Midnight Man (Midnight #1)(2)

She’d had enough time to calm down so he turned back to her.

“Did you do the restoration work, Ms. Barron?”

The question relaxed her. She looked around, a smile curving soft pale pink lips. It was raining outside. The dim water-washed light coming in through the tall windows turned her skin the color of the mother of pearl bowl holding some kind of fragrant plant on the windowsill.

“Yes. I inherited the building from my grandparents. It used to be a shoe factory but the company went bankrupt twenty years ago and has stood empty ever since. I’m a designer and I decided to restore it myself instead of selling it.”

“You did a wonderful job.”

Her eyes rose to meet his. She stared at him and her breath came out in a little huff. “Thank you.”

She toyed for a moment with a pen, tapping it lightly against the highly polished surface of the desk. Realizing she was betraying nerves, she put it down again. Her hands were as lovely as the rest of her, slim and white. She had two expensive-looking rings on her right hand, no rings on the left.

Good. No other man had her and now that he’d spotted her, no other man was going to get her. Not until he’d finished with her and that was going to take a long, long time.

Her hands were trembling slightly.

Suzanne Barron might be one of the loveliest women he’d ever seen but reduced to essentials she was an animal—a human animal—and she could sense, probably smell, the danger in him, especially acute now.

He’d always had this effect on civilians. Well, he reminded himself, he was a civilian now, too. He wasn’t in the service anymore where he could be instantly recognized for what he was.

All his life he’d lived in a fraternity of like-minded men, friend or foe. Fellow warriors knew who he was and usually treaded lightly around him.

Civilians never knew how to cope, like lambs sensing a tiger had infiltrated the flock. Uneasy without knowing why.

Moving slowly so as not to alarm her, he reached across and handed her a folder. His hand briefly touched hers. It was like touching silk. Gray eyes widened at the touch and he withdrew.

She rested her hand on the cover sheet. A small furrow developed between curved ash eyebrows.

“What’s this, Mr. Huntington?”

“References, Ms. Barron. My CV, service record, credit rating from my bank, three letters of recommendation, and a list of the major clients of my company.” He smiled. “I’m honest, pay my taxes, I’m solvent and practice good hygiene.”

“I don’t doubt any of that, Mr. Huntington.“

A thin line appeared between her brows as she leafed through the folder. He kept still, moving only his lungs, a trick he’d learned on the battlefield.

“What do you mean by service—oh.” She looked up. Something moved in her eyes. “You’re a Commander. An officer in the Army.” He could see her relaxing faintly. An officer seemed safe to her. She couldn’t know what he’d done in the service; otherwise she sure as hell wouldn’t be relaxing.

“Was an officer. My discharge papers are in there, too. And I was in the Navy.” He tried to keep the scorn out of his voice and barely restrained himself from snorting. Army indeed. Candy-ass soldiers, all of them. “It’s not the same thing.”

Her smile deepened. She was softening. Good. John was good at reading body language. The lease was a done deal. She relaxed as she read his service record.

The record mentioned some of his medals, enough to impress a civilian. The rest—for missions no one would ever know about—were in his shadowbox.

The list of clients didn’t hurt, either. He had more than a few Fortune 500 companies in there.

She now knew he wasn’t going to get drunk and disorderly. He wasn’t going to skip town without paying the rent. He wasn’t going to make off with her silver. Which was something, since she had a lot of it in here, mostly in the form of antique silver frames and a collection of tea services. Everything in his file said he was a sober highly respected citizen.

What the file didn’t mention was that before becoming an officer he’d been a trained sniper-scout, with a certified kill at 1,500 yards. That he knew forty-five different ways of killing a man with his bare hands. That he could blow up her building with what was under her kitchen sink, and that by this time tomorrow night he’d be in her bed, in her.

“Navy. Navy officer. Sorry. Should I call you Commander Huntington or Mister Huntington?”

“John would do nicely, ma’am. I’m retired.”

“John. I’m Suzanne.” A lull in the rain outside created a little oasis of quiet in the room.

All his senses were keen. He could hear the breath going in and out of her lungs, the slick sound of nylon as she recrossed her legs under the desk.

He had a view only of the delicate ankles but he knew they were attached to long, slender legs. He could just feel her thighs around his waist, calves hugging his hips…

“I beg your pardon?” She’d said something and he’d been so busy fantasizing getting her into bed he’d missed it.

John shifted, uncomfortably aware that it had been over six months since he’d last had sex. He’d just been too damned busy with getting his company up and running. Their gazes met and held.

“You’ll want to call the people on that list.” He kept his voice low, calm, unthreatening.