Page 72 of When He Protects

His head lifted. His blue eyes blazed. And his face could only be described as savage. “No, I don’t.” Cold and deadly. “And that’s not what I’m going to see, is it?”

“He wouldn’t give it back.” She inched closer.Once you start a lie, carry it through until the end.“I asked him to give it back, but he was blackmailing me. So I had to get the video on my own. He didn’t upload it to the cloud or anything like that. He just kept that single copy in his safe. The robbery at his house provided the perfect distraction that I needed in order to retrieve the drive.”

“Did you send those thieves to his place? Did you stage the entire scene?”

Not the entire scene, no.

“You must have, right? And that’s how you knew the guns they carried weren’t loaded?”

Her heart squeezed. “You figured that part out?”

“I’m figuringyouout. You were way too cool about having a gun shoved at you. You either have a serious death wish or you knew the weapons weren’t loaded.”

She didn’t have a death wish. She did have a good ability to know her prey. “I didn’t send the thieves there. I just knew what types of hits they liked. I simply made sure I was in the right place at the wrong time.” She inched forward a bit more. Esme stretched out her hand. “Believe me when I say that you don’t want to see what’s on the drive.” At the very least, she needed to see it first. Without Tyler breathing down her neck.

And…so I can protect him.

“Jorlan is a dead man.”

She flinched.

“If he’s fucking you on the video, he’s dead.”

Do not cry.“Again, you are so not heroic. My image of you grows more tarnished by the second.”

He grabbed her. She didn’t even have time to cry out. In one fast move, he’d wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her onto the desk. He held her there, with her legs dangling off the edge, with his body between her spread thighs, and with his powerful hands curled around her.

“Sweetheart,” he leaned in ever closer, “why do you persist in thinking heroes are always good?”

“I—”

He kissed her. A hot, angry, brutal kiss. Deep and driving. Possessive and commanding. His tongue took her mouth. He took her. The kiss branded and owned and demanded a response.

She should shove him away. She should bite his lip and tell the jerk to leave her alone. She should?—

He pulled away. “I can taste your tears.”

Dammit.No.

His fingers rose and with a tenderness that shattered something in her, he lightly brushed the teardrops away from her cheeks. “I don’t like it when you cry. Not the fake tears and especially not the real ones.” His lips thinned. “The real ones are the worst.”

She nodded. They were.

“Let’s try this again.” His mouth came back to hers. Not brutal with intensity this time. Soft. Caressing. Asking. Stirring.

Longing.

Her eyelids fell closed. Her hands rose to press to his shoulders even as her mouth opened wider because sheyearned for him when she knew that she shouldn’t. But this could be the last chance she had to taste him.

A final kiss.

“There’s nothing final about us.”

Oh, no. She’d whispered those words against his mouth.

His hand closed around hers. Her right hand—she’d been sneaking it toward the USB drive and the laptop while they kissed. “Cute, sweetheart, but not happening.”

Her eyes opened.

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