This wasn’t working. He had to get away from this woman before he couldn’t. Blake pulled out of her and turned her to face him. She instantly pressed her mouth to his, her soft, tempting tongue teasing its way past his lips, to caress and seduce. To hell with it. He stopped fighting what he was feeling, stopped denying this was more than sex with Kara, and with a low growl, he pulled her close again, sinking into the kiss, and guiding his shaft back between her legs, pushing back into the tight, warm center of her sex. He was falling in love with this woman and she was right. Denver had been the beginning of what was inescapable today.

For the first time in years, he didn’t think about who was in control. He thought about who he was with, and he saw Kara as more than a body, more than a way to suppress the flashbacks. He was lost, but not in the sensations of edgy need and pleasure. In this woman.

Blake savored Kara. He kissed her, touched her, tasted her, made love to her. Every touch of her hand was waking up a new part of him. Every brush of her hair on his skin like an electric charge. Every collision of their eyes a touch of his soul to hers. When they melted into satisfaction together, sated and exhausted, and he pulled her to his side, her head resting on his chest, he was alive again and he wasn’t sure what to do about it. How did a man, on what he knew was most likely a suicide mission, embrace life? How did he not, with Kara in that life and in his arms?

Blake stared at the ceiling, listening to Kara’s breathing slow, feeling her body relax against his into slumber, his mind racing. Kara had been hurt by Alvarez as well, and as much as he wanted to bring her sister back to her, he knew, and he knew she knew, that it was a long shot. That bitter truth only made his mission more important. This wasn’t just about vengeance, though he didn’t deny he wanted it. Too many people had died directly and indirectly because of Alvarez. It had to end. Blake had to kill him no matter what the consequence.

***

Kara woke with a gasp as the hotel door burst open, instinctively clutching the blanket to her naked body as she sat up. Heart in her throat, she blinked a new day’s sunlight—and the huge man with long dark hair now standing at the foot of the bed—into view.

“What the hell were you thinking, Blake?” the man demanded.

Beside her, Blake, undaunted by his nakedness, threw off the covers and stood up to grab his pants. “In case you didn’t notice, Royce,” he said irritably to the bigger, crankier version of himself, “I’m not alone.”