"Uh. Breakfast." His voice sounded rusty. "I figured you'd be hungry. What would you like to eat?" Because he'd like to eat her. Or have her eat him. Hell. He was losing it. He had to solve a murder, not turn into a teenage walking hard-on.
"Oh, that sounds great. I'm really hungry." She bent over to pick up the folded towel resting on the vanity, her breasts spilling forward. Small beads of water ran down the soft curves and dripped from her nipples to the floor.
Kadan licked his lips. There seemed to be a strange roaring in his head, and if he didn't adjust his jeans soon, the seams were going to burst. "Egg preference?"
She straightened and shook out the towel. Tiny droplets of water traveled down the valley between her breasts, across her tempting belly, to find the vee of white gold curls at the junction of her legs. He caught himself staring, wanting to drop to his knees and sink his tongue in her. She seemed oblivious, running the towel along the curves of her body, soaking up the tiny water drops.
"Anything is fine, but I really like scrambled."
"Scrambled it is, then."
Kadan left her because she had a small, sexy smile on her face, and was barely rubbing the towel over her skin, and he was going to ruin a good pair of jeans and embarrass himself. He stomped down the hall back to the kitchen, wishing he smoked. He slammed a frying pan onto the stove, muttering to himself. His radar went off and he spun around.
Tansy stood in the doorway, one towel in her hand, the other wrapped around her hair, and nothing else. "Have I upset you?"
Kadan shook his head, keeping his gaze on her face, willing his wayward eyes to focus. Unfortunately they focused on her mouth, which did little to help his situation. "Of course not. I'm just feeling a little out of sorts."
"I don't mind cooking. I need you to put the game pieces back on the table for me anyway. I'm not a great cook, but I manage."
Naked. She was going to cook for him without a stitch of clothing on. He wouldn't survive. "Like that?" Now his voice had dropped to pure smoke.
Tansy looked startled. She glanced down at herself. "No, of course not. I was planning on getting dressed first." She turned and stormed off, her shoulders stiff.
Now he'd really upset her, and all he could think about was the sway of her ass as she stomped down the hall. Relationships were complicated when they really shouldn't be. He sighed again and went down to the war room. He may as well set up the pieces before cooking. He needed to get his head straight, and walking into a room with so many victims screaming for justice had a way of reducing everything else to nothing. He might not be good with women, but he knew how to track killers.
She joined him when he'd finished separating the small figurines, using his gloves to ensure no prints or impressions of him transferred to a game piece. She came up behind him, so close he could feel the heat of her body. She smelled so good he wanted to breathe her in.
"I may as well finish the East Coast pieces. I've only got one left."
"Not yet. You need to eat something. Come have your coffee while I cook you some breakfast." He captured her fingers and tugged, taking her with him, wanting to put off the inevitable as long as possible.
She went with him without protest, making him feel a little better. Nothing had ever rocked his world or gotten under his skin until Tansy. Feeling shaken was a new experience for him. He pulled out her chair, brushing a kiss on top of her head. For the first time she sent him a real smile, one that lit her eyes, and he breathed again. When she was settled with a cup of coffee in her hands, he broke the eggs and began beating them into a frothy brew.
"How does your job work?" Kadan asked. "Did National Geographic hire you to take pictures for them?"
She shook her head. "I do freelance work. In this case, they picked up an article and photographs I did for them last year and loved it, knew I was still studying the cougar, and agreed in advance to help fund me. I was pretty thrilled. I had a great tutor in photography, and I've slowly been acquiring a reputation, but this was a huge break for me. But no, technically, they don't employ me."
"Who knew you were up in the Sierras?" Kadan asked. Now that his brain was working again, something was nagging at the back of his mind.
She took a sip of coffee and frowned at him over the cup. "My parents knew. And Charlie, at National Geographic. Well, he didn't know where I was exactly, only that I was filming mountain lions." She put down the coffee mug and leaned her chin into her palm. "How did you track me to the Sierras? I mean, it's a big mountain range. How did you know I was at that exact location?"
"There was no way you were going to go anywhere without contacting your parents. Everything I read about you told me you wouldn't go more than a few days without letting them know you were okay, even if you were in Africa somewhere shooting pictures."
Tansy swept her hair back from her face. "So you just waited until I called home and traced the signal back to me."
He shrugged. "It was easy enough. But no one else was watching your parents. I would have known."
"Why is it important?"
"Your father said something to me that just keeps nagging at me." He put the eggs in front of her and placed the other dish across from her. He sank down across the table from her and picked up his fork. "For just a moment let's set aside the killers we're tracking. They can't know I was sent to find you. But someone knew where you were, and I don't think they followed me."
"Why? You can make mistakes," she teased.
He forked eggs into his mouth, frowning as he chewed. "Not like that. I thought, at first, that they were after me. They were there to get you. To kill you. They weren't going to bring you back to Whitney."
She sat up straighter. "I thought they were men Whitney sent to get me, or someone who wanted you dead because of this investigation."
"I imagine a lot of people would like to see me dead, but as far as I know, only the general asked me to clear up this murder mess. Everyone else thinks I'm involved in a different type of mission. So no, the killers weren't there to stop me, they had to be there to kill you and I just happened to be in their way."
"Who would want me dead besides Whitney?"
"Whitney doesn't want you dead, honey, he wants babies out of you. And if I'd been thinking with my head and not my cock, I would have realized that immediately. He wants a baby out of us. You might not have been paired with me, but I was definitely paired with you. He wants our two talents bred into a child."
She swallowed hard. "That's sick, Kadan. What if I do get pregnant?"
He laid his hand over hers. "He'll never take our child. We're building a fortress in the mountains. We'll have escape tunnels and routes and protections, so much so that it will be difficult for anyone to get to us. You'd be safe there and so would our child."
His tone was the same as always, that low, velvet conviction that made her a believer. "So if the murderers we're tracking didn't know you were investigating them and Whitney doesn't want me dead, who does?"
"Your father mentioned a coalition, a group that has formed. We've run into them before, and we thought we'd broken them up when we killed their leader. Evidently he wasn't the only head of the organization. They have a lot of help. Someone in the White House who has access to a high security clearance has been targeting the GhostWalkers for death. They leaked the information that the East Coast and West Coast murders were connected, and they gave a reporter your name. He did a little investigating and realized you were the same Tansy Meadows who had tracked serial killers. The moment he found you, the assassins were on your trail."
"But how did he find me?"
"That's what I want to know. Did whoever tip him off give him that information as well? And if so, how did they come by it?"
Tansy ran both hands through her hair. "I don't have any idea, Kadan, and truthfully, I just can't find it in me to care that much. I want to solve these murders and get the killers off the streets. All the rest of it will just have to take a backseat until we figure out what
's going on."
Kadan glanced at her half-eaten eggs. "You didn't eat much."
"It's enough to get me through this. I'm going to do this one right this time."
He took both plates to the sink and left them there, turning to lock his gaze with hers. "You'll do what I say, Tansy. It's my job to keep you safe--and sane. Wear the gloves. If they have to come off, fine, we'll cross that bridge when we need to, but start off with the gloves and see what kinds of impressions you get."
"You're handicapping me."
"I don't really give a damn, now, do I?"