Page 13 of Traitorous Lies (Prey Security: Charlie Team #6)

Chapter

Seven

This had to go down in history as the craziest mission he’d ever gone on.

Flying to France with the intention of putting the final nail in the coffin of the conspiracy to frame his dad and stepmom for treason, he never would have envisioned it turning out like this.

Traipsing through the forest, lost with no idea which direction they should be heading in, with the target of his op trailing along beside him, an injured young fox snuggled in her arms.

Crazy.

Totally crazy.

And yet he was actually enjoying his time with Monique. Not being lost and injured in the forest with no idea if they were heading toward civilization or further away from it and deeper into the forest. But the part where they talked and laughed and he got to know her better, that part he loved.

Sensing Monique’s exhaustion, Jax stopped and held out his arms. They hadn't seen any predators, human or animal, the entire time they’d been out there, so he felt safe enough not to have his weapon in his hands.

It was still hanging on a strap around his chest so it wasn't like it wasn't still on his person.

“Here,” he said to her.

“What?”

Nose scrunched in confusion, it took everything he had not to lean in and touch a kiss to it.

But he was trying to do the honorable thing.

Kissing her under these circumstances was wrong, and he shouldn’t have done it earlier, and had determined he wasn't going to do it again. Until there were no more secrets between them he wasn't going to lay another hand on Monique in a sexual way.

“I’ll carry the fox,” he explained.

“Thought you told me that if I wanted to keep him, he was my responsibility,” she said, arching a brow at him, but amusement danced in her gray eyes.

“Guess I finally realized how serious you were about keeping it.” When she’d first insisted that she was going to take it home with her and keep it on her animal rescue along with her pet hedgehog, he’d thought the weight of having to carry it would wear her out sooner or later.

Wrong.

No matter how exhausted he knew she was, she’d carried her little bundle without a complaint. It was obvious how deeply she cared about animals, and he knew trying to talk her into leaving the fox behind would be impossible.

In the end, did he even really want to?

She was right when she said that with an injury to its leg, there was no way it would be able to hunt properly, and it wouldn't be able to move easily if at all, making it ideal prey. It was take the creature with them or let it die, he just didn't want its presence to wind up making Monique die.

“Let me carry your baby for a while. I hear water up ahead. When we get to it, we’ll stop and rest for a bit.

” With the way she’d snuggled the little animal to her chest as they slept last night and kept it on her lap every time they stopped, Jax was pretty sure that was about as long as she’d let him keep possession of her newest baby anyway .

There was slight hesitation before she nodded and passed the bundle over. “He is getting kind of heavy.”

“Yeah, getting ,” he scoffed. They both knew the little guy had been too much for her to carry for more than the first hour or so after they found him. Still, if the young fox made her happy, and it was clear it did, then he wasn't going to take that away from her.

Surprisingly, Monique had calmed the fox easily yesterday, and ever since, it had been docile as though it had been raised a pet surrounded by people all its little life, instead of a wild animal.

While it eyed him a little suspiciously, the fox then quickly settled down into his arms and closed its eyes.

“Is Cinderella going to like having a little brother?” he asked as they walked side by side.

Monique laughed, and the sound was prettier than any music he’d ever heard before. “I’m not sure. She’s kind of spoiled and used to getting all my attention when I come home at night.”

“Of course she’s spoiled. I bet every single animal in your rescue is.”

“They deserve it, you know? They’d already been hurt or traumatized, taken out of their natural environment, and trying to adjust. I want them to know that they’re loved and cared about.”

There was no mistaking the wistfulness in her tone.

What she was really saying was she never wanted an animal to feel like she had growing up. Unloved and uncared for.

As much as Jax wanted to push to learn what she’d meant when she told him she’d already survived hell once before and could do it again, he’d been respectful of her desire to hold onto her secrets. It was bad enough he’d met her under false pretenses, he at least owed her respect for her privacy.

“I hate you grew up feeling that way,” he said softly.

“I hate that you grew up feeling that way, too,” she told him.

Once again, he heard the words she didn't say aloud.

Together, they could make sure that neither of them ever felt that way again.

It was so tempting. He’d fallen hard and fast for the woman he was only supposed to spend a couple of hours with, and a huge part of him would love to ask her out on a date when they got home. To keep getting to know her, and maybe one day fall in love with her.

But he was lying to her, and when she found out, the spell would be broken, and he’d lose her.

“Here’s the river,” he said as they stepped through the trees and it came into sight. It wasn't what he wanted to say, but every time he felt emotions building too strongly between them he had to take a step back.

Not wanted to, had to.

“Give your little guy a drink,” he ordered as he passed the creature back into her arms.

“He’s sleeping,” she said, dropping to her knees and tucking her bundle onto the ground at the base of a tree.

Then she looked up at him with the sweetest pair of eyes, and he knew that he’d be powerless to say no to her.

“Sit with me for a bit?” she asked, and since he couldn’t see the harm in that, he nodded and took a seat on the hard ground beside her.

As soon as he sat, he realized his mistake.

Because Monique shifted immediately to straddle his thighs. Even through the layers of clothes separating them, he could feel the heat of her center drawing him in, almost making him lose his ability to cling to rational thought.

When her lips crashed into his, that last thread of rationality fled.

All he could do was feel.

The tip of her tongue brushed against his lips and opening them to her felt far too natural. Their tongues danced together, and her hands, which had been resting on his shoulders, drifted lower.

Trailing a path down his chest, her fingertips seemed to be everywhere at once as though she wanted to memorize how he felt beneath her.

Of their own accord, his hands gripped her hips and ground her down against his growing erection. Monique moaned into his mouth, and it sent every last drop of blood in his body south, and he grew almost impossibly hard.

Grinding her against him again, he couldn’t have stopped his hips thrusting if his very life depended on it.

This woman had burst into his life like a breath of fresh air he hadn't even known he needed. For so long his life had been focused on only one thing. But his family’s quest for answers was almost over, and he was starting to think more about what his life would look like after they’d proved their parents weren't traitors but victims.

Monique.

His soul screamed at him that that’s what his life should look like.

She was everything he needed and more than he ever could have hoped for.

The problem was, she was also more than he deserved.

When her hands fumbled at his waistband, Jax finally snapped to his senses.

He couldn’t do this. It would be an even worse betrayal than the one he was already committing.

While it was easy to say it now, days later, he knew what he should have done was tell her everything when they’d been in that van.

It would have been before feelings started to develop, and given that they were being abducted, she might have believed what he told her about her father.

Now he’d missed that opportunity, but if he didn't want to permanently lose a chance with her, he had to stop this before it went too far. Before he did something he couldn’t take back and violated her trust.

“Princess, we can't,” he murmured as he tore his lips away from hers.

Heavy-lidded eyes burning with desire slowly morphed into confusion. “You don’t want to?” she asked, vulnerability creeping into her tone.

“We shouldn’t,” he answered, not willing to lie and say he didn't want to because he absolutely did. Since he wasn't strong enough to keep touching her and not take what she was offering, he used his grip on her hips to lift her and set her down on the ground beside him.

“I'm sorry.”

Her whisper burned inside him like acid. She shouldn’t be apologizing to him, he should be the one apologizing to her. He was the one lying to her, keeping secrets. Monique had done nothing wrong, and yet he could see her curling in on herself, shutting down, erecting barriers between them.

Pushing her away was the right thing to do, yet he’d hurt her .

Being stuck between a rock and a hard place sucked.

November 3 rd

5:29 P.M.

She was such an idiot.

Monique had been drowning in embarrassment ever since that disaster of a seduction attempt this morning.

Okay, sure, being flirty and sexy had never really been her strong suit.

It kind of went against the whole introvert thing.

Or maybe it was just because she’d never really felt safe with any of her previous partners.

She’d known but not wanted to acknowledge that those men had only really been with her because of her last name and the advantages they thought they’d get by attaching themselves to her.

It wasn't like that with Jax.

She just felt connected to him, and thought he felt the same way.

Only it was obvious that he didn't.