two to get out of there, and then all of us retreat.”
Jack scowled at that word.
“This is how it’s got to be,” Simon continued.
“So long as we all make it out alive”—he glanced quickly at Eva—“then I’m happy as a goddamn Sunday roast.”
She made herself ignore the shard of fear that embedded itself in her heart, thinking of Jack hurt or worse, and pulled a timepiece from her pocket. “It’s approaching two. We need to arrive with enough time to get Marco and Simon into position.”
As she spoke, a hackney clattered to a stop in front of them.
“To the minute, sir,” the driver said, tipping his hat at Simon. The weapon on Simon’s back made the cabman start, but he didn’t drive off.
Marco climbed lightly into the carriage. The vehicle tipped, however, when Jack did the same. Before Eva could take a step into the cab, however, Simon’s hand on her elbow stopped her.
He said in a low voice, “If there’s the slightest chance—”
“My mind is clear,” she replied. “I won’t endanger anyone on the team.”
He frowned. “It’s
you
I’m concerned about.”
“Have I ever fallen short?” she countered.
“You’ve never had such a distraction before.”
“He’s not a distraction.”
“And she can bloody well take care of herself,” Jack added with a snarl, sticking his head out of the carriage.
Simon exhaled through his teeth. “I know that.”
“Then get the hell in the cab,” she said.
Fortunately, Simon made no further comment. But he was still gently raised, and so he insisted she climb into the carriage before he did. Once they were all inside, Marco rapped on the roof, and they were off. Jack was a solid, warm presence beside her in the carriage. She did not care if Simon and Marco watched as she took Jack’s hand. All that mattered was surviving the next hour.
* * *
In the darkness, the Tower Bridge construction site looked as if some massive creature had fallen dead beside the Thames and rotted away, leaving only jutting bones. Scaffolds in various states of assembly clustered on the bank. Girders stacked atop each other, and cranes waited like vultures. Metal tracks crisscrossed the ground, partially completed. Construction had only recently begun, with the support structures still being built before the real work could start. Eva had seen sketches of the proposed bridge in the newspaper, but it was difficult to imagine such an engineering marvel could emerge from this chaos.
That was a concern saved for the construction workers and engineers. Right now, she was more worried about the number of places Rockley might hide his own hired guns, and the treacherous terrain. With the moon waning and only a few lamps casting dim pools of light here and there, shadows were too abundant. But the darkness could be Nemesis’s friend, too.
She and the others approached on foot, having left the cab several blocks back. The shapes of the scaffolds rose up out of the night, and the only sounds came from the river slapping against the pilings. The site was deserted.
“I’d expect this place to be patrolled,” she whispered to Jack.
“Wager Rockley paid off the guards,” he answered under his breath. “No witnesses.”
The swap was to take place in an open expanse, with the river on one side and a grouping of temporary buildings that served as construction offices on the other. Crates and piles of timber formed the final boundaries of the site. Jack and Eva would meet Rockley in the middle of the expanse.
With a silent hand signal, Simon had them stop. He pointed to the tallest scaffold, a structure three stories high. More crates clustered at the very top of the scaffold. It would make an excellent vantage for someone armed with a rifle. By the time Eva glanced back at Simon, he’d already disappeared.