“It wasn’t a question, beautiful.” Clasping his hands together, he leaned forward elbows on his knees. “Truce?”
“We’re not at war.”
“The lump on my head says otherwise, sweetheart. So does the crap you tried to shoot me full of to wipe my short-term memory.” Not even a flicker of her eyelid. Damn, she was good, but she did cut her gaze away briefly, then back.
“Three questions.” The offer went beyond what expected. “Personal. Not professional.” And it came with conditions.
“Believe it or not, I prefer personal questions to professional.” He’d walked away from the seedier aspect of the life of a company man, never knowing who he could trust, always measuring the agenda of a politically inclined section chief against the needs of the mission. Dealing in the currency of blood left him with very little in savings for humanity. “Three questions. How do I know your answers are truthful?”
“Because I won’t answer if I have to lie.”
“Fair.” He considered the offer. “I want to add one other caveat to our deal.”
She swiped that too-pink tongue over her upper lip, and the bolt of it went straight to his cock. Shutting off his libido was impossible around her. He didn’t even want to try. “I’m listening.”
“You stay here tonight.” He pointed to his room. “All night. No disappearing acts, no having someone knock me out. You and me, no one else.”
Pursing her lips, she didn’t dismiss his offer out of hand. With exaggerated slowness, she uncurled her legs and stood. “I’m going for my phone.” Putting words to action, she slipped the cell phone from her back pocket. Three taps later, she fired off a text message. The whooshing noise was a dead giveaway. Still as a statue, she stared at her phone.
He waited. If she said no, would she retreat from the truth offer? Better question, if she said no, would he be willing to let her out the door? Not knowing the answer to the second made him damn uncomfortable.
The phone vibrated, the humming noise splitting the silence. Her expression didn’t change at the message she’d received, yet she relaxed. The stiffness in her shoulders eased, and the corners of her eyes softened. With her finger at the top of the phone, she depressed it and held it down until the phone powered off. Turning it to face him, she said, “I’ll stay.”
Relief unspooled the tension in his gut. She placed the phone on the hotel room desk. He retrieved his own and turned it off, then set it next to hers. With a glance at her gun, she raised her eyebrow.
“Field strip,” he suggested. Without hesitation, she nodded. They turned almost in synchronous motion, and in silence, broke the guns down, unloading them and setting the pieces neatly on the desk.
If he’d had any lingering doubts about her military training, he didn’t now. He finished only a few seconds behind her, and she smiled. The expression cut through his headache in a way the ibuprofen hadn’t managed.
Keeping his tongue in his head, he forced himself not to drool and asked a cool, “What?”
“I win.” Two simple words, laden with humor.
“Didn’t realize it was a race.”
She shrugged. “Everything in life is a competition. If you can’t be the best, why bother?”
“That breaks the world down into two types of people.”
“Yep.” She nodded and circled the table. “Winners and everyone else.”
Not tacking on the word loser didn’t mean she wasn’t thinking it. “Strip.”
“Excuse me?” No offense discolored her words, but she did plant a hand on her hip.
“Strip.” Having her compliant didn’t mean she wasn’t still executing some plan. The only way to assure himself of full honesty was to make sure they had nothing to hide. Undoing the buttons on his shirt, he nodded to hers. “Nothing to hide behind. No deceptions.”
“I see you didn’t add no sex to that list.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” He pulled his shirt off and dropped it over the television. They certainly wouldn’t need it and since TVs were a great place to hide cameras, he wanted to make sure they really did have their privacy. He’d swept the room earlier, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious. “There will definitely be sex. I haven’t had near enough time with you—or positions.”
Pupil dilation said a lot about physiological response and both of hers grew fuller at his declaration. He hadn’t been wrong in that room or when her friend clocked him.
Shecared. It meant something. He wasn’t sure what yet, but it did, and he could work with the part of her willing to invest in him. If he could win her trust, then he could help her and maybe get her out of whatever situation had dropped her into the life she was leading.
When she made no move to strip, he eyed her and waited. Some situations called for pushing, others called for patience. Copper needed both. The level of control she exerted over herself impressed the hell out of him. He could try to bully her, but if she dug in her heels—no, she wouldn’t go for it. Tonight required patience. He’d pushed outside the restaurant and made some headway until“Merc”knocked his ass out.
“I don’t get you,” she said finally, and tugged her shirt over her head. The t-shirt landed on the television next to his. Simple, gray-colored, and completely nondescript, but he liked the image of it next to his shirt. As she had in the classroom, she wore a simple black bra. Without an ounce of modesty, she unhooked it and slid free of the lingerie.