Page 3 of Hot Intent

“I insist,” he said implacably.

Apparently, his honorable streak was still a mile wide. That, and his protective streak.

Still. He’d been alone basically his entire life, and the transition to having an overnight family had not been easy for him. She suspected it was part of why he’d agreed to leave for special training so quickly after he’d gotten her and Dawn back from their kidnapper.

No way would she even consider staying here with him in this dark, lethal frame of mind were it not for the threat his father still posed to them all.

“I had an intercom system installed while you were away, Alex. I hope you don’t mind. It’s just that the place is so big I can’t hear Dawn if she’s in her room and I’m in—” she broke off.

How to describe the master bedroom? Was it still just his room? Their room? It had been her room for the past year. She slept in it to feel closer to him. To smell his clothes in the closet, hug his pillow at night, and remember the mind-blowing sex they’d had in his bed.

“Good call on the intercom,” he remarked.

“Are you hungry? Tired? It’s late. Have you traveled a long way to get here? Oops. Strike that last one. But you do look tired.”

He actually looked more than tired. Up close, she spied lavender shadows beneath his eyes, and a haggard quality clung to him. He looked bone-deep exhausted. She could imagine the kind of stuff the CIA trained its field operatives to do, and he probably had good cause to be wiped out.

She murmured, “Let me check on Dawn, and then I’ll be back to welcome you home properly.”

His gray, intelligent gaze went alert and predatory. Her tummy fluttered apprehensively in response. For all the times he’d warned her his sexual tastes were too dark for her, he always ended up making love to her without harming a hair on her head.

Sure, he’d pushed her inexperienced, vanilla boundaries some. And she’d loved every minute of it. But she’d naively trusted him back then, and he’d been trying hard to become a different person.

He’d just spent a year being pushed back to his darkest, most dangerous self. Would that translate into the bedroom as well?

“I’ll be waiting,” he said roughly.

Now why did that sound like a threat? Was it just his habitual economy of expression, or was it more? Either way, her heart leaped in trepidation.

Hah. And André had hinted broadly that Alex might not want to have a romantic relationship with her when he got home. He’d been home five minutes and already laid a smoking hot kiss on her and was now moving things to the bedroom. Abject gratitude flowed through her.

He was still hers. Brilliant, tortured Alex Peters, genius, surgeon, and now spy, still wanted her. Part of her—okay, a scarily big part of her—worried it was too good to be true. That he was going through the motions now because he thought she expected him to. That the past year’s worth of training hadforced him to revert to form and shut down emotionally. That he would ultimately push her out of his life.

Worried, she leaned over the crib in the nursery. Sweet Dawn, the best baby ever, settled in under her blanket without waking up. If the way she kicked off blankets was any indication, she was on her way to being a great soccer player.

Li’l munchkin had been through a lot in her short life. She’d been born into a war zone and her mother had died in childbirth despite Alex’s heroic efforts to save her. The entire village had been massacred and the three of them had barely made it out with their lives.

But thanks to the trust fund Alex had set up, the legalities his lawyer had sorted out to give Alex and her permanent custody of Dawn, and, of course, the roof Alex had put over both of their heads, it was nothing but smooth sailing for Dawn, now. For all of them. No more running around being chased by bad guys out to kill them. Katie tiptoed out of the nursery and down the hall to Alex’s bedroom.

Alex stood in the darkness of his bedroom absorbing the familiarity of its dark shapes, noting the differences Katie had brought to the space. He could do this. He could pretend to be a normal man. Live a normal life. He could experience pleasure. Family. Love. He would not break.

Nothing would break him.

They’d tortured him and screwed with his head and made him kill. But in spite of it all, he had not broken. And to think, he’d once believed his father a bastard for training him like a spy. Hah. If only he’d known just how easy his old man had taken it on him.

Alex shrugged off his shirt. Cool air blew lightly across his skin causing goose bumps on his chest, back, and arms. Hekicked off his shoes and stripped off his pants and socks. Naked, he stood stock still in the middle of his bedroom. Only darkness clothed him.

Memories rolled over him, then. Remembered tortures that made him tremble, even now. They’d begun like this, too. Exposed skin, cool breath upon his flesh. Then pain. Exquisite, fiery pain.

And in his agony, all the demons from his past had come calling, singing to him like Sirens, calling him home. It would’ve been so easy to lose himself in them. To check out of the prolonged agony and go to that other place inside his soul.

But he’d chosen the pain. He’d stayed present. Suffered the agonies of Hell. Only then had he been sure he was still alive.

Even now, especially now, he wondered if any of this was real. It was so mundane. His house. Katie. The baby.

Was this the cruelest torture of all? Were they going to let him get comfortable and then rip it all away from him? If he knew what was good for him, he would reject it all. He would embrace the pain and live there.

But that welcome-home kiss…

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