the world with a little more bravado and it was the kind of outfit that required confidence to carry it off …
‘Might want to remember vampires aren’t supposed to walk in direct sunlight before you step outside,’ he said.
‘Are you going to tell me to avoid holy water, garlic and crosses too?’
He nodded. ‘And teenage cheerleaders with wooden stakes …’
Turning in her chair, Jo stretched her legs and pouted. ‘You don’t like the boots?’ she asked as she looked at him. ‘They’re my favourite part.’
Daniel leaned to the side to examine them, a small frown appearing between his brows. ‘You can walk in those things?’
‘Women don’t wear boots like these for comfort.’
Bending forward, she reached down and ran her hands over the shining leather, tucking her thumbs under the edge at her thigh and tugging as she lifted her foot off the ground. Her hair fell over her shoulder as she turned her head and smiled the kind of small, meaningful smile she’d never aimed at him before. ‘Didn’t we talk about how people wear things because of the way they make them feel?’
The glint of danger in his eyes was obviously intended to make her stop what she was doing before she was any deeper in trouble. Foolish man. He really didn’t know her at all.
Daniel gritted his teeth together as she repeated the motion with her hands on her other leg and tossed her hair over her shoulder as she sat up. When she smiled across the room, his gaze followed her line of vision to the barista who was smiling back at her.
The one who had known how she took her coffee.
The second his gaze shifted, Daniel glared at him. But the guy who immediately went scurrying back to his coffee beans wasn’t the source of his annoyance. Neither was the fact his plan to purposefully avoid looking at her feet as he approached the table had backfired on him, though, with hindsight, forewarned might have been forearmed. What got to him was how well her diversionary tactic had worked.
There wasn’t a male cell in his body that hadn’t reacted to those boots and the strip of bare skin below another sinful short skirt. He had spent every moment since he’d sat down with her consciously stopping himself from looking at the straining buttons on her black blouse and once again she’d got him with footwear. But if she thought it would distract him from his target for long, she was mistaken.
He was a Marine, for crying out loud; the phrase ‘courage under fire’ was as good as tattooed on his ass.
Watching with hooded eyes, he saw her slide her computer to one side before resting her elbow on the table. Setting her chin in her palm, she leaned forward, feigned innocence with a flutter of long lashes and asked, ‘Something wrong?’
‘You done?’ he questioned dryly.
‘Done with what?’ Amusement danced in her eyes. ‘You might need to elaborate.’
If he didn’t know what she was doing, he might have been tempted to play along. But if he did, Daniel knew what would happen. He would play to win.
‘Tell me what’s going on.’
When she rolled her eyes, he set his forearms on the table and leaned closer, his gaze locked on hers while he waited. Up close she did have pretty spectacular eyes. A little large for her face maybe, but they were so deep a brown it was difficult to tell where the irises began.
He’d never noticed that before.
After studying him for a long moment, she lowered her voice. ‘What if I told you it was private?’
‘I’d tell you I won’t share it with anyone else,’ he replied in the same low tone.
‘Why should I believe you?’
‘A man is nothing without his word.’
‘Tell me why you need to know.’
He wondered when she thought he’d handed over control of the negotiation. Dragging his gaze from mesmerizing eyes, he considered what to tell her. She was right; they could do this all day. Until one of them bent a little nothing would ever change. Of course knowing that meant he had to ask himself if he wanted their relationship to change. But since it felt as if it already was …
‘I recognized what I saw in your eyes before you closed the door this morning.’ He looked into them again as he spoke. ‘I’ve seen it before.’
‘What did you see?’ she asked in a whisper, forcing him to lean closer to hear her.
‘Resignation.’
She stared at him and then blinked as if trying to bring him into focus. ‘If you knew me as well as you like to think you do, you’d know …’
‘I’d know?’ he prompted as she frowned.
‘Why I don’t want to talk about it.’ Dropping her palm from her chin, she leaned back and swiped a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘People keep secrets for a reason.’
When she reached for her computer, Daniel felt the lost opportunity as keenly as he sensed she wasn’t just talking about herself. But if she knew the reason he wasn’t sleeping, why hadn’t she pushed the advantage? Lifting his coffee cup, he looked out of the window and questioned what he would have done if their places had been switched. The exact same thing was the honest answer. It was what he was doing already. He knew there was something wrong and was giving her an opportunity to tell him. In turn, she was refusing to open up.
Number four on his list: nothing in common.
So much for that one …
‘You want another coffee?’ she asked.
He looked at her cup from the corner of his eye. ‘What did you do, inhale it?’
‘Figured if you were planning on digging in, I may as well top up on supplies.’
Since sitting still for any amount of time inevitably led to reminders of his sleep deprivation, Daniel shook his head. ‘Think I’ll head down to the station and look through mugshots for Jack before my shift starts.’
Jo sighed heavily as he stood up. ‘Dig all you want. I’m telling you now there’s only one way you’ll find out and that avenue isn’t and never will be open to you.’
‘And there you go challenging me again …’
Taking a step forward, he set his coffee cup hand on the table by her computer and the other on the back of her chair. As her chin lifted he leaned down, smiling the same kind of small, meaningful smile she’d aimed at him when she’d pulled her little stunt with the boots.
‘When I want something, nothing gets in my way,’ he told her in a deliberately low, intimate tone. ‘Make it difficult for me, I’ll want it more and work twice as hard to get it. So feel free to keep doing what you’re doing, but don’t say you weren’t warned.’
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