Beneath the Secrets: Part One(20)

He stalked back to the main room and found Kara sitting up, her knees curled to her chest. “Why after you insisted I come here do I feel like you now want me to leave?” she demanded.

Blake snatched up his jeans and started to tug them on. “I don’t f*cking want you to leave.”

“You aren’t very convincing,” she snapped back. “And you say ‘f*ck’ and ‘f*cking’ a lot.”

Blake’s hands settled on his hips. “You have a problem with the word ‘f*ck’?”

“You use it in every other sentence.”

“So I’ve been told.” By his brother Royce’s wife, Lauren, who was one of the only women he knew who came off sweet and still fought like a tigress. Until Kara. And he liked it. He liked it a little too much. His cock thickened. Apparently, it did too.

“But you don’t care enough to stop,” Kara commented.

“It’s not that I don’t care.” Blake ran a rough hand through his hair, and he forced his shoulders to relax on a breath. “It’s a habit. I picked it up from a client I worked for.” He sauntered to the desk chair and sat down, trying not to think about Kara spread wide on the desk. He failed and adjusted his jeans. “Someone would say ‘Good morning’ and he’d reply with something like ‘Good morning and f*ck you. Now where is product I ordered?” Kara’s eyes went wide and Blake grinned. “Or there was this time he took a bite of his food in a restaurant and dropped his fork in distaste and grumbled ‘f*ck’, then glared at the people walking in the door and told them to ‘run for their f*cking lives’.”

Kara laughed, a soft, feminine note that did funny things to his insides. “He sounds both horrible and entertaining.”

“He was a jerk but a damn entertaining and efficient one, too. He did his job.”

“Which was what?”

“Security.”

“Sounds like he might need some protection of his own.”

Their eyes locked and held and the air thickened instantly. His muscles bunched, tension rippling through him. If anyone needed protection, it was him from this woman. For now, he’d settle for a distraction. He reached for the phone. “You hungry? I’m ordering pizza. You can go over the restaurant staff with me while we eat.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “I’m hungry.”

The air crackled and damn if he wasn’t ready to say “f*ck the pizza” and go with her instead. He arched a brow. “For pizza?”

“Pizza. Yes. Cheese.” His lips hinted at a smile that said she knew what he was thinking.

“Cheese. Somehow I thought you’d be more complicated than that.”

“Sometimes the answers are simple.”

Blake snorted. “Rarely.”

“I didn’t say easy. I said simple. There’s a difference.”

“Touché,” he murmured, releasing a heavy breath on the word. After all, what he wanted was pretty cut and dry, pretty damn simple. Find the enemy. Kill the enemy. And damn it, to save Kara, which should not be on the list. And save her from what anyway? Mendez? Richter? Herself?

Blake scrubbed his jaw and turned away from her, reaching for the phone, and hesitating. Kyle was right. She could be undercover with an agency and he could get her killed if he wasn’t careful. Considering the last woman he’d tried to save had ended up dead, maybe he needed to just get the hell away from her. But he knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Fuckf*ckf*ck and add about a thousand more “f*cks”, because not only was he entangled with this woman, and on dangerous ground, he knew he was going to try to stop saying “f*ck” because she wanted him to. He cared what bothered her. He hadn’t let himself give a damn what anyone thought in a long while and he didn’t want to give a damn now. But he did.

Oh yeah. He was f*cked up where this woman was concerned. He might as well order the pizza and stop wasting time trying to convince himself he wasn’t.

Then he’d “f*ck” her again and hope she didn’t do him “Denver style” afterwards.





Chapter Eight


When Kara heard Blake order four pizzas, her blood ran cold at what seemed the certainty that guests were coming. She wasn’t waiting around to be dessert for a bunch of Blake’s crew, who surely he’d called to San Francisco. What had she been thinking to come here alone? And why did she keep thinking that sleeping with a monster was anything but sleeping with a monster? He was one of them. She hated them.

Kara waited until Blake turned his head to try to locate the address for the delivery order and she scrambled across the bed and snatched up his shirt (since he’d destroyed the buttons on hers, damn him) and tugged it over her head. Next, she darted for her skirt halfway across the room. She silently cursed when she heard him hang up the phone and adrenaline raced through her with the urgency to dress. A second before she’d been about to claim her garment, his hand shackled her wrist.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded as they both straightened.

“I’m not your crew’s chew toy, Blake. I know you think I’m some sort of whore, but I’m not. I’m—”

“What? What in the hell are you talking about, Kara? Chew toy? My crew?”