Captive Star. Nora Roberts

go through all the trouble to find us these plush out of-the-way surroundings to get traced.”

      He leaned over, took her chin in his hand. “Who would you call, M.J.?”

      She kept her eyes steady, fighting to ignore the heat of his fingers, the texture of his skin against hers. “My lover.” She spit the words out. “He’d take you apart limb by limb. He’d rip out your heart, then show it to you while it was still beating.”

      He smiled, eased a little closer. He just couldn’t resist. “What’s his name?”

      Her mind was blank, totally, completely, foolishly blank. She stared into those slate-gray eyes a moment, then shook his hand away. “Hank. He’ll break you in half and toss you to the dogs when he finds out you’ve messed with me.”

      He chuckled, infuriated her. “You may have a lover, sugar. You may have a dozen. But you don’t have one named Hank. Took you too long. Okay, you don’t want to spill it and rely on me to work us out of this, we’ll go another route.”

      He rose, leaned over. He heard her quickly indrawn breath when he reached down for her purse. Without a word, he dumped the contents on the bed. He’d already removed the weapons. “You ever use that can opener for more than popping a beer?” he asked her.

      “How dare you! How dare you go through my things!”

      “Oh, I think this is small potatoes after what we’ve been through together.” He picked up the velvet pouch, slid the stone into his hand, where it flashed like fire, despite its lowly surroundings.

      He admired it, as he had been unable to in the car, when he searched her bag. It was deeply, brilliantly blue, big as a baby’s fist and cut to shoot blue flame. He felt a tug as it lay nestled in his hand, an odd need to protect it. Almost as inexplicable, he thought, as his odd need to protect this prickly, ungrateful woman.

      “So.” He sat, tossing the stone up, catching it. “Tell me about this, M.J. Just where did you get your hands on a blue diamond big enough to choke a cat?”