I frown at the steps as I descend them. Her tone is different, more alert, more sincere. More dire. “I will. There’s no need to worry, Miran. He’s a friend of Tracey’s.”
“That girl wouldn’t know a decent guy if he bit her in the ass.”
“No, but she’s probably known a lot of guys who have bit her in the ass,” I tease with a grin. Tracey likes sex and she likes men. The combination of the two tends to blind her to some of the more important facts, like whether he’s married. Or a criminal.
But Jasper doesn’t seem like a criminal. Surely he couldn’t be a bounty hunter if he was. They work with law enforcement. Surely they’re . . . regulated somehow. I figure I’m safe. All set. I’m paying him to do a job. He’ll do it. End of story.
“I’m not kidding, Muse. You be careful.”
“I will, I will. Try not to worry. I’ll call you in a couple of days.”
I stuff my charger in one of the zippered compartments of my suitcase. My fingers pause mid-zip when I hear Miran’s next words.
“I love you, kid. I’ll be mad as hell if you mess around and get yourself killed.”
“Miran, why in the—” A knock at the door pulls me up short. I rush to the window and see a sleek, black Mercedes sedan parked at the curb. “I’ve gotta go. I’ll call you when I get there, ’kay?”
“Leave your phone on and make sure it’s charged at all times, got it?”
“I know, I know.”
“Be safe. I’ll see you when you get back. Give my love to the Colonel.”
“I will. And, Miran?”
“Yeah, babe?”
“I love you, too.”
With that, I hang up and reach for the doorknob. I can’t help noticing the fine tremor in my hand and the slight tingle down my spine. I try to use reason and common sense to talk myself into a calmer state.
I was uptight yesterday. I’m sure he’s not nearly as heart-stopping as I thought he was. No man can be that gorgeous, that sexy, that intense.
I take a deep, cleansing breath and I swing open the door.
And realize how very, very wrong I am.
—
Standing on my stoop is a man that is quite possibly even more disturbingly handsome than he was yesterday. His arms are crossed over his broad chest, a casual gesture that belies an unmistakable impatience I feel rolling off him.
“Ready?” he asks in a no-nonsense way that fits him as perfectly as the lightweight black T-shirt he’s wearing. The long sleeves are pushed up his forearms, revealing golden skin, ropes of sleek muscle and thick, bulging veins. I’ve never wanted to stare at forearms before today.
I feel my frown appear again. I’m baffled that anything could distract me so much from my worries, yet it seems that every millisecond that I’m around Jasper, my focus is pulled inexorably in his direction. He fills my thoughts and warms my blood. I suppose I should be thankful for something to take my mind off my concerns, but Jasper is almost too consuming. If he affects me this way when I’ve got so much else to consider, God help me when I don’t.
“Hello?” he prompts, bending slightly to put his face in my line of sight.
I shake off my thrall. Or at least I try to. “Sorry. Yes, I’m ready.”
I roll my suitcase over the threshold and turn to lock the door behind me. “Got someone to feed your fish for a few days?”
“I don’t have fish.”
“Cat, then?”
“I don’t have a cat.”
“Then what kind of pet do you have? You look like a woman who likes animals.”
“I do?” I ask when I finally turn to face him, which is a mistake. Jasper’s heavy-lidded amber eyes are strolling down my body, studying me in such a way that I feel naked before him, like he’s peeling off clothes as he goes.
When they rise slowly back to my face, he answers. “You do. Like maybe you’d take in all the strays. Let them sleep in your warm bed.”
I steel myself against the little shiver that trembles through me at his words. The way he said “warm bed,” like he wants to be there, too . . . Holy Lord!
I swallow the cotton in my mouth and focus on his observation, which happens to be accurate. All but the bed part.
When I was younger, I’d beg the Colonel to let me keep every animal I stumbled across. He always agreed, but after a few weeks (or sometimes just a few days), they’d disappear and I’d never see them again. I’d search for days and days, hang fliers all over whichever base we were stationed at, but they never turned up. They were just . . . gone.
My father would console me, take me for ice cream, promise me that I’d forget about each one, but I never did. It wasn’t until I got older that I began to see a pattern. He never admitted it and I never asked, but I knew that the Colonel was doing something with them. It gives me a cold chill down my spine just to think about it, about what he might’ve done to all those sweet little animals that he didn’t want. I finally stopped bringing them home. I knew they’d have a better chance of survival if I didn’t, so I’d sneak off after school and on the weekends to feed them and play with them, wherever they happened to be holed up. It never stopped me from loving them or wanting to take them in. It only stopped me from letting it show.