Page 3 of Under Fire

That will take an hour. I can’t just wait here for that long!

He’s not going to bite…really.

Please. How well do you know this guy?

Well enough… Give him a chance.

“You okay in there?” Warren grunted from the hall.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Alisa chewed to herself, widening her dark eyes into the mirror.

“Hello?”

“Yes, sir. I’m good,” she called back and realized her fate was sealed.

It’s too late to run.

So, she did the only thing she could do. She sucked it up and buckled in.This is what life has come to, she grumbled to herself silently as she threw on the ridiculously skimpy hot yoga shorts and matching tank top and stuffed her jeans and shirt into the shopping bag. She looked like she should be serving drinks at one of LA’s hottest bars, much to the appreciation of a sea of men—something totally foreign to her. She’d killed off that sexy, fun side of herself long ago, her intense ambition driving her to focus on only one thing—her growing collection of textbooks.

With the wordsno, no, norunning wild through her mind, she tried to breathe, pulling back her hair into a high ponytail that kissed her back and browned shoulders. Alisa shook her head, contemplating herself in the mirror. She nervously toyed with the long, thin gold chain around her neck—falling low, down the line of her cleavage. The ring on the end of the chain seared into her breasts.

I shouldn’t be doing this.

Hoisting the bag over her shoulder, she put on a fake confident smile and pushed her way back out into the hallway, only to release it when she realized that Mr. Perfect wasn’t waiting there for her.Thank God. She let her mouth drop into a neutral hyphen, absently flinging the bag holding her jeans onto her purse and went searching for that damn cleaning closet.

It was time to get to work and pretend that no part of her was secretly enjoying sharing air with that terrifyingly perfect man.

Chapter Two

Alisa

Silent as a mouse, starting from the second floor and working her way down, Alisa knuckled into the cleaning. She observed that the master bedroom seemed to be only occupied byone.Interesting—Mr. Perfect lived alone. And there were no women’s clothes or items to be found. Wiping the baseboards in the second and third bedrooms, what was even more interesting was that Alisa could see that these bedrooms weren’t even being used. They were almost empty, except for a few boxes of unpacked things.

What’s his deal? Has he just moved in?

In the upstairs hallway, she rubbed down a dusty mirror, catching her reflection. Softly brushing her eyebrows flat and swiping at her lip balm, she took in a deep breath. The way her genes were expressed, her appearance had always been unique. An Indian mother, a Caucasian father—truly, no one really ever could guess what her ethnic origin was. Most men she’d met in LA just called herexotic.

She didn’t really like that.

Suddenly, she wondered what Mr. Perfect saw when he looked at her.

As she wandered down the hardwood staircase, polishing as she went, she overheard his booming voice on the phone in the living room. Demanding and dominant, his was the type of voice that hit her in her core, awakening her senses. Cresting into the open area, she saw his muscular frame seated on the edge of the couch, and he was having an animated discussion—and he didn’t seem happy about it.

“No, I’m not fucking going,” Warren roared into the phone. There was a pause, then he continued, “Because I’m not. I don’t care if the entire goddamn platoon is.”

Platoon.

The word hit Alisa, and she stopped in her tracks on the first floor. There it was—a big piece to the puzzle. Warren glared upward before waving her into the room but continued drilling into his phone, barking at whomever he was speaking to. Like she was walking in on something she wasn’t supposed to be, she anxiously looked for something to work on and get busy. The wooden coffee table was the closest thing that needed attention, so she made a snap decision and marched toward it.

So, Warren was in the military, she mulled, covertly glancing up at him.He certainly fits the bill, she thought, watching his tattooed arms flex with his growl. She could hear muffled words shooting back at him on the phone. Whoever he was talking to, it was clearly a full-blown disagreement.

“That’s just fucking offside,” he said, chucking a magazine from the coffee table to the couch, giving Alisa room to clean in front of him. “Why the hell is this rookie trying so damn hard to get me there?”

Warren settled his gaze on her as she knelt in front of him, polishing the table. Alisa kept her eyes down, working hard, but couldn’t ignore the intensity of Mr. Perfect’s burning glare. It was almost like he couldn’t look away, and he didn’t seem happy about it.

Once again, she let her gaze trace upward from her kneeling position, locking eyes with the crystal-blue ones staring back at her. Something about his demeanor changed in that split second, and she noticed him shift his heavy body.

“Fuck, whatever—I’ve got work to do. And so do you,” Warren grunted, ending the call.

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