The past continues . . .

Thirty minutes after Amanda and I leave the hotel room, we arrive at the sprawling mansion estate that is the location of the party, and Danny pulls us to the door. “Don’t get drunk and fuck this up,” he orders as we depart, leaving him to pull around to a side parking area with a cluster of other drivers, where he’ll pretend to be one of the crowd. When in fact, he’s a sniper, tech genius, and a damn good wingman to have on call.

Amanda and I make it through the introductions and formalities, then we’re in the center of an elegant ballroom attached to a sprawling castle-style private house, that could be a hundred other events I’ve attended, fancy dresses and tuxedos splattered here and there like paint on a shiny floor. Lights dangle from above, and a piano’s musical notes fill the room. A beautiful woman at my side, mingling with guests that prefer to talk about themselves and in Italian, which I quickly learn Amanda is as fluent in as I am myself.

“I actually really enjoy making them attempt English,” she says, after we leave an obnoxiously rich pack of men.

“They’d do anything to get your favor, and under your dress,” I murmur.

“Better they think about my dress than my reasons for being here,” she says as an announcer calls everyone’s attention to a stage to the far right with a podium, and soon the main political star of the night is speaking.

My fingers lace with Amanda’s and we begin weaving through the crowd that is thicker now, perhaps two hundred or more. In a few smooth moves, we’re outside of the crowd, and we’ve avoided the poorly managed security staff, headed down a hallway, and are making our way up a stairwell. “I’ll take the bedroom,” she says, as we reach the second level, “and meet you in the office.”

Saving time is critical, and I wave her onward, assuming she has what she needs to bug the room, as I waste no time locating the office. Entering the room, I find a heavy oak desk, leather chairs, and walls of bookshelves, all framed by a sitting area. I’m at the desk, ensuring the computer is infected with a data-tracking virus before I begin planting various microchips. The desk is locked and I’m about to solve that problem and search them, when Amanda rushes into the door, shuts it, and mouths, “Security headed up the stairs,” even as she rushes toward me. “And they look like they’re on a mission.”

I’m around the desk in an instant and pulling her to the seating area of the room, where I sit on the couch, taking her with me, and she goes with the flow, willingly straddling me in an instant. “Game time, sweetheart,” I say, my fingers sliding into her hair, and I don’t wait for the intrusion to follow. I want this woman and she’s mine now, at least in this moment, and it won’t be one of those lost moments. My mouth closes down on hers, my tongue licking into her mouth, and she meets me halfway. She kisses me back and she does so without any hesitation. A deep slide of that sweet little tongue and I am so fucking hot and hard that I tear my mouth from hers, and challenge, “Don’t kiss me like that and expect it to end here.”

She presses her lips to mine and the moment her tongue touches mine again, the door bursts open. There are shouts in Italian and then English. “What are you doing? Get up, up, up.”

I kiss Amanda again. “To be continued,” I promise, and then heft her upward with me, my arm sliding around her waist, my hip aligned with hers, my intent to protect her if necessary.

Two men in suits, both bulky muscle heads, one holding a pistol on us, stand almost in front of us, at least two guns on my person. “Apologies,” I say, holding up one of my hands. “My lady and I had a fight and we were making up.”

Amanda gives a convincingly nervous laugh. “This is so embarrassing.” She presses her hand to her face and then punches me. “Why did I let you do this to me?”

“Because you love me,” I say, my fingers flexing at her hip as I look at the men. “We’ll go back to the party. I still have a large check to write that I’ll make larger to apologize.”

The man with the gun barks at the other guard, “Search them,” in Italian.

The man takes a step and I hold out a hand. “You can search me, but you aren’t laying a hand on my wife without me making one hell of a scene,” I say, already plotting the moment I pull my gun and shoot them both.

“It’s okay,” Amanda says. “I’d rather just get this over with.” She steps forward but I pull her backward.

“He’s not touching you.”

She glances over her shoulder at me and there is something in her eyes as she says, “Let him do it,” before she looks at the man, and adds, “Just please get it over with.”

I hesitate but release Amanda, who has bought me some time, before I pull the trigger, but I’m not sure I want to wait. She moves away from me and the man’s lips curl with the idea of touching her. Bastard. I’m going to enjoy killing him, but thanks to Amanda moving toward him, and with speed, I can’t kill the guy with my gun without risking the one in front of Amanda killing her at the same time.

He reaches for her waist, and she immediately presses her hand to his hand, an act I find interesting. Why would she want to touch him, let alone his skin? He notices too, and it gives him pause. He looks at her, lust in his eyes, eyes that suddenly roll back into his head. A second later he’s tumbling like a tree that just got axed. Amanda gasps and squats down next to him, her fingers pressing to the man’s neck, as if she’s checking for a pulse, but I don’t miss the way the hand she touched him with the first time is a ball by her side.

“He has a pulse,” she says, and the man moans, grabbing his stomach.

“Call an ambulance!” she yells at the other man.

“No ambulance,” the other man says storming toward us. “It will be all over the newspaper.” He looks at me. “What is your name?”

“Collin Jones.”

“Get your wife out of here and I better hear of a large donation or you won’t like the results.”

The man on the floor moans. “Understood,” I say, at the same time that Amanda pops to her feet.

“You have to call an ambulance.” And she sounds so damn worried that I almost believe she means it. “Please.”

“Get her the fuck out of here,” the man orders.

I wrap Amanda’s waist and pull her forward. “We’re leaving.”

“He needs an ambulance,” she hisses, fighting me, at least momentarily, to stay in the room, but she lets me guide her to the hallway, and the second we’re out of the man’s view, she stops fighting and the two of us are both running down the stairs.

“We need Danny ready to pick us up,” she says, but I’m already holding the phone, punching in the one number inside I know will connect us to him, directly or indirectly. “Front door,” I say at the sound of Danny’s voice. “Now.” I end the call and stuff my phone in my pocket at the same moment that we reach the lower level of the mansion, my hands sliding to Amanda’s back, and for the next five minutes, we calmly work our way through the crowd and to the front door.

The minute we’re outside, Danny pulls the car to the door, and in another minute, we’re in the backseat, the vehicle in motion. “Is the mission complete?” Danny asks.

“Yes,” I say. “It’s complete.”

“Then my instructions are to deliver you to a private airport. There’s a plane waiting on you both.”

“And you?” I ask.

“Unless my orders change, I’m staying.”

His staying doesn’t surprise me. What does is the fact that Amanda and I are to remain together. Turning my attention to her, I say, “You poisoned that man,” and it’s not a question, but rather a statement of fact.

“Yes,” she confirms, without looking at me, her tone flat, hard. “I did and he really does need an ambulance or he’ll die.”

“And you want him to live or die?” I ask, curious about what makes her tick. Does she enjoy killing?

“Better he dies than us,” she says, “though most people are smart enough to seek medical attention when I poison them.”

Her weapon of choice perhaps not because it’s fatal but because it is not? That’s humane. It’s also a weakness in an agent. “How many people have you killed?”

“I don’t tally.”

“That’s bullshit,” I say. “We all tally.”

“I don’t,” she says, and I wonder if she’s afraid her number will scare me. Or maybe that hint of vulnerability I sense in her is fear, not of others, but of herself. “What’s your number?” she presses, turning the tables on me.

Certain my number would scare her away, I say, “I don’t want to scare you away, sweetheart. I haven’t even gotten you naked yet.” Danny coughs, and I immediately move on, hitting Amanda with another question. “How did you manage to get the toxin on him and not yourself? And what was it?”

She flicks me the smallest of looks. “To start, you won’t get me naked unless I decide I want to be naked, which I have not. As for how I poisoned that man, practice and experience is how I did it, and I used a special compound that I developed years ago with my mother’s help. Long before I was even in the field for the agency.”

“Because you grew up in a CIA lab,” I comment, assuming the obvious, but expecting a reply she doesn’t have the chance to offer. Danny interjects instead with a proclaimed, “The Scientist strikes again,” which infers he’s seen her use poison before tonight.

And when she doesn’t look at me, I add, “I think I’ll call her the Poison Princess rather than the Scientist.”

She cuts her head and looks at me, eyes meeting mine, the shadows of nighttime concealing whatever lurks in the depths of hers. But something sharp and hard radiates off of her before she turns and faces forward and says nothing more. I’ve hit a nerve, and I think about her insistence the man in the mansion call an ambulance. That wasn’t all an act and I decide I have the answer to my question—does she like to kill? The answer in my mind, in my gut, is a firm no. My temporary missus might be as good at killing people as she is at kissing me, but she doesn’t like it, or the new title that I’ve given her. More so, she doesn’t know how to just do it and move on. Each kill stays with her, and that’s a weakness that will get her, and others close to her, killed if she isn’t careful. And the agency knows this.

Maybe they do want me to kill her, and since I don’t kill my own, that means they think she’s dirty. They’re usually right, but I’m always right. It’s why I’m the best at what I do. It’s why I don’t have regrets. I sense dirty. I know dirty. It feels a certain way. It scents the air around a person. It flavors the way they taste, and I have tasted Amanda. And she is indeed poison, delicious, tempting, make - me - need - another - long - drink poison. But not a dirty-agent poison. I’m going to need to be damn sure, and fast, before I’m given the order to kill her. I’m going to need another taste of my Mrs. Jones.

* * *

An hour later, Danny pulls us to halt inside a small, private airport, and directly onto the tarmac where a private jet awaits us only a few feet away. “See you in the next life,” Amanda says, a reference we often use when leaving a cover identity behind.

“See ya when I see ya,” Danny replies, but the minute she exits the car, his eyes meet my stare in the rearview mirror and he softly adds, “I’ll see you both on the ground,” a statement that infers our team of three tonight is staying together for at least one more mission.

“On the ground, as in where?” I ask.

“I’m to receive instructions only after they clear downloaded files from the computer you infected tonight.”

Because he created that virus—which is his form of weapon of choice, his poison. I give him a quick incline of my chin, and slide out of the car to join Amanda who is now waiting for me just outside the vehicle, and without a word, we cross the stairs leading to our plane. We pause there, our eyes colliding, the memories of our kiss, our bodies melded together on that couch, charges the air between us. Us fucking wasn’t inevitable, not when at any point the agency could send us on different directions. But we’re here now, we’re together, and we’re getting on this plane and fucking. And that has nothing to do with the agency. We’re human. We have needs and what we need right now is to fuck each other.

She starts up the narrow steps and I pursue her, my hand burning to settle at her hip, but what happens between me and this woman is between me and this woman, and right now, we’re being watched. But damn, I want to touch this woman. I’m going to touch her, and since the agency isn’t stupid enough to try and record me, once we’re in the plane, we’re without an audience, which is how I prefer to fuck.

Amanda enters the plane and I again follow, surveying the empty row of two leather seats to our left and right, with three more like it beyond them. Also empty is the rear section of the jet that appears to be set up as a massive lounge area.

Amanda faces me, and I motion over my shoulder. “I’m going to find out what I can about where we’re headed.”

“I’ll ensure the rear of the plane meets my standard of private travel,” she says, or in other words: she’s going to confirm there are no recording devices present, an act of caution I approve of wholeheartedly.

She turns away, and I do the same, making my way to the open cockpit door, where I find a pilot and co-pilot in their seats, the pilot, a dark haired, thirty-something male, his co-pilot ten years older and with salt and pepper hair. I focus on the pilot. He’s the one in control. “Destination?” I ask.

“Coordinates are London,” he states. “But we’re told we’ll be given further instructions once we hit thirty-thousand feet.” The sound of the exterior plane door slamming shut echoes through the cabin and the pilot glances at his watch and then me. “We’re instructed to be in the air in the next five minutes, which means we need to move now.

I give him a nod, leaving the cockpit, the door sealing behind me, and with no other crew present, I have only Amanda on my mind. Heading down the aisle, I find her facing me at the very rear of the plane, just inside the lounge area, her hands pressed to the backs of one of the leather duet seats on either side of her.

Minutes from having this woman to myself, from stripping her naked in every possible way to all the answers and secrets I know she will reveal, I close the small space between us. Stopping on the opposite side of the lounge area, I mimic her position, my hands on the seats to my left and right.

Our eyes lock and hold, that charge we create just by existing in the same space crackling the air. I can feel the intensity of what is to come and yet my voice is slow, steady, even when I ask, “Are we clear?”

“Crystal,” she replies. “Where are we headed?”

“The coordinates are London,” I say, “though as always—”

“—that’s subject to change,” she supplies, the plane beginning to roll.

She moves to a seat and sits down. I do the same, opposite her, our eyes locking all over again, and there is now a challenge between us that is as sexual as it is arousing. The many ways we might use the wide, leather-covered bench against the wall to my right, and her left, are already playing in my mind. The plane accelerates from a roll to a fast taxi, but neither of us buckle up. Call it living dangerously, or simply, in my case, impatience to have her in my lap, on my cock.

Seconds turn to a full minute, the plane lifts off, and the minute we’re airborne, the jet shimmies and shakes, but soon the climb is stable and steady. Unwilling to waste even a moment of the two-plus hours we’ll be in the air to London, if that’s our final destination, I stand up. Amanda does the same, and I have the idea that she’s reminding me that she is my equal in all things. But this isn’t about equal. It’s about pleasure, and I’m simply not a man who gives up control. Not to her or anyone, and I make that point when I pull her to me, tangling fingers in her hair, just the way they had at the mansion.

“Kiss me like you did back there at that party,” I demand.

“But I’m poison, remember?”

“My kind of poison,” I say, my cock now rock-hard, my mouth closing down on hers, tongue licking against hers, demanding, stroking. She resists for a flash of a moment, but then she is kissing me back, her soft curves melting into me, my free hand moving from her waist where it settles to caress and then cup that sweet ass of hers.

But she tears her mouth from mine, her hand flattening over my heart that is racing right along with my adrenaline. “If I’m poison,” she challenges, “what if I poison you?”

“Sweetheart, I don’t scare that easily,” I say. “In fact, I like the high of danger and you’re making me pretty damn hot and hard right now.” I turn her around and unzip her dress, leaning in, my lips at her ear. “And if you poison me now, too soon, we’ll both miss out on a hell of a lot of pleasure. So, wait.”

“Talk is talk,” she taunts, but what is interesting is I have this sense that she both wants to scare me away and pull me closer. I think she scares a lot of people away. But I’m not a lot of people.

I scrape my teeth over her earlobe, nipping hard enough for her to stiffen and suck in air, but she refuses to give me more. I lick the wound I know I’ve created, and whisper, “I’ve never been big on talk,” my hands finding her dress and caressing it off of her shoulders. It slinks down her body, and pools on the floor, my gaze raking over the barely there black thong and her round, sexy bottom.

I unhook her bra, my fingers pushing the straps forward and off of her arms, and once she’s let it fall to the seat in front of us, my teeth find her shoulder, before I release her and shrug out of my jacket.

By the time it’s falling to the floor, she’s kicked aside her dress and rotated to face me, her high, full breasts now boldly on display. And yet, there is something reserved and proper about my little poison princess. Layers she hides beneath her challenges and dares. Complexity beneath all her many perfect curves that interests me in a way little does these days. She interests me and my eyes rake over her pink pebbled nipples, my hands settling at her waist, when we both want them on her breasts.

But anticipation makes everything sweeter, and I kiss her again, hard and fast, before lowering to one knee, my mouth finding her flat, sexy belly before I twine my fingers in the strings at her hips, and drag her panties down her legs. My lips end up a breath from her sex, and I glance up at her as I lick her clit, reveling in the way she sucks in air, and arches her back. But when she reaches for me, I stand up, cupping her face, dragging my mouth over hers. “My kind of poison,” I declare.

“You sure about that?” she challenges again.

My answer is a kiss, and the instant our tongues collide, something wild, hot, and fierce happens between us. Something out of control, when I never allow myself to be out of control. But nevertheless, it happens, and perhaps that is the only proof I need that she is poison. And yet, she’s an addictive poison that I drink in with another lick of my tongue, followed by yet another. We are touching, licking, kissing, undressing to include the removal of a few well-placed weapons on each of us. Until finally, Amanda is in nothing but her thigh highs and heels, and I am in nothing but my pants, that aren’t my pants at all, and without the condom I realize now that I don’t have.

I shackle her waist, and pull her to me. “I don’t have—”

“—a condom,” she supplies, once again finishing my sentence, when few dare any more than they manage to interest me. “Aside from the fact,” she adds, “that we’re both all but lab rats for the agency, I can’t get pregnant.” Her hands settling on my chest. “The agency likes that about me. It’s okay if you do, too. But if you’re afraid—”

I tangle rough fingers in her hair and pull her mouth to mine. “I told you,” I say. “I don’t scare easily.”

“Good. Because right now, I just want to—”

“—fuck?” I supply.

“Yes,” she agrees. “Fuck.” And that word “fuck” is spoken as primly as one might expect from a scholarly scientist that I am suddenly harder and hotter for than I have ever been in my life.

I kiss her, my tongue sliding deeply, stroking against hers, and she moans into my mouth, the taste of her sweet, delicious poison explodes in my senses. And I can’t get enough. I rotate us, and sit on the bench, taking her with me and without any hesitation. We could die tomorrow. We could have died tonight. And I need to fuck this woman.

My hands mold her breasts, and she presses her hands to my face, panting as I tweak her nipples, with yet another demand of, “Why are your pants still on?”

“Pleasure isn’t about fast,” I say, tugging roughly at her nipples, watching her lashes lower, her forehead finding mine, her fingers curling on my jaw. “It’s about that reaction you just gave me.”

She slides her cheek to mine, her lips near my ear. “I want the reaction you’ll give me, when you’re buried inside me.”

My cock throbs with those words and I pull back, dragging her mouth to mine in what becomes a deep, drugging kiss that ignites fire between us all over again. We’re kissing. We’re touching, and yes, we are getting rid of my pants. And holy hell, she is sliding down my cock, all wet and hot, taking me inside her, and it’s one of those rare moments I allow nothing else to exist. There is just what I feel, which is really fucking good, and what I want her to feel, which is even fucking better. But instead of moving, instead of getting on with the pleasure and the fucking, somehow, we sit there, me buried deep inside her. We are still, our mouths close, breathing heavy, warm, in unison.

And I don’t have to look into her eyes to feel the pulse between us. It’s that intense. A burn that radiates, scorches, that is more than raw need and nameless sex. More than a simple hard and fast fuck that could be satisfied with another woman. This is about her, about the crackle between us from the moment we met, and the very fact that I crave only her, even needing this, when I normally need nothing, both arouses me and pisses me off. Really fucking pisses me off, and I want it sated and now. I pull her mouth to mine and kiss her—at the same moment, I press her hips against mine, and thrust into her. She moans, a sweet, sexy sound bordering on a raspy growl, and drives me wild.

I mold her closer, my hand wide between her shoulder blades, the other on her breast while my mouth suckles and licks at her nipple. She kisses my neck, my cheek, my shoulder. And each place her mouth touches, each time her sex grinds against my cock, adrenaline surges through me. I want her. I need her. And yet, something again, we are still, we are looking at each other and the silence is brutally filled with truth. We might die tomorrow. We might die today. Maybe I’ll kill her. Maybe she’ll try to kill me.

There is something sharp and dark in her eyes, a moment before she leans in and presses her lips to mine again, and we are suddenly kissing again, and she is rocking against me as I thrust into her. I let myself get lost in the moment, in her. I touch her and she melts into me. I touch her and she shivers. I touch her and she moans, and I feel every one of those reactions with a full throttle adrenaline rush. It’s in every touch. In every kiss. And I swear it’s too fucking soon when she stiffens on top of me, her fingers digging into my shoulders moments before her sex clenches around my cock, her release becoming my release.

She’s just collapsed on top of me, all her soft curves melting into every hard line of my body, when the phone on the wall a few feet away buzzes. “And we’re at thirty-thousand feet,” I say, rotating Amanda and lying her down on the bench. “That will be our update from the captain.” And with regret, I pull out of her, hand her a box of tissues from a built-in table just above her head and attached to the bench. I then stand up, leaving her naked and exposed, adjusting my pants, when I’d rather be with her, naked and in control.

Walking to the wall, I grab the phone, answering with, “I’m listening,” as I turn to bring Amanda’s heart-shaped ass into view, my cock already showing signs of life again.

“Detailed instructions are in the envelope in the overhead bin,” the pilot states, and the line goes dead.

I return the receiver to the wall unit, and Amanda grabs her dress, stepping into it. “Well?”

“We have a message,” I say, opening the bin to find a piece of paper I read out loud. “Mr. and Mrs. Jones will arrive in NYC where they live and work, in approximately eight hours, and they will remain there for the duration of their next assignment. A car will be waiting when you arrive to take you to your rental house, where you will receive further instructions.”

Amanda settles her dress into place and steps in front of me to remove the letter from my hand, reading it herself, before she glances up from it to me. “Where we live and work,” she repeats. “And for the duration of our assignment. That sounds complex.”

“Agreed,” I say, turning her and pressing her against the wall by the phone. “And I don’t do long term or complex anything. What do you know that I don’t know?”

“That I have a very unique set of skills,” she says. “I don’t do long term or complex, either. They get me in and get me out. So, what do you know that I don’t know?”

I narrow my eyes on her, searching for the right and wrong in her, the reason the agency wants me with her. Her chin lifts, defiance in her eyes, but there is something else, a vulnerability that could be guilt. Guilt is dangerous. To her. To me. “You’re mine now, Mrs. Jones,” I say. “I’ll protect you. I’ll give my life for you, but if you cross me . . .” I slide my hand under her hair and settle it at her neck. “I’ll kill you. To be clear, I could have already, and I can, snap your neck in the blink of an eye.”

She laughs, unfazed in the slightest. “That’s the most romantic thing anyone has said to me in forever.” She reaches up and strokes my jaw. “I will protect you, too. I’ll die for you, Mr. Jones, but let’s be clear about the playing field.” She holds up her hand and taps her pinky, then strokes a thin film-like material over the stubble on my jaw before running it over her bottom lip. “That’s deadly when I want it to be. And it’s only one of my many techniques. You might be bigger and stronger, but I am the Poison Princess. I could have already, and I can, kill you at any time.”

Fuck. I’m hard again. What is it about this woman? I drag her mouth to mine. “Then I guess that means we’re even.” I kiss her, a quick slide of tongue before I add, “For now.” I tug her skirt up her hips, and turn her to face the wall, stepping into her, and pressing my cheek to hers. “Let’s talk about who’s in charge. Which would be me.”

She gives a low, sexy laugh that says everything and nothing. And even then, some part of me knew that Amanda would be the most delicious, dangerous challenge I’d ever known.