Blake watched her disappear around the makeshift wall, her shadow reflecting from behind it, a teasing silhouette of her undressing. He ground his teeth against the tightening of his groin. Kara wasn’t what she seemed, but she awakened something inside him, something he’d thought died with Whitney, something more than passion. The raw, seeping wound inside him, dark with emotion, was still there, but there was more now. There was…hope.

Grimacing, he ran a rough hand through his hair and turned away from the screen. If he fell for this woman and she burned him, he wasn’t sure he had it in him to get back up again. He wasn’t going to fall for her. He’d protect her. That was it.

Blake drew a deep breath and turned right back around again, proving to himself this woman did not have him by the throat, just the balls and he could pry her hand off those. His gaze went to her silhouette, the shadows outlining her naked body as she reached for a pair of pants. Blake’s cock went instantly rock hard and his control, the control he’d claimed to own so fully, threatened to snap. After a moment of fighting it, he decided to embrace what he was feeling and make sure she did, too. He stalked across the room and around the panel, the sweet, feminine scent of Kara slamming into him almost as fiercely as her creamy-white naked body.

She gasped as he drew her into an embrace, his mouth closing down on hers, commanding her to give herself to him, his tongue seducing hers into a response. Her body softened almost instantly, and it turned him on, and then pissed him off. She was good at turning him on. Too good.

He pressed her against the wall, twined his fingers into the dark silk of her hair, and forced her gaze to his. “It would be better for you to tell me who you are now, on your own.”

“I’m Kara,” she panted. “I’ve always been Kara.”

“End the game here and now,” he growled. “Don’t make me do it for you.”

“You think this is a game to me? This has never been anything further from a game to me.”

“What do you call secrets and lies? A game. A dangerous game. You have nothing personal here, not even a picture of your mother.”

“If I have her picture that makes her important to me. There are people, like Ignacio, that might decide that means she’s worth hurting.”

“And yet you told Mendez and Richter.”

“I did what I had to and a public announcement isn’t required.”

He glared at her, probed her eyes. “You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”

She sucked in a breath, a tormented look flashing in her eyes. “No. If I did, I wouldn’t be here.”