A long life, by Bethnal Green standards. Daily, Eva had evidence of the cruelty of humanity, yet it never failed to pierce her whenever she confronted it again. Was it any wonder she fought so hard to keep herself protected?

Looking over at Jack as he moodily contemplated the barren soil, that same piercing sensation struck her. She was too vulnerable to him—yet she couldn’t stop herself from wanting him.

They both turned at the sound of footsteps. Lazarus appeared at the edge of the yard. “Oi, you two. Simon’s back.”

Upstairs, they found Simon surrounded by the others. He was keen as a knife about to be thrown. “It’s done. We’re meeting Rockley at two in the morning, at the Tower Bridge construction site. No one will be there at that hour, so there’s less chance of a passerby getting caught in the crossfire.”

Nobody disputed that there would be crossfire.

The clock on the mantel showed the hour to be several minutes past ten. Fortifying themselves with coffee, the members of Nemesis and Jack gathered around the table to discuss strategy. Lazarus drew up a map of the construction site, and they used this to plot out their positions and tactics. Every eventuality was considered—but no one had the gift of precognition. Situations might arise that no one could foresee. The consolation was that everyone had enough training to handle the unexpected.

By midnight, the air had grown thick with strategies and possibility, dense as the smoke from Lazarus’s pipe.

Simon leaned back in his chair, his fingers laced behind his head. “The only chance we have to ensure the success of this mission is if everyone acts in accordance with the plan.” He looked pointedly at Jack.

As much as they’d grown to trust Jack, he was still the wild card. He’d be within striking distance of the man who killed his sister. Such an opportunity might be too difficult to pass up.

“I know my part, gov,” Jack muttered. “Didn’t come this far just to botch it within spitting distance of the end.”

“You’ve done all right by us, Dalton,” Lazarus said.

“It wasn’t your welfare that interested me,” answered Jack.

Blunt as always. One of the things she liked about him.

“But yours does.” Jack nodded at Eva. “I don’t like the idea of you coming to the drop.”

“Pity,” she said, “because I am.”

“It’ll be sodding dangerous.”

“But the rest of this mission has been safe as a nursery.” When he scowled, she continued. “Gilling surely told Rockley about me, and the thug that attacked us at Miss Jones’s house saw me, too. Rockley knows I’m part of this operation. I need to be there at the exchange. If I’m not at the drop as your backup, he’ll know that you’ll have people stashed out of sight. He’ll see you standing by yourself and then call off the exchange.”

“Then have Simon in plain sight,” Jack countered.

“I have to be there,” she insisted. “I’ve worked on this mission from the beginning, and I’m not crawling away to hide now that we’re almost at the end. The decision isn’t yours to make, but I need you to have faith in me.”

“I’ve got plenty of faith in you,” he said. “It’s Rockley and his men I don’t trust.”

“Me, either.” She lowered her voice. “And that’s why I need to be there to make certain you’re safe. No one I trust with your safety more than me.” She glanced at Marco and Simon. “No insult intended.”

Both men held up their hands. “None taken,” said Marco.

Jack was dourly silent for a long moment. Then he muttered, “Goddamn it.”

As acceptance went, his wasn’t particularly enthusiastic. But she didn’t care if he adored the idea of her coming to the exchange. All that mattered was ensuring the success of the mission and protecting Jack.

*   *   *

She glanced once more at the clock. Less than two hours until they met Rockley for the exchange. Despite her assertive words to Jack, her heart rammed against her ribs. In all her missions for Nemesis, none of their adversaries had been as unpredictable, as dangerous as Rockley. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to ensure his security. A wealthy—and desperate—man. He’d already tried to kill them. Anything could happen tonight. Any of them might be wounded. Or worse.

Her gaze lingered on Jack, dark and austere as he moodily stared at the map of the construction site.

She’d faced risk before, but never had the stakes seemed so high. If anything were to happen to him …

The walls of the parlor suffocated, the tick of the clock deafened. She felt herself on the verge of angry recklessness. It beckoned to her with pointed fingers and glassy eyes. No—she needed control of herself. Yet to spend another minute inside would see the fine threads of her reserve snap.

“Where are you going?” Jack and Simon asked in unison as she bolted for the door.

“I’ll be back for the exchange,” she managed to say, “I just—”

And then she was out the door, down the stairs, and out into the night.


CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Jack was a man of instinct. He acted as his gut steered him to do. So when he saw Eva bolt from the room, he immediately went after her without a second thought.

She was a fast one, though. By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs, the door to the chemist’s shop had already swung shut behind her. He was out on the sidewalk a second later, just in time to see her figure disappearing into the shadows at the end of the street.

Calling her name would just wake the neighborhood. Instead, he ran in pursuit, along dark streets barely lit by flickering lamps. He followed the sound of her boots on the pavement, his own heart pounding in time. He kept seeing her face the moment before she’d run from Nemesis headquarters. A kind of wildness and fury he’d not seen in her eyes before. Worry gripped him like a fist around the throat. She seemed capable of anything.

He turned a corner and caught the flash of her skirts in the lamplight. She headed toward a little park dense with trees and shadows.

The hell with it. “Eva!”

She turned at the sound of his voice. Her eyes were like an animal’s—an animal that would tear your hand off if you tried to feed it. She backed into the park, until the darkness swallowed her.

He sprinted into the park and plunged through the shrubbery, shoving aside branches that scratched at his face, until he emerged in front of a small brick shed surrounded by grass.

Eva paced back and forth in front of the building.

He moved toward her slowly, step by step, the way one might approach a hawk caught in a snare. How was he supposed to get close to her? She seemed ready to bolt at the smallest movement. Some small words, then.

“How many missions have you been on for Nemesis?” he asked.

His question seemed to catch her off guard. “Eight.”

“You always get this nettled before a face-off?” He took another step closer.

She shook her head. “This is the first time.”

“Then what’s got you so riled?”

Her pacing stopped. Fitful light barely pushed through the trees and shrubbery. She looked more shadow than flesh, the details of her blending into darkness. Yet he could feel her, knew all of her—a map carved into his chest. He took one more step toward her.

“I’ve never had so much to lose before,” she said tightly. “You could get hurt. Or you’ll survive, but then you have to leave. Either way, I lose you.”

There was a crashing inside him like a carriage accident, spilling pleasure and fear and anger all out onto the pavement in a heap of confusion.

“I don’t want it to happen,” she went on, “but it will, and it makes me so damn furious.”

He was silent. How could he get her to burn that fury out of her? Rage was a dicey thing—it motivated or derailed, and he didn’t want her so distracted by it that she might do something dangerous.

“Hit me,” he said.

“I’m not going to hit you,” she said, appalled.

“When anger’s eating me up and got me so I can’t think, best way I know to get rid of it is to hit something. You’d break your hand if you punched a tree or the wall. So, best thing for it is to hit me.” He stood with his arms at his sides, presenting himself as a target.

Still, she hesitated. So he held up his hands, palms out. “Use these. Like sparring pads.”

For another moment, she didn’t move. Then she landed a jab in his palm. He kept his feet, but the strength in her punch came as a surprising certainty.

“I can’t let myself lose control,” she said, keeping her knuckles pressed against his palm. “I can’t disappoint Nemesis. I can’t let you down.”

A throb made itself at home between his ribs, the pain much greater than the dull ache in his hands. “Won’t happen.” He closed his fingers around her fist. Held it against his palm.

She stared up at him. He lifted his free hand up to cradle the back of her head and kissed her, swallowing her doubt with his lips. She tasted of night and spice, and he drank her down, wanting her breath to replace his own, needing the feel of her mouth. He’d meant the kiss to be some kind of comfort, but hunger roared to life the moment he touched her.

She returned the kiss with her own sharp need. Her mouth opened to him, her tongue slicked against his, and he felt that stroke all the way down to his cock.

Releasing her fist, he curved his hand around her waist. When he pushed his hips against hers, she widened her legs. He walked them backward, until she leaned on the brick wall, and he pressed himself against her. Her hands gripped his arse, fingernails digging into him as she urged him closer. He groaned at the feel of her cradling him and her desperate demand. Not shy, his Eva.

Hazily, he was glad of the hour’s lateness. No one was in the park except him, Eva, and the nighttime. No one to hear her gasps as he rocked his hips into hers, or his animallike sounds.

Something seemed to drive them, some urge that pushed them both. A wild hunger that wanted to defy the danger looming ahead. Within the next few hours, either they’d win out against Rockley or everything would go to hell.

He wanted all of her. For as long as he could have her.

As she seemed to want him. Their kiss grew more urgent, starving.

With a brutal groan, he pulled back. “Need to be inside you.”

“Yes,” she gasped, undoing the buttons of his trousers. They kissed, mouths open, panting with need. His body pressed against hers as they leaned against the wall. She was slim and strong beneath him, her fingers wrapping around his cock the sweetest thing he’d ever felt. As he gathered up her skirts, he felt the shaking in his hands. Hunger for her shuddered through him.

If only the damn world could stop. If we’d just have this forever.

He stroked up her legs, over her stockings, until he found the bare skin of her thighs. She shook, too. He tugged her drawers down, and she kicked them away. And then he ran his hands over her hips, her arse. His fingers found her pussy’s wetness. They both moaned as he stroked between her lips and rubbed the hard bud of her clit.

“Now, Jack,” she demanded breathlessly. “No more waiting.”

Grateful for his strength, he lifted her up, his hands on her hips, fitted himself to her entrance, and then brought her down onto him in one hard thrust. Oh, God, she was so slick, so tight around him. She gasped, her breath hot on his neck and her arms around his shoulders.

For a moment, he couldn’t do anything, couldn’t move, only felt her surrounding him and the beat of her heart against his. Then she shifted, a slight movement of her hips, and he was gone.

He thrust up into her, using the wall for leverage. Her heels hooked around his calves. He sank into her with thick, deep strokes. Too rough? Yet she only held him tighter, and her gasps came quick and hot with every thrust.

“This is for you and me,” he growled. “We’ll never lose this.” He punctuated his words with his hips driving against hers.

She moaned his name—the best thing he’d ever heard. As contained as she kept herself, only he could make her feel this way, could push her beyond the limits of her control.

He shifted, making sure that with each thrust, he ground against her clit. Her whole body tensed, and just in time, he covered her lips with his, swallowing her cry as she came. But he couldn’t be satisfied, not until she cried out again, and once more.

As she continued to tremble, he lifted her up and off him. She was pliant, her eyes gone heavy-lidded, as he turned her around and placed her hands on the wall. Gazing back at him, she arched her back, lifting her hips in bold invitation.