Page 10 of Too Lethal to Love

“That’s a load of horseshit. You know how I can tell?” He dropped his hand to her thigh. “Because you’re shaking, and your cheeks are redder than your skirt. Later, we’ll discuss the night you claim to have forgotten. Right now, you are going to answer my question.”

Her breath stuttered as he fiddled with her sequined hem. “I thought you were some sort of cowboy, a country gentleman.”

He smirked. “See what I did there? I annoyed you so you’d forget about being scared for a minute and think clearly enough to understand that I can help you.”

She huffed out a curse. Score one for the cowboy. His play had worked. The knot in her belly loosened a little. “Iamscared, but I’m not helpless. I know how to use a gun, and I study martial arts.”

“Good to know.” He clasped her chin in his hand. “But know this about me. I’m part of an elite special forces team. I’m literally built for danger and intrigue.”

That she didn’t doubt. She wasn’t stupid enough to turn down help from a legit super soldier, but accepting it from the genuine hero kneeling before her like a knight offering fealty was a deadly idea.

She wouldn’t let another man die protecting her again.

Damn. Kane had broken horses less stubborn than Beth. She’d been testing his patience and his resolve not to get involved with a woman beyond a one-time fling for weeks. Turning down his offers to help with the party. Avoiding eye contact when they ran into each other at Chris and Scarlett’s house. Sitting on the other side of the table from him when she met up with Scarlett and the team for dinner. Yeah, she’d been polite, but he didn’t want courteous. He wanted the feisty woman he’d taken to the hospital who had argued with him about getting a CT scan and only agreed to the test after she’d bargained for ice cream afterward.

“Tell me who sent that message so I know whose ass to kick.” He held her gaze and itched to get his hands on the motherfucker who stole the dazzle from her eyes and replaced it with stark fear.

Sighing, she slipped her chin from his grip. “I wish I could give you the name of the stalker who made my life hell, but I don’t even have a face.”

She rose from the bed. He inhaled her lilac scent as she brushed past him. The enticing essence didn’t mask the fear etched in her features. She may have learned to live with whatever went down with her stalker two years ago, but the present appeared to have shattered her reconciliation with the past.

A few steps brought her to the window. Without looking back at him, she toyed with the lavender cord holding the white gauzy curtain back. “Two years ago, my friends at work created a profile on an online dating site behind my back. I agreed to meet a guy who seemed normal, mostly to shut my friends up, and I made them promise to come along. When I canceled because my fiancé Danny and I had gotten back together, the guy started harassing me.”

Fiancé?Kane flinched as he followed her gaze to the nightstand. A framed photo of Beth and a handsome blond-haired guy sat next to a lamp with a beaded shade.

Lucky bastard.

“How were you harassed?”

“He sent me messages indicating he knew my whereabouts. Sexually explicit texts threatening in detail what he would do when he finally claimed me.”

She wrapped her arms beneath her breasts and tucked her hands under her armpits as if talking about what happened chilled her to her core.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you.” He knew the words didn’t make it any better. He’d been hearing similar condolences since he’d lost his leg, but he’d signed on for a lethal job. She’d merely signed up for a dating site, for fuck’s sake. “How long did the harassment keep up?”

“For six months. He stopped after he attacked me and Danny while we were walking back from a late Christmas movie. We…” She swallowed. “We’d taken a shortcut down an alley. We’d always felt safe on that route even though it wasn’t the best area in town, but…” Her arm trembled as she slid her hand to her wrist.

His steel leg vibrated beneath him. Scarlett called the reaction to excitement or stress a glitch in his neurotransmitter. The team called it his “tell” when they played poker. The fucker who hurt Beth would soon call it his worst nightmare.

“He grabbed me and threw me against a brick wall. I tried to catch myself with my hand. The impact snapped my wrist.” She ran her finger over a long scar. “I needed surgery to repair the breaks. I got a concussion from when my head hit the ground.” She pressed her fingers into her temples and dropped her gaze. “After that night, I swore I’d never go back to a hospital.”

And he’d been the one who’d convinced her to go the ER and relive the fucked-up experience again.

“Shit, Beth. I’m so sorry.” He crossed the room and landed inches from her. Gently, he sketched the pale scar with his fingertip. He’d spent so much time wondering about the emotional wounds she hid beneath her shine that he’d missed the physical one she concealed under sweaters. Hiding his tangible scar was easy to hide under clothes too. He muzzled the urge to tell her about the internal ones that kept him from wrapping her in the safety of his lethal body and protecting her forever. “Did the cops catch the guy?”

She shook her head as she sniffed. Kane wasn’t sure if her actions were an answer to his question or a refusal to cry. The first scenario had his fists clenching. The second broke his heart.

“Scarlett tried to find him…” Beth looked toward the window. “But if he could elude her…”

He followed her gaze to the darkness beyond the curtains. “That means we’re not dealing with some amateur, horny dude.” If the guy had better skills than Scarlett, he was either one of the best in the world or working with the best, and that made him dangerous as fuck.

Running his hand through his hair, he fit the pieces of what he’d learned together. One by one, the events clicked into place and made sense of their not-quite-date.

Her hesitancy to go to the hospital.

The nightmare she’d had in his car on the drive back to her house.

The way she’d clung to him when he’d carried her upstairs. Like he’d helped her find a sweet spot in her dreams, and if she let him go, she’d fall back into her nocturnal hell.

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