So…what? She was intrigued by whatever it was Damen was hinting at? Her joining his cause?
“I… I’m confused,” she confessed.
“Just consider that there are numerous avenues to travel in your effort to help people, Nikki. None with a lesser or a higher calling. But perhaps some that don’t involve you being inside a building that’s about to blow up.”
“But it’s okay that you’re inside the building that’s about to blow up?” she countered.
“I didn’t say that. I’m saying, you could do a lot of good in a safer environment.”
“Physically safer,” she stressed. “Not emotionally safer. Because I’m always fully vested in the people I treat.”
“I know.” He swallowed hard. Then pressed just a bit more. “I’m just not sure you have to live your life so hazardously.”
Damen’s gaze didn’t falter. It was still filled with heat and desire, yes. But also determination. Encouragement.
Tinged with challenge.
He liked challenging her.
And God help her, Nikki liked having someone close to her who pushed her beyond her boundaries—and who made her see a bigger picture, a bigger world.
Damen Castillo’s world was…huge.
Rife with peril, without doubt.
Also one in which he played a significant role.
As his fingers threaded through her damp hair and his head bent a degree farther so his lips brushed hers, Nikki accepted the jolt deep in her core. She accepted the flames along her skin and the quivering of her inner thighs. The scarcity of her breath.
“Damen—”
11
She bit her bottom lip for a moment.
She wasn’t sure what she truly wanted to say at this precarious moment.
She realized where he was coming from: The stance of worrying about her personal protection. Perhaps even her sanity.
Nikki would be a hypocrite if she scoffed at any of that.
Despite having supported Conner’s daredevil ways—admiring them, even—she’d worried incessantly about him.
Of course she had.
Would she have been infinitely more relieved if he’d had some mundane nine-to-five job with zero-percent risk factor? Sure. But she’d already ascertained that wasn’t the sort of man she’d fall in love with—or the sort that would fall in love with her.
She suddenly gaped at that revelation.
Then she snapped her jaw shut.
She wasn’t making the correlation that Damen was in love with her.
Yet… She said, “You don’t want me living on the edge.”
“No, I do not.”
That he didn’t lie or otherwise sugarcoat his motives impressed her.