Mendez flipped her over. Her lithe body was pink, flushed with the heat of arousal. The silver locket he’d so recently given her gleamed between her breasts. Heavy-lidded eyes worked to focus on him. Wouldn’t take her but a second since he’d deprived her of his cock.

His aching cock that was ready to explode. But that wasn’t why he’d withdrawn. He had a sudden need to see her face as he fucked her. To watch those eyes as they lit up with pleasure. He also needed to taste her nipples. And he wished like hell he’d gone with his first plan to lick her into oblivion, her sweet taste on his tongue as her body detonated.

“We’re not done,” he told her roughly. And then he entered her while she wrapped her legs around his waist. He held himself above her, not moving. This was sex. Fucking. Nothing more than a release he desperately needed.

And yet there was a thought chipping at the back of his brain that he couldn’t shake.

It’s more than sex.

He let his gaze slide to her thigh. She’d gotten a goddamn tattoo right where the scar would be if she were really Valentina. There was no way for him to ever know the truth. She was Kat. And he was caught up in her in ways he didn’t want to be but couldn’t seem to extract himself from.

Had Ian Black known this would happen when he’d sent the two of them to New Orleans?

She reached up and ghosted a finger over his lips. “What are you thinking about, John?”

“You.” It was certainly true.

Her eyes clouded. She knew what he meant. And yet she didn’t know as much as she thought. “Don’t. Not now. Please.”

She was right. He lowered himself on his hands, hovering above her as if he were doing a push-up, and sucked a pink nipple into his mouth. She arched her back, giving him better access as he flicked his tongue against her flesh. She wriggled her hips, trying to make him move, until it was too much and he had to move.

Their mouths fused as he pumped harder into her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, then let go and grabbed his ass. He lost whatever control he might have been holding on to. He fucked her hard, driving her across the bed as their bodies lifted and slammed together again and again. It was bliss and need and hot dirty sex all wrapped into one stunning, ball-draining package.

He just had to hold on until she came.

“Johnny,” she cried out as her orgasm slammed into her. He could feel it happening, feel the tightening of her body and the spasms gripping his cock as she shattered around him. Her back arched, her legs shook, and her moans grew in intensity. “Don’t stop,” she gasped.

As if he would. He tilted her up with a hand under her ass and drove into her, grinding against her clit as their bodies slammed together. The tension in her limbs drained away as she went limp with satisfaction.

He couldn’t hold back another moment. He stroked into her rapidly, his release starting at the base of his spine, rolling out to his balls. His brain buzzed. Sweat popped out on his chest and neck. His orgasm hit him like an Abrams tank, leaving him gasping and spent and wondering what the fuck had just happened to him.

He couldn’t move. Kat couldn’t seem to move either. They lay tangled together, arms and legs entwined. He was still hard inside her, still ready to go again. Not impossible at his age and with his level of fitness, but not exactly a guarantee either. Like most men no longer in their twenties, he needed recovery time.

Not with her. Right now, if she wasn’t finished, he could keep going until she was.

Eventually he managed to shift to the side so as not to crush her. He was still hard, but he’d have to move soon and take care of the condom. Kat opened her eyes to look up at him. They were shiny with moisture. A low-level sensation of panic rolled through him.

“No crying,” he told her.

She sniffed. “I wasn’t going to, asshole.”

He didn’t believe that for a second—but no tears fell and relief poured through him. The sex had been pretty intense. Maybe that’s what the glassy eyes were about.

“You okay?” he asked, just to be sure.

“I’m fine. Honestly.”

He traced a finger along her collarbone, over the locket chain, even though he told himself he should disengage from this madness right now. Get up and get dressed. Put the whole thing behind him and get on with the mission. Time to Charlie Mike this trip and get back to work. Time was running out.

“Good. I wouldn’t want you to be upset.”

“I’m not. But are you?” she asked. “Fine, I mean?”

Was he? “Yep. Maybe I can think again,” he added. “Now that the blood’s returning to my brain.”

She laughed. “Makes two of us.”

He didn’t like how intimate this thing between them felt. “I don’t think we should do this again. Too distracting and too dangerous. Maybe when it’s all over…”

Except that was probably a bad idea too. She was one of Black’s Bandits, and he hoped to return to his job as the commander of a top secret organization. He couldn’t fuck a former Russian FSB agent turned mafia enforcer turned mercenary while having access to the things he normally had access to.

Her expression didn’t change, but he felt the sudden chill in the air. “I agree completely. Too complicated.” She patted his arm. “It’s only sex. I can get that anywhere. Now, if you don’t mind shifting a bit more, I want to get dressed before your friend returns.”