Blush(14)

Dressed in conservative pale blue shorts, a white T-shirt, and not a scrap of makeup that he could see, she looked like the girl next door. If the girl next door was gorgeous and sexy, and had creamy long legs and a livid six-inch scar on her upper arm.

He was disappointed to note she was wearing a bra. Her bare feet were oddly endearing, and sported bright red polish and a small silver toe ring he’d barely noticed the night before.

Her pale feet made her look vulnerable, defenseless. Why the hell did he give a flying fuck how she looked, or how vulnerable her goddamned feet looked? Coiled tension told Cruz to stay away from her magnetic sensual pull. No matter how unprecedented this attraction was, she was a job. Just a job.

“Not a smart move, inviting a strange man into your house when you’re here alone,” he said, carefully keeping his voice neutral as they followed the dark hallway, his mind filled with methods to take her life. “This place is isolated as hell, and you don’t know me from Adam.” A bright pink plastic clip held her hair off her pale nape. Cruz had an insane urge to put his mouth there.

She stopped at the foot of the stairs, turning to size him up. “You weren’t concerned for my safety last night.”

“You told me not to say anything. You don’t give the appearance of being a woman who does anything unless she wants to do it.”

“Well, clearly I wanted to—” A flush rose from her throat to her cheeks, but her gaze didn’t waver. She was surprisingly tough; but then, she had the clout of her wealth and privilege to mask who she really was. “If you were a psychopathic serial killer, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now, would we?”

“Maybe I’m on my meds and haven’t snapped and started my killing spree yet.” The only reason she was alive now was because Cruz had a persistent itch that told him he didn’t have all the facts necessary to complete the job. The itch was strong enough that he’d canceled his trip to Brazil this morning until he had more data.

The color left her face, and she shuddered, then briskly rubbed her arms despite the muggy heat. “Well, please don’t start your spree with me. It would destroy my faith in the goodness of my fellow man.”

“There’s not a whole hell of a lot of good in man one way or the other,” he pointed out cynically. Jesus, I almost believe she’s this naive. It was an impressive act. “And you should’ve at least asked for my ID.” Cruz had absolutely no fucking idea why her trust—even if it was feigned—annoyed the living bejesus out of him. But it did.

“Sure.” She held out a slender hand. A hand that had never done anything other than lift a cup to her lips or sign a check. “Hand over your driver’s license.”

Cruz dug a wallet out of his back pocket, withdrew a license, and handed it to her.

A buzzy electrical current passed between their fingers. Odd, conducting electricity on a day like today.

“IDs can be faked,” she pointed out, scanning the license before handing it back. And she would know. She had an excellent one herself. “You live in Idaho?”

Never been there, but it was as good a place as any for Cruz Barcelona to have gotten a driver’s license. If she didn’t like this one, he had two dozen others. “That’s my home base,” he told her easily. “I like to move around.” The moving-around part was true. His work took him all over the world. But most of his free time was spent at his three-hundred-year-old farmhouse in the South of France or his penthouse in New York.

“Do you have any references?”

Cruz shrugged. “Yeah. How many would you like?”

Her eyes were steady on his face. “Three.”

He could produce three dozen if that was what was required. He had plenty of aliases. Irrelevant. You’ll be dead by tomorrow, next day at the latest. “No problem.”

“Kitchen’s this way,” she told him briskly, foolishly turning her back. “Let’s find your dog.”

Cruz shook his head as he followed his exotic, sexy-as-hell prey down the dimly lit hallway, which held neatly stacked boxes, wallpaper rolls, folded drop cloths, and various gardening tools. In the four minutes it had taken to walk from the back door, down the hall, and into the kitchen, he could’ve staged her accidental death at least three times.

The kitchen was brightly lit and still somewhat chaotic. Oso was happily eating cookies off the littered floor. The purple flowers, stems shortened, were now in an orange milk pitcher on the center island.

She grabbed an envelope off the counter where he’d screwed her the night before, then turned back to face him. The flush on her cheeks was surprising, and made her blue eyes glow like the waters off his favorite Brazilian beach. A fathomless blue with a touch of clear turquoise. Dark lashes, long and spiky, shadowed her eyes as she held out the envelope.