“Fuck, you’re killing me,” he said with agony.

Her body embraced every inch of him, met him stroke for stroke, matching his erotic rhythm as it sped out of control.

He groaned and tossed back his head, arching into her, surging higher, grinding harder, moving faster until she was gasping for breath and swept into a devastating climax.

Growling low in his throat, he surrendered to his own fierce orgasm. His hips pressed her farther into the bed, then farther still, nearly crushing her with the violent force of his release. His breath ragged, he collapsed on top of her and buried his face against her neck.

“Really,” she said softly, against his brow. “Who gives a fuck about the flight?”

“I love it when you talk dirty,” he mumbled into her throat, and they both erupted into laughter.

Callie was weak when it came to this one particular man, completely and utterly helpless to resist his allure, so unable to refuse him anything.

And that was going to cause her a wealth of heartache in the end.

DUE TO JAMMER’S delay they had to take a later flight, which put them into Rome ’s very busy Fiumicino Airport early in the morning. Finally, they got through security and customs, and were in a limo heading to their hotel-the St. George Roma, a quaint hotel Callie had never visited and Jammer had stayed in several times. It was decorated in a trendy style, with lots of travertine and marble on the walls and floors.

Callie was used to time changes, and jet lag had ceased to affect her. She was wide-awake and sleep wasn’t an option, so Jammer suggested they go for a run before the heat and tourists took over the city.

Eager for the exercise, Callie changed into a T-shirt and shorts and followed Jammer out of their hotel.

It was still dark outside, but the streets were illuminated and easy to navigate. Dawn was about an hour away.

Jammer took her past St. Peter’s Basilica and through winding streets as the city came awake. After thirty minutes of running they passed the Pantheon and, jogging in place, Callie stopped to take in the ancient structure.

It wasn’t long before she could hear the sound of gushing water. It reached a crescendo when they emerged in a square and saw the Trevi Fountain, bathed in gold from the illumination of the lights.

Panting from their exertion, Jammer and Callie splashed themselves with the water from the fountain to cool off.

There were very few pedestrians around, but traffic was starting to increase in the area where three roads intersected, forming the square.

When their breathing had returned to normal, they sat on the edge of the fountain.

“This is quite beautiful,” Callie said.

“The fountain was built as a tribute to the aqueducts that supplied water to ancient Rome,” Jammer replied.

“I’m sure it was an engineering marvel.”

Jammer laughed and Callie loved the deep, carefree sound of it. She smiled. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s funny because supposedly a virgin led Roman engineers to the source of the pure water.”

“Once again, it takes a woman to show men where they need to go.”

“You’ve never had any problem with telling me where to go,” he said softly. His voice was barely audible above the rushing water. She had to lean against him, making the moment intimate and romantic. “That’s true,” she said, rubbing her cheek against his.

Jammer slipped his arm around her, drawing her closer. Callie snaked her arm around his waist. Snuggling into the crook of his neck, she relaxed against his wide, hard chest.

“Kidding aside, this is more than a mere sculpture,” Jammer said. “It’s a wonderful example of Baroque art with its soft, natural lines and fantasy creatures that embody movement as the soul of the world.”

Callie was stunned. Simply stunned. Jammer, who looked like he belonged in some smoky bar as a bouncer, was talking about Baroque art in such a way that it made her raise her head and study him. His eyes were a different shade of gray, like a calm, early-morning sky, content in the beginning of the day and warming from the rising of the sun.

A morning breeze ruffled his short hair, which appeared blue-black in the shortening shadows as dawn broke on the horizon. It was one of those true, genuine moments that she would always remember, like the one when he had talked about his father. A window into the real person Jammer was. The identity of the man she wanted to get to know more deeply than she would have time for.

Unexpectedly, tears pricked her eyes, and she blinked rapidly to clear them. There was no crying in black ops.

He shifted their bodies so that she was sitting between his legs. They watched as the sun melted the gold, seeming to wash down the statues and disappear into the water until it, too, changed to aquamarine.

“It’s the light and shade effects of the marble that make it seem like the clothes and hair of the statues are moving-Neptune is the one standing in the chariot being pulled by two seahorses. To the side stand Abundance and Salubrity, and around the borders of the pool are stone and carved vegetation representing the sea.”

Callie got a very unique view of a piece of art from a man from whom she had expected only violence and greed. This side of him shook her foundations and crumbled her defenses all the more, until she was scrambling to find a foothold to hang on to her objectivity.

The struggle to deny her own feelings caused a pressure in her chest that grew and grew, like an inflating balloon. It crowded against her lungs, squeezed her heart, closed off her throat, pushed hard on the backs of her eyes. She had crushed it out before, time and again.

This was the paradox of being undercover. You had to become the person you needed to be-not role-play, not act, not pretend. She had to guard who she was from Jammer to protect her cover. It seemed ironic to try to hide anything from a man with whom she had shared the most private parts of her body, who had taken her to dizzying heights of pleasure and held her safe in his arms. She had opened her body to him, but she couldn’t ever open her heart and truly share with him everything she was. Gina Callahan could do that, but Callie Carpenter couldn’t.

For the first time in this crazy relationship that hurt.

“Who are you?” she asked softly, not sure if he could hear her above the rushing water that cooled her face, not sure if the moisture was tears she wouldn’t acknowledge or random droplets from the fountain.

He didn’t speak, but she could feel his alertness behind her, as if he wanted to tell her. Wanted to give her that insight into his character that she craved.

Finally, he said, “I’m just a cog, Gina. Just a cog.”

He was wrong. He wasn’t a cog, he was a linchpin, and when it was pulled, everything would come crashing down. He was her conduit to the Ghost. Her mission.

Who would have thought she would have needed that reminder? Not her. Her relationship with Jammer had been intense from the start. Those three days in Paris, as they had slaked a need for each other that became as addictive as a drug, were ones she would never forget. But she’d set up the deal with the intention of trapping the Ghost, and she had been resolved to follow through. All she could hope for in that situation would be that Jammer would get jail time, but not as much as his boss.

But then Miyagi’s henchman had run her down, giving her a concussion, and she’d been out of it enough that her twin sister, Allie, had had to fill in. But Allie and Drew had failed to capture the Ghost, had lost the weapons and the money to Jammer. He had orchestrated the death of Miyagi, effectively saving her sister’s life, for which Callie would always be grateful.

How to mesh this man with his international reputation for being the Ghost’s muscle? It was interesting how he was always where the Ghost was supposed to be. Always the face of the organization. It made her wonder and speculate.