Read Under the Wire: Bad Boys Undercover for Free Online Page B

into the country put them firmly in all of the FSB’s target areas.
    Worse, the FSB had contacts everywhere. A missing expedition, legitimately investigating some old case or not, wouldn’t go unnoticed. People talked. The Alliance not even knowing to look for them left them stranded and on their own. Reid could handle that but he didn’t want Cara in the middle.
    “Engaged?” Parker asked in a near whisper.
    Loud or soft, the word scraped across Reid’s already raw nerves. “Not anymore.”
    Seeing her again carved him inside out. The sightof all that blood had hit him first. The torn clothes touched off a blinding fury at the thought of her being in trouble. Then instead of unraveling, which anyone else in her situation would have done, she grew stronger. She’d gained her equilibrium and started meeting his verbal shots with some of her own. That’s when he’d really gone down for the count.
    He’d tried several times over the slogging months since she left him to adjust the image he held of her in his mind. Chip away at his attraction to her. But no such luck. That round face and those intelligent eyes haunted him.
    Seeing her again, he realized her self-confidence hadn’t faltered. She wasn’t one to back down from a verbal battle, and though he pretended that annoyed him, he actually loved that side of her. The energy. The way she threw herself into her work and enjoyed her off time with equal pleasure.
    She fed on fresh air and craved the outdoors, just like he did. The bedroom, sweet damn the things she liked to do in there. The urge to strip her bare and throw her on the bed pounded on him the entire time they were together. There wasn’t a moment when he hadn’t wanted her. Fast up against the wall or slow and savoring every taste. Often he’d set the pace. Other times she’d seduce him merely by walking into the room and throwing him one of her sexy smiles.
    The kissing. The touching. She could wear a body-skimming dress that made his eyes cross one minute and dig in the dirt the next. And that tight body, toned from hiking . . . so fucking hot.
    The good and bad memories collided in his head, knocking against his personal promise not to get lured in a second time. He fell for her once and that proved to be one time too many.
    “I sense the breakup wasn’t your choice at all.” Parker lifted his hands in front of him, which just happened to be in the direction of Cara’s ass. “I mean I get it. She’s way hot.”
    Reid let his gaze bounce down, tour over her, for just a second. Then the frustration of her choices snapped his festering anger right back into place. “Find another topic.”
    “Yeah, I can see why you’re getting all weird and stuff.” Parker made a big show of exhaling and sighing. “At least this bit of history does explain your pathetic dating life for the last year.”
    That struck Reid as too much. Yeah, he didn’t have a parade of women in and out of his door, but they didn’t run screaming when they saw him either. “I do fine.”
    “Remember that I live next to you and see everything.”
    “Gentlemen.” Cara stopped so fast they almost ran over her. She spun around and glared them both into silence before they could grumble about the interruption to their conversation. “I am not deaf.”
    “Okay.” Parker made the word last for three syllables.
    “Do you think you’re talking in code? Because I can hear you.” Her gaze switched from Parker to Reid but the severe frown never let up. “Every last stupid word.”
    Parker turned to Reid. “She rebounds from injury pretty well.”
    “Unfortunately, she’s had some experience,” Reid said, knowing better than to take his gaze off her when she hit this level of fire-spitting fury.
    Parker frowned. “About the last time you needed the help of a super clandestine, no-one-knows-who-we-are organization usually reserved for hunting terrorists and madmen—care to fill me in?”
    Slowly her shoulders fell. Some