She nearly had to clench her thighs together to hold back the overpowering lust.
Whore’s Dust, was it? She couldn’t imagine it. Nothing had felt so natural as wanting Micah.
“You go to bed if you’re so tired,” she finally snapped. “I’ll be in later.”
He grinned. That sensually full, mobile mouth curved into a grin of sheer male confidence and superiority. The kind of grin she had seen her friends’ husbands give their wives when they were determined to get their way.
“I’m very tired,” he informed her. “A little minx kept me up well past my bedtime last night, then skipped out on me and forced me to follow after her. I stared into her window like a lovesick Romeo pining for her attention.”
“Or a covert agent hoping she hadn’t managed to get herself kidnapped before you could capture her murderer,” she snarled back in reply. “Orion matters so much to you that you were willing to f**k someone you didn’t even know to get to him?”
His brow arched. “Such language, Risa.” Amusement glittered in his black eyes. “Be careful. You’re liable to give me a hard-on talking that way. I’d be extremely uncomfortable sleeping if you did.”
She almost lost her breath at the thought. Micah, aroused, in her bed. A shiver worked up her spine before she managed to turn away from him and stomp to the window on the opposite side of the room.
She stared into the park across from the apartment building, fighting to make sense of her response to him rather than any other man.
Not that there had been men to choose from, unfortunately. But Micah was like the epitome of men. Look in the dictionary for “male” and there most certainly would be a picture of him staring back.
He was tall, dark-skinned. Jeans hugged his ass. A white cotton shirt emphasized his leanly muscled shoulders. And he wore boots. He was wearing boots. Cowboy boots that were well worn, faded, and scarred. The perfect kind of bad-boy boots.
“Risa.”
She jumped as his face joined hers in the glass of the window; then his hands fell on her shoulders as he pulled her back, allowing the curtain to fall into place once again.
Risa shuddered at the warmth of his hands even as she pulled herself away from him and turned to glare at him.
“What?”
He watched her, his eyes no longer amused, but somber instead.
“You should stay away from the curtains,” he said. “A direct line of sight will allow certain devices to hear anything you’re saying. The heavy curtains over the windows and the interference of the television would otherwise block it.”
Oh.
She stared at the television, then back to the window as dismay washed over her. She’d spent so much time in a perpetual shadow during the months she had been in the clinic. She loved the sunlight. She loved having it shine through clean windows and brighten the rooms that she lived within. Just as she loved staring into the black velvet night as well.
“I see.” She hugged her arms over her br**sts before turning away from him once again. “I’ll go shower. Or something.”
She wanted to sit in the middle of the floor and start wailing in fury. Where was it fair? She had endured enough; she didn’t need a killer adding to the nightmares she already knew.
“Risa.” His hands gripped her shoulders again, this time refusing to allow her to jerk away. “We’re going to keep you safe. I promise.”
“Of course you will,” she said faintly. Did she have any other choice but to believe it? “Tell me, Micah, has he ever failed?”
She knew he hadn’t. The man the federal attorney had told her about was nothing short of a perfect assassin. He had never been caught. He had never been identified. He had never failed to kill the person he had been hired to kill.
“His past has nothing to do with our present. We know who he’s after; wherever he gets his information whenever he’s investigating a victim won’t know about us. We’re not a part of any government, nor are we part of a traceable agency. He’ll see us as a nominal threat. When he makes his move, we’ll be here, and we’ll capture him.”
His ha sth= monds kneaded her shoulders, his head lowered until his lips were so close. Until she could almost taste them.
“And then what?” She shook her head against the rising need. “Someone else takes his place?”
“Then he’ll talk.”
Risa almost flinched at the icy tone of his voice. Pure menace glittered in his eyes.
Her lips parted, and she almost believed he would.
“You’ll kill him before he can talk,” she whispered, suddenly knowing that whoever or whatever Orion was, Micah hated him with a passion that most would reserve for love.
But he shook his head. “No.” His thumb touched her lips. “I won’t kill him until I know who threatens you. Then yes,” the word hissed between clenched teeth. “Oh yes, Risa. Then, I promise you, I’ll kill Orion, then I’ll kill the bastard who dared to think he could continue to torment you.”
She didn’t have to tear herself away from him this time. He stepped away. The shadows on his face gave him an almost cruel, faintly savage look. A foreign look, for just a space of a moment.
Risa swallowed tightly.
“Go shower,” he told her, his back to her as he headed for the kitchen. “It’s nearly bedtime.” He stopped at the doorway and turned back to her. “And you will learn to sleep with me, starting tonight. If by chance he manages to get into this apartment to lay another listening device, then there will be no doubt in his mind that you’re not sharing a bed with me. There will be no doubt in any man’s mind, Risa, whose woman you are.”
MICAH WATCHED the widening of her eyes before he turned and moved into the kitchen. He paced to the sink, ran a glass of water, and drank it down as though the fire that raged inside him could be quenched so damned easily.
It couldn’t be. Lust for Risa. Hatred so overwhelming it was barely contained for Orion.
His jaw clenched as an image flashed before his eyes. His mother, so delicate, so white. She’d been bled dry, her wrists slashed. And she would have suffered. Orion had stripped her of her clothes and of her life, but he hadn’t stripped her of her dignity. Of all his victims, only Micah’s mother had been found with her eyes closed, a serene expression on her face.
Knowing she had died as she had lived gave Micah no comfort, though. Ariela Abijah had been the epitome of female strength. It had been in her eyes, in the way she held her head, in her love for her husband, her son, and her country.