A Loaded Question Read online

  He couldn’t stand the thought. Though he was more than aware he couldn’t have any sort of feelings for the woman who was central to his being there, he couldn’t help some of the fantasies that had moved through his mind. His personal favorite were the thoughts about what she liked in bed. When he’d met her, she’d seemed like the high-and-tight kind of woman, always in control... If he had to bet, she was probably the person in a relationship who was more of a pleaser. Maybe a bit more docile and less commanding, a bit of yin to the yang of her hard exterior.

  The thought made his body come to life.

  He had to think of anything other than her...the way her suit pants hugged her curvy hips... He could definitely take hold of those hips. Turn her around. Kiss the back of her neck as he pressed against her.

  Stop.

  He had to stop thinking about her.

  This had to be the last night he was out here. No more. This being out here, thinking about her, it was all getting to be too much. Maybe he needed to call one of his brothers and have them take watch for a while. At least until he could get control back over his emotions. This emotions thing—there was a reason it wasn’t his style.

  Thankfully, Kate hadn’t asked him a damn thing about himself, his team or his family before her father arrived on scene and bailed his ass out. Though he was gifted at deflecting questions and at deception during interrogation, he wasn’t sure that he could have maneuvered around Kate’s questioning. There was something about her. Maybe it was the way she laughed, or the light in her eyes when she smiled, or maybe it was the softness that flecked her words when she talked to him, but there was something that made him want to open up to her.

  There was a tap on the passenger’s-side window. Kate stood, looking in. He sent her a guilty smile as he rolled down his car’s window. How in the hell had she gotten the drop on him? “You know, if you are going to sit out here all night, you are going to need some coffee. Want to come inside?” She nudged her chin in the direction of her house.

  “I have been told I’m good at surveillance. Thanks for proving all those people wrong,” he said, with a nervous, uncomfortable laugh.

  “You did fine. I’m just a little bit better than most when it comes to watching my six.” She leaned into the car. She must have sneaked her ass out of the house and around him without noticing. He looked down the road in both directions. Just like him, she had obviously done more than her fair share of slinking around in the night, finding her way through the shadows.

  “How long have you known I was out here?” he asked.

  “My neighbor, old Mrs. Evans, called and told me that there was a guy watching my place the night after the shooting. Buddy, you’re not in Kansas anymore. Here, the neighborhood watch has a few things to teach the Bu. I really thought you’d get bored and head out. How long are you planning on keeping this up?”

  “Just until I know you are safe. Which, apparently, you are, thanks to old Mrs. Evans.” He laughed, and his sense of ineptitude slipped away. In all honesty, he had gotten bold in his surveillance. Maybe a little part of him had wanted her to notice him, not that he would ever admit that to her...especially not the part about his sitting out here and letting his mind occasionally wander to a place in which he wondered what color panties she was wearing.

  Thank you, nosy neighbor.

  “Come on,” she said, waving him out of the car as she made her way to the front door. “And if you are going to really watch someone, I would hope you would know that you should change out the model of car you drive once in a while.”

  He laughed, unbuckling his seat belt. “Oh, I will have to write that one down,” he teased. “If you want to know the truth, I’m not getting paid to sit out here. This hunk of junk—” he pointed toward the old sedan “—is my personal vehicle. She ain’t much, but in Missoula she usually blends in.”

  “She, eh?” She quirked her brow as she smiled at him. “Why do I get the feeling that this is the only woman in your life?”

  He wasn’t quite sure what to make of her tone.There was a nuance to it that had him thinking that she was flirting with him or at the very least checking his relationship status, but he’d never been good enough with the opposite sex to read between those kinds of lines. He had to tread lightly and hope for the best on this one. “We are in a committed relationship.”

  She laughed, not giving anything away that he could read as she turned and made her way toward her front door. He followed her inside. Her house was typical of suburban Montana. It was a ’70s-style two-story with a sunken living room and a bay window centering the wall. There was fresh carpet and new tile floors. The walls were covered in what looked to be a new coat of gray paint, and clean white baseboards adorned the floors. The entire place smelled like air fresheners and paint.

  “How long have you been living here?” he asked, closing and locking the door. He glanced over at the pristine white couch in the center of the living room.

  A true-crime show played on the television, but she barely seemed to notice.

  She sighed as she slipped off her shoes and set them neatly on the floor beside the couch, then sat down. “Come on, now. You found where I live. You don’t have to pretend like you didn’t dig into exactly who I am and how I got to where I am.”

  There was a certain edge to her voice that made him wonder if there was some kind of past there beyond the stuff he already knew, but he wasn’t sure he should press too much. The last thing he wanted to do was to make her clam up. He wanted her to be his friend...and who knew, maybe she would even take it easy on him and let him slip into her bed on an occasion or two. If he had to bet, she was probably wearing black panties. Cotton.

  She leaned back, her breasts pressing against her shirt. He had seen her do that move once before, making him wonder if it was a concerted effort on her part to make him forget who and where he was and what he was doing.

  And damn if it didn’t work.

  She was so beautiful.

  “You get pretty much everything you want, don’t you?” he asked, with a disarming laugh.

  “What?” She giggled. “Why do you say that?”

  “Really?” he asked, raising a brow.

  She had to know how gorgeous she was, and he wasn’t about to admit out loud that she turned him on. Nope, he was already out on a ledge by being here in her house. Zoey would have had a conniption fit if she knew where he was right now.

  “I’m curious—are you going to tell me why you think I always get my way?” she pressed, a demure smile on her lips.

  Jeez, she was going to give him a heart attack with that smile. “You didn’t tell your father I was here, did you?” he asked, trying to take the pressure off him.

  Her smile disappeared. “Why would I do something that stupid?”

  It wouldn’t have been stupid of her to have let her father know about his surveillance. If anything, it would have been a predictable move. If he was her, he would have been digging around to learn everything he could about Mike and him and their roles inside her father’s organization. And yet he had heard her father pull her off the shooter investigation. Did Mr. Scot really wield that much power over his daughter...enough for a few simple words to put a stop to a federal investigation?

  If that was true, maybe he was barking up the wrong tree in attempting to get to know her a bit better.

  Then again, he wasn’t here to seduce her. If something happened between them, it would be only an added benefit. He tried not to look at her as she readjusted herself on the couch. Her smile, her laugh, her body were all driving him crazy.

  He grumbled inwardly.

  “So, you haven’t told anyone that I’m here?” he asked, giving her a soft, inquisitive look that he hoped put her more at ease.

  She shook her head. “Do I need to?” She paused. “From what little time we spent together, I didn’t pick up o
n anything that made me think you were a danger to me. A danger to others...now, that is an entirely different thing. But me... I... You seem to have a soft spot. I mean, why else would you spend all that time outside of a girl’s house, standing guard?”

  “What the hell?” he asked, the words spilling from his lips like cheap wine.

  Had he been that obvious?

  Ugh. He could kick his own ass. Here he was, thinking he was so coy, maybe even edging on a little bit of Rico Suave, and yet...the slap of reality stung.

  “You can try to deny it, but I have made a profession out of my ability to read people.” She giggled. “Besides, it’s not just every person I bring in for an interview who turns up at my house a few hours later.”

  “I wanted to make sure you were home, safe and sound. The shooter had to have gotten a bead on you. They have to know who you are. And even if they’re not coming for you, you just never know if there are others out there who want to do you harm.”

  “I appreciate your concern. But are you watching my whole team? The shooter could have gotten a bead on them too.” She smiled up at him and patted the couch beside her. “You don’t think I thought about why and what would have brought you out here? To an address I didn’t give you and I have worked hard to keep private?”

  He took a sudden liking to the cuticle along the side of his thumb, picking away a nonexistent piece of skin.

  “You don’t have to be embarrassed,” she continued. “I’m not upset. I’m impressed you found me. And I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was a little flattered. My ex-boyfriend couldn’t even bother to text half the time. Once, he was working in Japan for two weeks and I didn’t hear a damn thing.” She stopped talking and took a breath, making him wonder if she regretted sharing so much about her past. “It’s nice to know someone cares enough about my welfare that they would go to such work to find me.”

  “Zoey pointed me in the right direction,” he said, trying to downplay the exact thing he was glad she had noticed.

  “So, she knows you are here?” She looked at him.

  He nodded. “She wants to keep you safe almost as much as I do. Even if she thinks I’m overdoing it.”

  “As long as that is why you are really here.” She narrowed her eyes. “Or did my father send you to watch me? To make sure I was doing as he ordered?”

  He put his hands up in surrender, catching her gaze. “No, I promise you. He doesn’t even know I’m here. And if he did...” He looked away, composing himself. “I’m not sure I would have a job when he was done with me.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence between them. He hadn’t meant that her father didn’t care about her welfare—far from it, if he had to venture a guess—but he didn’t want to head down that conversation path when things had been going so well between them... Flirty, even.

  “Uh,” she said, searching for the right thing to say...something that wouldn’t brush against the tension that was filling the air of the room, he guessed. “Do you want something to drink? Sorry. I don’t mean to be a bad host.”

  He laughed. “You weren’t expecting me, so is it still considered hosting if I show up like a stray dog?”

  “A stray dog? Is that what we call surveillance now?” She giggled as she walked toward the side bar between the kitchen and the living room. “Do you drink?”

  “I haven’t in a long time, not because I’m opposed, just too busy to carve time out.” He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “Not to mention the fact that I don’t bounce back from a night out like I used to.”

  She laughed. “Come on, now. You’re not old. What are you, like, thirty-four?” She glanced over at him, no doubt looking for a smattering of gray at the temples or a few stray lines near the corners of his eyes.

  “Ouch,” he said, looking at himself in the mirror that was on the wall behind the couch. “Do I really look that old?” He ran his hands over the start of scruff that was building up on his chin. There were the starts of a few wrinkles here and there, but nothing that was super noticeable to a person who wasn’t looking for them.

  She grimaced, her nose doing this cute wrinkling thing that almost made him weak at the knees. “Sorry. I guess I’m not as good as I thought... How old are you?”

  He smiled over at her, and there was a little sparkle in her hazel eyes. “I’m thirty-three. I won’t be thirty-four for a couple more weeks.”

  She reached over and playfully cuffed his arm. “Has anyone ever told you that you are a pain in the ass? You made me feel terrible!”

  He laughed, feeling a tad bit evil but glad he had made her feel something. “You were close. And, yes, a great number of people have referenced that as one of my many character flaws.”

  “Oh, one of many, eh?” She raised a brow. “Is there a long list? Wine?”

  He nodded and she took out a bottle from the rack and started to open it as he thought of all the things others liked to point out were wrong with him—one of his previous girlfriends had loved to remind him of how he was never there, even when he was in the same room. She wasn’t wrong.

  “Do you really want to know about me?” he asked, fidgeting with the side pocket on his tactical pants.

  She cleared her throat as she uncorked the bottle with a heady pop. It was a welcome sound. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I was just thinking that you know much more about me than I do about you. I just have to even out our playing field.”

  “I didn’t mean to make things awkward. I’m just surprised is all,” he said, grabbing two glasses hanging from the side bar. He took the bottle from her and poured them each a glass, like he had done it a thousand times in her living room before. “I don’t get asked a lot of questions. And I’m normally only around Mike. He’s not much of a conversationalist. I guess I’ve just become a bit of a hermit.”

  She laughed, putting down the corkscrew and taking one of the glasses he offered her. “A bit of a hermit? Come on, now. You’re one step away from living in a cave.” She gave him a long sideways gaze that made his chest clench.

  “Speaking of awkward and honesty, I’ve spent more than a night or two in caves around the world. Safest place you can be sometimes.” He took a long drink of the wine, and he didn’t taste anything other than the pasty flavor that came with being uncomfortably close to a beautiful woman whom he’d had more than a few dirty thoughts about.

  Was it going to be one of those nights? He had to pull his act together.

  “I shouldn’t have come out here,” he said, putting down his nearly empty glass. “I’ll go.”

  “No.” She touched his arm. He should have pulled away, but he remained still. “You don’t have to leave. And, as luck has it, I like a little bit of awkward. Just promise me that next time you come to my house, you just knock on the door. You are welcome here.” She slipped her fingers down his skin, leaving a fire behind, as she poured him a fresh glass. “As it so happens, I’m not much of a social butterfly, either.”

  “Do you think two introverts can make a good relationship?” he asked, taking his glass of wine.

  “I do.” She lifted her glass, sipping. “So, I’m assuming you’re not married?”

  “Only to my little car out there.” He shrugged. “My job has been the kind where I am sent all over the world. I don’t know when I’ll come back. Doesn’t make for great relationships. Phone calls and texts are a far cry from real intimacy. And the distance... It is rough when you both are living your own lives, lives that don’t really include each other.”

  “What do you mean your job has been that kind of thing?” she asked, walking over to the couch and sitting down.

  She hadn’t run away when he’d admitted to his inability to commit, something he was glad to get out in the open. It was a good sign, but he hated to get his hopes up too much. “Recently, my job shifted from military-style operations
into more of the corporate surveillance.”

  “Like what you are doing for my father?”

  He joined her on the couch, being careful to give her space. “I don’t really work directly for your father. My company is contracted for some things for his company, but I work for STEALTH.”

  “You know that is nothing more than semantics, right?” She moved and her knee brushed against his, making a fire race through him where they had touched. “And you made your position with my father and the effects of his wrath clear. So, why don’t we cut the crap. Let’s just be open and honest with each other. We are both cut from the same cloth, and as it is, we’re going to have to either give all or nothing.”

  He ran his thumb up and down the stem of his glass, thinking about all the things he wanted to tell her, very few of which had anything to do with his job. “It’s not that I don’t want to be open. It’s just...you have to know, just like you, secrets are my life. There are a million things I could never tell you and you will never be able to tell me.”

  And how could they build a friendship on that kind of quicksand?

  In the end, it came to one decision: trust or get out.

  He had already trusted her before. He had given her his job and his identity. For a man like him, who was still dark... If anything, it was stupid of him. And yet he had already made the leap of faith. What were a few more steps? She wasn’t just some random person. She had gone through hundreds of hours of background checks and security clearances—possibly even more than him.

  But he’d read too many reports and gone to too many classes to just ignore all the warning signs that came before opening up. What he was finding hardest to ignore were the feelings that filled him when he looked into her eyes, feelings that made him want to reveal more than just his professional background, but how the source of the dull ache in his heart seemed to ease when he was near her.

  “I respect your need for privacy—you know I do,” she said, sounding demure. She cleared her throat, like she was trying to shift the timbre of her voice from questioning to reassuring. “How much did you know about me when you took this job?”