Chapter 13

“Do you live here?” she asked, still looking out.

“No, I don’t. It’s a safe house.”

“Who else do you bring here?”

“None of your business,” he replied.

“Of course,” she nodded. “But I still wonder. What exactly do you do with your life that you own a house like this?”

“I prepare in advance for what my clients might need,” he said simply.

Their eyes met. He read questions in hers. No fear, though, which he respected. She wasn’t what he had thought. Maybe not as useless as most women like her. She has backbone and more than a little – he felt it then. Subtle at first, but growing. It filled the room, pressing in on him, stealing air, heating breath.

Awareness.

Of her. The scent of her skin, the way she moved. Exquisite. He thought to himself, indulging in a brief erotic fantasy that involved that glorious hair of hers trailing over his heated, naked flesh. In the blink of an eye she went from someone he had to protect to a woman – a very