Page 40 of Her Mercenary

Another thought—what would happen if they saw me with her? My cover would be blown. Decades of working tirelessly to infiltrate the CUN would be for nothing. My entire life’s work thrown out the window. For her.

It was an absolute clusterfuck.

I’d told her I was there to save her. Ha. What the fuck was I thinking?

I hadn’t been thinking, and that was the problem.

When I saw the men on her, it was like a switch flipped inside me, an indescribable fury overtaking all rational thought. I turned into an animal, completely uncontrollable, despite years of practice to tame my destructive temper. After years of lying dormant, the lion inside me awoke, and I attacked.

Protecting what was mine.

Except she wasn’t. Samantha Greene was one of hundreds of slaves I’d walked past, avoided eye contact with, ignored, while building my cover. It was my job to watch the horrors of human trafficking unfold, and that included torture and rape. It was my job because that was the only way I was going to end it. To gain access to the man at the top, to cut the head off the snake.

What the fuck had I been thinking?

What was it about this woman that consumed me so much? Why? And why her?

Samantha Greene was a divorcee—from Oklahoma, for fuck’s sake—who wore Crocs on the weekends, drove a car with a bumper sticker that read Make Tacos, Not War, and spent her evenings sleeping with a dog that drooled like an infant and looked like Chewbacca.

I’m here to save you.

How? How could I do that now? I couldn’t give this woman what she needed. I had two skill sets: killing and getting the job done. I was one for two on this mission.

What the hell was I thinking? Everything had gone to shit because I couldn’t control myself when it came to her.

Her ... her ... her.

Fuck her.

I wouldn’t allow her to wreck this for me. I could not, would not, blow my cover. I couldn’t waste this opportunity—the opportunity—to avenge my mother.

Samantha Greene wouldn’t stand in my way. I was so close, so goddamn close.

I decided then that I hated her.

So, why the fuck did I want to pull her onto my lap, wrap her in my arms, and hold her until she stopped looking at me that way?

Why did I want to make love to her more than I wanted my next breath?

22

ROMAN

“Roman ... Thieves?” Samantha repeated in a soft whisper, my name rolling like silk from those lips.

Goddamn those lips.

The cave was pitch dark, but with just enough moonlight streaming in to make out her features, her gaze pinned on me. My body tensed, reacting to her apparent fear. I wasn’t good at this.

I stared at the cave wall with no response, nothing more than an animal incapable of handling anything that didn’t involve life or death.

No, I wasn’t good at this shit.

This wasn’t the fucking plan.

“You’re not Conor Cussane?”

“No.” I turned my face away from her, wishing she weren’t there. That she wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t make me feel so damn—