Page 51 of Heart of Danger
Make the fucker squirm.
Clancy sat back in his twenty thousand dollar designer ergonomic chair and clipped the tip of a hundred dollar Arturo Fuente cigar using a five hundred dollar cigar clipper. He lit it with his antique Dunhill solid gold lighter he’d picked up in London for twenty thousand dollars. It had belonged to a former king, the Duke of Windsor, and it had made Clancy feel…powerful. Like a figure of history, holding it in his hand and knowing he could indulge himself with no problems whatsoever. These days, there were few appetites Clancy had to deny himself, all of them impossible on his military pension.
So Lee was going to have to goddamn get going or Clancy was cutting off the teat Lee’d been sucking on.
MOUNT BLUE
His eyes widened in surprise. Catherine understood very well Mac wasn’t often caught by surprise. She’d felt his vigilant nature under her hands, but even if she hadn’t, his body language was clear.
He scowled at her. “What do you mean, he can’t talk? He told you how to find me, didn’t he? Or typed it out. Or is all that a lie, too?”
She searched his eyes. Deep brown, so dark it sometimes looked as if his eyes were all pupil, perpetually dilated.
She closed her eyes but it didn’t help. His striking face seemed tattooed on the inside of her eyelids. Strong features, weather-beaten skin, a nose that had been broken several times, a firm mouth that never smiled. The scar rippling over the left-hand side of his face that looked as if it were a river of flesh flowing down him. The other scar like a memento in flesh of pain.
She saw his features but she saw so much more, not only through the projections of Patient Nine, who loved him like a son, but now through her own fingertips, her own skin speaking to her.
There was violence there, yes. But also such goodness and loyalty. He had the fearlessness of a man unafraid to die. He wasn’t suicidal, by any means, but his head and heart believed there were many things worse than death. Betrayal, treason, cruelty. They were worse than death for him and he’d die rather than be guilty of them.
He was towering over her, trying to intimidate her and if she hadn’t been what she was, if she hadn’t felt the core of him under her hands, she would definitely have been terrified. This man emanated danger and violence. He looked like he could snap her in half without breaking a sweat. He looked like he’d enjoy doing it.
But that wasn’t what he was about and she knew it. Knew it deep in her bones, deep in her very cells.
The intense ferocity he was directing at her was the color of fear. Not fear for himself but fear for the people he held dear, the people he clearly led and protected. Bridget’s feelings for this man had been so sharp and intense. He’d saved her from something. There had been bright gratitude, the jewel tones of admiration, threads of affection running through it. Almost love, though nothing like the love that had been in her for Red and for their little girl.
Mac was their leader and he stood for them, was their bulwark against the world.
It was fear for his people that had him narrowing his eyes, making his deep voice so rough and dark, had him leaning in so close.
And because she knew him, knew the essence of him, Catherine narrowed her eyes and snapped, “Back off.”
His eyes flared, a deep frown between his black eyebrows. The frown was almost permanently etched into his face which meant he frowned a lot.
“What did you say?”
“Back. Off.” Catherine waved him back.
It was bad enough keeping her wits about her when she was exhausted and stressed. With this man right in her face, it was almost impossible.
Not to mention the fact that there was that annoyingtugtoward him. Almost a tropism, like a sunflower to the sun.
Patient Nine’s love for him had rubbed off on her. And now that she’d seen him, been close enough to feel his heat, smell the clean smell of him, touched him…she was one step away from the precipice of falling for him herself. First-hand, not second-hand. Mentally, she windmilled her arms because falling for this man, right now, would be a disaster of epic proportions.
Still…
He’s so attractive…
The thought wafted through her mind once again, as it had before. Since when was she susceptible to beefcake? Beefcake was definitely not her style. Definitely a brains over brawn woman. The few men she’d dated had been the weedy type, made for lab coats hanging off narrow shoulders.
This warrior who looked like something out of the mists of the dawn of time, this man somehow had a hold on her.
…so attractive…
Get a grip, she told herself sternly. And shedidhave a mission.
He’d backed off. But lying in bed meant a huge disadvantage. She stood up facing him, gingerly testing the ground, remembering the moment when everyone’s emotions had overwhelmed her, remembering the moment the ground rose up to meet her, and the darkness afterward. She swallowed as she surreptitiously tried to find her balance.
A large hand steadied her.
