Page 172 of Wild Mustang Security Firm

The next time Zara opened her eyes, she was alone and surprised to see the sun was up. Without looking at a clock or her cell phone, she had no way of knowing the exact time but figured it was probably midmorning. The floorboards creaked as Noah came in from the other room. Wearing only his jeans, he looked like a photoshopped male model, complete with washboard abs, corded and muscled arms, and a trim waist. A heavy sprinkling of dark hair across his chest was widely dispersed across his pectoral muscles before narrowing to join in the middle of his sternum and trail down the center of his torso, disappearing into his jeans. He was carrying a tray with something that smelled delicious.

He walked around the end of the bed to her side, set the tray on the nightstand, took her face in his hands, and kissedher deeply. As with everything else about him, the kiss was commanding yet entreating.

“Good morning, sweetheart. Did you sleep well?”

“After you left me alone to sleep,” she snapped.

She had a fleeting thought she might have offended or angered him, but he threw his head back and laughed before kissing the tip of her nose, then briefly capturing her mouth. It was disorienting, even in something only slightly more than his lips brushing hers, he was able to completely overpower her senses.

“You seemed disturbed, and I sought to comfort you,” he said with a sly grin.

“No, you woke with a hard-on and used me to take care of it.”

Again, instead of anger or reprisal, she got laughter.

“As I recall, sweetheart, your needs were seen to as well, and you came more times than I did.”

“And woke even sorer than when I went to sleep.”

“Do you always wake up in such a lousy mood?”

“Yes,” she snapped.

“Then, I’ll have to come up with ways to see if we can’t make your mornings better.”

“How about you get me to the nearest train station, so I can get back home to London.”

“That’s not happening. We have a forensic team that should be there anytime. They’ll go over your place with a fine-tooth comb.”

Mildly outraged—after all, she was being held against her will—she said, “What on earth for?”

“We want to see if they left anything behind—DNA, trace evidence, surveillance devices, explosives.”

“You think they’d leave a bomb?”

“I wouldn’t put it outside the realm of possibilities. You do realize those men meant to torture and kill you, right? Theyweren’t coming in through the back with masks and automatics to have tea.”

“I don’t drink tea.”

“I know,” he said calmly. “You drink dark-roast coffee, black if you have to, but if it’s available, you like wild honey and a dollop of clotted cream. I like honey in my coffee as well, organic when I can find it. The little store we stopped at had a really nice local produce and dairy section. If I’d known then you like clotted cream, I’d have picked some up, but I did add some honey to your mug. I can get you more if it’s not enough.”

He handed her a mug filled with fresh coffee. She inhaled deeply and smiled in spite of herself. She took a taste and sighed. The cream would have been lovely, but it was precisely the right amount of honey.

“This is really good, thank you. How did you know so much about my coffee?”

He wiggled his eyebrows at her, making her laugh.

“I know many things.”

She arched an eyebrow at him skeptically.

“I had Croft ask Finn.”

“Is she all right?”

“Other than being in much the same shape as you, she’s fine.”

“Ganging up on us?” She looked over the rim of the mug as she took a more thorough drink.

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