“What’s the code?” Harp gripped the intruder’s arm and yanked it back to a painful angle. This perp had set off his surveillance monitors, and at the wrong time for his extraction. Had his cover been blown? Ice seeped into his veins.

No response. No password, no cry of alarm or pain.

“Code.” Harp yanked the arm a little harder and was rewarded with a low moan, a sound which struck him as oddly familiar as the scent that caught him for a fleeting second. Shaking his head, he forced his adrenaline-pumped mind under control. He whispered the pass phrase low, for the intruder’s ears alone. “What is steadfast?”

If he weren’t trained down to his boots in survival techniques, adaptation abilities and the keenest observation skills, he would’ve missed the slight catch in the intruder’s panting.

“The blood of an Englishman.” The operative’s response came in a questioning and strained voice that did nothing to relieve him.

He froze. The operative was a woman. And not just any woman. She struggled, the movement bringing the heady aroma back to him in a rush. He’d only met one person with this unique blend of clean and womanly scent that gripped him in the chest. And lower.

“Jaq.” He hissed out her name like a curse, because surely it was. He dropped her arm like it was poison and stepped back, away from the ass bent over the counter he now realized had cushioned his quickly rising hard-on.

“I recognize that dick.” She straightened slowly from the counter. Yes, the intruder was Jaq, short blond hair standing up in spikes, lithe form with a sinuous grace.

His chest ran cold. Her last word to him had been “dick,” but she hadn’t meant the one hard and aching inside his jeans. He practically growled at her. “Why would Mother send you?”

“I wasn’t sent.” She was still facing the cabinets and that twisted his gut as much as the response.

“You came through the agreed-upon hatch. You know the password. What the hell are you doing here, Jaq?”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head. I’ll be out of here in six hours. Until then, just pretend I’m not here. You’re good at that.”

He snorted. “What’s in six hours?”

“I have a way down. It’s one of Bovine’s contraptions. It’ll be back then.”

He wasn’t sure what exactly Bovine had come up with, but he trusted him, and Jaq. She might have a way down, but she shouldn’t be here at all. Now the shock had worn off, he realized what kind of hell she’d just dropped him into. Of all the people to be drawn into this mess, Jaq could put a wrench in the plans just by focusing her gorgeous blues his way.

A deep-cover agent couldn’t afford to be himself, ever, and Jaq made him want to be Harp again. But that had been a mistake the first time. It’d be death to them both now.

She shifted, frowned, and started detailing what Giant Corp had been up to. Things he all knew and had gotten the intel for to begin with, but nothing that explained what she was doing here. Giant Corp had been in financial ruin when Ochre had changed tactics. He’d reneged on deals. He’d siphoned money from joint ventures.

With enough evidence to topple Giant Corp out of the sky, Harp had signaled for and planned his extraction by altering a signal light on the bottom of the island to flash his code. All other communication was too risky, with all the security alarms Ochre employed around the outside of the island. Harp’s extraction was planned for next week. Mother’s team of agents would board the island through the tunnel and secure everyone here before arresting the Ochres and confiscating the entire med lab.

But his recon sensor had gone off early when Jaq entered the tunnel, sending him out of his bed and down to the kitchen as fast as his legs could carry him. If his cover was blown now, that med lab would be destroyed along with his proof—and their ability to put a stop to Ochre’s deadly scheme.

If his cover was blown, Jaq would be in as much danger as he. He reached for her, but pulled back as the sound of approaching steps made the morning take an even bigger nosedive. Jaq tensed, alert as he was.

“Get out of here. This woman will eat you alive.”

“I don’t think so.” Her reply might’ve been haughty, but she ducked into the large steel cabinet which was thankfully mostly bare. “I came to do a job, and I’m not leaving until I do it.”

He gritted his teeth to keep from yelling in frustration. The clack of high heels rounded the corner as he shut the door on the shadowy form of the woman he’d once shared passion and—dare he admit it?—love.

“Singer, I thought I saw you come this way. What are you doing in the pantry?” Madame Vera Ochre was, unfortunately, as early a riser as her husband and workers. On the floating islands, the sun blared hot, bright and too early for his tastes. One more reason he preferred living on the ground.

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans to disguise the bulge at his crotch. “Looking for breakfast.”

“We don’t stock this pantry, and you know that. Why would you come here?” In a pencil-straight business suit, Vera stood, arms akimbo, long red nails drumming on her cocked hip. She had the same height and slimness as Jaq, but she seemed skinny and waspish beside Jaq’s animalistic grace.

Fingering the ever-present dice in his pocket, he glanced around the state-of-the-art kitchen used only for overflow during banquets. It would’ve been more convenient to have gone undercover as the chef, but his singing was better than his cooking. “Just wondered if there were any sweets left from the last party.”

“Come along. Time to do your job.”

Right. He was a performer, a household servant, and as such, usually safe from Vera’s notice except when he sang at her every meal, but sporting an obvious bulge in his jeans would draw attention to himself. He didn’t look back at Jaq, and worry for her wilted his erection as soon as he stepped away from the pantry.

Boots dragging on the highly polished marble, he followed Vera to the door.

“Madame Ochre, I have something special planned for this morning, but I need to return to my room for the instrument.” He held his breath. Playing the obsequious servant John Singer had grated against his nerves for months on end, but he couldn’t tilt the hovercraft now.

“Very well. Don’t take too long. Monsieur Ochre is tense this morning.”

“Yes, of course.” Her heels clacked away.

With two bold strides, he was back to the pantry as Jaq opened the door. “You should’ve waited for my signal that the coast was clear.”

“Don’t have time to wait for you. Never have.” Jaq stood straight and tense.

He barely restrained himself from grabbing her and heading straight to the hacked hovercraft he had on standby in the parking bay. His emergency plans had to go into effect now and shouldn’t tip off the Ochres. They had no reason to suspect him, and if he disappeared, they might wonder, but wouldn’t close up shop and get rid of the evidence in the lab.

Right. They were out of here. Now. As soon as they recovered the last collection of evidence from his room.

The pinch in his chest only pissed him off. “You shouldn’t be here. And that woman will have no qualms about tossing you off the island, without a chute. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes.”

“I can take care of Fancy-pants Ochre. Doing her, are you?”

“You know I’m not.”

“How would I know that?” She crossed her arms and raised her brows.

He gripped her wrist and noted that, like he, she no longer wore her engagement band. But he didn’t because he was undercover. She had no excuse. Even if he’d walked away with the intent to never walk back.

Yeah, he knew that was an insane thought, but she made him nuts. He pulled her behind him, not stopping when she stumbled, and headed for the door, dragging her behind. He snarled in a harsh whisper. “You know because I believe in monogamy. Now keep quiet, we can’t let you be seen.”

“You ended it, Harp, and you’re in deep cover,” she whispered in his ear when he paused to edge around the hall corner and scan for witnesses. He shivered and a delicious heat stole down his spine. He turned his hand and laced his fingers in hers. The heat dissipated when she continued, “We’re trained to do anything while under.”

His gut burned. She better not have been with anyone for the job. She better not have touched, kissed, caressed. Even flirted, damn it.

Yes, he was irrational. No doubt about it.

“Shhht.” He hissed, low and guttural. Nobody pushed him to the edge like Jaq. He didn’t know if he wanted to pitch her off the floating island or sink his dick into her.

The way his dick pressed against his zipper gave him the answer.

“Months.” He adjusted his jeans.

They climbed the back, rarely used servant stairs.

“What do you mean, months?” Jaq kept up with him as he bounded up the first flight. Though he expected her to resist every move he made, she held his hand, her fingers wrapped in his. The small touch was more than he’d had in so long, the point of contact blazed heat up his arm.

“Months since I’ve had you.”

Her fingers clenched his. “You left. Voluntarily. You won’t have me again.”

“We’ll see.”

“Like hell.”

Despite her protest, she was still holding his hand when they reached the third flight. He cracked open the stairwell door he kept well oiled. The hallway was clear. His room, after some negotiating and trading with the Ochres’ accountant, was the first on the right. All the better to position himself for his nighttime recon. Like the professional she was, she followed him into his room with a silent tread. As he started to shut the door behind them, whispers in the hall brought him up straight. With a swift turn, he scanned the hall. A shadow disappeared at the end where the wide stairs went down to the main living areas.

Normally he would have light-footed it past the six closed doors to see who might have spotted them, but Jaq dropped his hand. All his attention went straight to her.

With a conviction that his cover hadn’t been blown, he let his attention stay on her. He shoved his now-cold fingers into his jeans pocket and nudged the door shut with his elbow. He then took the time to get a good look at Jacqueline Robinson—who’d nearly been Jacqueline English.

“You look even skinnier.” The black circles under her eyes made his anger disappear like clouds against the leading edge of the island.

“You still look as good as ever.” Jaq frowned at him and leaned against the edge of his desk. “Tell me how it is you claim to be faithful to your ex.”

Ex. She was right, he had broken it off because she could do this, make him crazy, and she’d never admitted the same depth of connection. He stalked toward her and her frown deepened. Beneath a carrier bag, her threadbare jacket, the wrinkled pullover shirt and the faded slacks made him feel as if a wedge dug itself between his ribs. Hadn’t she taken care of herself for the past year? The urge to bundle her in protective wrap and hide her in his bed assailed him.

“Because I said I would.” The familiar need to keep her safe pissed him off again. Close enough to touch, he didn’t. He put a hand on each side of her and leaned toward her until their exhales mixed, combined, caressed. Her scent, clean and rich, green, overwhelmed him and brought it all back, the feel of her in his arms, the wholeness of being with her.

She panted.

Good.

She turned him upside down without trying. Just once, he needed to make her as derailed.

Jaq whispered against his lips, not quite touching. “Saying you’d be faithful doesn’t count anymore when you break off. You said you’d stay forever. Never take a deep cover.”

The familiar guilt twisted the wedge in his chest and drove it in hard. “I haven’t touched another woman. Trust me.”

“I did trust you. You said you were done with deep cover. Told me that for months, while you stayed in my bed. Then one morning, you just up and said I’m off to deep cover, and so sorry this didn’t work.” She ground her teeth and glared at him.

To resist her influence, he’d had to end their relationship. Resistance he only halfheartedly wanted, more proof he was no longer himself—the unattainable, invulnerable mercenary. He swallowed and, in the face of her anger, blurted out, “I had to. I was getting weak. Fucked up a simple recon because I wasn’t concentrating.”

His teeth clicked when he shut his mouth. Still too weak. He wanted Jaq more every achingly lonely day, and now he wanted to be inside her more than he wanted to reach the ground with the evidence against Giant Corp. He couldn’t think why he’d been so hellfire bent with the need to take the next difficult case, to get away from her just to prove he could. Not when she stood in front of him, a breath away.

Her blue eyes held accusation, but he couldn’t do anything less, nothing more, than to give in, take her away with him to the place that was theirs.

He touched his lips to hers in a brief flutter, and she shuddered. A low moan wrenched from his chest. For a stretched moment, the wind left him with a deep, hard pang rocking through him. Panting for air, he touched his forehead to hers and gulped in oxygen.

“I missed you.” With a bend of his neck and a tilting up of her chin, he kissed her.

Like waking after months of lethargy, his system sped into urgency. It felt like decades since he’d been at home, in peace, amidst the upheaval and splendor of Jaq. Turmoil he welcomed, this whirlwind in a slight frame. His fiancée. His woman. His.

Ravenous, he stroked his tongue inside her mouth to capture her taste, the same spiciness sending him into full-blown lust every time. Succulent and hot.

She gave back as good as he gave, her tongue sliding against his as her crossed arms loosened and she gripped the fabric of his shirt. She pulled him closer and slanted her head to allow him deeper access.

But she pulled back, breaking the contact he ached to press further. She let go of his shirt and smoothed it down his chest. “You make me forget why I’m here.”

He’d deluded himself for so long, pretending he didn’t need her. He’d forgotten how she scattered his intentions. “I’d nearly lost track of why I’m here, myself.”

Still, she was in his room. He couldn’t walk out the door without a taste of what he’d denied himself for a year. They had a few minutes, just a few moments before he shoved her into that hovercraft and got them the hell out of here.

He backed a step, ripped his shirt over his head, and was rewarded by her sharp intake of breath.

“We don’t have time to mess around.” The observation came out more like a question, as if she wanted to be proven wrong. The early morning sun streamed in his one curtainless window at her back, sparkling off her hair. She hadn’t moved, still leaning on his desk, but now one arm hugged tightly around her, the other crossed her chest, chewing on her thumbnail. The habit she’d conquered long ago came back now as she frowned at him.

In a lesson in self-punishment, he put as much distance between them as possible, which wasn’t much in the cramped room, and moved out of touching distance until the back of his knees hit the small bed. The mattress was the latest in tech, a nanotech foam that memorized his shape, a piece of furniture so advanced it wouldn’t normally be found in servants’ quarters, but the previous tenant of this room had somehow gotten that luxury. He’d never cared until now.

He pulled his dice from his pocket, fingering them, and rolled them on the bed. “Odds, you on top. Even, me.”

“I really don’t have time for this.” Her soft insistence was merely token. It better be, anyway—changing her mind might have its upside, but he wanted soft and willing for their first time in so long.

“The dice say odds. You on top.” He flipped open the top snap of his jeans, and her stare, which had caught on his abs, tracked down to his stomach. He flexed, her hungry bright gaze as real as a stroke across his hot skin.

“How did you get here, Jaq?” He merely meant to distract her as he sat on his bed and bent to remove his shoes.

“On a beanstalk.”

He must have heard wrong. With a shake of his head, he tucked his socks in his aligned shoes under the bed, long practice for dressing in emergencies. She hadn’t moved, but her breathing was rapid and loud. His only consolation was that physically he got to her as much as she got to him. “How did you plan to get out of here, love?”

“Don’t call me that. Not anymore.”

“How? When?”

He leaned back on his elbows to relieve the pressure on his hardness, and a wash of cool air flowed over the head of his dick, exposed by his unbuttoned fly.

Like she was completely hypnotized, she stared at the flesh that must be bright red at this point and answered distractedly. “The stalk will come back around at eleven.”

“We can get out of here, for good, in a matter of minutes.”

She nodded, still staring as if she couldn’t stop herself or do anything else.

Good.

“We have plenty of time. I have all the evidence we need tucked away in my harmonica.”

“Harmonica?”

He shifted on the bed and looked away from her curious expression. “Yes, well, I am a singer.”

“I remember.” No longer distracted, her response was gentle and filled with an edge of sadness, and maybe he detected a bit of yearning there.

With a merciless move to put them both on a course they probably shouldn’t take, he edged down his zipper slowly, the metallic purr of the teeth loud in the room. Each little notch freed his erection further, making him even harder with relief and the exposure of his desire.

“Yes, well. Good. I think.” With her back to the window he couldn’t quite see, but he imagined she turned a bit red across her cheekbones as she was wont to do when turned on. Yes, she must have her endearing blush right now. Had to. “I did come here for that. Partly. Anyway. But there’s more.”

“There is definitely more.” He parted his jeans.

Jaq whimpered.

Her familiar sound of surrender gave him the answer he needed. He lifted his hips, for the moment ignoring the groan rewarding him, and pushed his pants down. He kicked them off and left them on the floor in a heap as he leaned back on his elbows, spread his legs in invitation, and willed himself to wait.

She hadn’t moved, but the tenseness of her body nearly vibrated across the small room. “I’m not just here for the key to Giant Corp’s bag of gold. I have to get an antidote.”

“We’ll get it. Whatever you need, Jaq.”

She lifted her chin and a stream of sunlight illuminated her face. No longer seemingly transfixed on his erection, the glittering pools of blue he wanted to see infused with passion gazed at his face. “How can you give me what I need?”

The question he’d asked himself every day since he took this job. He’d always been able to give her what she needed in bed. That’d never been their problem, but he doubted they could be what they needed for each other outside of bed. The doubt had insinuated itself into a conviction and he’d walked away.

For years they’d danced around each other as friends. Then, at the end of a joint mission, they’d fallen into her bed. For months he rarely crawled out and he moved into her apartment without even asking. As an agent, he started to make mistakes. Luckily nothing big, but by the time his handler at Mother called him in, told him to get his head back in the game and that this deep cover at Giant was just what he needed, Harp didn’t recognize himself. Afraid of the changes in himself, he desperately leaped at the chance to have his old life back. A life of being sure about what the hell he was doing. A life of controlled emotion.

Jaq had needed him to give up deep cover, unable to handle his being in a position to use sex as a tool, or get his throat slit. To make it worse, he hadn’t said a thing. Hadn’t asked her opinion. Just walked out. He’d failed her. “Come here. I have what you need. Right now.”

“For now.”

“Always, Jaq.”

“How can you say that?” She still hadn’t moved, but with her damning question she pushed off the desk and moved toward the door. “I don’t have time for this. We can’t go back to how we were, Harp. I have to get the antidote. I have a security pass to the medical labs.”

“You can’t get in there without me.” He rushed out the warning as her hand closed on the doorknob. “It’ll be busy. Everyone is working right now. How can you expect to waltz in and find what you need? And what exactly are you looking for?”

Erection subsiding, he sat up, the mental need to switch into operative mode barely held at bay. He wanted to be Harp for a little longer and try to win back his once-fiancée, though he wasn’t sure anything had changed, with his nearly blinding urgency to have her again clouding the picture. But he had to hurry this along. Madame Ochre would wonder what took him so long to get down to breakfast. Before she came back, they’d be on the hacked hovercraft and heading to the ground.

Still facing away from him, her hand on the latch, Jaq stiffened, her back straight.

“It’s Merry.”

“Merry? How is the little imp?” He liked Merry, and he was sure she liked and approved of him. Her acceptance of him had infiltrated into his heart and added to the burden when he’d walked out. Still, he didn’t want anyone to hurt Merry any more than he wanted to hurt Jaq.

“She’s sick.”

That little sentence, said with the slightest hitch in her breath, changed everything. Their history didn’t matter.

He stepped into his jeans and crossed to her before he’d decided to do so. When he pulled her into him, her body tensed before she sagged into his chest. Her fully clothed body warmed him and, despite himself, his dick half hardened again as he adjusted himself around her, to hold and comfort her. Her hair, fresh as the outdoors, familiar and heady, tickled his nose before he nuzzled the top of her head to get closer, to get more of her scent. “Tell me.”

“She had a stupid, regular old cold that lingered. Nothing big, but the cough made her tired. She wanted a good night’s sleep. That’s all. She’d started her first job.”

A surge of pride filled his chest. “I’m sorry I missed her graduation.”

“She said she wished you were there.”

He didn’t ask if Jaq had wanted him there.

“She went to the new company’s doctor. He was a Giant shill. He gave her something experimental. She bought into his hype and took it. She got worse. The antidote isn’t covered by the med certificates. She sold everything to pay for a substitute that didn’t work.” She took a shuddering breath and he held her tighter. “She’s bedridden. Withering away. Without a cure, she’ll die. I need that antidote before the sun sets.”

“Yes.” His throat threatened to close, and he hugged her, the weight of her back against his front comforting him possibly more than her. The Giant vaccine he’d wanted to halt had obviously gone to ground in trials. If only he’d worked faster. His gut burned with anger and remorse. “I’ll get it for you.”

“I’ll get it myself,” she hissed.

“You’re more than capable—with the right planning, tools, codes—but whatever you have planned will take longer. It’ll be riskier than if I go. You’re a stranger. They’ll stop you and question you, and even if you have a cover story, I’m familiar. I can get what we need and get us out faster.”

She relaxed her rigid posture. “Maybe.”

Until that moment, he’d harbored some idea of fucking Jaq senseless before getting out of here, getting off this trap, this island in the sky, and using his evidence to bring down the corrupted corp, but now that plan wouldn’t work. Damn it all, now they had to risk leaving his room before the escape and chance going into the secure area of the mansion and sneaking meds out.

So much more likely something could go wrong, but Merry’s life depended on it. He had to do it.

He held Jaq tighter. Just a minute more, to be Harp alone with his Jaq, the woman he’d walked out on because she could do this to him, keep his mind off the mission.

She’d never been so afflicted. “I have the floor plans memorized,” she assured him. “Your latest intel says small quantities are being produced for the wealthiest clients. All in a lightly guarded facility on the third level.”

Harp nodded. “My latest report hasn’t made it to Mother yet. Ochre’s finally lost all his sense. He’s desperate. He had his labs create a new vaccine that’ll turn on its host. They’re holding the cure hostage. For money. Without a costly Giant antidote, the victim will die of lung failure. The vaccine rollout is scheduled in a matter of months. Mother has to make a move. Now. Before Giant’s tainted meds decimate the lander population.”

“So they are doing this for money. Killing people.” A haunted look crossed her face before she wiped it clear.

“I didn’t know it’d started. Gone to trials” He fisted his hands, wanting to plant Ochre a facer. “Merry will not be a victim of this. I won’t let her.”

After slipping his shirt on, he swiped his dice from the bed and pocketed them. From the side table he retrieved his harmonica, slid it into his back pocket. A special design from Bovine, it molded to his shape. With a glance at the alarm clock that doubled as his surveillance control system, he sat on the bed to put on his shoes. “Stay here. I’ll get the antidote, then we’ll clear.”

Her back straightened and she turned to him with a completely emotionless look. “You know I won’t stay here.”

He needed some rope. He’d tie her here and get the meds on his own.

“And you can’t detain me. First, you’ve never tied me up in a way I couldn’t escape.”

The cold deserted him as he heated, his dick full in his jeans again as images of her tied to the bed, his mouth very busy on her sultry skin, and her jumping him and riding mercilessly when she slipped free. One of the many talents she displayed was her amazing ability to escape from any bonds. He didn’t dare think of the other talents she possessed, which she’d only used on him. He ground his teeth again. At least, it had been only him a year ago.

The memories must have attacked her as well because her voice lowered to a husky murmur. “And second, leaving me defenseless could get me killed in this place.”

He froze, the whirlwind of chill taking him so fast he nearly got dizzy. A steadfast rule of Mother was to never leave backup compromised. A deep-cover agent knew the risks, but putting another operative in danger was unacceptable.

“You do exactly as I say.”

Her blues twinkled at his command. “Don’t I always?”

“No.” Resisting the urge to throw her onto his bed and kiss her senseless, he leaned down toward her pixie face and spoke softly. “You will this time. Do exactly as I say.”

“If I want to.” She gave him her lopsided grin and opened the door a crack. “All clear.”

He jerked his hands back from where he’d nearly swatted her ass and followed her out the door.

The familiar click of heels came down the hall.

They were going to get caught. If she found out what he was really doing here, Madame Ochre would string him up by the balls.