“And apparently, you are being obtuse.”
“Bother.” Her skirts rustled as she stood.
He struck like an asp, catching her wrist with his long fingers. Instantly she froze. It wasn’t a hard grip, but his warm touch rendered her unable to move.
“Don’t go.” His eyes, framed by thick lashes, looked up at her. Talent’s calm voice coiled along her body. “I confess, I don’t understand you at times, Chase.” The blunt tip of his thumb brushed her sensitive skin, and the contact licked over her flesh. “You open a line of conversation, then become angry with me when I oblige by answering truthfully.”
“I admit,” she said, “it baffles me that you didn’t fly into a rage the moment you realized I was there. You were unclothed, for pity’s sake.” Fierce heat filled her cheeks. She needed to stop talking altogether.
Talent’s mouth trembled at the corner, his eyes alight with utter glee. “Chase, the idea of a woman watching is in no way a deterrent for a man. It adds a level of excitement.”
She would die now. Surely fate could be kind to her for once.
He looked her over, shaking his head as if in disgust. “And to think you lived with Lucien Stone, debaucher of innocents, and didn’t know as much.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Disappoint?” His voice turned smoky then, surrounding and obscuring her mental clarity. “On the contrary, I find myself wholly enlightened. I hadn’t thought you’d be so virtuous.” The soft touch of his thumb returned, agitating and seductive. “In the future, I shall endeavor to subdue my frankness.”
Mary tensed, her gaze searching his and finding no hint of guile. Gods, he was being truthful. Which meant he’d been having a laugh at her when he took himself in hand. The smarmy, rutting bastard. She couldn’t speak past the lump of rage gathering in her throat. When she looked away, his thumb swept across her inner arm once again, so whisper-quick and soft she wondered if he was aware of doing it. More curious still, regardless of her ire, she didn’t want him to stop.
“What is it, then?” he asked. “What’s got your skirts in a twist?” A smile lightened his eyes. “Other than my usual charm, that is.”
I want to kill you. I want you to pull me down into your lap so that I might feel those long hard muscles I’ve seen flex and thrust. “You have yet to ask me the most damning question, Master Talent.” Gods, but this was rash. Stupid to wave a red flag in front of a bull, but she needed the distance between them to return. If only for her sanity. She leaned in, close enough to feel his rumbling energy. “Why was I spying on you?”
A pulse of tension traveled down his arm and into his fingers, where they tightened on her wrist. He could snap her bones in a second, yet he immediately lessened his hold, but still did not let go. Hooded dark eyes studied her. “Why were you spying on me, Mistress Chase?”
The evenness of his tone sent a skein of warning over her skin. She ignored it. “Because I do not trust you.”
She might as well have slapped him. His lips parted, soft on a breathy exhalation, even as his brows snapped together. It was a look of hurt, horror, and then growing anger. Only there was a flash of guilt that made her grow colder still.
His words came out clipped and controlled. “And you thought watching me stroke my cock would disabuse you of this distrust?”
Heat flared along her cheeks. “A joke instead of an answer, is it?”
The grip on her wrist tightened. Enough to make her fingers thrum. His jaw bunched, and his gaze burned her.
Answer me. Tell me I am wrong. Her fingertips throbbed in time with her pumping heart. Tell me you are innocent.
But she knew he would never protest his innocence. Even if he was innocent. Jack Talent would never beg for understanding.
“Holly Evernight was abducted outside of headquarters last night,” she said.
His nostrils flared as he took a harsh breath. “You believe I would harm Evernight?”
“No, but there are some who might. And the SOS is beginning to wonder why it has taken you so long to solve this case. Poppy… She is worried about you.”
“So you are to be my watchdog, is that it?”
“If I must.” She tried again to break free of him, but could not. “You know more than you let on, Talent. But I do not think you so broken that you would hurt one of our own.”
Talent’s green eyes dulled. “Now there is where you are wrong. You would do well not to trust me, Chase. Whatever deeds I have or have not done, the essential truth remains that I am broken.”
Chapter Eighteen