Charlaine Harris - Must Love Hellhounds

“It seems an easy choice, Winters. There’s hardly enough room over there for a child.”

She narrowed her eyes at the hellhound. “He could get up. He doesn’t need to sleep. Or eat. So I don’t need to buy him a bag of sausage biscuits tomorrow morning.”

Sir Pup yawned, exposing three sets of gigantic teeth, and rolled onto his back.

Maggie sighed and crawled onto the bed next to Blake.

“You caved?”

She reached for the light and clicked it off. “He probably wouldn’t let me eat tomorrow, either. It’s a practical decision.”

“And this marks the first time a woman has come to my bed for practical reasons. Usually, they say it’s a mistake.”

“I don’t make mistakes.” She turned on her side, facing away from him. “Not many.”

“You trusted James.”

She stared into the darkness. “Yes, I did.”

“Was that a mistake?”

She hadn’t thought so. But she had wondered, even back then, if caring about James as a person-and as a friend-had given her a blind spot, prevented her from seeing some terrible truth. But, in the end, she’d made her decision and lied about following through on the kill order.

The reasons behind the kill order hadn’t been given-reasons were rarely given-but the kill order itself hadn’t made sense. Operatives didn’t assassinate other operatives. Even if James had been a traitor to the country, if he’d sold government secrets, or come across sensitive information that an operative couldn’t be allowed to possess, the first step would have been to convict him. Perhaps the public would never hear of it-or even most agency employees-but there would have been hear ings. And if James fled custody and posed a security risk-which he hadn’t-Maggie shouldn’t have been the one to take him out. Someone higher up would have done it, very quietly.

And so from the moment her superior had given her the order, her gut had told her something was off. Way off. She’d have bet her life that James hadn’t committed a breach of national security, but had witnessed someone else’s. Someone within the CIA. Someone higher up the chain of command, who could distance himself from the kill by pushing it down through the ranks.

When she’d spoken with James on that final night, he hadn’t verified her suspicions. He’d kept his secrets as well as she did. But she’d worked with him too long, known him too long. And although she wouldn’t stay with the agency and try to discover who had betrayed them-that would have been signing her own death warrant-she wasn’t going to murder James for that person, either. So she’d told him to run.

Behind her, Blake turned heavily over, and she heard the thump of his fist against the pillow as he punched it into a comfortable shape. She could visualize him, on his stomach and his head turned to one side. And though he could be facing either way, she was certain that if she rolled over, she’d find that he’d turned his face toward her.

“No,” she said quietly. “I don’t think it was a mistake.”

As soon as he replied, her instincts were confirmed: Blake was facing her… and was closer than she’d thought. Not invading her personal space, but not across the bed, either. “James knew how to contact you. Do you know where he was before this?”

“I wasn’t in hiding. It’d have been easy for him to find me.” She paused, weighed the rest, and decided she could reveal it. “I didn’t want to know where he was. We’d agreed: no contact, ever.”

“Because the agency keeps tabs on you.”

“Yes.” Maybe not deep surveillance, but some. “Not enough that Ames-Beaumont considers my employment a security threat to him.”

“Savi would take care of that, anyway.”

Maggie nodded, the pillowcase cool and soft against her cheek. Then she remembered to say, “Yes.” She heard him thump his pillow again. “Is your sister awake?”

“No.”

“Tell me about her.”

“You don’t already know?”

Maggie thought of the files she’d had a chance to look over on the flight to New York. “I know she’s a police inspector in London. Her cases-solved rate is high.” Extraordinarily high. “She buys her groceries on Wednesdays and Saturdays, usually rents romantic comedies or horror movies-”

“The two genres have more in common than you’d think.”

She smiled and thought about turning over. If she explored him with her hands, her mouth, he’d be warm and solid. He’d kiss her, slide deeply inside her, and she’d wrap herself around him.

And they wouldn’t get much sleep. They’d be tired, and perhaps careless, when they started out again tomorrow. Katherine needed better from both of them.

Silently, Maggie clamped her hand between her thighs, and used the pressure to soothe the burn her imagination had sparked. “It helps to hear from someone who knows her well; memorizing data isn’t the same.”

“No,” he agreed. “It isn’t. Ask away, Winters.”

“She lived with a man for eight years. He moved out a month ago. Did he know about her ability? About you?”

“No.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes.”

Katherine had been in a long-term relationship-and she’d kept it hidden from her partner? But more than that, she hadn’t even revealed that she was concealing something. How would that affect a relationship? Would that be more difficult than revealing to the other person that there was something she just couldn’t share with him?

It probably depended on the other person.

“What has her emotional state been like?”

“It was a blow when Gavin left her. But this, she’ll look at as she would a job. She’ll keep her head. And she’ll be searching for a way out.”

Maggie closed her eyes. “Hopefully by tomorrow, we’ll give her one.”

Maggie’s multipurpose phone beeped at four a.m. She fumbled for it on the nightstand and squinted at the soft white glow. The text message had come from Savi: “Check your e-mail and finish sleeping on the plane.”

The plane? What plane?

She scrubbed at her face before engaging the encrypted mode on her phone and logging in. God, she hadn’t run on this kind of schedule in years. But back then, she also hadn’t opened her e-mail from bed, warm and comfortable, ensconced in blankets and with Blake’s back and shoulders against her own.

She had to resist the urge to press back tighter against him. Somehow, their position felt more intimate than spooning. And strangely familiar, like going through a door with an operative that she trusted by her side.

She read the message, then stumbled into the bathroom and blasted a hot, two-minute shower. Geoff was using her phone when she came out in her bra and panties, with Sir Pup-sporting only one head-peering over his shoulder.

Sir Pup turned to look at her. Blake’s hands went slack, the phone tilting in his grip.

She glanced at the screen as she walked by the bed, then did a double take. Blake was accessing his own mail, reading a message identical to the one Savi had sent to her… but he shouldn’t have been able to get that far. Using it for anything other than a phone call required Maggie’s password.

She lifted her arms and began coiling her hair into a roll at her nape. “Did Savi give you a password for my equipment?”

“You did, a few minutes ago,” he said. A slight frown had formed at the corners of his mouth, and his voice was still rough with sleep. “You look at your fingers when you use the keypad.”

That explained how he’d discovered the embezzlers at Ramsdell Pharmaceuticals. He’d just watched them input their fraudulent numbers, and they’d never known they were being watched.