Armed Response. Janie Crouch

his hand on the frame of her door and the other on the roof of her car, she was, in essence, trapped in his arms. If she turned around, it would almost be like in an embrace.

      But she didn’t turn as she continued. “Tell Ren this won’t work. Help him find someone else.”

      “Why do I make you so uncomfortable, Tiger Lily? You’re the one who gave me up, remember? And like we said, it was over a decade ago. It shouldn’t matter now.”

      She shook her head with a little jerk. “It’ll be easier for both of us if you’re not here.”

      “Since when have you or I ever done anything the easy way? We are a good team. You had to have seen that out there today.”

      She nodded stiffly. Jace took a step forward, which caused Lillian to turn around. Suddenly all he could see was her mouth.

      Cursing himself, he brought his lips down to hers. He couldn’t help himself, it was like being caught in some tractor beam from a science fiction movie.

      Her lips were as soft as he remembered. As sweet. Sweeter, if possible.

      She held herself stiffly for the first few seconds, as he teased her lips slowly, nibbling at them, but then he felt her give in. She sighed as if she couldn’t fight it, either.

      Her fingers slid into his hair, pulling him closer, and a sound of hunger left him, his mouth moving more hungrily on hers, their tongues twining. The attraction and heat pushed at them in waves.

      When Jace finally stepped back, they both just stared at each other. Then, without another word, Lily got in her car and started it, pulling away so quickly that if he hadn’t stepped back she might’ve run over his toes. All he could do was watch her drive away.

      He muttered a curse under his breath. He’d been sent here to do a job, get more info, find out if Lillian had anything to do with this mole. Not kiss her senseless within the first few hours of his being back in the same general vicinity as her.

      He’d counted on his sense of betrayal to help him keep his distance from her. To be able to remain objective and even cold.

      Jace should’ve known better. He’d been many things around Lillian Muir, but cold was never one of them.

      Seven hours into this mission and already things had become a hell of a lot more complicated.

       Chapter Five

      Showing up at Omega HQ the next day knowing Jace would be part of the team, part of her inner circle after twelve years of not having seen him at all, was pretty much inconceivable to Lillian.

      And the fact that they’d made out yesterday? She couldn’t even wrap her head around that. She didn’t make out with people. Making out was for teenagers.

      And she especially didn’t make out in the Damn. Parking. Lot. Sure, the entire team had left by then, but still. What would people say if someone had seen her lip-locked with the new guy just a few hours after meeting him?

      After the Tiger Lily comment, plus the fact that she’d mentioned it to Roman, everyone had heard or figured out she and Jace had a history. But that still didn’t account for her sucking face with him.

      And hell if heat didn’t course through her at that thought. Again. Like it had done all night long.

      Lillian had a lot of sleepless nights. But never had they involved being so caught up thinking about a kiss that she couldn’t get to sleep. It was like something out of a Sweet Valley High novel.

      She wished she could call Grace about it. Get her opinion as both psychiatrist and woman. Although she knew what Grace would tell her.

      To take a chance. To be willing to leave herself unguarded for once.

      But Lillian couldn’t call Grace. Because Freihof had killed her.

      That was enough to wipe all thoughts of teen-romance-books-style kisses out of her mind. Jace was here for a purpose. That purpose had nothing to do with Lillian and everything to do with keeping the LESS Summit safe, especially if Freihof decided to make some sort of play.

      She would do well to remember that.

      Jace Eakin was now, at least temporarily, taking up residence in her home—Omega HQ was much more home than the one-bedroom apartment that basically just housed her stuff. She would work with him. Get him up to speed. Keep it strictly professional. Definitely no more kissing.

      In the locker room she changed out of her civilian clothes and into her training fatigues. She arrived in the SWAT station house living room thirty minutes before she was scheduled to be there. Derek was already there sitting at the conference table that took up a good section of the room, looking over paperwork for the team.

      Jace was there, too, on the opposite side of the room.

      Ignoring Jace, she walked over to Derek and sat down next to him. Derek slid a file over to her.

      “Today’s schedule.”

      Nothing out of the ordinary. Some PT, time to go over the building plans of the LESS Summit and one of Lillian’s favorite drills.

      “The Gauntlet. Haven’t done that one in a while. Pretty brutal.”

      Derek grinned. “I thought it would be a good team-builder. Trial by fire.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I’m going to have you pair up with Eakin.”

      “For the Gauntlet?”

      “That and for the summit.”

      “Seriously?”

      Lilian glanced over at Jace, who was leaning against the wall messing with his phone. The slight smirk lifting the corner of his mouth let her know he could hear everything being said.

      She made a show of looking over the schedule again. “Maybe you should assign Jace to someone else. Team me with Saul. Or even Carnell.” She swallowed her grimace at both offers. She didn’t want to be assigned to either of them. It would limit her effectiveness at the summit.

      “No. Carnell will be tactical command and computers only. He’s not ready for active missions. Saul is better, but he’s still not top-tier. Unless I see something over the next few days that makes me think Eakin doesn’t have the skills I think he has, you two will be the Alpha team.”

      Everybody was important on a mission like protecting the LESS Summit, but the Alpha team was second in command to Derek, able to make judgment calls and decisions without approval when needed.

      “Is that going to be a problem?” Derek asked when Lillian didn’t respond. “There’s obviously history between you two.”

      Yes, there was history, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her from being as effective as possible. From making the entire team be as effective as possible. They’d need to be as strong as they could for whatever Damien Freihof had planned. Putting ancient history aside would be no problem.

      Lillian glanced at Jace again, his blue eyes now piercing hers. She didn’t look away. “No—no problem,” she told Derek. “Our past was a long time ago. It’s over. It was over before it even started.”

      * * *

      IT WAS OVER before it even started.

      Lillian’s quiet words stung even hours later. They shouldn’t; after all, they were only the truth. Their relationship—at least the sexual side of it—had ended almost as soon as it began.

      Trying to stick to the letting-bygones-be-bygones promise he made yesterday was proving a little more difficult than he had expected.

      Jace pushed the entire conversation from his mind. There was no room for worrying about the distant past out here on the Gauntlet, which was a glorified obstacle course full of real-life dangers—fire, barbed wire and paintball-type ammunition that wouldn’t