Taking Fire by Cindy Gerard

admit that.
    Jensen confirmed Bobby’s worst nightmare. “Ah, here comes Talia. I can introduce you two right now, since you’ll be working together.”
    â€œTalia . . . Levine?” The knot twisted.
    Ted quirked a brow. “Yeah. You know her?”
    Jesus Christ. “I didn’t see her name on the TO.”
    â€œNo,” Ted said with a curious look. “My head security investigator just retired last month, so you’d have seen his name on the table of organization. Talia’s on loan until I hire a replacement. I wish I could steal her from the embassy in Tel Aviv on a permanent basis. She’s only been here a week, but it’s clear that she’s damn good.”
    Bobby stared at Ted blankly. Talia. Here.
    Ted leaned back in his chair, clearly puzzled by Bobby’s reaction. “I take it you know her?”
    But he’d already tuned Ted out, his voice fading to background noise like a freighter sinking into a deep ocean fog.
    Bobby stood slowly, walked to the door, and stepped out into the hall. And there she was, walking toward him, head down, concentrating on a sheaf of papers.
    She hadn’t spotted him yet, but she would if he didn’t unglue his feet and get back into Jensen’s office.
    But there he stood, unable to move. Barely able to breathe, as anger and a treacherous rush of excitement seized his chest and ramped up his heartbeat.
    She looked the same. Knockout gorgeous and kickass cool, still slim and sleek and in total control. In Kabul, she’d worn camo or khakis, her hair woven into a thick black braid. Today she wore a white cotton suit with a snug skirt, and the blue top beneath her jacket looked soft and silky. Her heels were as black as her hair, which she’d pulled into an elegant and sexy knot at her nape.
    Even before she looked up, he knew that the angles of her face, which he’d memorized by sight, by touch, and by taste, would be as golden and lovely as they’d been when she was his.
    Except she’d never really been his. He’d been her target, her patsy. By all rights, he should hate her. And he had hated her, almost as much as he’d hated himself for falling into her trap. She’d been doing her job, and he’d been doing her.
    That part was on him. He’d been a big boy, and he’d fucked up. Over the years, he’d found a way to live with himself, to keep fighting the good fight, to not allow even the hint of another mistake. It wasn’t forgiveness; it was acceptance. The same thing he’d given her: acceptance of her skills of deception and seduction, of her loyalty to her country.
    But forgiveness? Oh, no. That wasn’t in the lineup, not for her, any more than it was for him.
    Now here she was again. And for a moment, all he could remember was what it had been like to be her lover.
    So much for being over her.
    He hadn’t thought that seeing her again would immobilize him; he felt like a turtle lumbering across a busy freeway. Nowhere to go to escape the inevitable collision. Unable to move fast enough to avoid certain disaster.
    She’d almost reached him when she lifted her head to talk to an aide walking beside her. Her dark eyes landed briefly on his face as she walked past him, and his heart rate shot off the charts.
    An instant later, she stopped, stood motionless for a long, pulsing second, then slowly turned around.
    All the blood drained from her face when she realized it was him.
    All the breath left his body.
    After six years and countless regrets, he had the same reaction to her as he’d had the first time he’d seen her in the Mustafa Hotel bar. A searing connection, a sizzling electricity that was not only sexual but intensely soulful and deep.
    Oh, God. Not again. He couldn’t survive her again.
    Their eyes were still locked—stunned, ­disbelieving—when a blast rocked the building like a magnitude-ten earthquake.
    The jarring