Aegis Security 03 - Extreme Measures by Elisabeth Naughton

Eve’s soft fingers landed against his skin, helping him, sending tiny shivers of awareness all through his body. He leaned his head back against the wall again and closed his eyes while she knelt next to his seat and cleaned the wound, afraid that if he looked, he might not be able to look away. And if he saw her on her knees in front of him . . . forget it.
    “This isn’t as bad as I thought.” She packed the wound with gauze, then began wrapping his arm in bandages. “You were lucky.”
    Zane huffed. “Luck and I are not good friends. You’re proof of that.”
    Eve’s hand stilled against his arm, and when he opened his eyes, curious as to why she’d stopped, he faltered because he couldn’t read the emotion lurking in her amber gaze.
    Guilt? Remorse? Regret? He couldn’t be sure which. But something was there. Something he wasn’t sure he wanted to see.
    “I know you don’t believe me, Archer,” she said in a quiet voice, “but I wasn’t lying to you earlier.”
    Quietly, she went back to wrapping his arm, and as Zane stared at her, he took in the stubborn set of her jaw, the lock of white-blonde hair that fell across her creamy cheek, the way her long eyelashes curled outward from her deep amber eyes. He’d been with a lot of women in his life, but she was the only one who’d stuck with him, and he wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t just because of her beauty—though she had that hands down over all the others he’d dated. No, she was forever engrained in his mind because of her brains and wit, and because during one of his most miserable assignments, she’d been his shining ray of light. Until she’d been his darkness.
    “No, I don’t believe you.” He tore his gaze away from her mesmerizing face and looked back at the bandages on the table, only mildly concerned they were blurring against the fake wood. More than anything, he hated that feeling in his chest, those pinpricks of doubt that were growing sharper. She was a traitor, and he needed to remember that fact. Not get lost in her all over again like she obviously wanted him to do. “And this isn’t the time to get into it. The ferry’s about to dock, and we need to get out of this RV before Boy Wonder and his dad come back.”
    Sighing, she finished wrapping his arm, then pushed to her feet. “You’ve changed, you know that?”
    His gaze shot to her. “ I’ve changed? That’s rich, sweetheart. I’m still the same guy I was in Beirut. I just wised up to your game.”
    She crossed her arms over her chest and glared down at him. “Not everything’s black-and-white, Zane. Sometimes there are shades of gray. But you’re too bullheaded to see them.”
    “The only gray I see is you trying to color the situation so I’ll drop my guard around you.” He pushed to his feet, needing his height advantage so he could intimidate her. Which was a lame idea because Evelyn Wolfe was never intimidated by anyone.
    He swayed on his bad leg and caught himself with a hand on the back of the bench seat before he went down.
    “Zane—”
    He pulled away from her reach, knowing if she touched him he might forget what was at stake here. The RV swirled in front of him. Son of a bitch . Either that dose of Dilaudid was too strong, or he was seriously weak from the loss of blood.
    Gripping the back of the bench seat, he said, “Once we get off this boat, I’m calling Carter, and you’re turning yourself in.”
    Her face drained of all color, and she dropped her arms. “The hell I am.”
    “The hell you aren’t.”
    “Archer—Zane,” she said more softly, “I wasn’t responsible for that bombing in Seattle.”
    He pushed past her and peered through the curtain toward the car deck beyond. “My gut says otherwise.”
    “Your gut is as bullheaded as your brain.”
    “It might be, but it’s not falling for your shit anymore.” He pushed the door open. “Come on. People are starting to come back down. We need to go topside.”
    She didn’t