Ana quickly slid the chain lock across the top once the door was closed. “Sorry about him. He probably thinks I haven’t been with anyone since the divorce.” Her cheeks tinted pink. “Not that I have.”
A.J. took a second to process her impromptu confession and the fact the last person she’d slept with was her husband. Married to him for three years, so she hadn’t been with anyone else in quite some time, then.
“I have to get ready.” She turned back toward the stairway.
She was a woman with a single-minded focus, but he’d seen in her eyes tonight he was capable of making her a touch off-balance and distracted. She had the same impact on him, but he might need to use whatever this thing was to his advantage. If it meant keeping her safe, he’d do whatever he had to do. “This investigation just started, no one is looking at you in particular, so why not . . .”
Turning, her big green eyes swept his way, stealing his focus. Locking his entire body still. “I’m sorry, but I have no choice but to go, and right now, the last thing on my mind is what people are going to think about me.”
“Why not just explain to the Bureau why you were at your boss’s house before it becomes a thing, then go to Atlanta wearing your sexy blue raider jacket with the flashy FBI letters on it?” He gave her a smile, hoping for a glimmer of something. Any reaction at all that said he could get through to her. Prevent her from running. “From where I’m standing,” he went on when she offered no reaction to his words, “your boss is missing, and you have your hands full, and yeah, maybe you’re new and all three missing sources were first identified by you, but that doesn’t mean you’re the leak.”
Her brows lifted in surprise at his knowledge of highly classified details.
There was no point in keeping information from her. Cat was out of the bag as to why he’d been following Ana. She wasn’t an idiot. Why bother pretending otherwise?
If he hadn’t been in the presence of such a stunning woman after now having been hit in the head twice, he might not have been so forthcoming.
“I trust you. I believe you’re not the leak,” he declared in response to her continued silence accompanied by a tightening of her mouth. But he needed her to hear the truth. To know he was in her corner, so there was no reason to run.
Don’t be wrong. Please God, don’t let me be wrong about her. Because he was going to risk his neck, his reputation, and possibly his team to help this woman.
“Let me help you,” he said, working the words loose while closing the small gap of space between them.
“No, I can’t do that. And you were most likely sent to bring down the traitor. Not help me.”
“But that ain’t you, and we both know it,” he quickly replied.
She shook her head. “Don’t let your feelings for me cloud your judgment. Your sense of right and wrong.” Her index finger poked his chest, right near his heart. “This is my fight.”
He angled his head, lost in her gaze. “My feelings for you?”
Her lip went between her teeth. Why did he feel like that wasn’t normal for her? He forced his eyes back to hers. “Your voicemail Saturday, I assume it was part alcohol and now part concussion—but you accidentally sent it instead of erasing it.”
I knew it. A mumbled curse fell from his lips, and he dropped his eyes to the ground. But what in the hell did I say?
“You bumped your head. You were drunk. Don’t worry.” He waited for her to continue, sensing she had more to say on the matter. “But it’s pretty obvious that there are some feelings on your side. Attraction, I guess.”
He guided his eyes up like he was a teenager getting his first rejection from the opposite sex.
“I just didn’t expect to hear a voicemail out of the blue from you, and then to actually face you forty-eight hours later. The timing is peculiar.”
“I didn’t know I’d be seeing you when I left that message, just so you know.” He kept his voice as level and defenseless as possible. “I had no clue you were at Headquarters. Adriana obviously didn’t say anything.”
He took a mental note to talk to Adriana about that once the dust settled.
“I just can’t have you helping me. I have to do this on my own. Plus, you’re a distraction.”
“If you’re so worried about me helping you, maybe it’s you who has the feelings.” He stepped forward, and her grip on the railing seemed to tighten. “I wouldn’t be such a distraction otherwise.” His heart pumped harder the closer he got to her, inhaling her intoxicating scent. He didn’t need Owen’s super-smelling nose to distinguish a touch of honey and vanilla wafting his way when Ana leaned in close.
“Distraction problem. Not a feelings problem.” Stubborn. Beautiful. Smart. And soon? Possibly a fugitive.
He stroked his short beard, their faces remaining close, so close he almost brushed his mouth over hers. “You can keep telling yourself that, girl, but that doesn’t mean—”
“Girl?” Her brow arched, her attention dipping to his mouth for a split second. “Your Southern charm and terms of endearment won’t work on me.”
He cocked his head. “You’re preparing to run away with the assumption you’re going to look guilty for the missing sources, despite the fact your name has yet to be sullied. And we’re having this conversation right now?”
“Exactly,” she said, letting go of a flustered breath. She pulled her head back as if realizing they were close to kissing. “This is not me.” Ana pointed a finger back and forth between them. “And if you try and help me, you’ll only threaten my focus.”
“Like you’re losing your focus now?” He just couldn’t help himself. He even laid on his accent a bit thicker, lifting his chin a touch when he spoke.
Her palms landed on his chest with a shove. He refused to budge. His balance was just fine right now. “I-I don’t understand what it is you’re doing to me, but—”
“I’m not doing anything to you, darlin’.” I’d like to be, but this is the definition of wrong time, wrong place. There was something in the air, though. Magic, mysticism, whatever it may be . . . there was a pulsating electric current between them that drew him to her, preparing to forgo his mission and scoop her into his arms. To hell with the consequences.
“I’m sorry. I have to go, but please do yourself a favor and stay out of what’s going on. Leave D.C.”
He swallowed at her cryptic warning. What had she gotten herself involved in? “I can’t watch you leave.” He shrugged. “I’m persistent, and I don’t forgo a challenge. So, if you remember working with me back in Charlotte, you should already know that this night ends in one of two ways.”
Ana’s eyes locked with his, a questioning eyebrow waiting for him to go on. Her hands remained on his chest, and surely, she felt his heart drumming harder beneath her touch.
His entire body was lit. Alive with her eyes and hands on him. “Either you let me help you, or I walk you into the Hoover Building myself, and we have a nice little chat about what happened tonight.”
Chapter Eleven