Page 15 of When He Fights
He…
Drove toward her vehicle.Spun the bike and brought it back so that he could pause right next to the driver’s side.“We need to talk,” he informed her.
“I need to run,” she informed him right back.
“Not an option.”
The hell it wasn’t.Her go bag was in the seat beside her.It was stocked with clothes, a wig, and cash.She even had a fake ID in there that she’d picked up from a slightly shady guy during her last visit to New Orleans.She was ready to vanish.
Except for the peskytagthat he’d placed somewhere on her Jeep.
“Gray wants you to stay put,” Kane told her.
Gray—Grayson.His good FBI buddy.“What if I don’t particularly care what Grayson wants?”Her head turned.She’d left the Jeep door open, mostly just because he hadn’t given her time to shut it before he’d rolled up.“You going to force me to stay?”
“I just want to talk,” he told her.He sounded all reasonable, even with that deep and dangerous voice of his.“Give me twenty minutes, that’s what I’m asking.Let’s go back to your place.Get inside—you know, where we’re not in danger of getting smashed by other drivers and where we won’t be overheard with what is a pretty confidential conversation—and then we can talk.We can make a plan.”
“And if I don’t like what you have to say?What happens if I don’t like your plan?”She wet her lips.
His gaze dropped to her mouth.Lingered.Heated.
Whoa.Hold up.Heated?
He pulled out a pair of sunglasses and slipped them over his eyes.Now all she could see was her own slightly desperate expression staring back at her.Okay, fine, her expression was more than slightly desperate.
And he hadn’t responded to her questions.So she gave an answer.“If I don’t like your plan, I leave.”There.Done.“You remove the tag from my Jeep, and I drive away.You let me vanish.”
He nodded.“If you don’t like the plan, we’ll drive away.”
Her shoulders sagged in relief.Great.Fantastic.She would—uh, oh.Back up.He’d saidwe’ll.As in, plural.“Wait?—”
“I’ll follow you back to the house.Not exactly safe for us to keep lingering here.So haul that sweet ass, and let’s go.”An order.
He revved the motorcycle’s engine again.
Her eyes narrowed.Glaring at him, Ana snapped, “It’s fantastic to see you, too, Kane.You look great.So glad the last two years have treated you well.Always fun to run into an old friend who…oh, just happens to basically bestalkingyou.Lovely surprise on this beautiful day.Lovely.”She jerked the Jeep’s door closed.Glared at him.
He made a motion with his hand.A turn of his fingers.As in…turn this vehicle around.
She made a motion with her hand, too.As in…fuck you.
But she cranked her Jeep.Ana quickly repositioned her lucky duck army—her nickname for the cute, plastic ducks she’d started collecting once she became a Jeep owner.Once the ducks who’d tumbled at her sudden and fierce braking were resettled, Ana released a long breath.Then, for the moment, she turned around and headed back to her place.Blind panic and soul-crushing fear had sent her fleeing before.She could take a breath.She could give him twenty minutes.She could hear him out.
Then, when they were done talking, she could leave his sexy, muscled ass behind.Because there was no “we”in this situation.There was just her.And it was her life on the line.
Had he come off stalkerish?Probably.Correction, definitely.
As Kane shoved down the kickstand on his Harley and stared at the house that waited about twenty yards away, he realized that he could have handled things differently with Ana.Used a hell of a lot more tact.This had not exactly been the reunion he envisioned.Yeah, dammit, he’d envisioned a few reunions over the last two years.They’d mostly involved her running straight into his arms.Kissing him frantically.
Fucking him right then and there.
If a guy didn’t have dreams, how was he supposed to get through the days?
She slammed the Jeep’s door.A black bag hung from one delicate shoulder.“Are you coming in or what?We gonna have this big talk in my backyard?Or…” Her delicate jaw hardened.“Should I sayyourbackyard?”
Oh, shit.She’d figured that out, had she?
“Because see, I have this really bad suspicion that I am staring straight at my mysterious landlord.Grayson told me that a friend of his owned the place.A person he trusted completely.”
