Page 40 of Line of Resistance

And if Eloise cried, the chances of him murdering someone when they found out who was responsible for this went up astronomically.

Nate closed the oddly feminine curtains, blocking off the least of their problems as Eloise sobered. Her full mouth flattened into a grim line as she stood in the center of the cabin, shivering in her wet clothes, looking more uncertain than she’d been. “What do we do now?”

“Now we wait.” Nate grabbed the hem of his shirt, peeling it over his head before shaking the damp fabric out.

Eloise made a squeaking noise, her eyes widening as they fixed on his chest. “What are you doing?”

He grabbed one of the chairs from the small dining table tucked into the corner of the kitchen area and dragged it in front of the stove. “We need to get as dry as we can just in case we have to go back out.”

Eloise gripped the front of her coat tighter. “What do you mean, go back out? Why would we need to go back out?”

Nate draped his shirt over the ladder back of the chair. “I want to believe Alaskan Security will find us, but I honestly don’t know who that was on the road. There’s a small chance—”

“You said they wouldn’t know where we were.” Eloise stomped toward him. “You said we would be fine.”

The reality of their situation was clearly starting to sink in and he wanted to calm her fears. “We are fine. Everything will be okay. I’m just trying to be prepared.”

Her brows pinched together as she glared up at him. “Do I strike you as the kind of person who doesn’talsolike to be prepared?” Her glare turned into a scowl. “Start telling me the truth. I’d rather know what’s going on and be ready for it than be shocked when something crazy happens.”

Nate’s eyes drifted to the bag from her car. The sleeping bag and blankets stuffed into the top of it. Feeling prepared and informed was clearly important to Eloise. Leaving her in the dark would only make her more afraid. “What we do at Alaskan Security isn’t always—” he paused, fishing around for the least problematic explanation he could come up with, “completely legal.”

Eloise huffed out a little laugh. “I’d figured that out on my own when you told me you’d killed people before. I’m not a freaking idiot.”

Any sign of the sweet, smiling Eloise he’d known before was all but gone, leaving him staring down a woman who wasn’t afraid to say what she was thinking or hold him accountable when he fucked up. And it was becoming one hell of a problem.

He loved the way she didn’t hide how she felt. It meant he knew exactly where he stood with her, even if it wasn’t where he wanted to be. And it made him want to change where he was. Made him want to figure out how to make her forget all the ways he’d fucked-up.

Because Eloise was the kind of person who would never just disappear. She would never say one thing and then do another.

She would never leave him out in the cold wondering what in the hell happened.

“I didn’t say you were an idiot.” Nate studied her, watching a little closer. He motioned toward the bag of items sitting by the door. “Actually, it seems like you’re about as far from being an idiot as it gets. You would’ve been fine without me. You were prepared. Equipped to handle whatever happened to you.”

Surprise flickered across Eloise’s dark eyes and the hard jut of her shoulders softened. “Iwouldhave been fine.” She sighed, the sound resigned. “Right up until someone started shooting at my car.”

Nate shook his head, unwilling to claim even a small amount of the credit she deserved. “I think you would’ve even been fine then. You don’t seem like the kind of person who just rolls over and takes whatever bullshit comes your way.”

A little bit of the tension came back to Eloise’s stance, straightening her spine and lifting her chin. “You kept giving it to me anyway.”

Nate sighed. They were caught in a never-ending game of back and forth. He kept trying to work his way up to an explanation, but the minute he geared up to take a swing at it, she swung first. He wasn’t going to get anywhere like this, which meant he needed to offer up a little of the truth he’d been withholding.

“It wasn’t bullshit, Eloise.” Nate started pulling items off his belt, lining them down the small table as he continued. “Everything I said was real.” He slid his belt free of the loops and added it to the table before unbuttoning his pants. “I meant every word of it.” He raked down the zipper. “But I thought I should stay away from you, so that’s what I kept trying to do.” He dropped his pants to the floor, snagging them and draping them across the back of another chair before placing them in front of the stove to dry, then he turned to Eloise. “But it turns out I’m shit at it.”

He waited for her to say something. To swing back at him in the way she was so good at, but Eloise was silent. Frozen in place. Eyes locked on where his dick strained against the front of his black briefs.

He’d been so distracted he hadn’t realized his cock was half hard. Or maybe he was just used to being half hard when she was around. Either way, it didn’t stay that way long. Instead of reading the severity of the situation and cooperating by standing down, his dick continued to stretch under her pointed attention. Pushing against the constraints of the cotton more and more with each breath that passed through her parted lips.

When she sucked in a sharp breath it jerked, flexing as the sound shot through him like lightning.

“Eloise.” Nate waited as her eyes slowly raked up his body before finally fixing on his face. He pointed two fingers in the same direction. “My eyes are up here.”

She blinked, the line of her delicate throat working as she swallowed. “You’re hard.” The soft surprise in her words nearly made him groan.

Maybe he was wrong. Maybe nothing about her was fake. Maybe Eloise was absolutely as sweet as he first thought and just knew how to compartmentalize better than most people.

“Why are you looking?” He rubbed one hand across his chest in the hopes it would drag her attention back down his body.

She didn’t disappoint him.

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