Crave

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 suffusing 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.

Yeah, sure, it wouldn’t last. And when she came to, she was going to feel like hell. But in this electric moment, she didn’t care about any of that.

“Isaac—”