There was a knock on the door. Wylder peered in before I had a chance to answer. “Chess?”
I nodded. We kept up our running games a couple evenings a week, whenever Wylder wasn’t too occupied with other work. I’d thought the girl’s arrival might have put those on hold until the matter of her revenge request was settled. Apparently not.
Wylder sat down in one of the chairs by the table that held our partly played-out game, holding a snifter of amber liquid he’d brought with him. Kaige might salivate over the Grey Goose, but Wylder liked nothing more than the most expensive brandy he could get his hands on, drunk the old-fashioned way.
I raised a brow. “Haven’t you had enough already?”
He chuckled. “Apparently not.”
I shook my head and sat down next to him, considering the arrangement in which we’d left the pieces. I was winning. But then, I nearly always was. And if I wasn’t, the tide turned soon enough.
“It was your turn,” I reminded him.
Wylder rubbed his mouth, giving me a wry look. “Are you sure you’re not giving me an extra turn in the hopes I’ll offer a little more of a challenge?”
He’d need at least a dozen more moves for that. “Nothing’s stopping you from studying up on the game a little more, you know. Or paying more than five seconds’ attention to where you put your pieces.”
He laughed. “I think even if I spent a year buried in chess books, you’d still beat me every time. That’s okay. I like watching how you take me down.”
Someone else might have seen that as a sign of suspicion. I knew Wylder had only admitted it because he trusted that I’d never turn on him in actuality. It was an honor, having that trust.
Beating him in chess once a week, not quite so much.
He took his move, shifting a pawn. I brought out my knight. Wylder squinted at the board for a second and then sent his bishop whipping several spaces.
I’d be able to take it now. I wasn’t sure if he didn’t realize or simply didn’t care.
He watched me as I decided whether I wanted to bother or if there was an even better move available. “Do you have anything to say about what happened earlier?”
I shrugged. “You can make whatever promises you want to whomever you want.”
Wylder snorted. “Come on, you obviously disapproved.”
Fine. “We don’t know her. Yes, we questioned her extensively, and her story has checked out so far, but we both know looks can be deceptive. She is the Katz heir.”
“With no family left.”
I shrugged. “Maybe that makes her even more dangerous. She has nothing left to lose.”
Wylder paused. “I have considered that.”
“Have you?”
“Yeah.” He took a long, hard sip of his drink and put it on the table. “Concentrate on the game.”
We played for several more minutes, Wylder’s defeat becoming ever more inevitable, before he spoke again. “On a scale of one to ten, how likely do you figure she is to get to the bottom of the Titus thing?”
“Only the tiniest fraction more than zero,” I said without hesitation. “Nothing is ever impossible, but she’s a gang princess, not Sherlock Holmes.”
Wylder chuckled. “That doesn’t sound so promising.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” I said. “We don’t have anything to lose by letting her take a shot. She’s just a tool anyway, right?”
“Right,” Wylder said, but I could tell from his tone that wasn’t entirely the truth. He was obviously more invested in her than I thought he should be. The knowledge that he was lying to me about that investment sent a prickle down my spine.
Of course, in a way I could understand his fascination. Her body with all its curves, as if it’d been made to lead men’s minds astray. The way she let her hand linger against her skin now and then, I could already track which spots must be most sensitive.
A vision flashed through my mind of pinning her beneath me while I found every sweet spot that would make her moan. The side of her neck, definitely, right at the base where it met her shoulder. And the crook of her jaw just below her ear…
“What are you thinking?” Wylder asked, pulling me back to reality, and I realized I’d gotten hard beneath the table. A flush crept over my face that I fought to dispel.
“Nothing,” I said, and made a hasty move that left a careless opening for Wylder. Not that he was likely to notice. As surreptitiously as possible, I adjusted my position in my chair, willing certain parts of my body to calm down.
Women didn’t affect me like this. I couldn’t allow this one to. My job was protecting Wylder in every way I could, and no one, no matter how pretty their bright blue eyes were, was going to threaten the security I’d worked so hard to construct.