As she punched in her code at the ADT panel, he looked down at the soles of his combats—which were caked with chunky mud and fuzzy sod. Bending down, he unlaced them, slipped them off, and left them outside.
Her black-and-white marble floor was warm under his socks—
Looking up, he found her staring at his feet with an odd expression on her beautiful face.
“I didn’t want to track in,” he muttered, shutting the door and locking it.
After he took off his windbreaker, he got out the Star Market bag with his life savings in it and they just stood there: her in her black designer coat and her soiled purse that had one strap hanging loose; him in his sweatshirt with a load of dirty money in his bloody hand and two guns she didn’t know about in his pockets.
“When was the last time you ate,” she said softly.
“I’m not hungry. But thank you, ma’am.” He glanced around, looking into a tall-ceilinged room that was painted a rich red. Over the regal marble fireplace was an oil painting of a man sitting up straight in a gilded chair with a pair of old-fashioned spectacles perched on his nose.
It was so quiet here, he thought. And not just because there weren’t any sounds.
Peaceful. It was . . . peaceful.
“I’ll make you an omelet, then,” she said, putting her bag down and starting to shrug out of that coat.
He stepped up to her to help, but she moved back. “I’ve got it. Thanks.”
The dress underneath . . . Dear
And those legs. Fuck him, but those legs with the sheer black stockings . . .
Isaac snapped his man-whore back into place with a reminder that it would be an open question whether someone like her would let him so much as wash her car—much less allow him take her to bed. Besides, would he have any clue what to do to a woman like her? Sure, he was good at raw fucking—he’d been begged for repeats enough times to have confidence on that front.
But a lady like her deserved to be savored—
Damn him to hell. He had a feeling he was licking his lips.
“Kitchen’s in the back,” was all she said as she picked up her bag and walked away.
He followed her down the hall, taking note of the rooms and the windows and the doors, noting escape routes and entryways. It was what he did in any space he went through, his years of training with him sure as the skin on his back. But it was more than that. He was looking for clues about her.
And it was weird . . . the peaceful thing kept at it, which surprised him. Old-fashioned and expensive usually meant tight-assed. Here, though, he breathed deep and easy—even though that made no sense.
In contrast to the rest of the house, the kitchen was all about the white and stainless steel, and as she set to work pulling out bowls and eggs and cheese, he put his money down on her counter and couldn’t wait to get out of the room: Across the way, there was a wall of windowpanes that were probably six by eight feet apiece.
Which meant anyone with a pair of eyes could go all looky-looky on them.
“What’s in the back?” he asked casually.
“My garden.”
“Walled in?”
Her arms full, she stepped up to the cooktop in the granite island. “Security conscious?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She went over, turned on an exterior light, and canned the inside ones—which gave him a perfect view of the back without a lot of hassle. God, she was smart.
And her garden was surrounded by a ten-foot-high brick oh-no-you-don’t that he totally approved of.
“Satisfied?” she said.
In the darkness, her voice took on a husky quality that made him want to track her body through the room and ease her up against something so he could get under that black dress.
Man, her question wasn’t one she wanted to ask him tonight.
“Yes, ma’am,” he murmured.
When the lights came back on, there was a faint touch of red in her cheeks—the sort of thing he might not have noticed if he hadn’t made it his business to stare at her as much as he could. But maybe the color was just her being keyed up because of everything that had happened tonight.
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,
