But he knew her well enough to know that she wouldn’t be deterred until she had the information she needed. Still, he couldn’t resist moving her hand away and giving her a quick, rough kiss. “Just to remind you of what you’re turning down.”
She brushed his lips with her fingers. “The sooner you start talking, the sooner we can get going. I’m sure we’ll have some travel time to kill along the way, and there’s a high chance I’ll be naked for some of it.”
He nipped her fingers. “If it means I can be inside you again sooner, then fine.” Needing to put a little distance between them to help him focus, Marco rolled off her, propped onto his side, and said, “At the Novia del Mar statue, a woman came up to me. After some chitchat that I’m pretty sure was a test, she wrote out a vague message written in the old language. At first I wasn’t sure what it meant, but while waiting for your dinner—” He looked at the untouched container of food on the nightstand next to the bed. “Camilla, you must be starving. Go ahead and eat while I debrief you.”
Touched by Marco’s thoughtfulness, Cam laid a hand on his chest. The lingering dampness and hard muscles under her fingers reminded her of earlier, and it took everything she had to focus and not reach out for his still-hard cock. In all honesty, she wanted nothing more than for him to fuck her again.
But she had duties, as did he. She was grateful that he was still helping her but no doubt he wanted to focus on his mission too.
Since Marco was male—a plainly aroused male—it was going to be up to her to keep them focused while they were naked. Although with all of his smooth, tan skin in front of her, even she was having trouble when it came to caring about their missions.
However, sex wouldn’t help them find a Talent.
She focused. What had Marco been talking about? Oh, right, eating dinner. “I ate a protein bar earlier. Just tell me what you discovered so I can finish my mission and help with yours, if you still want my help.”
He reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. She was starting to love when he
did that. “I’ll always want your help, but right now, the only mission I have is yours. Aislinn gave the arson fire investigation to someone else.”
She sat up. “But why would she do that? You’re the one who found the witnesses that led us to Harry Watkins. Moreover, I’m the one with the contact to help us catch up with him. My contact is a little paranoid and isn’t going to work with just anyone.”
“I don’t know who your contact is, but I met someone else who can lead DEFEND to Harry Watkins.” He explained about the shadow-shifter named Jorge Salazar, and his connection with the Fed League.
Cam frowned. “I’ve never heard of a Jorge Salazar. He must’ve joined after I left. Are you positive that Aislinn and Neena vouched for him? Using his sister as blackmail—even if it’s to save her—doesn’t exactly inspire loyalty.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You can try asking that to either one of them, but that would mean questioning them, and I don’t think you have the proof to do that.”
Since Neena could see visions of the future, a person only questioned her when they were positive of something, and Cam had nothing to make Neena change her mind. “I know, but it just seems unfair that they’d take this from you, especially when you’ve done such a good job with it.”
He laid his hand on her hip and squeezed. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being on my side.”
She refused to dwell on why she’d done it, and decided that since she didn’t handle gratitude well, it was best to brush aside his thanks and push on. “What about your family? Will you still be allowed to help them?”
Marco ran his hand down from her hip to rest on her thigh, and it took everything she had to concentrate on his response.
“Yes, and you can help me with that after we get to the bottom of the clue I got this evening.”
Just knowing that he wanted her to help with his family warmed her heart. Maybe this thing between them would work after all. “Okay, so tell me about the clue.”
He recounted his meeting with the woman and the message, then he said, “At first, I wasn’t quite sure what or where San Rafael was, but while waiting for your dinner, I looked it up. We need to head down to Quito, Ecuador to ask for this Diego person to take us on a special tour to the San Rafael Waterfall.”
Cam tried to remember what she knew of the area down there. “Aren’t parts of Ecuador crawling with drug traffickers, guerrilla groups, and all sorts of gangs?”
“Most of that is near the border with Colombia. Quito does have some crime, but we’re experienced enough that we should be safe.”
She definitely needed to get some weapons before they went looking for this Diego person. “What about contacts? Do you have any down there? If not, I got a few from the vendor back in Merida that we could use.”
“Colombia is my home turf, so I have plenty of contacts, but I’ll use whatever you’ve got too. Will you share them with me later?”
There he went, asking her for something and including her in his plans again. Maybe he really was different, and he’d become the first man she’d met who could keep his control and desire to dominate for when they were naked.
She started to think of what he might do to her if she gave him more rein in bed. He’d restrained her with ice in the jungle; maybe he could do it in bed too.
The image of cool ice around her wrists and ankles, restraining her while Marco licked between her thighs made Cam wet.