Dangerous Promise (The Protector)

  “Sorry,” he said. “That looks bad. Does it hurt?”

  She visibly shivered, then gave him one of those wide grins he’d come to look forward to. “Umm, yes, Ewan, I got kicked by a couple dozen stunbullets right in that spot. It hurts.”

  Again, he drew his fingertips over the spot, barely touching, and again she shivered. A quip of how he could kiss it and make it better rose to his lips but he wisely shoved it back. He couldn’t stop his palm from cupping her shoulder, though, or letting his hand slide down her arm so his fingers could circle her wrist for a moment, tugging her a step closer.

  Nina tipped her face to stare up at him. “You’re a constant surprise, Ewan Donahue, you know that?”

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “It’s a surprising thing,” Nina said in a low voice, which was not quite an answer to the question he’d asked but one he understood. Her whiskey-colored eyes had lit up, her mouth a quirking smile, and she hadn’t moved away from him even though their bodies were touching. She glanced between them, then up again into his eyes.

  “Sometimes I think you might actually like me,” he said.

  She tilted her head as her eyes traced his face in a way he could feel almost as though it were a physical touch. Her gaze lingered on his mouth. Her tongue peeked for a second between her lips before she shook her head.

  “This happens, sometimes. People get into a hard sitch, they get all riled up. . . .”

  He wanted to tell her that it was more than that, but she wasn’t wrong, either. “Does that happen to you?”

  “Yes.” She breathed. “After I fight, I usually really want to fuck.”

  Ewan groaned. “Oh.”

  He hadn’t been able to keep the memory of their kiss out of his head since it had happened. Looking at her now, Ewan moved without further thought. He pulled Nina into his arms to kiss her again, this time not coming out of a dream, but on purpose. Knowing it was her.

  Wanting it to be her.

  There was no way he could have taken her by surprise, yet, even so, her lips parted on a startled sigh. Then her tongue slid along his, and he moved a hand up her back to settle on the base of her neck below her still-damp braid. Briefly the kiss softened before he deepened it again, probing her mouth with his tongue until their teeth clashed.

  She set him on fire, and he did not want to be extinguished.

  Nina’s hands curled just above his hips, her fingertips digging into his skin so that her nails pinched. After a second, her fingers themselves nipped at the sensitive bare flesh and that tingling bit of pain went straight to his cock. The thin material of the cover-up didn’t hide much, nor did the fact he was naked beneath it. Under her gaze, his body reacted. Heat teased him, and he stifled another groan at the thickness between his legs.

  When she looked up at him, her pale amber eyes had gone heavy lidded. Her mouth, soft and full and wet from their kisses. She drew in a breath and shook her head, her gaze clearing. Her expression went from sensual to stern.

  He expected an arch smile. Raised eyebrows. Ewan figured Nina would tease him, but all she did was look up, straight into his eyes and hold his gaze for what felt like forever.

  “This is not the time or the place,” she told him finally. She still hadn’t moved away. “And I’m not convinced it’s what you really want.”

  “It should be obvious that I really want it,” he said, but the look on her face made him take a couple steps back. “But if you don’t . . .”

  Nina shook her head. “We need to be thinking about the job. Thinking with our heads. Not our other parts.”

  The ache in his head flared, a reminder of the situation they were in, and one he shouldn’t have needed. She was right, but it embarrassed him that he’d been acting like a riled-up adolescent who’d been able to put his hands on a girl for the first time. His arousal fled. He put distance between them.

  “We should go,” Ewan said.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Nina had made her rounds of the cabin and the immediate surrounding property under the pretense of making sure it was safe and secure, and of course she did all that within the first half hour after they arrived. This glimpse into Ewan’s life before the money and the fame fascinated her.

  She’d given him the all-clear to stay in the kitchen while she looked over the cabin’s small upper level. The peaked roof meant she had to watch her head as she moved through the single bedroom to look out one of the windows tucked into a gable. To say the view was breathtaking felt like a cliché, but was the truth. A vista of forest and fog-shrouded mountains in the distance, a hint of water through the trees, clear blue skies. There couldn’t have been a prettier sight if Ewan had paid to have one installed.

  The room itself included a cozy double bed with a white iron headboard and covered with a blue and white quilt that looked handmade. A battered wooden dresser with a mirror. A rocking chair. A small set of nightstands sported mismatched lamps. A rag rug covered the otherwise bare wooden floor. Through a small door at the bedroom’s far end was a functional but far from luxurious bathroom. This cabin was nothing like Woodhaven, and she already adored it.

  “It will be easier to defend,” she told him in the kitchen, where she found him unpacking the saddlebags from the buzzbike. “Only two entrances. Limited windows.”

  “If that’s a polite way of saying it’s really small, I got it.” He gave her a glance over his shoulder as he pulled out a few bottles of wine from one of the bags.

  Nina chuckled and leaned against the counter to watch him curiously. The man she’d met a couple weeks ago had relied on a full staff to cater to his every need, and he’d never seemed hesitant to take full advantage of that. He’d told her he hadn’t grown up with money, but it had been obvious he’d taken to it like a natural. Since making their escape from his estate, though, Ewan had taken charge of nearly everything that didn’t have to do with security. She couldn’t say it was a different side of him—she’d seen him be in control with many aspects of his life, but something about all of this was definitely making him seem . . . humbler. More accessible.

  “It’s bigger than some of the places I’ve lived,” she told him. “Prettier than most of them, too.”

  He laughed and nodded as he emptied another cloth bag of some dry goods and set it aside with the others on the round, scarred kitchen table. He turned and put his hands on his hips, looking around the kitchen. “I always loved this place. Gray Tuesday made it easy to remove all the evidence that I was ever connected to it, but it was harder to erase in my mind than I’d thought it would be.”

  “Probably better that you did, or else we wouldn’t be able to be here now.” She moved next to him to look over the array of bottles and jars laid out on the countertop. “I can help you put this all away, if you tell me where it ought to go.”

  Ewan shook his head and moved a half a step away from her. He didn’t make a big deal out of it, but she noticed. He was making sure to keep his distance from her, a fact Nina couldn’t blame him for. That kiss in the tunnel had been electric. Her choice to kiss or touch him, she’d told him. Her choice to take him to bed or not. Why, then, didn’t she feel affronted that he’d kissed her despite her already telling him no? Why was she regretting that she’d pushed him away?

  “The kitchen’s not really big enough for two to be messing around in it. I got this. Everything under control everywhere else?” He’d turned again toward the food and started tucking it away into cupboards.

  He was dismissing her, and not subtly.

  “Yes,” Nina said. “You don’t have the perimeter security you had at Woodhaven, but you’ve got so much more land here, and if it’s really true that nobody knows you even own it . . .”

  “It’s true,” Ewan said sharply with a narrow-eyed glance. “I told you it was. All the records were scrubbed, and I made sure nothing was left to connect it to me.”

  Nina frowned. “I didn’t say I didn’t believe you. I just mean
that clearly, no matter what you might think about your private life or your past or how carefully you erased all of this, it’s also entirely possible that someone, somewhere knows the truth. Despite Gray Tuesday.”

  “Nobody knows about this place, Nina. If there was something I would swear my life on, that’s it.”

  “You might have to.” She did not make it sound offhand or light, not teasing, because it was the truth.

  Ewan stared at her for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. I get it. But that’s why you’re here with me. Right?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Because I’m paying you,” he added.

  She waited a beat before answering. “Yes.”

  “It’s your job,” Ewan said without looking at her.

  “Of course it’s my job. But, Ewan . . .” She trailed off, uncharacteristically uncertain about what she meant to say. Something had shifted between them in the past few days, and while it might have had something to do with how close he’d come to being killed, she wondered if there was something deeper to it.

  She wondered if she wanted there to be.

  “I’m going to make something to eat. You need food. Is pasta all right?” he asked, still without looking at her.

  Nina nodded. “Yeah. I’m going to take another swing around the property. Just check things out. Be clear that it’s all good. Are you sure you don’t need me to help you with anything?”

  “Positive. It will be night soon,” he pointed out. “Be careful.”

  There was very little in the dark that could hurt her, and she’d discovered that long ago. Instead of pointing that out to him, Nina merely took her leave. Outside, she drew in several long, deep breaths of crystal clear mountain air and wondered if she should go back inside. Confront him. He needed to understand that the kiss in the maintenance room had been nothing. A lapse of judgment. She didn’t hold it against him, and she didn’t expect it to mean anything. It didn’t have to affect their relationship.

  Except that it had, Nina thought with a look up at a blue sky going indigo around the edges. The moon had risen, glowing faint but proud on the horizon. That kiss had changed everything between them, and she didn’t know what to do about it.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The smell of breakfast greeted him as soon as he woke. Even after the stress of the past few days and the long trip from Woodhaven, made longer because of the circuitous route they’d taken to avoid being tracked, Ewan had assumed he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep at all. Now the morning light that shone through the small attic window looked more like the glow of late afternoon. He stretched, scratching, and turned onto his side to look through the glass. It had been a long time since he’d used this cabin, but the view from the window hadn’t changed. He had, though, and maybe not for the better.

  Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, he let his toes find the fringes of the rag rug his grandmother had inherited from her great-grandmother. His entire body ached, though dully, nothing sharp or insistent about any of the pains.

  A dream came back to him. The details were fuzzy and fading rapidly, but he remembered Nina’s smile. The taste of her kiss and the feeling of her hands on his body. Her whispered declaration that she would take care of him.

  For a moment, Ewan let his face fall into his cupped hands. They were in too deep for him to fire her now. The game had taken a twist, and he needed to see it through at least a while longer.

  Downstairs, he found Nina at the stove finishing up a pan of synthbacon with the powdered eggs she must have found in the pantry. She half-turned at the sound of his feet on the wooden floor. This morning, her hair was loose around her shoulders but pushed back from her face with a thick elastic band. She wore her usual black uniform, but the harness and gear he’d grown used to seeing were hung on the back of a kitchen chair, within arm’s reach.

  “I hope you’re hungry.” She held out the pan with a small smile. Faint circles made dusky shadows under her eyes. It was the first time he’d ever seen her look tired.

  He’d done that, he thought. Made her sleepless. “You didn’t have to cook me breakfast.”

  “I cooked me breakfast,” she said. “I just happened to have made enough for two. Or maybe six. Whatever, there’s plenty and no sense in wasting it. Anyway, you cooked last night. I don’t mind taking turns.”

  “I’ll set the table, then.”

  Plates full, they each took their places across from each other at the table and ate in silence. Nina had brought a book to the table and flipped the pages so rapidly it seemed impossible that she could be reading. Ewan sipped coffee, watching her until she looked up.

  “It’s not because I’m enhanced,” she said. “I just read really fast.”

  “I haven’t read a book in a long time. Years, probably.” He got up and brought the carafe back to the table to refill both their mugs. “Always seemed too busy.”

  Nina took a long sip of coffee and sighed with pleasure, then looked pointedly around the kitchen. “Seems like you’ll have a lot of downtime, here. Maybe you’ll get back into the habit.”

  “Maybe I should read Wuthering Heights.”

  She smiled again, as he’d been hoping she would. “I don’t think you’ll like it, really.”

  “You don’t necessarily know what I’d really like. I might surprise you.” He hadn’t meant his words as innuendo, but there was no denying the undercurrent there.

  In response, Nina scooped another plateful of eggs and synthbacon and dug in without responding.

  “After breakfast, we could take a hike,” Ewan said. “No sense in being cooped up here all day.”

  “If that’s what you want.” Her answer was neutral but pleasant.

  “There’s a great little river on the property. With a waterfall.”

  “Sounds pretty.”

  “It’s beautiful. At least it was the last time I was here. Long time ago.”

  Nina looked up from her food and took the time to swallow and wipe her lips with a cloth napkin before answering. “In my limited experience, waterfalls and rivers don’t change much, unless they’ve dried up.”

  “I guess we’ll find out.” He dug into the rest of his food with an appreciative noise. “Trying to keep up with you, I’m going to gain a hundred kilos.”

  She pushed a plate of toast toward him, along with a small pot of jam. “Don’t try to keep up with me. That way lies a madness no man should have to conquer.”

  Her quick wit delighted him. “You’re so smart, Nina. You continually surprise me.”

  “Because I’m smart? I wish it wasn’t such a shocker to you,” she said. “But thank you for saying so. Here, have some jam. Sorry there’s no special spoon.”

  He’d meant to compliment her. Clearly, she hadn’t taken it that way. “I’ll survive.”

  “Yes. I believe you will. It’s in your nature to survive.” She drained the mug and scooped the last bite of eggs into her mouth. Finished chewing. Swallowed. She wiped her mouth again and stood to take her plate to the sink.

  In the afternoon light shafting through the windows, her hair gleamed with tones of red and gold he hadn’t noticed before. She bent to scrub the plate, rinsing it beneath the faucet and twisting to put it in the drying rack. Each movement was specific, distinct, and graceful.

  “Like you’re dancing,” Ewan said aloud as he took his own plate to the sink.

  She took it from him without a word and looked over her shoulder at him with a raised eyebrow. “Hmm?”

  “You move like you’re dancing. Except your dance moves can kill people.”

  She put the dish in the sink and faced him. “Do you like to dance, Ewan?”

  “I don’t really know how.”

  “All those fancy parties you go to, and you’ve never learned to cut a rug?” She shook her head. “Here I thought stuff like that was taught in billionaire school.”

  He chortled. “I didn’t intend to be a billionaire, Nina. It just happened.”

>   “Lucky you, huh?” She finished rinsing his plate and stuck it next to hers before facing him again. She poked his stomach lightly with one finger, withdrawing before he could appreciate her touch. “C’mon, Donahue. You need a good long hike if you don’t want this getting bigger.”

  * * *

  It had been too long since Nina had been able to appreciate the beauty of simple, unadulterated natural landscapes. Frankly, there were few left in the world that weren’t privately owned and highly regulated, and her clients tended to spend their time with manicured lawns and gardens or urban environments. The last time she’d been able to walk through trees like this, she’d been at home.

  “I grew up in the woods. Saint Marys is tucked away in the mountains and forests,” she said. “Our house was over a hundred years old, a bungalow built in the nineteen fifties. Still had a yard that backed up to a patch of trees that had been declared historical homestead, so nobody could cut them down. It wasn’t anything like this, though. Onegod, Ewan, when you told me we were going someplace remote, I had no idea it would be like this.”

  “I could have sold it all a hundred or more times.” Ewan took a long pull from his water bottle and hooked it back onto his belt. He gestured out across the expanse in front of them. “Could have made myself a lot of money, but then what? I had enough money.”

  Nina laughed, hands on her hips, as she stretched. She let out a low, pleased groan at the crackle in her joints. The climb had felt good in the way working with her body always did. She’d gotten a little lax in her daily workouts over the past week or so. “Some people would argue that point with you. About the money, about having enough.”

  “Would you?” Ewan shot her a look.

  Nina shrugged, considering it. She shaded her eyes to look out over the vista, so beautiful it was like something out of a viddy. “I grew up without money, but lacking very little. Now I have more money than I know how to spend, yet I have almost nothing. I guess I need to acquire some expensive tastes. You know, for special spoons and stuff.”