Page 9 of Sniper's Pride

“I will keep that in mind should I take it upon myself to go on a nature walk.”

It was that gleam in her eyes, Griffin suspected. That was the problem. She looked almost... excited. Wound up and lit up with it. Instead of how she should have looked if she really was running for her life, which was scared.

Or even plain old worried.

“You seem pretty upbeat for someone who thinks they have a murderer on their tail, especially one who almost killed them twice.”

Mariah aimed that smile at him again, and it actually took a good-sized chip out of him. But Griffin refused toshow it. Not to this woman who shouldn’t have registered as anything more than a job.

He would have to examine that, too.

“Funny thing about two near-death experiences in a month,” she said, her gaze cool but her voice steady. Light and airy, even. Griffin didn’t trust it at all. “It takes all the fun out of curling up in the fetal position, whining and weeping. I’m sure I might get back to it. I like a good cry as much as the next girl. But for the time being, I’m going to enjoy being alive while I still am.”

He couldn’t say he liked the heat that worked its way through him, licking its way down the length of his body the same way that drawl did. He stalked down the hallway instead of answering her, stopping at the farthest door. He pulled out the key he’d picked up from Madeleine earlier, set it to the lock, and opened the door. Then he took more time than strictly necessary checking the room for potential intruders.

“Do you have a cell phone?” he asked.

“Of course I do. But it’s switched off.”

“Why?”

A faint dent appeared between her brows. “I was under the impression it could be used to track me.”

Griffin nodded, and certainly wasn’tdisgruntledthat she wasn’t an idiot.

“When you’re done, come back downstairs,” he told her curtly. “And leave the phone off.”

She’d followed him in, looking around as if she’d never seen a hotel room before.

“Is this what it’s like when you hire... whatever you are? Mercenaries?”

His lips thinned. “I am not a mercenary.”

“Is that offensive? I’m sorry.”

“A mercenary is a soldier for hire. No loyalty. No honor. Always for sale to the highest bidder, no matter who that is.”

“And that’s not you.”

“Alaska Force solves problems. We are not for sale. We turn down more jobs than we take. And we never ransom our honor. Ever.”

Maybe he only imagined that she looked paler at that, because he wanted her to. Because people should be careful asking questions like that of a man who’d dedicated his life to honor, courage, and unquestionable commitment.

“Noted,” she said softly.

“I’ll be in the lobby,” he told her, and then he left before he could do something he would really regret.

Griffin was not a man whose impulses controlled him. The fact that he’d spent twenty minutes in this woman’s presence and imagined he might have changed was a problem.

But not as big a problem as the heat that settled there in his sex like a clenched fist as he closed the door behind him and stalked back downstairs.

Reminding him how long it had been since he’d allowed himself any kind of release. Especially that kind.

And worse by far, reminding him in no uncertain terms that there was a man beneath the machine, no matter how much he wanted to pretend otherwise.

Four

When the door shut behind the coldest man Mariah had ever met—even colder than her in-laws, who had always struck Mariah as walking blizzards with fancy Georgia accents, even her relatively more friendly father-in-law—she moved to the bathroom, grabbing her toiletry bag as she went so she could deal with how ragged she must appear after her ferry ride and that march up from the docks.

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