Not that she was likely to give him any. He had cut her precious bush, so she would, of course, have to punish him. This was the way the world worked. He had learned that at the labs from an early age.
Well, he had known it. The scars that marred his chest and back were proof that it was a lesson he had never really fully learned.
He propped his hands on his hips and glared at Lyra's house. He was a Lion Breed. A fully grown male trained to kill in a hundred different ways. His specialty was with the rifle. He could pick off a man a half-mile away with some of the weapons he had hidden in his bedroom.
He had excelled in his training, learned all the labs had to teach him, then fought daily to escape. His chance had finally come with the attacks mounted on the Breed labs seven years before.
Since then, he had been attempting to learn how to live in a world that still didn't fully trust the animal DNA that was a part of him.
Not that anyone in the little city of Fayetteville, Arkansas, knew who or what he was. Only those at Sanctuary, the main Breed compound, knew the truth about him. They were his family and his employers.
He dropped his arms from his chest and propped his hands on his hips.
He couldn't get the smell of that coffee or that bread out of his mind. That woman would drive him crazy—she was too sensual, too completely earthy. But the smell of that coffee… He sighed at the thought.
He shook his head, ignoring the feel of his overly long hair against his shoulders. It was time to cut it, but damned if he could find the time. The job he had been sent here to do was taking almost every waking moment. Except for the time he had taken to cut the grass.
And the time he was going to take now to see if he could repair the crime of cutting that dumb bush and getting a cup of Lyra's coffee.
A taste of the woman would come soon enough.
Chapter Two
Bread lined the counter of Lyra's perfect, beautiful kitchen. Fresh white bread, banana nut bread, and her father's favorite cinnamon rolls. A fresh cup of coffee sat at her elbow, and a recipe book spread out on the table in front of her as she attempted to find the directions for the etouffee she wanted to try.
The cookbook was no more than several hundred pages, some handwritten, some typewritten, and others printed from the computer and bound haphazardly over the years. Her mother had started it, and now Lyra added her own recipes to it as well as using those already present.
The soft tunes of a new country band were playing on the stereo in the living room, and her foot was swaying in a cheerful rhythm along with the music.
"Do you actually like that music?"
A shocked squeak of fear erupted from her throat as she jumped from her chair, sending it flying against the wall as she nearly threw the coffee cup across the room.
And there he stood.
Her nemesis.
The man had to have been placed here just to torment and torture her. There was no other answer for it.
"What did you do?" She turned and jerked the chair from where it had fallen against the wall, snapping it back in place before turning and propping her hands on her hips.
He was here. And acting just a little bit too awkward to suit her. He had to have messed up something again.
He stood just inside the doorway, freshly showered and looking too damned roughly male for any woman's peace of mind. If he were conventionally good-looking, she could have ignored him. But he wasn't. His face was roughly hewn, with sharp angles, high cheekbones, and sensual, eatable lips. A man shouldn't have eatable lips. It was too distracting to those women who didn't have a hope in hell of getting a taste.
"I didn't do anything." He ran his hand along the back of his neck, turning to look outside the door as though in confusion before returning his gaze to her. "I came to apologize." He didn't look apologetic.
He looked like he wanted something.
He rubbed at his neck again, his hand moving beneath the fall of overly long, light-brown hair, the cut defining and emphasizing the harsh planes and angles of his face. Of course he wanted something. All men did. And she doubted very seriously it had anything to do with her body. Which was really just too bad. She could think of a lot of things that tough male body of his would be good for.
Unfortunately, men like him—tough, buff, and bad—
generally never looked her way.
"To apologize?" She caught the half-hidden, longing look he cast to the counter and the cooling bread there.
"Yes. To apologize." He nodded ever so slightly, his expression just a shade more calculating than she would have liked.
She firmed her lips, very damned well aware that he was not there to apologize. He was wasting her time, as well as his, by lying to her.
He wanted her bread. She could see it in his eyes.
"Fine." She shrugged dismissively. What else could she do.
"Stay the hell away from my plants, and I'll forgive you. You can go now."
He shifted, drawing attention to his wide chest and the crisp white shirt he wore. He had changed clothes as well as showering. He wore form-hugging jeans with the white shirt tucked in neatly. A leather belt circled his lean hips, and the ever-present boots were on his feet, though these looked a little better than the previous pair.
His gaze drifted to the bread once again.
It figured. And the hungry, desperate gleam in his eyes was just about her undoing. Just about. She was not going to let him sweet-talk her out of it, she assured herself.
She stared back at him coolly as her hand clenched on the back of the chair. He was not going to eat her bread. That bread was gold where her father and brothers were concerned, and she desperately needed the points it would earn her. It was the only way she was going to get her pretty wooden shed built, and she knew it.
He glanced back at her, this time not even bothering to hide the cool calculation in his gaze.
"We could make a deal, you and I," he finally suggested, his voice firm, almost bargaining.
Uh-huh. She just bet they could.
"Really?" She let go of the chair and leaned against the counter as she watched him with a skeptical look. "How so?" Oh boy, she just couldn't wait to hear this one. It was going to have to be good. She knew men, and she knew he had obviously been preparing the coming speech carefully. But she was intrigued. Few men bothered to be
straightforward or even partially honest when they wanted something. At least he wasn't pulling out the charm and pretending to be overcome with attraction for her to get what he wanted.