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 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--"
He backed off. The moment she said his name hoarsely, he not only moved away, he pulled out of the vortex.
Pacing around, he rubbed his short hair like he was trying to scrub his brain raw, and the physical distance gave her a clue about how she would feel in the aftermath if she ever were with him: very empty, vaguely nauseated, and definitely ashamed.
"That won't happen again," he said roughly.
As his pronouncement hung in the still air between them, she told herself that she was relieved she wouldn't have to deal with the sex stuff.
Annnnnnnnnnnnnd . . . the throbbing between her thighs told her that was a bald-faced lie.
"I still want you to stay," she said.
"You never give up, do you."
"No. Never." She thought of the number of times she'd tried to pull Daniel out of his tailspin. "Not ever."
Isaac's face was ancient as he looked across the kitchen at her, his frosty eyes nothing but pits of darkness. "Word to the wise. Letting go can be an important survival mechanism."
"And sometimes it's a moral failing."
"Not if you're being dragged behind a car. Or being pulled down a rat hole. Sometimes to save yourself, you have to get out."
She knew they were getting close to his truth and she kept her voice as steady as she could. "What are you getting out of, Isaac. What are you saving yourself from?"
He just stared at her. And then . . . "Where's your security system."
The deflection was a disappointment, but the concession that he was staying was a win of sorts. And as she took him to the front of the house, she pulled herself together as best she could, even though her knees were loose and her skin overheated and her mind spinning.
There was a terrible familiarity to the way she felt, one that she refused to dwell on . . . but might well bring up to her dead brother when she saw him again. Daniel never spoke of the night he had died, or all the self-abuse that had gone on before that. Maybe, though . . . they needed to talk about everything.
"As I mentioned, this is just for show," she said, sweeping a hand past the ADT pad that was mounted on the wall. "The real unit is in the back of my bedroom closet. Each window and every door has the ADT receivers, but the real system is secured by radio waves and infrared beams and copper plates. Just like yours."
"Show me the connectors. And I want to see the motherboard. Please."
Which would mean taking him upstairs.
As she glanced over at the carpeted steps, she found it hard to believe that she was wondering whether she could be trusted with him. . . .
That close to a bed.
What the hell was happening to her?
