Page 15 of Vicious Sabotage

His jaw firmed, but he said nothing. As she brewed a pot of coffee, she tried not to notice how his body rolled with every step he took to the bathroom. When the shower switched on, she attempted to block out the images of a tall, muscular military man under the spray.

A short time later, the shower stopped. When Wolfe walked into the kitchen, she damn near dropped her coffee mug. Hot brew dribbled over her fingers.

His sandy hair was slicked back, giving him a more dangerous, even dastardly appearance. If he were in a suit, he could pass as a swanky billionaire type or a mafia don. It was all too easy to picture him in a suit, doing business from some luxe club and ordering hits on the lives of his enemies.

She stifled a shiver, shocked to realize it wasn’t a shiver of fear.

To cover her discomposure, she pointed to the coffeepot. “Coffee?”

“If you’ve got a to-go cup, sure.”

She grabbed a black mug with a lid and poured a copious amount of the coffee she so badly needed after her broken night’s sleep and held it out to him. When his warm, callused fingers brushed over hers, she dropped her hand and stepped away.

He insisted on checking that the coast was clear before allowing her to walk to her car. He even inspected the back seat. She hated to think of what a man with his skills might do to somebody stupid enough to lie in wait for her. Luckily, she didn’t find out.

They rode to Badlands in a miasma of tense silence. She was so stressed she was counting down the minutes until Colton or Hunter picked up their friend.

But as soon as they pulled into the parking lot, Wolfe stiffened in the passenger seat. He threw out a hand to stay her.

“The back door is open.”

Her jaw dropped. Sure enough, the door she knew for a fact that she locked the previous night hung open a crack. Wolfe had even double-checked it.

“Stay in the car. Lock the doors.”

“This is my bar!”

His dark gaze cut through her. “You’re not going to do as you’re told, are you?”

“No.”

“Fine. Come with me, but if you don’t do everything I tell you to when I tell you to do it, you will not enjoy the outcome.”

The way he said that in a low, urgent tone, gave her body the opposite idea. In fact, her insides fluttered with the thought of what that punishment might be.

But now wasn’t the time to test her limits with Wolfe. Someone had broken into her bar.

With one hand clamped on her forearm and a gun in the other, he led her across the parking lot to the back door. He forced her to walk so close to him that his body heat scorched through her thin T-shirt, and the scent of her own bodywash he used in the shower hit her in waves.

Using his boot, he nudged the door open farther. It swung silently on its hinges. The back room, always neat and orderly, was trashed. Boxes of paperwork and cleaning supplies were dumped all over the floor.

She let out a sharp gasp.

“Shh!”

She gulped at the hiss he made to silence her and allowed him to tow her through the space to the entrance of the bar.

Livia stared at the wreckage. Liquor bottles were smashed. The burning stench of spilled alcohol tingled in her nostrils. Several tables were overturned, the legs smashed. Someone had bashed one of the TVs with a bottle, creating a spiderweb on the glass.

“I know who did this.” Her whisper sounded loud in the stillness.

“The man you shot.”

“No. It’s the guy you kicked out last night. The older man who drank too much.”

He turned his head sharply to pierce her in his gaze. “How do you know that?”

She nodded toward the broken table. “The only tables that are broken are the ones in the vicinity where he was sitting.”

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