Deadly Testimony (Safeguard #2)(20)

*

Anger surged and battled with her short-circuited libido. He’d caught her by surprise but that was no excuse for letting him inside her guard.

No. She was pissed at herself because she’d been imagining exactly what kissing him would be like.

And now she was.

And melting into his arms wasn’t in the plan.

But his lips on hers felt damned good. It’d been a long time since chemistry with a man sizzled this way. So maybe a little melting was called for.

His lips brushed over hers and his tongue flicked out, teasing her lower lip.

Hell, she wasn’t going to think about this. At least she wouldn’t for the next few seconds. She opened for him.

He deepened the kiss at her invitation, his tongue sweeping in to explore. She met him halfway and tasted him in return. The man was a very, very good kisser.

When they parted, it was slow and reluctant. She drew in air through her nose and let it out slowly through her mouth, struggling to pull her scattered thoughts together. Warily, she scanned the room. The habitual check gave her a chance to get back to intelligent thoughts without looking him in the eyes. No new people had entered. None had left either. Not a single person seemed to have noticed the public display. Thank God.

Her cheeks burned and she cleared her throat. “That—”

“Was nice.” Kyle’s voice had deepened a note or two to a husky tenor.

Yes. “Not the point.” She probably sounded like a bitch but she needed to be firm. “It shouldn’t happen again. It’s too distracting.”

There was a beat of silence. “May I take that as a positive reaction to the kiss in general?”

She scowled at him, trying to cover her discomfiture He kept knocking her off balance. Other men would’ve been more butt-hurt over her assertion. It made it easier for her to do her job.

A tiny part of her warmed though.

“What would you do next?” She tossed the question out in an effort to move the topic along to something else, pulling up a list of her private notes on her laptop.

He shifted in his seat and leaned toward her again. “After a kiss?”

“No.” She lifted her hand and tapped his chest with her fingertips without taking her gaze away from her screen. “After leaving a place in a hurry.”

“Why?” He sounded genuinely puzzled. “I honestly haven’t rushed out of a place in quite that way.”

She snorted. “You’ve never had to make a break for it? Ever?”

A pause. “It’s been a long time.”

An image of a much younger version of him running popped into her mind. There might have been amusement there, but she thought she heard an underlying bitterness. Layers. The man had too many of them and she couldn’t understand why she had the urge to explore.

“I’m guessing whoever is after you has studied you and had time to observe your protective detail too. At least enough to recognize the pattern of their circuit.” She might’ve been identified already as well and she’d include it in her planning. Chances were good they didn’t have enough information on her yet to predict her moves. Especially since they were currently in the wind. “I’d like to have an idea of what you’d do on your own so I can take a guess at where they’d be looking for you.”

“Ah.” He sat back. The air in the sudden space he’d left was still warm with his presence. “I’d find temporary accommodations, probably with a passing acquaintance. It’d seem unwise to go to my own flat.”

She thought about the brief hesitation before he mentioned an acquaintance. Uh-huh. “You mean ‘lady friend’?”

Even that was indirect. Unusual for her but no need to make assumptions or get judge-y.

Fabric rustled as he shrugged. “Some are actual friends, others are more temporary associates with a practical price tag attached to the pleasure of their company.”

She nodded. The weight of his stare increased as he studied her but she wasn’t going to give him any of the expected reactions.

“Most women seem to react less than favorably when I admit to seeking out company.” There was a question underlying Kyle’s statement. Not too probing.

Because he wasn’t interrogating her or making stupid assumptions based on whatever his idea of what most women would think, Isabelle continued running her searches and responded to him. “I’ve heard some people refer to my line of work in the same general context as prostitution. People can be capable of committing some incredibly awful things to each other. In comparison? A few hours of sexual gratification seems closer to the positive side of ways to earn a living.”

She’d had people tell her what she’d done was worse than exchanging sex for money. Considering how many times she’d been deployed, how often she’d had to do things no one talked about when they returned to Stateside, she’d be inclined to think so too.

“Agreed.” Kyle sounded impressed.

It startled her, the way his comment came on the tail end of her line of thought. The idea of him having such a negative opinion of her unsettled her too, twisting her gut uncomfortably. She shouldn’t care. She’d made a habit of not.

Something about the discussion niggled at her and she gladly followed that line of thought as a distraction. “You’re circumspect. I can understand referring to it delicately in a larger group. But it’s just me and you here and you’re not paying me for polite company. There’re people out there who’d call a prostitute a lot of other things besides ‘passing acquaintance’.”