the edge, and the desire he’d tried to keep in check broke through his control.
With a rough growl, he pushed her back against the nearest wall. Brodie caged her there, pinning her with his body. His mouth grew rougher and wilder on hers as the flood of desire deepened within him.
This was the way it had been before. One kiss and nothing else had mattered to him—nothing but taking her, claiming her.
He licked her lower lip, a sensual swipe of his tongue, and she gave a moan that he caught with his mouth. He loved the sounds she made. Loved the way her body rubbed against his.
He loved it even more when she was stretched out before him in bed.
But...
But her hands pushed against his chest.
Brodie forced his head to lift. He stared down at her and watched those long lashes of hers lift.
“It is the same,” she whispered.
No, she was wrong. It was even better. The desire even stronger. Brodie knew that he was on the edge of an abyss then, and if he didn’t pull back—right at that moment—he’d fall over the edge. And he’d take her with him.
“Why is it this way between us?”
“I-I don’t know.”
They had a combustible chemistry that was off the charts. He wanted to push her, to get her right back into his bed instead of in the guest room, but...
Some maniac is terrorizing her. She needs safety, not—
Well, not what he wanted to give her.
He sucked in a deep breath, and his hands rose from her. Instead of touching her, Brodie pressed his hands into the wall on either side of Jennifer’s body.
“Brodie?”
“Give me a second.” Longer than that. Every breath he took tasted of her.
His hands shoved into the wall, and he pushed away from her. Took one step back. Two. “The guest bedroom,” he said again, voice gravel rough, “is the second door on the right.”
She slipped past him and headed toward the hallway.
“My door—” he shouldn’t tell her, but he did “—is the first one on the right.”
The floor creaked, then her high heels tapped as she walked down the hallway. Brodie looked down and saw that his hands had clenched into fists. A door shut—somewhere down that hallway.
He rolled back his shoulders to glance at the clock. It was nearing 1:00 a.m. now. They’d stayed around her hotel room long enough for the cops to arrive—then they’d been grilled by the uniforms Shayne had sent over.
Jennifer needed to crash, and so did he.
But instead of sleeping, he sure would rather be tangled in the sheets with her as they let the adrenaline and desire churn through them both.
Brodie waited a few more moments. Then he turned out the lights in the den. He marched toward the hallway to that first door on the right. He opened the door slowly, aware that he was holding his breath. But...
Jennifer wasn’t in his bed.
His breath expelled in a rush. Hell. Maybe he’d be taking a cold shower before he crashed.
* * *
JENNIFER HEARD BRODIE’S door open, then close. Her heart was racing so fast that she thought it might burst right out of her chest.
Did he realize that she’d almost gone into his bedroom? Her draw to Brodie was too strong. She hadn’t counted on that. Desire was supposed to be easy to control, but when she was with Brodie, her mind and body couldn’t seem to remember that important fact.
She just reacted when he was near.
Glancing around the room, Jennifer’s attention fell on the big bed. A heavy wrought-iron bed. She stripped but kept on her underwear and bra since she hadn’t exactly come equipped with pajamas.
Jennifer climbed in bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. The ranch house creaked a bit around her, and the wind howled as it hit the windows.
Brodie’s home. A place of joy for him, and a place of incredible sorrow. She’d done her research before running to him—she’d needed to be sure the SEAL she’d known before hadn’t changed over the years.
He had changed, though. He’d become harder, and now, sadness flickered within his gaze, a sadness that seemed to haunt him. Oh, he did a good job of wearing his mask, of pretending to have no emotions, but she could see right through his facade.
Maybe it was easy for her because she was so used to wearing a mask of her own.
She knew that his parents had died in this house. They’d been murdered, shortly after her own rescue by Brodie in the Middle East. If the accounts she’d read online were true, Brodie’s younger sister had been at the ranch during the attack, but she’d escaped.
Some folks thought that his sister, Ava, wasn’t just an innocent victim.
They thought she might just be a vicious killer.
The pipes rattled a bit, and she could hear the thunder of water coming from the room next door. She had a sudden flash of Brodie in the shower.
Jennifer swallowed. Getting involved with him again should not be on her agenda. If he found out the truth she’d been keeping from him, then any personal involvement would just make him feel more betrayed.
She didn’t want that. Brodie McGuire was her safe port in this storm. A man with an impeccable record, and a man with deadly killing skills.
Before this nightmare was over, she might just need those skills.
Brodie had been very wrong when he’d asked if a former lover was the one after her. The few lovers she’d had in the past didn’t know her secrets. This man—this man who hunted her so relentlessly, he did.
I know. The picture in her luggage wasn’t just some random shot. It had been taken right after her last meeting with her government contact. Taken on the day when she’d finally bid farewell to a life that wasn’t really hers.
She’d always feared that life might destroy her, but Jennifer had never expected that destruction to come just when she was finally free of the thick web of lies that had twined around her for so long.
But freedom had a cost in her business, and that cost... It might just be her life.
* * *
A FAINT SOUND woke Jennifer hours later. Her eyes flew open just as she heard the creak of her door’s hinges.
Someone was coming into her room.
“Brodie?” Her voice was soft, uncertain. She yanked the covers up to her chest. It was so dark in the room, and her eyes were frantically trying to adjust. She could barely make out a large looming shadow in the doorway.
The shadow was roughly as big as Brodie, because his shoulders seemed to stretch and fill that doorway but... “Brodie?” she said again.
Jennifer was pretty sure the shadow shook its head.
He found me. And if her stalker had gotten through the security at the ranch, what had he done to Brodie? Fury and fear pumped through her as she jumped from the bed. Jennifer grabbed for the lamp on the nightstand. She didn’t waste time screaming. She threw that lamp right at the shadow that was now staggering toward her.
The man swore as the lamp hit him, but he tossed it aside. The lamp shattered when it crashed into the floor. Even as that lamp smashed into a hundred pieces, Jennifer was already launching herself at her attacker. She went in fast and hard, just as she’d been trained, going for his weak spots. Right for the eyes with her thumbs even as her knee aimed for his groin.
But the shadow