Dallas pressed his forehead against the cool glass and exhaled, feeling lost. Feeling alone. For long days and longer nights he and Jane had been each other’s lifeline, the point of light in a dark and horrible world.

They’d escaped into each other, worshipped each other. Found secret triggers to incredible sensations. Nothing was wrong, nothing forbidden. He’d touched her, tasted her, buried himself inside her. And it had felt more right, more real, more mature back in those weeks as a teenager than in any encounter he’d had since.

They’d saved each other then, in every possible way.

So why the hell did it feel like they would destroy each other now?

Behind the glass, Quince was still working Mueller, but Dallas no longer wanted to watch. He needed to be alone. He wanted to take a shower and shake off the melancholy that had come with the memories. He couldn’t go there, couldn’t go to her.

And regrets were for pussies.

The main room of the operations center housed the tech and the holding cell in which Quince was now doing his job. But there was more to this underground lair. He gave a quick nod to Liam at the computer, then headed out the side door to the hallway that led to the Spartan sleeping quarters, along with the steam room and shower.

He dropped his duffel on the cot in his quarters, then strode to the shower, situated in the only room that had been tricked out for comfort, with high end fixtures and a state-of-the-art steam feature. He stripped as he walked, then shut the door behind him and tossed his clothes on top of the marble counter.

The control panel was mounted in the wall next to the glass shower door, and he turned it on, setting the water pressure to high and cranking up the steam. As the system began to hiss, he leaned against the counter and looked at his face in the mirror—he looked tired. Worn out. And he wondered how much of it had to do with coming so close to finding his kidnapper—and how much of it had to do with coming so close to having Jane.

His phone chirped, signaling a text, and he felt a little jolt of hope in his chest—Jane? He turned to pull it out of the pocket of his jeans, now crumpled on the counter, then suffered a stab of disappointment to see that it wasn’t from Jane but from Myra. It took him a moment to place the name, only remembering that she was the redhead from last night when he opened the text and saw the short video image.

She was arched back, her eyes closed and her mouth open in an expression that could only be ecstasy. Her breasts were thrust skyward and her legs were spread wide. The blonde’s face was buried between them, and from his perspective, Dallas could see the blonde’s own sweet, wet pussy between her bare legs as she squirmed and fingered herself, her ass making small circular motions as she excitedly moved her head, blond curls bouncing, while she sucked loudly on Myra’s clit.

For a second, he wondered who was holding the camera, but then Myra lifted her head and opened her eyes so that she was looking over the blonde’s arched back right at the camera. Right at him. “We made a new friend,” she said. “She likes it in the ass, Dallas.” She dragged her teeth over her lower lip. “So do I. So hurry back and come play with all three of us.”

He sucked in air and realized he was hard. So goddamn hard he thought he’d explode. And not from the video. Not from Myra’s sultry invitation. Not from the thought of himself in bed with three willing, eager women.

No, he was hard because he’d been staring at the video and imagining another scene. A different scene.

Him on his back, his hands above his head as he held tight to straps that were secured to the headboard. His body was stiff, his cock as hard as glass. He was on the edge, about to shatter, and as he stepped into the shower he let the image grow clearer.

He pictured Jane’s hand curved around the base of his cock. Her mouth taking him in, deep and wet, as her tongue teased the length of him, then pulled back slowly, sucking hard and lingering on the head so that he had to pull tight on the straps in order to battle the urge to thrust up and fuck her gorgeous, wide mouth.

Then she opened for him, taking him in. Deeper and deeper until he could feel the tip of his cock against the back of her throat, and he was so hard, so ready to explode, but he didn’t want it to end. This feeling. This knowledge that it was Jane getting him off. Jane giving him pleasure. Jane, and not some substitute female who could do nothing but satisfy an itch, but never satisfy him.

Deeper and deeper she took him, and as she did, her hands cupped his balls, and that was it—that was all he could take.

He let go of the straps before he shot his load—and goddamn if he wasn’t as close in the shower as he was in the fantasy—and he pulled roughly out of her mouth even as he grabbed hold of her arms and urged her up to him.

She straddled him, her thighs warm against his ribs. She was wet, and she rubbed herself over his chest, teasing her clit and making soft little moaning noises as she looked him deep in the eyes.

“Is this the way you want it?” she asked.

“God yes.”

The corner of her mouth lifted and she rose up on her knees, breaking contact long enough to lean forward and kiss him, then slide her lips over to his ear.

“I’m being awfully naughty. You may have to spank me.”

“Naughty?” He didn’t think so. She was following his commands to the letter. “How?”

“Because of what I want.”

His cock twitched. “Tell me.”

“I want your finger in my ass,” she whispered. “I want you to fill me when I ride you. And after I come, I want you to tie me down and fuck me hard. My pussy. My ass. I want the ropes to leave marks on my wrists and my ankles.” She licked the edge of his ear, and he shuddered. “I want you to use me, Dallas. I want to be everything you need.”

Every word rocked him, sending all of his blood rushing to his cock. He wanted this. Wanted her. And with a knowing little smile, she eased back and lowered herself onto his rock hard cock.

He groaned, relishing the feel of being inside her wet heat. She rode him hard, fingering her clit as she moved up and down until he was right on the edge, right about to lose it.

Not yet.

He flipped her over on her back, shoved her knees up near her shoulders, and pounded his cock into her, harder and harder, until all he knew was his growing pleasure and the mingled sounds of their bodies meeting, her moans, then the wild, violent cry of his name as she exploded around him.

And even before her trembling subsided, she begged for more. “Again,” she moaned. “Please, Dallas, tie me down and fuck my ass. I need you. I need you every way I can have you.”

The words ripped through Dallas, and he came. Harder. Faster. More violently and wildly than he had in forever. As he did he cried out, both from the euphoric pleasure of the release, and from the emotional pain of knowing that it was all a fantasy. Could only ever be a fantasy. He’d never be deep inside her. He’d never fuck her senseless.

He’d never hear her cry his name as she rode out her orgasm.

Because he couldn’t ever go there.

And even if he could—

God, even if he could it would never be right. He needed it dirty. Rough. Fucked up.

He’d take her part of the way in fantasy, but even in his mind he couldn’t completely sink down with her—and he sure couldn’t take her there in reality. Not now. Not ever.

Dammit. Goddamn it all to hell.

He gulped in air and stumbled back to lean against the hot tile wall. The adrenaline flowed from him like the water, and he dropped his head, exhaustion overwhelming him. Only then did he see the threads of red curling toward the drain.

Blood?

Confused, he looked up, and realized that the shower door was shattered. That his hand was bleeding.

Fuck.

He let himself slide to the floor. Let the water continue to run, to dilute the blood. He closed his eyes and sat in the steam, and wished that he could wash away his self-loathing as easily as the water washed away his blood.

“You didn’t return my call.”

Dallas paused in front of the cot where he’d been pacing in his room, a bath towel wrapped around his hips, and allowed himself a single moment to regret the decision to answer the phone.

“Hello to you, too, Adele.”

“What’s the matter, pet?” He could hear the pout in her voice, accentuated by the lingering French accent that she hadn’t lost even though she’d moved to the States forty years ago when she was thirteen. “You don’t sound happy to hear from me at all.”

“It’s not you,” he lied. They’d broken up four months ago. And although it had been surprisingly hard to break away, cutting himself free from their screwed up relationship—if you could even call it a relationship—had been one of the best decisions of his life.

At least that’s what he thought most days. Other days, it was hard. Because Adele had been the only woman he’d ever had in his bed who knew some of his secrets. Who’d go with him into the dark.

Sure, he could blindfold the models and actresses and socialites who sucked his cock. He could tie their wrists together, spread their legs wide and fuck each one hard with a dildo while he sucked her off. He could spank the redhead. He could make the blonde crawl. He could jerk himself off until he came all over the new one’s tits—the one he imagined stroking her own pussy as she videotaped her two friends.

But there were limits on what he could do with a woman he would only invite to his bed once or twice, three times at the max. And while a little kink only increased the titillating buzz that he’d worked so hard to foster, what really got him hard wasn’t the kind of thing that socialites whispered about to each other over their Cosmos.

He’d told the redhead that he liked his sex fucked up, and that was true. She just didn’t have any idea of how fucked up he was talking.

Adele had known. Hell, Adele had liked it.

“My ego is very happy to know it’s not me,” she said lightly. “But what’s on your mind?”

He sighed, knowing she would press. She was trained as a therapist, so being nosy was part of her makeup.

He put the phone down on the cot after turning on the speaker. He’d bandaged his hand, and it ached from holding the damn thing. “It’s nothing, really. I’ve just got a crisis at work I’m dealing with.”

She chuckled softly. “Darling, your father would be so proud. I think he believes you run from anything related to your job that doesn’t require you to wine and dine an investor’s daughter or squeeze some B-actress’s ass at a ribbon cutting for a new Sykes department store.”

“You’ve never even met my father.”

“Touchy.” He could hear her adjust the phone. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. But Colin knew Eli well, and still talks about him often.”

The mention of Colin, Jane’s birth father, was like a sharp poke between the eyes, and he winced, everything that was wrong about his time with Adele coming back to him like a flood.

They’d met in the years following the kidnapping, when Dallas was grappling with the loss of Jane—both her friendship, and the sudden cessation of everything forbidden that had happened between them.

Dallas had gone one day to Colin, whom he’d once thought of as an uncle, and Colin’s new wife, Adele, had joined them for lunch. She was in her early forties, twenty years older than Dallas, and gloriously confident and sexy. There’d been an undeniable awareness between them. Not heat so much as attraction, as if they were succumbing to some sort of magnetic power.

They’d danced around it for years, never doing more than flirting. But as her marriage to Colin deteriorated, Adele had become more and more suggestive and aggressive. So that when she and Colin finally divorced, it was almost a foregone conclusion that Dallas would have her in his bed. Or—he still wasn’t entirely sure—she would have him in hers.

She was the only woman with whom he ceded some control, and though he didn’t understand why, he knew that something about her compelled him. Got him hard, even when he didn’t want to be. It was more than her looks. She was beautiful, true, but with her thin, angular face, she really wasn’t his type.

Hell, other than Jane he had no type.

He didn’t love her. Sometimes he didn’t even like spending time with her. Adele soothed the darkest urges in him, but being with her made him feel even more dirty. As if he came away from sex with her covered in a thin layer of grime.

He’d almost walked away so many times, but that strange attraction compelled him to stay. To punish and be punished. Control and be controlled. It was never quite enough—always just shy of satisfaction—but with her he at least came close to the unknowable, unreachable nirvana he craved.

After about three months, she confessed that Colin had told her about the kidnapping. More than that, she’d eased close, brushed her lips against his ear, and told him she could guess his darkest secrets.

She’d been right. About Jane. About what they’d meant to each other. Done with each other.

About everything.

She’d turned her trained eye on him, and she’d seen right through him.

He should have ended it then. Instead, that’s when it had gotten even hotter. Dirtier. Kinkier.

He’d needed the release. The escape. The control.

But there were lines he wouldn’t let her cross, and when she’d told him it would be therapeutic to pretend that she was Jane—naked and captive and wanting Dallas to fuck her hard—Dallas had balked.

He’d pulled on his jeans, left the room, and hadn’t looked back.

That had been four months ago, and though she had called and apologized—though they’d talked casually and exchanged emails and salvaged the friendship, such as it was—they both knew it was over. At the time, Dallas had even considered that it was Adele who’d been sending him the taunting letters, but he’d dismissed the thought. The first letter had arrived a year ago, long before Adele had any reason to be hurt by his departure. Besides, even while they’d been sleeping together, they’d both known it was only sex. Hell, they’d both known it was mostly therapy.

“You shouldn’t lie to me, you know,” she said cheerfully now. “It’s not work that has you tied in knots. I know you too well.”

He grimaced and dragged his uninjured hand through his damp hair. “I’m not lying.”

“You do realize that Colin and I are still friends. For that matter, we occasionally fuck. Friends do that sometimes, you know.”

“Why are you calling, Adele?”

Her laugh was like the tinkling of bells, and he rolled his eyes, not quite able to stay mad at her. Irritation, however, was still lingering.

“I thought you might need a sympathetic ear. Jane talked to Colin, so I heard the news.”

“About Ortega?”

“What else? I hope they rip every bit of information they can out of the miserable bastard. I hope they catch and destroy whoever was behind your kidnapping.”

Dallas didn’t disagree. He also didn’t tell her that Ortega was dead. She’d hear soon enough.

“But I didn’t call about Ortega,” she continued. “I called because Jane told Colin that she was going to go see you. To tell you the news personally.”

“She did,” he said.

“And that’s why I thought you might need someone to talk to.” Her voice was soft. Soothing. “Seriously, darling. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Even to his own ear, it didn’t sound believable.

He heard her draw in a breath. To him, the breath sounded judgmental.

“She’s your obsession,” she said gently. “You need to let her go.”

He looked at his bandaged hand and knew she was right. “You’re not my therapist.”

“No, but I could be.”

“Adele.” His tone was reproving.

“What? I’m just saying that I can help you work through it. You need to let the obsession go, but we both know that’s hard, especially when this imprint of her is such a huge part of your pathology.”

He bit back a curse. Jane wasn’t a fucking pathology.

“Don’t turn what I’m saying around,” she soothed, obviously knowing the direction of his thoughts. “I’m acknowledging that it’s difficult. That you need to ease away from her. You can incorporate fantasy for that, and I can help.

“You can tell me all sorts of dirty things,” she continued, lowering her voice to a soft, sexy purr. “You can call me her name, you can spread out naked on your bed and I’ll tell you what I’m doing—what she’s doing. Do you want to know what I’m doing right now?”

“No.” But the word was a whisper and Jane was in his head and his hand was around his cock, the towel having dropped away.

“I’m straddling you. And I’m so wet, and you’re hard, as hard as rock. And I rise up on my knees right over your cock—she rises up on her knees. And then she starts to lower herself until her cunt just brushes against—”

He flinched, then tugged his hand free from his engorged cock. “Goddamn it, Adele.” Rage rushed through him. At her, for pushing. At himself, for letting her. “You think I want that? You think I need that?”

“Yes,” she said flatly. “I do.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Dallas—”

But he didn’t hear what else she had to say. He ended the call, feeling angry and dirty and totally fucking pissed off.

A knock sounded at his door.

“What?” he barked.

Liam stepped in as Dallas was twisting the towel back around his waist. It did little to hide his erection.

Liam raised his brow. “Interrupting?”

“Fuck you.”

His friend’s eyes dipped down to the towel. “Sorry. My type doesn’t have a cock.”

Dallas didn’t even bother trying to find a snappy comeback. “What is it?”

“I only came to find out if the shower had pissed you off in some specific way, or if you’ve just taken to casually beating up bathroom hardware.” He nodded at Dallas’s bound hand. “You okay?”

“Actually, it’s not one of my better days.”

“You wanna tell me why?”

Dallas just looked at him.

“Don’t even give me that,” Liam said. “You and I both deal with shit like this Ortega clusterfuck on a daily basis. And, yes, this one’s personal. But it’s not the kind of thing you’d put your hand through a door about. For that matter, I can only think of one thing that would get you that worked up.”

Dallas narrowed his eyes. “What’s that?”

“You saw Jane. I’m right, aren’t I? She didn’t tell you all of this over the phone. She came by the house. She told you in person.”

“So what if she did?”

“You could say better than me.” Liam took a seat on the cot, as if they were just casually talking, while Dallas walked to his duffel to get dressed. “I don’t know the whole story between you two,” Liam continued, “but I know a lot. I’ve seen a lot. And I know you’re both hurting. Ironic since you tell everyone that you’re staying apart to make things easier. ’Cause that’s bullshit, man. All you’re doing is making it harder.”

“Don’t start playing shrink. I’ve had about all I can stand of that for one day. And honestly, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Maybe not.” He shrugged. “I’m just saying that you’re my best friend. If I lost you, I’d fight to get you back.”

Dallas pulled a shirt over his head, then scowled at his friend. “What is it that you think you know? What is it you think happened? You think we had a fight? A difference of opinion over our kidnapping accommodations?”

“Don’t be an ass. And it doesn’t matter what I know or what I think or what anybody thinks.”

Dallas cocked his head, hearing something unexpected in Liam’s tone more than the specific words. “And what do you think?”

“Lots of things,” Liam said. “I’m a hell of a thinker.”

“Dammit, Li—”

“Fuck, man, you know I love you both. And I’ll always tell you if I think you’re being a prick.” He drew in a long breath. “But there are some things you can’t—you can’t just butt into.”

“In that case, don’t tell me what you’re thinking. Just tell me what you’re saying.”

Liam sighed, and Dallas thought that for a moment his badass buddy actually looked a little cornered.

“I’m saying that it’s not for me to do the thinking on this one,” Liam finally said. “But I’ll tell you this. Jane Martin is a hell of a woman. And if I was in love with her, there’s not a power on earth that could keep me away.”

Liam had been gone a full forty-five minutes, but his words still lingered, tormenting Dallas as he tried to read the reports and updates that the team kept shooting to his tablet.

Screw it.

He gave up trying to concentrate. And before he could talk himself out of it, he pulled out his phone.

It wasn’t quite midnight in Mendoza, and New York was only two hours behind. Surely he’d find her awake.

He hit the speed dial on his phone. They talked only infrequently these days, but he’d still put her in the first slot. Always had. Probably always would.

The phone rang once. Twice. Five times. And then it clicked to voicemail.

He clenched his fists, hating the feeling of helplessness that one unanswered call could bring. Was she not by her phone? Was she asleep? Was she avoiding him?

He was about to go run on the treadmill—maybe if he exhausted himself his mind would quit thinking about her for five seconds—when his phone chirped with Jane’s familiar ringtone.

With one quick motion he snatched it up and answered the call. “Hey.”

“You called me?” she asked. “I just saw the missed call on the lock screen.”

“I did. Yeah.” He rolled his eyes at himself. He sounded like a teenager again.

“Oh. Well, what’s—”

“I wanted to say I was sorry again. I pushed. I shouldn’t have pushed.”

For a moment, there was only silence, and when she did speak, her voice was low, barely a whisper. “No, you shouldn’t have. But you weren’t the only one pushing. I guess I owe you an apology, too.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “Apology accepted.”

“So was that it?” she asked. “Was that the only reason you called?”

He thought she sounded hopeful, but that might be wishful thinking. And right then, he didn’t have a clue what to say. Hell, he wasn’t even sure why he called. To hear her voice, maybe. But now that she was on the phone, he was fucking tongue-tied. Him—the man who’d made women melt with nothing more than the tone of his voice and a stern command—couldn’t manage to utter a single coherent thought. Because damned if it didn’t feel different when it was real.

“Dallas?” she said into his lingering silence. “Shit, are you there? Stupid cellphone, I think the call dropped.”

“No.” His voice was so low she probably couldn’t hear him. “I’m here.”

“Are you okay?”

He closed his eyes, done in by the genuine concern in her voice. “No,” he said honestly. “I miss you.”

He hadn’t intended to say that. And, now the words hung there, and he hated how damn vulnerable he felt. He ran a secret covert operation, and yet he was as nervous as a boy calling a pretty girl for the very first time.

“I miss you, too. I really do. But, Dallas, we can’t.” He heard the tinge of pain in her voice. “You were right to push away the other night. I should never—I mean, we should never have—”

“No.” He rushed to correct her. “I’m not saying we should. When I say I miss you, I mean I miss talking to you. Our friendship.” He didn’t say sister. He couldn’t bring himself to voice what they both already knew so well. And the truth was, they’d come at being siblings by such a convoluted path, with the adoption and without a single drop of shared blood, that she’d always been a friend more than a sister.

He thought about the women in the video. Women he didn’t care about. Didn’t truly want. “I miss that,” he continued. “I need it. I’m tired of polite conversation when we’re together. I want to laugh with you again.”

“We laugh.”

“Dammit, Jane, don’t pretend like I’m not making sense. You know what I mean.”

“I do. I really do.”

“And?”

She took a deep breath. “Are you in town?”

A flicker of hope curled inside him. “South America.”

“Oh. Well, come over when you get back. We’ll have coffee. Maybe play a game.”

“A game?” He couldn’t keep the amusement out of his voice.

“That’s what friends do. Play games. Watch crappy television.”

“Is it? I thought friends went to dinner.”

“We don’t. Too dangerous. Too much like a date.”

“All right then. Resident Evil it is.” Killing mutant zombies never sounded so good.

“I was thinking more along the lines of chess. Possibly Yahtzee.”

“It’ll be fun. I promise.”

He could practically see her making a face. She was terrible at videogames.

“Okay,” she finally said.

“Okay.”

“Say goodbye, Dallas.”

“Goodbye, Dallas.”

She laughed. And he realized he hadn’t felt quite this light in a long, long time.

He was still smiling when Quince stuck his head through the half-open doorway. “Hey, you got a sec?”

“Any progress with Mueller?”

“Bits and pieces. Right now I’m letting him stew. I’ve been on the phone with Noah going over the specs for the security system on Ortega’s property.”

“And?”

“And I think we may have a way in.” He passed Dallas his phone, open to an image of a gorgeous woman with lush dark hair and deep brown eyes.

Dallas glanced at the image, then looked up at his friend. “I’m listening.”

“Her name’s Eva Lopez, and her father owns the land that borders Ortega’s. There’s a party there tomorrow night. And I think Eva needs to make a new friend.”

Dallas grinned. “Let me guess. There’s a weak spot on Ortega’s perimeter that’s accessible from the Lopez property.”

“And that’s why you run this show,” Quince quipped. “You’re a bloody genius.”

Dallas’s gaze flicked back down to the picture. The girl wasn’t Jane, but the eyes were similar. The cheekbones as round and perfect. Her mouth wide enough to swallow a man’s cock.

He’d meant what he’d told Jane just now—he wanted to be friends. And he also wanted more.

He might get the friendship, but he knew damn well the more was not only off-limits, but impossible. He wasn’t the man for her. He could never be the man she needed. The man she deserved.

He knew all that—hell, that simple, basic truism had settled into his bones. But that didn’t mean the wanting went away.

The woman on Quince’s phone wasn’t Jane, but he could pretend she was. If that’s what it took to get him through this assignment, then yes, he could pretend.

It sure as hell wouldn’t be the first time. And, goddamn it, that was the job.

That was the role he played.