Deadly Testimony (Safeguard #2)(29)

With the light from her laptop screen supplementing visibility in the room, a fine sheen of sweat shone on his skin. Candlelight would be a fantastic idea at the moment. She loved the way a flickering flame could show off the human form and it’d been a long time since she’d had a partner patient enough to set up small details like that in a room.

Nope. Kyle was not a partner and this was not headed in the direction her thoughts seemed to be going on their own. There would be no fantasizing.

“If something is worth doing,” Kyle huffed, “It is worth doing well. I’m not satisfied if I haven’t done my personal best. In anything.”

Oh, but he was very good at inspiring all the naughty fantasies.

Turning back to her laptop, she attempted to focus on something else, anything else. “Maybe tomorrow morning I’ll go through my routine at the same time. We can draw the curtain between the sleeping and sitting areas.”

She disliked doing it because she preferred to have line of sight on the person she was protecting as much as possible, but so far he’d been careful to honor her instructions on staying away from the windows. He hadn’t once asked to leave the room.

He paused and faced her, his hands on his hips as he stood there with a relaxed posture. “You prefer your workouts without an audience?”

“Correct.” She bit the inside of her cheek. She’d just watched him go through his and hadn’t even thought about whether it’d be rude or not. She shouldn’t have made the assumption that he’d want an audience. Maybe she should’ve at least asked if he minded.

He shrugged. “Okay. I can take my time in the shower if you’d like time to work out now.”

“I’m not sure the hotel’s hot water heaters can handle it.” She gave him a small smile though. He really was surprisingly considerate.

“Ah well.” He lifted his hands, palms up. “I’ve always showered with a lady sharing my room. To conserve water, of course.”

She narrowed her eyes and glared at him. “Pass.”

He grinned at her. “Consider it a standing offer, with global conservation in mind.”

Irritation warred with a tiny spark of interest. She immediately squashed any and all thoughts resembling fantasies of the man. She’d let him lure her in some but he was a player and a womanizer and she was having none of it.

Standing, she stalked toward him. To his credit, his grin didn’t fade and he didn’t give ground, but the look in his eyes turned wary. At least he wasn’t idiotic enough to think her approach was some sort of triumph for him.

Without a word, she reached for the curtain and pulled it across most of the room, leaving a small space for a person to slip through if necessary. Not completely blocking him out, but still a definitive shutdown.

Argh. She was as irritated with herself as with him. He had a knack for getting under her skin. One minute his charm seemed sincere and genuinely engaged her. She found herself drawn to him, liking him even. Which she would not be letting him know anytime soon. Then he’d switch gears, turning vapid and transparent. Shallow.

It was infuriating.

And it shouldn’t be.

Normally, she had no f*cks to give about what a man did with his time. If he was a player, well, there was a certain accountability to the women who fell into his bed willingly and she tended to figure it took two to make the decision. As far as she could tell, Kyle was up front about his intentions. No strings attached. He wasn’t the type to lead a girl into thinking there was a committed relationship of any kind. It wasn’t like he was a bad person, just not relationship material. So there wasn’t any of the duplicity there to set off her anger.

No. That wasn’t quite right. He was being dishonest in a way. Not in what he said but in what he wasn’t saying. She got the sense there was more to him. He wasn’t shallow. He wasn’t an *. But he was far too good at letting people think he was.

Maybe what was pissing her off was that he might’ve been pretending so long, he was starting to believe his own bullshit.

*

He needed to stop being an *.

Hot water ran down his back as Kyle let the shower wash away the sweat of last night’s nightmare along with what he’d worked up doing his morning exercises. It had been less of a concern with his police escort or with the bland deputy marshal. None of them had been kind to him, or considerate, or thought much of him. And so, it was easy and even amusing to encourage the string of little judgments they would make about his character based on his jokes and innuendos.

They hadn’t considered him as a person from the outset and he felt no compulsion to prove himself in their minds.

Isabelle Scott was proving herself to be even more unique than he’d first thought. It was refreshing, intriguing and uncomfortable. She’d met him and given him a blank slate as far as he could tell.

Oh, every person made judgments based on their impressions. It happened within seconds of first meeting. There was a certain wisdom in learning to assess people within moments of an encounter. He considered it a survival skill, whether out on the city streets at night or in a high-powered business meeting.

Perhaps what was different about Isabelle Scott, or Lizzy as her commander called her, was her attitude. She hadn’t dismissed him out of hand when they first met. She’d been fairly brusque to all of them in turn. There had been no singling him out. Each one of them had been met with the same level of professionalism, impersonal and efficient.