Deep Under (Tall, Dark and Deadly #4)(20)

My attention lands on the computer Kyle had said was for personal use, which would certainly hold some sort of clue to him as a person as well as his motives for being here. Not giving myself time to chicken out, I reach down and try to power it to life, only to have a password protector pop up. “Sorry to disappoint, sweetheart,” I hear from behind me, whirling around to find him looking hot and hard in gray sweats, a gray t-shirt, with his gun and shoulder holster over the top. “It’s password protected.” He snatches up his hoodie from the bed, pulls it over his holster, and crosses to stand directly in in front of me. “And I require at least one naked romp in the sheets before I give out my personal passwords. And since you seem to think that would get us killed-”

“It would get us killed,” I say, and then it hits me that I’ve inferred I might otherwise. “Not that I would betray Michael. I just…”

“Right. You wouldn’t. I get it.” He’s not smiling. In fact, he seems rather displeased before adding, “I guess you have to ask before you use my computer, then.”

“I just wanted to know what you were saying about me,” I say, wondering how any one man can exude the amount of heat he is right now. “And what your motives are.”

“I told you. I control what Michael Alvarez knows about you and me, and no one else. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” I say, but I don’t move, my mind returning to the hacking skills he’s claimed, and truthfully, I’m curious about this man. So very curious. “Can you hack my phone and my computer?”

“Yes.”

“Will you?”

“Yes.” He motions to the door. “Ready?”

“Why would you admit that?”

“Because it’s what I do. I hack. And I’m damn good at it. You can’t spend months with me and not figure that out, unless I don’t want you to figure it out.”

“Why not hide it from me?”

“Because believe it or not, I want your trust, and I won’t get that without being honest.”

“Why?”

“Why what, sweetheart?”

“Don’t call me that or it-”

“Will get me killed?” he asks, arching a brow.

“Us killed.”

“Are you going to tell?”

“No.”

“Then unless it offends you, and since you feel like a “sweetheart” to me, when no one else has in a long time, I don’t see the problem. Does it offend you?”

“I…if it did, the fact that you just asked if it does makes it not.”

“Well then, problem solved. Let’s go to the gym, sweetheart.”

“You really don’t have to work out with me.” I eye his gun. “And how are you going to workout in that anyway?”

“It will suck but it’s easier to get to than an ankle holster.”

“Easier is you not working out with me.”

“Of course it is,” he replies, zipping up his hoodie to hide his weapon. “But I’m supposed to be the badass who beats everyone up and protects you. I can’t do that eating donuts and binge watching Dexter, though I do like me some donuts and Dexter, sweetheart.”

“You don’t have to do that, either.”

“Do what?”

“Make jokes and try to make me comfortable.”

“I wasn’t aware that I was supposed to try to make you comfortable or uncomfortable. I’m just being me and I happen to like donuts and Dexter. Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Like donuts and Dexter.”

“éclairs are heaven and I’ve never watched Dexter.”

He looks appalled. “Did you just say that you’ve never watched Dexter?”

I laugh. “No. I’m not into serial killers.”

“He’s not like your average serial killer.”

“Any serial killer is a serial killer is a serial killer.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. He a vigilante with a code. You can’t appreciate it until you watch it.”

“Killers make me uncomfortable,” I say, and the fact that Michael is one, has me quickly adding, “I won’t watch it.”

He studies me a moment. “Do you like cartel movies?”

“Not at all and I know you’re surmising things about me right now.”

“I am surmising, and I imagine you think you know what.”

“That I am illogical in all I do.”

“No,” he says solemnly. “I do not assess you as illogical, in any way, shape or form.”

“Then what do you think about me?”

“I think there is far more to your story than meets the eye and those are the kind of stories that intrigue me. So. You intrigue me.”

“I think you’re flirting with me.”

“Am I?”

“Are you?”

“I’m just being the me I am with you.”

“Because they paid you to be.”

“No. But you said it and I know the truth. You can’t know that. Not yet.”

“But I will?”

“Yes.”

“Promise?”