by J. R. Ward
No doubt that was it.
And the fact that he’d noticed at all made him less than impressed with the male species: Somehow, even in the midst of great chaos, even when it was tacky as hell, men still managed to get the hots for a female.
“Sit down,” she told him, pointing with her wire whisk to a stool under the lip of the island, “before you fall down. And don’t even try the I’m-fine, clear?”
Man . . . total hots for this woman.
Complete hots.
“Hello?” she said. “You were just about to sit down over there?”
“Roger that.”
As she returned to the cooktop and got cracking—literally—he did as he was told.
To keep his eyes off her, he looked over her purse, which she’d left next to where he’d parked it. What a goddamn shame something so nice and expensive had been trashed. There was dried mud all over the leather and that handle had been really mangled.
Idiot meth head.
Rising up, he went over to the sink, pulled a paper towel free, and got the thing damp. Then, resettling, he went to work, trying to get the mung off.
When he glanced up, she was staring at him again and he stopped what he was doing to hold up his hands. “I’m not going to steal from you.”
“I didn’t think you were,” she said in that quiet voice.
“Real sorry about your purse. I think it’s done ruined.”
“I have others. And even if I didn’t, it’s just stuff.”
“Expensive stuff.” And on that note, he leaned over to the island and pushed his money toward her. “I need you to take this.”
“And I need you not to go on the run.” She cracked another egg on the rim of the bowl and split it using only one hand. “I need you to follow through on what you agreed to do when I got you bail.”
Isaac ducked his eyes and resumed his largely unsuccessful cleanup routine.
She let out an exhale that was just a syllable or two away from being a curse. “I’m waiting. For you to answer me.”
“Wasn’t aware there was a question, ma’am.”
“Fine. Will you please stay here and stick with the system?”
Isaac rose up and headed back to the sink. As he snapped a clean Bounty off the roll, the truth leaped out of his mouth. “My life isn’t my own.”
“Who are you running from?” she whispered.
Maybe she’d dialed down the volume because the lawyer in her was knee-jerk discreet. Or perhaps she was guessing right: The types who were after him could hear and sometimes see through even solid walls. Glass ones like the kind in this kitchen? Piece of cake.
“Isaac?”
There was no response that he could give her so he shook his head and went back to wiping the mud off her bag . . . even though she was probably just going to throw the damn thing out in the morning.
“You can trust me, Isaac.”
His reply was a long time in coming. “It’s not you I’m worried about.”
Grier stood on the far side of the island, the Humpty-Dumpty eggs scattered around and drooling on the granite, a red bowl full of yellow yolks and transparent whites ready to take a beating.
Her client was absolutely huge as he perched on her stool, his busted-up hands taking care of her Birkin. And yet in spite of his size and the regard he was showing her bag, she wanted to crack his head on something hard. The solutions were so clear to her: Stay in the system, come clean with whatever military agency he’d bolted from, sort out the repercussions, do the time . . . start over.
Whatever he’d done could be redressed.
Society could forgive.
People could move on.
Unless, of course, they were stubborn assholes determined to flout the rules and go it alone.
She picked up a final egg and slammed it against the bowl’s rim, shattering the shell. “Ah, hell’s bells.”
Isaac’s eyes lifted. “It’s okay. I don’t mind a little crunch.”
“It’s not okay. None of this is okay.” She bent over and fished out the little white specks with her fingernail.
When things looked acceptable in the bowl, she heard herself say, “Would you like to have a shower before we eat?”
“No, ma’am,” was his quiet, unsurprising response.
“I have clothes you could change into.” That got his eyebrow to peak briefly even if he didn’t look over at her. “My brother’s. He used to stay here with me sometimes—not exactly your size, of course.”
“I’m good. But thank you, ma’am.”
“You need to lose the ‘ma’am’ crap. We were over that the minute you got into my car.”
As that brow went up again, she grabbed a block of cheddar and started grating. Hard. “You know . . . you remind me of him. My brother.”
“How so?”
“I also want to save you from what your choices are doing to your life.”
Isaac shook his head. “Not a good idea.”
True enough. God knew she’d failed once at that already.
Shaking the cheese from the grater, she put the thing aside and diced up some Canadian bacon. As they both worked at their tasks, it didn’t take long before the silence got to her . . . but more to the point, it wasn’t in her nature to quit.
Which suggested that if she’d been born a car she’d be in the demolition derby.
“Look, I can try to help with more than just the charges against you. If you’re—”
“I got most of the dirt off.” He lifted the purse while meeting her straight in the eye. “But there’s nothing I can do about the strap.”
“Where are you going to go?”
When he didn’t reply, she sliced off a chunk of sweet butter into the pan and fired up the burner. “Well, you can stay here for the night if you want to rest up. My father’s had this place wired so tightly not even a mouse could get in without triggering the system.”
“ADT is good. But not that good.”
“That’s just the dummy system.” That got both his brows to pop and she nodded. “My father was in the military. The Army, actually. When he got out, he went to law school and then . . . well, he’s kept current, let’s just say. Current and protective of me.”
“He wouldn’t approve of my being here.”
“You’ve been a gentleman so far and that, more than what you wear or where you’re from, has always been what’s mattered to him. And to me, by the way—”
“I’m leaving this money behind when I go.”
Lifting the pan off the heat, she tilted its flat face, sending the butter on a little ride that was ultimately its undoing. “And I can’t accept it. You must know that. It would make me an accessory.” She thought she heard a soft curse, but maybe it had only been an exhale. “After all, I’m willing to bet that cash came from fighting. Or was it drugs?”
“I am not a dealer.”
“Which means it’s the former. Still illegal. By the way, I looked into your background.” She did a rewhisk on the eggs and then poured more than half of them into the pan, a quiet whoosh rising up. “There was nothing except for a newspaper article from five years ago about your death. It came with a picture of you, so don’t bother denying it.”
He went utterly still, and she knew his eyes were on her sharply.
For a moment, she wondered exactly what she’d welcomed into her home. But then, for some reason, she thought about him taking his combat boots off and leaving them by the front door.
Time to get real, she thought. “So are you going to tell me what branch of the government you work for or should I just guess?”
“I’m not with the military.”
“Really. So I’m supposed to believe that you fight like you do and secured your apartment as you did and are on a fast track out of town just because you’re some kind of casual street thug or low-level mob enforcer? I don’t buy it. Incidentally, seeing you in that ring was how I knew for sure—that and the fact that you called off your own dog next to my car when I
was attacked. You were utterly in control of yourself and the situation with that druggie, not some sloppy, emotional bouncer type doing a save-the-day. You were a professional—are, actually. Aren’t you.”
She didn’t need him to say a word because she knew she was right. And yet, when there was no comment, she glanced up, half expecting him to be gone in a breath of air.
But Isaac Rothe, or whatever his name was, remained seated at her island.
“How do you like your eggs?” she said. “Hard or soft?”
“Hard,” he bit out.
“Why am I not surprised.”
CHAPTER 14
Dead to rights, Isaac believed the expression was. As he met the eyes of his public defender, hostess, and short-order cook, it was clear she knew she’d pegged him on all accounts.
And didn’t that make him feel stripped naked.
“I think you should resign from my case,” he said grimly. “Effective tonight.”
She sprinkled cheese and Canadian bacon onto the bubbling circle of an omelet. “I’m not a quitter. Unlike yourself.”
Okay. That pissed him off. “I’m not either.”
“Really? What do you call running from your responsibilities.”
Before he knew it, he’d leaned across the countertop, and was looming over her. As her eyes flared, he said roughly, “I call it survival.”
To her credit, or her stupidity, she didn’t relent. “Talk to me. For God’s sake, let me help you. My father has connections. The kind that run deep and into the shadows of the government. There are things he can do to help you.”
Isaac remained outwardly calm. Inside, though, he was scrambling. Who the hell was her father? Childe . . . Childe . . .The name didn’t spark anything in his data banks.
“Isaac,” she said. “Please—”
“You got me out so I can keep going. That has helped me. Now you gotta let me go. Let me go and forget you ever met me. If your father is the kind of man you say he is, you know damn well there are branches of the service where AWOL is a death sentence.”
“I thought you weren’t in the military.”
He let that one lie where it landed . . . which was on top of the pile of shit he’d brought to her door.
In the silence, she added a little seasoning, the saltshaker making no sound, the peppermill crackling. And then she folded the omelet in half and let it hang out on the heat for a bit.
Two minutes later, the plate that was presented to him was white and square and the fork was sterling silver and had curlicues on it.
“I know you’re polite,” she said, “but don’t wait for me. It’s better hot.”
He didn’t like eating before her, but considering he’d shut her down on everything else, he figured now was an opportunity to be accommodating. Going to the sink, he washed his hands with soap and water; then he sat down and ate every last bite.
It was gorgeous.
“Stay the night,” she said after she’d fixed her own and started in on it while she stood at the counter. “Stay the night and I’ll resign from your case—but not until you have breakfast with me tomorrow morning. And you’ll be taking your money with you when you go. I won’t be a part of that. If you leave, you’re going to have to have that debt on your conscience.”
A wave of weariness blew through him, sucking him down hard onto the stool. Among his many sins, owing her the money seemed a curiously unsupportable burden, far over and above the number of bodies he’d put into graves. But that was what decent people had always done to him . . . they made him see too clearly who and what he was.
Just as he was gearing up to argue about the B-and-B thing, she cut him off. “Look, if you’re here, I know you’re safe. I know you’ve had a meal or two and that you’re going to leave stronger. Right now, you need medical attention for your face, another omelet, and a bed that you can rest in. As I said, this house is wired way beyond civilian standards and there are a couple of tricks in the interior—so you don’t need to worry about a break-in. Besides, nobody with ties to the government is going to hurt me because of my father.”
Childe . . . Childe . . . Nope, still nothing. Then again, he’d been a grunt in XOps who’d been preoccupied with two things: getting his target and getting out alive. He was hardly the type to know about military hierarchy.
Jim Heron would, though. And the guy had slipped him his number. . . .
“So do we have a deal?” she demanded.
“You’ll resign,” he countered gruffly.
“Yes. But I’ll have to tell them everything I know about you when I do. And before you ask, since you’ve neither confirmed nor denied a connection to the government . . . I’ll just forget we ever talked about that.”
He wiped his mouth with a napkin and wanted to curse at his lack of options: Man, her determination was in the angle of her jaw—clearly, it was her way or no way.
“Show me your security system.” As her shoulders visibly eased up, she put down her fork, but he was having none of that. “No, finish your food first.”
While she ate, he got up and paced around, memorizing everything from the pictures on the walls to the photos around the couch and sitting area. Finally, he stopped in front of all that glass.
“Let me show you.”
At the sound of her voice, his eyes focused on the reflection of her as she stood behind him in that black dress, a beautiful specter of a woman. . . .
In the quiet silence of the house, with his belly full of food she had prepared for him, and his eyes drinking in the sight of her . . . things went from complicated to completely chaotic.
He wanted her. With a hunger that was going to put them both in a hell of a bind.
“Isaac?”
That voice of hers . . . that dress . . . those legs . . .
“I need to go,” he said roughly. Actually, he needed to come . . . inside of her. But that was not going to be part of this. Even if he had to cut his own cock off and bury it in that lovely backyard of hers.
“Then I’m not going to resign from your case.”
Isaac wheeled around and was entirely unsurprised when she didn’t step back or budge one inch.
Before he could open his mouth, she held up her palm to stop him before he started. “It doesn’t matter that I don’t know you and I don’t owe you. So you can stop that argument right there. You and I are going to check out my security system and then you’re going to sleep in my guest room and leave in the morning—”
“I could kill you. Right here. Right now.”
That shut her up.
As her fingertips lifted to that heavy gold necklace of hers, like maybe she was imagining his hands around her throat, he walked over to her.
And this time she did back away . . . until the counter where her empty plate sat stopped her.
Isaac kept coming until he put his arms on either side of her, locking his hands on the granite, effectively imprisoning her. Looking right into those wide blue eyes of hers, he was desperate to scare some sense into her.
“I’m not the kind of man you’re used to.”
“You’re not going to hurt me.”
“You’re trembling and you’ve got a death grip on your neck right now. So you tell me what you think I’m capable of.” As she swallowed hard, he figured the wake-up call was way overdue—except he felt like a thug putting on the show of aggression. “I know you’re into the savior thing. But I’m not the kind of charity case that’ll feed your soul. Trust me.”
A humming energy started to vibrate between them, the air molecules in the space between their bodies and their faces agitating.
He leaned in even closer. “I’m more the type to eat you alive.”
Her breath exhaled in a rush and he felt it fan over the skin of his neck in a tickle.
And then she floored his ass.
“So do it,” she bit out.
Isaac frowned and pulled back a little.
Her eyes were burning, a sudden anger suffusin
g her beautiful face with a passion he was shocked and titillated by.
“Do it,” she growled, grabbing at one of his arms.
She yanked his hand up and put it to her throat. “Go ahead—do it. Or are you just trying to scare me, huh?”
He snapped his wrist out of her grip. “You’re out of your mind.”
“That’s it, isn’t it.” Her anger really shouldn’t have been a total turn-on again. Really. Truly. “You want to try to bully me into getting scared and letting you off the hook. Well, good luck with that. Because unless you’re prepared to follow through on the threat, I’m not backing down and I’m not scared of you.”
His lungs started to burn . . . and whereas it would have been a hell of a lot smarter for him to step off and use one of her doors, he ended up putting his hand right back where it had been on the granite . . . so she was once again stuck between his heavy arms.
He liked her right where she was, all but blanketed by his body. And he respected her show of strength; he really did—even as it made him worried about how reckless she was.
“Guess what,” he said in a low, gravelly voice.
She swallowed hard once again. “What.”
Isaac moved in close, putting his mouth right to her ear. “Killing you isn’t the only thing I could do to you . . . ma’am.”
It had been a long time since Grier had felt every square inch of her body—at the same time. Good God, though, she did now, and it wasn’t just the skin she was in. She felt every bit of Isaac Rothe, too, even though nothing of his was touching her.
There was just so much of him. And maybe she should have been turned off by the raw, masculine thing he had going on . . . but instead, the brutal reality of his power just drew her in tighter and tighter. Separated by mere inches, with both of them breathing hard, she was utterly unhinged, her emotions unleashed sure as if he had in fact popped her head off her body and let it roll on the floor.
God, she was desperate for him: She wanted to hurl herself right into him and get knocked out by the impact. She wanted him to be the brick wall that she slammed into. She wanted to be senseless and reeling and out of touch with her reality . . . because of him and the sex he threw off like a scent and the wild ride he would be.