Page 153 of Mission Shift

And that was when Nik’s voice sliced through the fog.

“What the actualfuck.”

I froze. Daria let out a startled giggle, and I couldn’t help but groan as I turned toward the doorway.

Nik stood there, one hand over his eyes like it might erase what he’d just seen. “Seriously? Right here? On the damn couch?”

Daria snorted, burying her face in the cushions. I reached for the nearest blanket and yanked it over both of us. Pulling out ofher, I sat back on my heels and wrapped my arms around her. Then I lowered her to my lap. Our combined wetness was slick and warm on my thigh.

Nik groaned out in annoyance. “I told you to nail down your husband-and-wife story—notnail her on the goddamn furniture. Jesus, I need brain bleach.”

“Sorry,” I said, breathless. “I couldn’t take mock interrogations anymore.”

He waved a hand. “You know this lounge is under surveillance, don’t you? We could literally watch this scene in full color for the rest of the trip.”

That just made Daria laugh harder.

Nik turned to go, muttering under his breath. “Two weeks. Two goddamn weeks of this. I’m making rules.Rules, people.”

I couldn’t help myself. I turned Daria just enough to cup her chin in my hand, pulled her lips to mine, and kissed her long and slow.

When she finally caught her breath, I whispered against her lips, “Nik’s not wrong. Iamgoing to have you on every surface of this yacht.”

She arched a brow and grinned. “Where next?”

I lifted her as I stood, pressing a kiss to her jaw. “Hot tub. I want to hear you scream my name over the sound of the jets.”

She smacked my chest, laughing. “You’re insatiable.”

Chapter forty-two

It was the day before we were set to arrive in Manhattan, and the ocean was calmer than it normally was at this time of year. Soft sunlight warmed the deck. The swell barely rocked the hull. Even the wind had settled, leaving nothing but an open blue sky stretching out in every direction.

Braxton and I were sitting just outside the hot tub in lounge chairs, barefoot and half dressed the way people are when the hours start bleeding together and there is no one around to impress. It had been almost fifteen days since we had run for our lives from Malinov’s estate. The long days at sea had turned the yacht into its own little world. Here we were drifting far from reality—no wars, no guns, no questions about who we were pretending to be. Just…us.

I stretched my legs out and reached for my mimosa, dragging my fingers through the droplets of condensation that had gathered on the outside of the glass. “Do you think she knew?”

“Who knew what?” Braxton asked, completely confused by where my thoughts had drifted.

“The customs officer in Norway. Do you think she knew that my papers were fake?”

He gave me a sideways glance, a half smirk curling one edge of his mouth. “The battle-axe with the resting execution face? Yeah. She could sniff out a lie faster than Nik can sniff out a bottle of top-shelf vodka.” He grunted beside me. “If she didn’t know, she damn well suspected. I’m still surprised she let us go.”

I cracked a smile. “She was such an odd woman. I couldn’t get a fix on her. She’d make a great addition to the FSB.”

“Yeah, and she was built like a fridge—barely five feet tall and almost as wide,” he quipped.

“And she hated me on sight.”

Braxton sipped his water and shrugged. “Nah. She hated how good you were at dodging her questions.”

I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my chin on them. “She didn’t trust me.”

“She didn’t trust anyone,” he said. “Except maybe that clipboard.”

I laughed at that—because it was true. The woman had clutched that thing like it held state secrets. “The worst part was when she kept asking me where we met, like she expected the answer to change.”

“Yeah, but you killed it,” Braxton said. “I mean, I just had to stand there looking like I couldn’t keep my hands off you, which wasn’t exactly hard.”

---