CHAPTER 21

ELLE WAS DREAMING. A FIRM, soft touch lifted her hands above her head and secured them with fur-lined cuffs. She smiled in her dream. This was new. He’d never used handcuffs before. And neither had she. Elle liked new experiences. Even if they only happened in her dreams.

“Did you miss me, gorgeous?”

“Mmm.” She shifted on the bed, feeling the cool sheets against her suddenly hot and sensitive skin. “Where have you been?”

In her dreams, he often talked of new and exotic places, keeping her guessing about where he was, exactly the way he did in real life.

“You figured out who I am yet?” She felt his breath against her hair and realised he was sitting on the bed beside her.

“Nearly.” She sounded sultry and needy. Something she would never have let him see outside of her dream. “It’s only a matter of time.”

“Time, huh?”

She felt fingertips trail down her cheek to her lips, and her eyes opened, seeking out the face she’d seen ever so briefly in Peru, but couldn’t get out of her mind. “David,” she whispered.

Only this time, the room was dark in her dream and she could barely make him out in the shadows. She blinked to get a better look and realised her eyes weren’t only open in her dream. All at once, she was staring into the dark of her borrowed bedroom, looking up at the man she’d been trying to identify for months. She blinked several times, trying to figure out what was reality and what wasn’t.

“You’re really here, aren’t you?” She sounded sleepy and slightly disorientated.

“Yeah.” That nondescript accent of his seemed to roll more than she remembered. Southern US? Was there a hint in there? “Cute nightwear.” She heard, rather than saw, a smile in his voice.

All at once, Elle was very much awake and more than aware that she had been sleeping in her Wonder Woman vest and underpants. She jerked up, but her arms held her back. Her eyes shot to her wrists, and damn if he hadn’t actually handcuffed her. Only they weren’t the fur-lined leather cuffs from her dream. These ones were fluffy and, if she wasn’t mistaken in the dark, pink.

“Release me,” she said with false sweetness, “so that I can kill you.”

He barked out a laugh and sat back, looking down at her. “I like having you all tied up. It’s the only way a woman like you would ever be at my mercy.”

“This isn’t funny. I’m going to scream, and you’ll get your backside shot full of holes by my teammates.”

“Go ahead.” He spread his arms wide and smiled.

Elle scissored her legs under the blankets, hoping to free them and kick the smile off his face. All he did was lean over her and use his weight to pin her down.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Mostly I’m listening to you moan my name in your sleep. Makes a man wonder, gorgeous.” He brushed her hair from her face. “Makes him wonder what it would feel like to hear those moans in reality. Makes him wonder if hearing you scream his name would be even better.”

She felt her heart pick up speed and resisted the urge to wet her lips. No doubt he would only take it as an invite. “I’m really hoping you don’t mean scream in pain.”

“I would never cause you pain,” David said. “Unless you begged me, and even then, it’d only be the kind of pain that leads to pleasure.”

Why that made her insides melt, she didn’t know. All she knew was that this man was dangerous. Not only to the world at large, but to her personally.

“What do you want?” She hated that her sultry voice gave away more than she’d like him to know. But then, the man had witnessed her very audible dreams about him. He’d become her obsession. Months of trying to crack the mystery surrounding who he really was and whom he worked for. He’d thrown down the gauntlet when he’d given her his DNA, and she’d been like a woman possessed ever since.

“I was in the neighbourhood and thought I’d drop in.” His fingers played with her hair as he spoke. He sounded almost wistful.

“Last I heard, you were on a suicide mission in South America.”

He shrugged, bringing her attention to his broad shoulders under his dark suede bomber jacket. “I get around. It’s what you’ve been up to that’s much more interesting.”

“And what would that be?”

“You’ve been hacking into systems you really shouldn’t be in, Miss Elle.” He ran his thumb back and forth over her bottom lips. “Naughty, naughty, naughty.”

Elle couldn’t contain the shiver that went through her at his touch, and she knew he noticed.

“Is this about me trying to identify the body?”

She felt him stiffen slightly before he forced himself to relax again. “No, this isn’t about a body. This is about your hunt for my identity. You’ve been looking in places you shouldn’t be, and you’ve attracted the attention of people you really don’t want to notice you.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have given me your DNA if you didn’t want me to look for you.” Bloody men. And they called women the contrary sex.

His smile was pure enticement. “That’s true. It was a moment of weakness.” He sounded almost bewildered, which made her think he wasn’t the sort of man who ever had those moments. “I need you to stop looking.”

Yeah, right, she’d get straight on that. “Of course.”

Even in the darkness, she saw his eyes harden. “I’m serious, Elle. You need to stop.”

“I understand.” She’d stop when she knew everything there was to know about him. He’d unwittingly tapped into her greatest weakness—he was a puzzle she had to solve, a mystery she couldn’t leave hanging. There was no way she could let the issue drop without having an aneurysm. It would go against her genetic code to do so.

He let out a sigh. “You aren’t going to do what I tell you, are you?”

For a second, she thought about lying, but that didn’t sit well with her. The game they had going was only going to be won fairly if she didn’t cheat. “Yeah, I’m going to keep looking. And I’m going to find out exactly who you are.”

“It’s a mistake.” His voice was soft—gentle, even.

“Won’t be my first.” And it probably wouldn’t be her last, either. She had a gift for getting into situations she really shouldn’t get into.

“Are you sure you want to do that? I’m not the only one with secrets that are best left hidden.”

Now her heart was racing for a different reason. She told herself there was no way he could know her secrets. She’d hidden them herself, with the help of Harry. And there wasn’t a hacker in the world better than her boss Harry Boyle.

“I’m sure.” She tried to infuse the words with confidence, when really, she felt a little uncertain.

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Before she realised what he meant to do, he leaned forward and his lips met hers.

As kisses went, it was as chaste as a Jane Austen romance scene. But it was far more than that. The sensation of his warm, firm lips against hers. His ocean scent filling her senses. The softness of his lips as he rubbed them against hers. It was a kiss that she felt straight to her toes, one she’d bring up in every dream she had from then until eternity. Because it was a kiss that cemented her obsession and her future.

He sat back far too soon, staring into her eyes. For once, the man seemed shaken. “You are so…unexpected.”

Elle felt dazed by his fleeting touch. She just watched him as he watched her back.

“I have to go.” His words broke the moment, and he stood, leaving her reeling without him. “The key to the cuffs is on the dresser. Think about what I said. You’re swimming with the sharks here, Elle, and you’re doing it without the cage.”

“I’ve always hated metaphors.”

With a grin, he turned and walked out of her room as silently as he’d come in. Elle gave him plenty of time before she called for Megan. As much as she would have liked to see him dodge their bullets, she didn’t like the idea of anyone other than her going up against the man. He was her puzzle. No one else’s.

And she was seriously going to make him pay for leaving her secured in fluffy pink cuffs.