She shook her head. A soft, white terry-cloth robe covered her body. Her wet hair had been combed back from her face. She looked almost heartbreakingly lovely. If, you know, one happened to be the type of person who had a heart that could break.
Not me.
“Bad guys don’t rescue strangers in the middle of the night,” Jacqueline informed him as her chin angled up. “Bad guys don’t give strangers shelter and make breakfast for them and keep trying to make sure they take warm showers.”
“Ah, so you’re an expert on bad guys, I see.”
“Don’t mock me.”
He rubbed his chest because it ached. “Bad guys can do lots of things that might surprise you. They can create amazing forgeries of priceless works of art. They can conduct some of the most high-profile thefts of all time.” Whoops. Had a little pride just entered his voice? Perhaps. “They can infiltrate any organization or group they want because when it comes to blending, no one does it better than your bad guy.”
“Remy…”
“And when shit hits the fan, when a bad guy’s father is viciously murdered, when he’s killed inyourplace, when it should have been you, well, then a bad guy readjusts. He takes the deals offered by certain government agencies. He gets his sister into witness protection. Because you know what? Even a bad guy can care about someone.” Can care more than most would suspect. “And the bad guy takes the jobs that he has to take. He gets his record erased, and he gets his best friend’s past erased, too. He tries to start over.Triesto stay on the straight and narrow.” A little sigh. “But that lifestyle can just be so boring. So the bad guy looks for something to entertain him. To amuse him. And a beautiful stranger walks into his bar.”
“I…amuse you?”
“No, you obsess me.”Fucking fuck!Why was she the one person he kept oversharing with? A mistake, a weakness that he’d never known before.
“Oh.” Her lashes flickered. “I’m very sorry about your father.”
“What?”
“Did you find the person who killed him?”
“Yes.” Grim. “He got what he deserved.”
Her hand reached out, and she squeezed his arm. “Good.”
“Good?” Remy shook his head. “Didn’t I just tell you that there isn’t anythinggoodabout me? And why the hell are you touching me? I told you that—”
“You said I obsess you. I think you obsess me, too.”
He needed to pick his jaw up off the floor.
“No, that’s not really the right description.” Her tongue swiped over her lower lip as she kept right ontouchinghim. “I think obsession is dark. All about dark emotions and needs.”
He was well familiar with the dark. He loved it.
“But I don’t feel dark with you. I feel safe. I feel like I belong. I feel like I can count on you for anything.”
She couldn’t. No one could. How many times would he have to tell her before she understood that he just wasn’t that kind of man? “You pushed me away ten minutes ago.” A reminder so she would stop lying to herself. And to him.
Her brow furrowed. “No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, sweetness, you did. I was all about getting into that shower with you, but you backed away. You didn’t want me near you. You were thinking I was after the twenty million, finally sensing that I wasn’t your hero, and you wanted away from me.”
“No.”
He’d been right there. Heknewwhat she’d done.
Her hold tightened. “Remy, I like being near you far too much. If I backed away, it was because I was scared of myself. Not you.”
“Why would you be scared of yourself?”
“Because I didn’t want to leave that country club with Constantine. I wanted to run back in there. Stay at your side. Fight any threat that came at you.”
His head shook. No, she didn’t mean that stuff.