Page 35 of Redemption

“She is that,” Ryder agreed. “And you can.”

“When do you go back to work?”

He shrugged. “Whenever there’s a job.”

“No set schedule?”

“No. We work like all hell when there’s a contract, and then we’re off, free to do whatever until the phone call or text comes. Then we go.”

“Just like that?”

He snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

“Do you like it?”

Funny. He’d never thought about his job in terms of liking it. He was good at it, the best. It was immensely satisfying. There was always an adrenaline high. The team was the best. The rescues made the world better; the takedowns made it safer. He had the opportunity to meet people like her. “Yeah, I think so. Never thought about it in terms of like or dislike before.”

She put the mug down. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Then in terms of what?”

He drew in a breath. “It’s what I’m supposed to do.”

She blinked, tilting her head. “I get that.”

“I know.” They were cut from the same cloth. The more he watched her mind work, the more he believed that. “I know you do.”

She tore her eyes away. “I wasn’t talking about me.”

Yes, she was. “Didn’t say you were.”

Victoria kept her gaze trained on her coffee. “About last night…”

“What happened on the boardwalk stays on the boardwalk. I’m not going to say anything to anyone. Like Mia said, you stay here until you’re ready to go home, and when you are, we’ll make sure you get there safely.”

She nodded. “Thanks.”

His chest tightened. The idea that she could go back to Iowa and disappear from his life didn’t sit right. They’d rescued many people over the years, and never had he wanted to stay in touch. Never had he wanted to be close to them in any way… But he did with Victoria, and maybe it was because of how he’d rescued her, the circumstances with Ivan.

Last night, Ryder had said as much—almost. They’d connected. That was obvious, and they’d both needed his arms, him as much as her, until he walked her to sleep and put to her to bed like the gentleman that he was—though it nearly killed him.

Right now, though? That gentleman shit? There was none of that type of behavior revving in his blood. Ryder sucked his cheeks and inhaled deeply at the thought of her soft skin, feeling the impulse to brush the loose strands of hair dangling beside her face.

There was nothing gentlemanly about any urges coursing through his system.But hell. No question, it wasn’t platonic, but it couldn’t be sexual—or was it?

He wasn’t trying to get her in his bed. He wouldn’t dare, knowing where she’d been and what had happened to her in Russia. His reaction to Javier’s suggestion in Mexico had stuck with him though. Man, he hadn’t been able to let that thought go.

Whatever their energy, it made his muscles twitch and ran him back to Winters’s. He cringed away from the echo ofspecial girlin his mind and didn’t like how Victoria treaded close to those memories. Still, there wasn’t a chance he’d be anywhere else right now.

He pushed away his plate. “How long might you stay?”

“I’m not—”

The barreling commotion of two dogs and two kids running down the stairs collided with the sound of the front door opening.

“We’re here,” Rocco’s familiar baritone carried through the house.

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