Still Not Love: An Enemies to Lovers Romance Read online

  I fight to ignore it, following the faint green light shining off James’ tactical goggles.

  There’s a square of brilliant white up ahead, through the trees.

  A window? No curtain, no shades, easy line of sight in.

  Which also means an easy line of sight out, and anyone inside that rickety gray-walled barn could see us if they happen to look up.

  A shadow passes in front of the window, a clear silhouette of a man with a rifle.

  A signal passes through the team, and we all go to ground, dropping low, finding places to conceal ourselves while tactical does a perimeter scan looking for cameras, traps, any other form of surveillance. When the all-clear comes in whispers, we circle in slow, avoiding line of sight.

  I’m moving at a low crouch, my hand at my hip and close to my sidearm, while James is a lithe shadow in front of me, a panther in the night with his carbine at the ready.

  There’s a moment of frozen silence as everyone takes their position, all of us poised like a whip on the verge of cracking.

  Then the signal goes up, and the whole damn night explodes.

  SWAT storms the building.

  There's a shattered window, tear gas tossed inside, doors kicked in, and suddenly there’s shouting and gunshots and my heart racing like a turbo engine as the SWAT lead roars, “HARRIS!”

  I know I’m up, so I slide the gas mask down my head to fit over my face. James' hand brushes on my back so we stay locked in tandem as he slips his mask in place and takes off.

  We’re moving like a single unit, a well-oiled machine. I remember these moments in training when we’d be assigned to each other, and somehow, we’d fall into this wordless, perfect synchronicity where we didn’t even need words to communicate.

  That synchronicity hits now.

  Hits so hard I can almost feel every breath James takes, the power and coordination of his body, as if it’s my own – and we’re wired with the same impulse as we dive through the door after SWAT.

  He’s going high, I’m going low, ducking underneath the swinging arm of a smuggler even as James brings the butt of his carbine down on the man’s hand with a loud crack!

  I roll up, take the outstretched hand waiting to lift me to my feet with effortless strength, my gaze sweeping the room before I land on the explosive device. It's a messy tangle of wires positioned right underneath the chairs of the two bound, gagged, coughing agents writhing above it while SWAT and the rest of the FBI team subdue the smugglers amid fading clouds of tear gas.

  We bolt forward as one.

  But just as I’m about to drop down to cut the agents loose, James has me by my collar, hauling me back and shaking his head as he flicks a finger toward the agents. “Look.”

  I lift my gas mask, breathing shallowly in the still-fogged air, and peer at them.

  That's when I realize James just saved our lives.

  I stifle a gasp.

  Thread-thin wires, almost invisible, run from underneath the agents’ seats down to the explosive device. Freaking pressure plates.

  There are pressure plates underneath their asses. And if I’d cut them loose, the second they’d have stood up, they’d have blown the entire place sky high.

  I’m angry with myself that I missed it – even if I’m new, even if I’m green, even if this is my first mission and this is why they put us in pairs – but I don’t have time to be upset when the SWAT team leader shouts, “We’ve got a detonator!”

  I whirl just in time to see one of the smugglers wrestle his arm free from the officer tackling him to smash the button on a small device in his hand. A shrill beep comes from behind me, and both the agents start sobbing against their gags, half-shouting.

  The explosive device is armed.

  “Agent Harris,” James says coolly, “I believe you’re up.”

  “Clear the room!” I cry, slipping into mission mode and dropping to my knees behind the chairs, taking a quick look at the setup.

  It’s a homebrew bomb. Clip the right wire and it’s done and dead, but the timer has thirty seconds and it’s not waiting for me to guess which one. Oh, hell.

  “I’m going to switch the signals for the pressure plates,” I say. “So it’ll think off is on, and on is off...but that means any pressure will trigger a detonation. I need you to untie them, and the second I say go, you get them out of here.”

  James lifts his mask, eyes dark as he watches me. “What about you?”

  “I’ll be fine, and we only have twenty seconds left, so don’t argue with me. Untie them and be ready to move!”

  I’m unrolling my kit with lightning speed, counting the world's slowest seconds by the beat of my heart. I’ve lost ten just to give instructions, and we're at twenty.

  I trace the wires to their source. Nineteen.

  Rip away the cover to expose the circuit board. Eighteen.

  Take just a moment to evaluate the connectors. Releasing the pressure would trigger an electrical surge that would toggle the state of a switch wired to the detonation mechanism. Seventeen.

  Quick switch of wires, lightning-quick, so quick I don’t even breathe, and now –

  “Go,” I gasp, my stomach rising up my throat, my entire body buzzing. “Go, go, go!”

  The agents are scrambling away from the chairs, just like that. I don’t move, waiting, hoping I did it right. Sixteen. Fifteen.

  They’re gone.

  And James, who’s supposed to be running with them? He isn't.

  Still here. At my side.

  He’s standing over me, tense, staunch, stalwart, dependable, looking down at me expectantly.

  Fourteen. “I told you to go.”

  Thirteen. “And I am not leaving you.”

  Twelve. “Then I’d better move fast. Afraid the only death I can handle being responsible for is my own.”

  Eleven, and a long, lingering look that both tells me how brave he is and reveals how much faith he has in me. For just a split second, his cool façade slips and I see the heat, the brightness, the burning light underneath. “You won’t let me die, Faye. You're too damn good.”

  Then I have ten seconds, and a bomb ready to go off.

  I don’t know if it’s the wild rush of my own excited nerves or the bolster of his confidence in me, but I’m lightning in a bottle.

  I know which wire to pull, which one to cut, just how to hold it when it’s right on the verge.

  Eight. Seven. Six.

  Five. Four.

  Snip.

  And everything is quiet.

  I slump forward, gasping heavily as my heartbeat re-boots, then break into a shaky laugh and drop my clippers, scrubbing my gloved hands over my sweaty face. My heart comes alive again, pulse dialing up to ten.

  “Oh my God. Oh my God. I did it, James. I actually did it.”

  “Was there ever any doubt?” James growls.

  And for the first time since the very first day I saw him in training, something insane happens.

  He smiles, clear and real and genuine, and I know right then and there I’m going to fall head over heels.

  I’m not wrong.

  Because something forged a connection in those thirty seconds where every scenario became too real, and it was only us. Me and James, knowing we'd live together or die together and nothing in between.

  It changes us.

  It changes everything.

  And even if I rarely see him smile again, it doesn’t mean I don’t hear the laughter in his voice as the following weeks draw us closer. It doesn’t mean I don’t suddenly understand the dry humor underneath that aloof mask he wears, until he makes me laugh more often than not, and I feel warmer and warmer in his presence. And it doesn’t mean I don’t trust him.

  Enough to tell him who I really am.

  Who my father is, and why I want to prove myself a raving success away from Dad and his choking, oppressive vigilance.

  And when he takes my hand and squeezes it and says, “I understand,” looking at me with shinin
g silver-blue eyes that don’t seem so cold anymore when they glow in the sunlight with an admiration I crave like a flower craves the sun...

  Holy crap, I know.

  I know. I just know.

  This man is going to wreck me.

  4

  Close Quarters (James)

  It shouldn’t be such a relief that Faye chooses not to follow me into what will, for at least the next week or longer, be our space.

  After seeing her face-to-face, standing so close I could almost feel the warmth of her breaths melting the frost on my cheeks...

  Fuck.

  I don’t think I'd be able to handle being shut up in this cabin with her so soon.

  Though I'd better get used to it. Orders are orders.

  We'll essentially be living underfoot without even separate bedrooms whether I like it or not.

  The cabin is a single-room space, with the only separate room being the spa-style bathroom with its elevated, wood-sided square bath and mixture of wax and electric candles. Designed for lovers, which we most certainly aren't.

  Not anymore.

  Not ever again.

  And that's sure to make things awkward in close quarters with only a single bed.

  Make that a bed too small to even be a queen, tucked in the corner of the open space and underneath one of the large panoramic windows. The living room area is slightly recessed into the floor, creating something of a fire pit atmosphere in front of the hearth.

  The deep, plush L-shaped sofa will be my bed as long as this ordeal lasts. If I turn my back to the bed and face the fire each night, not only will I conserve heat, but I'll be able to pretend that the woman in the bed behind me is anyone besides Faye Harris.

  Anyone but the beautiful, brilliant, and all-too-fucking-infuriating whiplash woman I used to call Tink.

  She’s off looking for her father now.

  Probably to blow up on him, ask him what he was thinking hiring Enguard, although the Senator doesn’t know my history with Faye.

  No more than Faye knows my history with the Senator.

  Or the secrets I’ve struggled to protect her from for all these years.

  Now, seeing her still so bright and fiery, her spirit unbroken, I know I’ve done the right thing, protecting her from the truth about what sort of man her father really is.

  He's all she has left. It would fucking gut her, after losing so much else.

  Her career. Her mother. Me.

  It’s just a few days. It’s just another job. I can get through this.

  And I need to stop brooding and go find her.

  This is my job, after all, and I can’t let her out of my sight.

  I set my bag down on the foot of the couch. I’ll make up a bed later.

  For now, I kneel to set a fire in the hearth. The room is cold, chillier than the gas heating should warrant, and if I’m going to protect Faye like any other Enguard client, that means everything – including ensuring her comfort and health.

  As much as this resort might fall back on that distasteful thing known as glamping to create the illusion of roughing it out, the weather conditions outside are nothing to trifle with.

  Ski weather in the Sierra Nevada's can rapidly turn into blizzard conditions. I make a mental note to raid the firewood stores and stock up on extra in case something happens.

  I may have medical training as a first responder with the FBI, but there's little I can do for frostbite if we end up trapped here in whiteout conditions with no source of heat.

  That familiar, ominous prickle runs down the back of my neck, that premonition.

  I shouldn't be thinking about this. It feels like inviting trouble in all the worst ways.

  So once I have the fire kindled, glowing orange, and the logs crackling away with a faint smoky smell almost like chicory, I rise, pull my gloves back on, and head for the door to find out where my missing lady has disappeared to now.

  Only to pull the door open and nearly walk right into her.

  Her hand reaches for the doorknob and instead lands squarely on my stomach.

  Fucking hell.

  Even through the layers of my coat and my suit, I can feel her. Faye.

  She’s always been that way, this human hotspot generating nonstop warmth even in the coldest weather, until it’s possible to feel her coming from dozens of feet away.

  It’s like her hand is a hot brand taken straight from the forge’s fire, scorching through the fabric to imprint that small, delicate palm against my bare skin. It reminds me too much of how good it felt years ago, after she'd torn my shirt open, stroking her splayed fingers over my body like she wanted to learn the shape of a man for the very first time.

  I'd taken her innocence. And then I'd taken so much more, wrapping her around me on long, tense nights, fucking soul-to-soul.

  She used to whimper when she came. Sometimes, she'd bite my ear, her little teeth the last thing I left her to control as I pinned her down hard, owning every inch of her sweetness.

  It takes everything in me to hold completely and utterly still. To wall myself away from the instant hot reaction to her touch, raw memory tugging at both my heart and my cock until both are pulsing just a little too hard, a little too hot, and far too angrily.

  I arch a brow, sweeping a frustrated hand through the air. Then I step back to make room for her, releasing a slow breath through my nostrils as the firestorm breaks with distance.

  “Ms. Harris,” I say, schooling my tone to formal politeness.

  Faye rolls her eyes. Predictable.

  She remains there for several moments, her hand still outstretched, before she flashes a smile that’s half sheepishness and half pure irritation.

  “You know my name, James. Use it.” Her hand drops and she steps inside. “Dad’s too busy to talk to me and it’s getting dark, so I guess we’re stuck with each other for tonight. I’ll see about getting reassigned to someone else in the morning. Maybe that big guy with you won’t mind putting up with me, but until then...we can deal with each other if we’re asleep most of the time, right? And then you won’t have to see me for the rest of this stupid stunt of a trip.”

  My fingers clench into a fist.

  Sleep? I’m not ready for that. Hell, not for any of this.

  The bitterness in her voice, the active attempt to get away from me. And I have a feeling it’s not for her own sake that she took that last step away.

  She thinks I hate her, I realize.

  Because of the way I cut her off. Because of the way I shut her out of my life.

  She thinks I must hate her and must loathe being assigned to her when, if anything – despite the pain of it, despite the torture of her proximity, despite the ache of memories and loss and fury attempting to claw their way through my protective armor – the exact opposite is true.

  And I can't let a bit of it slip. I have to make her think I'm Mr. Fucking Hyde.

  I bite my tongue, holding my peace.

  Correcting her assumptions won’t make this any easier for her, or for me.

  But deep down inside, I rebel at the idea of turning her safety over to anyone else. It’s not that I don’t trust Gabe. He's a married man, a loyal friend, exceptionally skilled at his job.

  It’s that at my most secret core, I still think of Faye as mine.

  I'm stark raving jealous. Even though I gave up my claim years ago.

  Fuck, I don’t want her in anyone else’s hands. I need to see for myself that she’s safe for as long as I’m here with her.

  This may be the last time in my life I'll ever see her.

  I close the door in her wake, and as she begins shrugging out of her coat, I reach to take it. She freezes, tossing a wide-eyed glance over her shoulder, before letting me ease the coat down her arms.

  Surely, the flush in her cheeks must be from the cold.

  I find my eyes lingering on her red sunbursts even as I hang her coat up on the pegs just inside the door.

  She’s still a pretty thing l
ike a lit candle, snow in her hair as she pulls her knit cap off and shakes down a vivid tumble of red so deep it’s like burgundy and copper and wine, falling around her pale, freckled face and drifting across her delicately impertinent features.

  Her eyes are pure witch-fire. A green that snaps with pure heat despite their electric-coolness, flecked in bits of gold like stars reflecting in glass.

  She’s breathing hard. A shallow, swift, flushed breathing that comes from being out in the cold as she peels her gloves off and rubs her fingers together.

  One more sight I really don't need.

  Because all I can think of, as I watch her chest rising and falling against her pale lavender sweater, is how those rushed breaths sounded against my ear once upon a time.

  I can see her as she clung to me, raking her fingers through my hair, clasping my hips between her thighs as she begged James, James, oh God, James over and over again.

  Double fucking hell.

  Do I honestly think I can spend the night alone with this woman? And still feign indifference to her presence?

  Who knows, but I have to.

  Faye's gaze catches mine, her eyes luminous and questioning, and I realize I’ve been staring. I look away sharply, finishing with her coat, while she clears her throat softly.

  “It’s freezing in here,” she murmurs.

  “I’ve just lit the fire,” I answer mechanically, turning to brush past her without fully looking at her. Perhaps if I simply avoid eye contact, I can prevent the rush of vivid memories assaulting my body and mind every time I look at her. “The room will warm shortly. I’ll run you a bath if that'll help warm you, though.”

  “James.”

  Her voice at my back, low and imploring, stops me.

  I halt in place, staring straight ahead without really seeing the rustic log walls of the cabin. Every sense fills with the memory of her taste, her scent, the touch of soft skin beneath my fingertips as I skim over every curve and hollow and swell of her body.

  “You’re not my servant,” she says. It’s barely a whisper. “You don’t have to act like this, waiting on me hand and –”

  “I'm doing my job,” I say coolly. “That’s the reason I’m here.”