"Oh yeah. That was sexy, baby, but next time I want to be there."
"Never going to happen. Good night, Declan."
…
His father had once told him that everyone made mistakes. It was how you dealt with them that showed what you were made of. And what you learned from them. A man who made the same mistakes time and time again was …
Desperate.
Shit, he couldn't believe they had indulged in phone sex last night. God, he'd been turned on. Almost as turned on as having her up against the wall in his office, or feeling her come apart for him in that alley, her hot, slick muscles, clamping on his finger.
Jess had always been his one big mistake. He'd known from the moment he set eyes on her, in that tiny little scrap of a black dress, sitting at his father's table in the nightclub, that she was trouble. Big trouble. She'd been swilling champagne and fluttering her eyelashes at his goddamn father.
He'd put a stop to that.
Even back then Rory McCabe had been going straight, and news that a seventeen-year-old was underage drinking in his club was guaranteed to piss him off. The police were always looking for an excuse to close him down. Any slight step out of line and they would throw the book at him.
Declan had recognized Jess from school, although she was a year younger than him. She was seriously beautiful, impossible to miss. And he'd been eighteen. Horny as only a teenager could be. What was his excuse this time around?
The apartment took up the whole top floor of the building. Paul had apparently run the possibilities past Jess yesterday afternoon, and this was the most suitable, the easiest to keep him safe.
"Come on, boy." He tugged on Grunt's lead and the dog followed him reluctantly into the elevator. Grunt didn't like new places-they brought his many insecurities to the fore-and Declan leaned down and stroked the animal's big head.
Grunt had adopted him soon after Declan had moved to the city. He'd found him injured and emaciated in the alley alongside his apartment building and taken him to the vet, got him fixed up, and Grunt had moved in. He'd never had a pet growing up. He'd spent too much time moving between continents for it to be viable.
The elevator opened into a big marble-floored foyer with a multitude of doors leading off. He'd left his bodyguard in the reception area and been told that there was a replacement up here, but the place appeared deserted.
He took a step farther into the room, Grunt's claws clicking on the marble as the door opposite opened and Jess stood in the doorway. She looked exactly as she had on the previous two meetings. Black suit, white shirt, no makeup, hair pulled into a ponytail. He'd sort of hoped she would have made an obvious effort, tried to impress him, but nothing. Not that she needed makeup or fancy clothes. Just that his ego was getting a bashing. As his gaze dropped down over her body, he had a flashback to the sound of her panted breaths over the phone last night and his dick pulsed.
"Morning," she said, her face completely blank of expression. Then her gaze dropped to the dog at his side and he saw the first genuine smile since they'd met again two days ago. He hadn't known she liked dogs.
She strode across the floor and sank down on her haunches. "Is he okay with strangers?"
"Yes. Though he's not very obedient."
"I'll send my friend Dani over. She's a dog trainer. She'll get him sorted in no time."
She reached out and stroked Grunt's head, then scratched under his chin. And he felt a flicker of some emotion. He was jealous of his dog. Just because Jess was being nice to Grunt. But he didn't want Jess to be nice to him. All he wanted from her was sex and then good-bye.
Didn't he?
"What is he?" she asked.
He shook himself. "I'm not sure. A bit of German shepherd, a bit of pit bull, a bit of Great Dane."
"A lot of Great Dane," she replied with a laugh and something twisted inside him, flooding his mind with memories. Back when he'd first known her, she'd laughed all the time. What had changed her? She'd joined up only months after he'd left. He'd seen her service records; she'd done three tours in Afghanistan, probably enough to turn anyone serious. But why had she gone that route in the first place?
"I didn't know you liked dogs."
"You don't know a lot about me. Then again, why should you? We had a fling when we were both little more than kids. There's nothing else between us, and you don't need to know." She straightened and looked up at him. "On the other hand, I need to know all about you. Someone wants to kill you. Let's go talk about that. There's coffee on in the kitchen." Without waiting for him to answer she spun around and headed back the way she had come.
He released Grunt from his lead, but the dog stayed at his side as he followed her. A little twinge of guilt nagged at his insides that maybe he should have come clean and told her that his father believed the problem sorted. That he was in all likelihood in no danger. But he was pretty sure if he did that, she would walk out. And it wasn't as though she was overly concerned for his safety. He was clearly nothing more than a job to her.
And there was something else to consider. While she was guarding him she wasn't putting herself in danger guarding some other asshole. A shudder ran through him at the thought.
"I like your new apartment, by the way." She sat at the granite counter that ran along one side of the room, a mug of coffee in front of her. She nodded to the coffee machine behind her and he went and filled up a mug for himself. "So I've read the report," she said. "But I'd like to hear the whole thing from you."
He talked her through the events of the past few months. She stopped him now and then with questions. "You've been based in the US since college. Why the move back here?"
"My father was running the UK side of things. He collapsed last year. At first they thought it was a heart attack."
"Really? I didn't think he had a heart."
He ignored the comment and continued. He was quite aware there had been no love lost between his father and Jess. But then it had been a difficult time. His father had blamed himself for Declan's brother, Logan, being in prison and was determined the same wouldn't happen to his other son.
Jess listened but didn't speak again until he came to the part where they'd brought in the police. She obviously picked up some vibes.
"I can understand why your father doesn't like the police, but why you?"
He shrugged. "I grew up believing they weren't my friends. And they weren't. They were after my father and would have loved something on me. Even as a kid."
"You can't know that."
"They didn't make a secret of it. They harassed him, even coming to our home. My brother was put away when he was twenty-one on some trumped-up assault charge that anyone else would have walked away from with a warning."
"I didn't know you had a brother."
"Logan is my half brother. He came from my father's first marriage. But my dad had custody from when Logan was ten, so we're close."
"Then why did we never meet?"
"I told you, he was in prison when we had our … thing. But he's out now. You'll probably get to meet him if you stick around. He manages the nightclubs."
She stood up, picked up her coffee, and turned away to stare out of the window for a minute. When she turned back, her lips were pursed. "Is that why you were so upset the night I stole that car?"
"Partly. I'm also a law-abiding citizen, and I don't actually think stealing cars is something you do for kicks. But yeah. They would have thrown the book at me and smiled the whole time they were doing it."
She gave a small nod, came back, and sat down. "Okay, finish the story."
He told her everything he could think of, then sat back while she considered it.
"So," she said eventually, "you're a witness for the case?"
"Yes, though they have enough other witnesses to seal it without me."
"Then this is more in the way of retribution than saving their asses."
"Maybe. To be honest, I have no clue. This has never happened to me before."
"What? You mean no one's ever tried to kill you?" She frowned. "Hey, you're not married are you?"
He didn't like how she made the connection between someone wanting to kill him and his being married. "No."
"Fiancée?"
"No."
"Girlfriend?"
"No."
"Friendly neighborhood prostitute who pops over and relieves the pressure every now and then?"
"No." He'd been over here for just under a year now and hadn't been laid in all that time. Well until Jess. He hadn't even been on a date. And he hadn't noticed. Before that there had been Penny. "I was engaged. We broke up before I moved over here."
"Why? What was wrong with her? Didn't Rory like her?"
"Nothing was wrong with her. She was perfect, and my father loved her. She was my mother's best friend's daughter, and my mother loved her as well."
"Wow. So what went wrong between you and little Ms. Perfect?"
That was why he'd gone out with her. He'd tried the not so perfect and that had gotten him nothing but a whole load of grief. So why not try the opposite? Penny was beautiful, clever-she was a corporate lawyer-smart, sophisticated. The perfect wife. And he'd been bored out of his mind with her. The relationship had lacked any spark, but wasn't that what he'd wanted? No danger of falling for her, and no danger of crashing at the end of that fall.