Following Her (Unexpected Heroes #2.5)(9)

Maybe it’d been too long since she’d been on a decent date. Maybe she was scared after everything that had happened with Felix, or maybe she just wasn’t drinking enough. Whatever the reason, she needed to pull herself together.

If only the look he was sending her wasn’t making her insides stir, wasn’t making her want to climb from her seat and right into his lap. She wasn’t even sure who she was at the moment.

“I can see that you’re berating yourself internally, but why try to fight what you’re feeling? You like me. Admit it,” Axel said as he reached over and took her hand, his thumb making circles on her wrist, right where her pulse began to speed up.

“I’m not attracted to you,” she lied as she pulled on her hand to no avail.

“Come on, Ella. There had to be a small part of you that knew it was me you were meeting tonight,” he said, those lazy arcs his thumb was tracing driving her slowly insane.

“I had no idea.” If she had thought it for a brief moment, she wasn’t going to admit that to him.

“Why don’t we stop the games and just have a good night?”

She was being pulled in, could feel it with every fiber of her being as his touch sizzled through her. And then at the last second before she leaned forward and discovered what his lips tasted like, she snapped back to reality. This man was a Casanova, and she’d be a fool not to remember that.

She did lean forward, taking pleasure in the triumph she saw light his eyes. “Mmm, you’re smooth aren’t you, Axel?” she whispered.

“Just honest,” he replied, leaning forward to meet her.

“I’m smoother . . . and not easily fooled. Now give me my hand.” The change from sultry to commanding seemed to pull him out of his sexual haze and he dropped her hand as if he’d just been burned.

He lifted his drink and took a long swallow before turning her way again.

“I guess none of my normal moves are going to work on you,” he finally said, sending her a wink that told her more about the man than anything he’d said aloud. Yes, he was confident, but he used humor to cover up when he was feeling something that possibly frightened him. Interesting.

“Why don’t you share something about yourself, Axel? If I’m going to be stuck with you shadowing me, whether I want it or not, then the least you can do is tell me who you are.”

“I’m an open book,” he said, giving her what she now knew was his trademark smile.

“Well then, it shouldn’t be hard to read me a few pages.” Ah, that had produced a real smile. She waited.

“Fine. I was born into a great family with a younger sister who is a lot like you, actually, named Kaylee. I move around a lot, work for the FBI, and love to catch the bad guy,” he said almost flippantly.

She found it interesting that the only real piece of information he gave her was to mention his sister, who put a little bit of a glow in his eyes when he spoke her name. He wasn’t an open book at all, but there was certainly a story to be told about Axel.

Ella just made sure to tell herself she didn’t in any way want to read that story.

“Do you like working for the FBI?”


“Of course I do,” he said, but she thought maybe she saw a piece of untruth in that. He continued before she could question it. “I knew when I was in fifth grade what I wanted to do.”

“Fifth grade? Really? Interesting,” she said, thinking she had pretty much known what she wanted to do by then as well. She didn’t like having that in common with him.

“I was at the store with my little sister and a guy came in waving a gun at the clerk. We lived in a small town in the middle of Idaho, and things like that didn’t happen there, so we’d never been taught what to do. I knew instinctively I had to protect my sister, so I pulled her behind a shelf and peeked out to see what would happen next.”

“What happened?”

He took a breath before speaking. “There was an FBI agent in there at the same time. He tackled the guy and had him cuffed and the cops called before the criminal even knew what was happening. I was in complete awe. Later, he told me what a good job I’d done at protecting my sister, and I worshipped him. He was from our area, and as I got older, I followed everything he did. He’d talk to me when he was home, and by the time I graduated high school there was no way I wanted to do anything else.”

“Is he still around?” Ella asked.

Axel was quiet for a moment, and Ella’s stomach clenched. She knew what he was going to say before he said it. “He was shot in the line of duty the year he was supposed to retire.”

He stopped speaking, and Ella was surprised to find herself sympathetic to the man. Without realizing what she was doing, she found her hand on top of his as she patted it. “I’m so sorry.”

“It was a long time ago,” he said, letting her know he was done with this part of the conversation.

“Well then, tell me, Axel, what’s your signature move on a date?”

His head whipped around in shock. Ella was used to being around men with egos. She knew he’d opened up to her, and now he wanted it to go away. She also knew how to change the subject and make him forget he’d shared something with her.

His lips turned up in a cocky smile and he leaned forward, making her automatically want to lean into him. She stopped herself at the last minute and waited.