Page 59 of Too Lethal to Love

She tried to look away, tried to hide the catastrophic glint burning her eyes, but he cradled her chin in his hand.

“Jesus, Beth. Do I mean that much to you?”

Nodding because she feared speaking her affirmation, she bit her lip. The incredulity, not the judgment in his voice, spurred her to continue. “When I dream, I can’t fight seeing the others, and now you, six feet under.”

He shifted her hips so her pussy ground against his hard cock. “Feel that? I’m very much alive.”

Damn, was he ever. She moved against him as a groan, half laced with trepidation about voicing her fears but brimming with the anticipation of claiming her reward, mewled from her mouth. Her gaze locked with his. In its warm blue depths stirred life and fire, desire and determination, and so much spark she melted. Those three headstones in that graveyard were the embodiment of everything that had been taken away from her by the curse. Or fate. Or plain bad luck. But Kane hadn’t just thwarted the doomed destiny she’d been afraid to sentence him to. He’d kicked it to hell with his steel.

He was here, hot and hard andoh so beautiful.

Scarlett’s advice yelled in her mind like a cheerleader.

Challenge the theory.

She pressed her hand to her chest to squash her anxiety. She could do this. Could put her scientific brain into action and analyze the hardest quandary she’d ever faced, but to challenge the theory, she needed data. She slid off Kane’s lap and stood at the foot of the bed.

He held on to her. “Don’t hide from me.”

“I’m not. I’m collecting information.” She crossed her arms over her chest. Her feet ached, but the questions bursting inside her heart stole the attention. “Do you love me?”

Kane’s head jerked as if she’d slapped him. “What?”

“Do you love me? I don’t love you.” With each breath, she ignored the voice in her head calling out her lie. Instead, she savored the molten desire flowing through her body like feral electricity. “I like you a hell of a lot and care about your well-being. And it’s no secret I want you.” She sucked in a deep breath and released it slowly. “I can’t believe how much I want you. How do you feel about me?”

She held her breath as a myriad of emotions whizzed across his face so quickly she couldn’t discern them.

He stood and mirrored her pose. “I feel the same.”

“Good.” She ignored her heart that begged for a different answer and noted the way he hadn’t looked her in the eye when he’d given it, but he said what she’d needed to hear. “Then we’ve established we don’t love each other.” She walked a few steps, but pacing hurt too much, so she sat down on the side of the bed.

A vein throbbed in his corded throat. “Where are you going with this?”

As close as she could get to the glorious soldier if she could challenge the theory successfully. “Just listen. It’s your job to protect me. You’re not doing it because we’re in love orbecause we’re in a committed relationship. You were ordered by Edgar to accompany me home and act like my boyfriend because of a threat to a groundbreaking drug I’ve been working on, correct?”

“Yes, but I would have helped you even if Edgar didn’t order me to. You’re Scarlett’s friend.We’refriends and where I come from, friends help each other out.”

Oh, she wanted to be very friendly with him right now on a biblical level, but she wasn’t done with her research. “Yes, but you wouldn’t be here if Chavez wasn’t thrown into the mix. So let’s look at the facts.”

He eyed her bare legs. “Why am I looking at facts when there’re plenty of other things I’d like to be looking at about now?”

“Because Scarlett told me I should challenge my theory about why the men I date wind up in the cemetery. That’s what I’m doing. Collecting data before I draw a conclusion and then act on it.”

Kane grinned. “Scarlett is one of the smartest people I know. You should listen to her.” He rose and stood before Beth. “And you’re equally smart, so take your friend’s advice and listen to facts, not gossip.”

She nodded. “Fact number one. I was in love with the others, and they said they loved me, but we …” She waved her finger in a circle between them as if she held magic to make what she was about to say true. “We aren’t in love.”

Well, at least he wasn’t in love. Now wasn’t the time to address her feelings she needed to deny.

“Nope.” A mischievous smile tilted his lips. “No love here. Just simple lust. In fact…” He tapped his chin with his finger. “Sometimes you’re more stubborn than my mule back home.”

His dimpled grin strained her urge to bypass her haphazard scientific method and jump right to the conclusion. “Fact number two. The others were all from my hometown. You’re from West Virginia.”

He tipped an imaginary cowboy hat. “I’m an honest-to-goodness hillbilly.”

A bona fide hottie was more accurate. “Fact number three. The others died trying to protect me, but it wasn’t their job.”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to Edgar about bonus pay for having to work during Christmas.”

---