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.Now, what did her heart have to go and do that for? She didn’t need to have these kinds of feelings for anyone, and certainly not for a man she wasn’t entirely sure wasn’t a terrorist.Darned if she couldn’t hear grandmama cackling somewhere in the back of her head.Grandmama had always said the heart went where it willed and only a fool tried to steer it.“What do you need me to do?” Michael asked tersely, interrupting her self-castigation.Kiss her senseless? Make love to her until she was too weak to stand up? “Uh, come again?” she mumbled.“What can I do to help the rescue op?” he asked impatiently.Oh.Well.That was different.“I honestly have no idea if there’s even going to be a rescue attempt, let alone what the plan would be.So I can’t really answer that question.I suppose you could always unlock the door to the bridge,” she added, her tongue firmly in her cheek.He grinned briefly.“Good idea.I’ll keep that in mind.”“I’m really sorry, Michael….” she started tentatively.“Sorry about what?”“You know.The whole thing with the Brits.You got a raw deal.Maybe after you come in from this op you can talk to them.Work it out.I mean, it wasn’t as if you were in any position to defend yourself, undercover like—”He stepped near and pressed two fingers against her lips.“Enough.It’s over.Don’t worry about it.”“But I do worry about you,” she protested.His answering grin was lopsided.“Thanks.”They stared at each other in silence for several endless seconds.This was one hell of a mess.The last thing either of them needed right now was to get tangled up in a relationship that might distract them from their jobs.Especially with his status in doubt.And the last thing either of them had the power to do right now was change a blessed thing between them.There was a fire here, like it or not.Finally, reluctantly, she broke the silence.“Any idea how I’m supposed to get out of here? Or do I get to spend the rest of the night on this extremely comfortable table? Or perhaps more accurately, under it?”He grinned.“Think you can pretend we had a tryst set up in here?”Her mind shot back to that incendiary kiss they’d shared.“I don’t think that’ll be too hard to do.”“Then we should be able to just walk out of here and down the hall to my room, as pretty as you please.”“Who’s working the cameras?” she asked.“Franco.And he’s a bit of a voyeur.He’ll get a cheap thrill out of imagining what we’ve been up to in here once he figures out we’ve both been here all this time.”It was a big risk to take.But, by the same token, gaining access to Michael’s room tonight would position her perfectly to carry out her next task before the SEALs came aboard the Grand Adventure.God, she hated taking advantage of Michael like this.But a job was a job, and a whole lot of children were counting on her.She nodded up at him.“Let’s do it.”Michael opened the door and stepped out into the hall as if he hadn’t a care in the world.Aleesha took a deep breath and followed him.Immediately he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close against his side.Right.Franco.Michael paused, pressing her back against the wall, and started kissing her neck in a way that sent lust zinging all the way down to her toes.She didn’t know if Franco was getting into this, but she sure as heck was.Michael’s tongue swirled into her ear, wet and hot and her knees nearly buckled.Dang, he was good at this seduction stuff!He straightened, dragging her down the hall again.She wondered idly as she stumbled along beside him whether he’d had any formal training at doing that.Given the iconic popularity of James Bond, she wouldn’t put it past SIS to teach their operatives how to kiss like gods.She twined her arm around Michael’s waist and leaned into him, not having to work hard to feign wanting in his pants.Franco might be eating this up, but she expected Isabella would just about swallow her tongue in dismay.Aleesha could only pray her teammate wasn’t sending blow-by-blow descriptions of all this back to the TOC.But, hey.It wasn’t like Bud Lipton could get away with hanging all over Michael like this.Being female had gotten her inside information a traditional male team would never have managed to collect in so short a time.Michael opened the door to his suite and pulled her inside after one last, lingering caress of her derriere for Franco’s benefit.Good thing she wasn’t usually inclined to make a lot of noise during sex, because she was going to start moaning aloud soon if Michael kept touching her like that.Sheesh, she was a mess! But when Michael kissed her all the way into his bedroom, she couldn’t summon up the gumption to care.Life was short.They both might die tomorrow.Why not seize the day—or the night, as it were?He speared his hands into her hair, backing her against the closed bedroom door, kissing her with his entire body.She managed to mumble, “This is insane.”“Completely unprofessional,” he agreed, lifting her shirt over her head.“Stupid.” She tugged his belt from around his waist.“Colossally dumb.” Her bra gave a soft pop and fell away.She arched into the impossibly erotic caress of his long, lean fingers against her skin.When she finally managed to tip her head forward and draw a breath, she reached out to unbutton his shirt and push it off his delicious shoulders.Leaning forward to kiss his neck, she said against his warm, raw satin skin, “We’re going to regret this in the morning.”He replied huskily as he kissed his way down her neck, “Mmm-hmm.Deep regret.Passionate, pounding regret.”“We’ve got to stop.”“Absolutely.” He lowered her to the bed and followed her down into a steamy, dark abyss of tangled sheets, a hot, slick slide of flesh on flesh and, eventually, the oblivion of sated exhaustion.She woke up in the morning, drowsy and relaxed as she swam lazily toward consciousness.Michael’s leg was tangled between hers, and her arm lay across his powerful chest.Responding to the nearly psychic link they seemed to have forged between them somewhere in the sexual tempest they’d created last night, he opened his eyes and gazed warmly at her, his expression un-troubled and trusting.And that was what broke the spell.If only she could believe it.If only she could be sure it wasn’t all an act.Did he harbor the same doubts about her? Was he uncertain as to her motives? Surely he must be.Both of them were playing a dangerous game, engaging in this deadly dance, both needing to trust, wanting to trust, but both knowing better than to give in to the impulse.And for better or for worse, she had work to do this morning.In her pouch were two dozen state-of-the-art microburrs, tiny transmitters barely the size of a pin head, designed to stick to the clothes of a target and transmit a signal that could be used to track their position for up to six hours once activated.The burrs were too small to have much more battery life than that, and their range was limited to a few hundred yards, but they were perfect for today’s purposes.With each of the hijackers marked by one of the burrs, the SEALs who made up the rescue team could monitor the exact position of all the terrorists aboard the ship in real time.Her job was to stick the burrs to as many of the terrorists as she could locate between now and 11:30 a.m.She frowned and peered over the edge of the bed.The first order of business was probably to remember where Michael had ditched her utility belt.Somewhere between the front door and the bed
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