Page 20 of Deep Cover

Another blow, harder this time.

Hell.

From the corner of his eye, he saw her there, arms crossed, jaw tilted, she was still his Caryssa, the woman who once was everything in the world to him.

But her expression told him loud and clear where he stood.

After a moment, she turned toward the row of treadmills, stepped onto one, and ran as though she could leave every unspoken word behind.

* * * * *

She should have walked out when she saw Reid in the gym. Why did she stay?

Her only defense had to be a level of insanity that would surely hold up in court.

At least she no longer wanted to threaten her former lover. Now nervous energy hummed through her body, awareness prickling over every inch of her skin. It even erased the pain of her bruised knee.

Reid was alive.

He was raining blows on the punching bag as if it personally did him wrong, and each thump of his fists seemed to stroke her senses from clear across the room.

She switched from a jog to a run uphill, at the steepest incline. Her running shoes pounded hard, and she fixed her stare on the only thing there was to see in this godforsaken base she was sent to work in—the concrete wall.

“You could at least get some windows around here.”

Reid stopped assaulting the punching bag. “What’s that?”

“I haven’t seen a single window in this place. Don’t you enjoy having a view when you jog?”

“There’s a hall.”

She snorted. “Still no windows. How do you function? Circadian rhythm is important to everyone’s health.”

He didn’t answer, just went back to working over the punching bag.

Her whole body prickled knowing that he was in the room. Feet away from her. Shirtless and sweaty and hot, and god, she wanted to leap off this machine and get a different kind of workout.

But she hated him.

She fixed her stare on the concrete and found it entirely smooth. There wasn’t even the tiniest imperfection to focus on.

And she needed to focus. She had a job to do. Pulling threads together to create one giant network of crime took concentration she didn’t have at the moment. She’d hoped to run off some energy and quiet her mind, but no such luck with Reid standing ten feet away.

As the door opened, her head snapped around just as another guy walked into the room.

He was tall, leaner than some of his teammates. Less bulky and more coiled energy, every inch of him built for speed. He had dark hair, a little longer than she’d expect on a military base, pushed back as though he’d raked a hand through it.

His gaze found her with a quick flick of assessment, and she swore she caught the twitch of his hard lips before she faced the wall again.

Then he looked to Rivers at the bag, gloves up, sweat-soaked and radiating tension.

“Too crowded in here for me.” He swung back to the door.

Rivers stopped him. “Stay. Caryssa, have you met O?”

She was forced to take her speed down two notches to hold a conversation. “O?” She was prodding for more so she could look him up like the others, though she could already guess there was a deceased beside his name too.

“Just O.”