It seemed as if they’d been going nonstop for days, but now they were still. Kat didn’t know what to make of the stillness. She wanted to be doing something, but Johnny had told her they had to wait. There were things to be done in preparation for infiltrating Sergei’s lair.

She frowned. Apparently one of those things was drinking vodka with Yuri Budayev.

Kat explored the secure bunker, wandering the luxurious, quiet spaces while Johnny sat in the bar—yes, an actual bar—with the Tiger. They’d been laughing and doing shots when Kat left them.

Just two old friends catching up. She hoped they were friends anyway. If the Tiger turned on them, there would be nothing they could do. They were trapped in a bunker. Cell phones didn’t work, and she suspected he could disarm them easily enough. She kept a couple of pistols with her, as did Johnny, but unless they dragged the weapons cache they’d taken from Turov’s men with them everywhere in the bunker, they would run out of bullets in short order should Yuri turn on them.

She suspected this bunker was built to withstand a siege. All he had to do was cut them off from the areas he didn’t want them in. He could probably lock them in the bedrooms and cut off the water supply.

She shuddered, rubbing her arms vigorously, and wandered the spacious living quarters. She could hear Yuri and Johnny talking whenever she passed by the bar area, but she didn’t stop.

Eventually she went into the room she’d shared with Johnny earlier. She stood and stared at the bed for a long minute, then grabbed the weapons and went into the next room. She wasn’t going to spend the night in a bed they’d made love in when he’d made it clear they weren’t going to do it again.

She took out the locket with her picture and studied the etched silver. It was warm and worn but also familiar, even after not seeing it for over twenty years. Her belly dropped at the thought that it was hers again. That he’d given it up so easily.

Or maybe not so easily when she thought of his face. Of the words he’d said. It’s not my life anymore. It’s time.

Time to forget Valentina Rostov. Time to move on.

Except Valentina was right here. Still in love with him. Still not able to make a life with him. She thought of that moment when he’d bared her body and encountered the tattoo. He’d still expected to find evidence she was Valentina, but instead he’d found the evidence eradicated.

Her body flamed as she thought of what happened after that. Of the way he’d taken her. She could still feel his possession lingering in the tenderness between her legs. Still feel the scrape of his beard over her spine and shoulders. She wanted so much more, but she’d learned that in this life she didn’t get everything she wanted.

Maybe in the next one she wouldn’t live a life of danger and intrigue. Maybe she’d be a housewife instead of a warrior. Maybe she’d get her chance at love and happily ever after.

She stripped out of the tactical pants and boots, shimmied out of her bra beneath the T-shirt, and yanked the covers back. It was growing late and she was pretty sure they weren’t going anywhere tonight. She put a knee on the bed—and the door opened. She gasped.

Johnny stood in the opening, looking completely delicious in his jeans and the black T-shirt he’d taken from the drawer in the other bedroom. His beard was really coming in now—and it looked fabulous on him. Silver and black, same as his hair. Though perhaps there was more silver in the beard. His hair was growing too, getting curls at the nape and turning wavy across his scalp.

Love, impossible and sharp, lanced into her. Stabbing. Aching. Leaving her hollow.

He shut the door behind him without a word. Then he twisted the lock.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He stalked toward her, menacing and gorgeous. Hard-eyed. Hot. Literally the most exciting man she’d ever known.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked, stopping just short of touching her.

So close.

She tilted her head. “Are you drunk?”

“Drunk? No. Out of my mind? Yeah.”

“You’ve been drinking. I can smell it.”

“A little.” His eyes dropped down her body. Back up again. “I’m not impaired.”

“You said you were done with me. One and done. It’s not like you to change your mind.”

His turn for a head tilt. “How would you know?”

And there was the guilt again. “You haven’t changed your mind about anything you’ve decided over the past few days.”

He reached out and lifted a lock of her hair from her shoulder. “Except this. Earlier and now.”

She snorted softly, though her heart was about to launch into outer space. “You are a man. I’ve never known one to turn down sex when offered.”

“I can. I have. More times than you can imagine.”

“Have you? Why?”

“A thousand reasons. Wrong woman. Wrong time. Wrong feeling.”

“You are a complex man, John Mendez.” It was barely more than a whisper.

“Am I? I thought I was an ordinary one. The kind you could get anywhere.”

Oh hell. She had said that to him earlier. Of course he hadn’t forgotten it. “You are hardly ordinary. And you’re the one who said once was enough. I only agreed with you.”

“Do you still agree?” His fingers slipped to her throat, stroked her skin. When she didn’t answer, he followed that up with his mouth. Just his lips on her skin, nothing more. Featherlight.

She dropped her head back, closed her eyes. She should tell him to go. Her heart couldn’t take it. But she knew there was no way she would. She loved him too much. Wanted him too much. Had spent too many years dreaming of touching him once more.

“I don’t know what I believe when you do that.”

He straightened, their eyes catching and holding. “I believe the next few days are going to be hell. I believe that if I’m going to die, I want to die having done this right.”

She couldn’t even focus on the part where he thought he might die. A yawning black hole threatened to swallow her if she did. “What makes you think you didn’t do it right? We were both happy—weren’t we?”

“Yeah. But there’s more. You know it.”

Her throat was stone. “Being with you—it’s emotional for me. You need to know that.”

His frown was quick, disappearing almost before she’d registered it. But it had been there. “It’s emotional for me too.”

A weird kind of jealousy reared its head. She wanted to ask him if it was emotional for him because she looked like Valentina—as if she really were her own twin and she was hurt that he was only engaged emotionally because of her resemblance to a woman supposedly dead.

But that was ridiculous and tangled and there was no way she was treading that ground. It didn’t matter why he felt something. It mattered that he did.

She sank onto the bed in front of him and hooked her fingers into his belt so she could slide it free. “Spend the night with me, Johnny. We’ll worry about tomorrow when it gets here.”