He slid back across the seat and smiled at Brynn. “I’m ready.”
She let out a tinkling laugh and ruffled the boy’s hair. “You say that like you have a choice.”
And with the exchange, the steel-bolted door of his heart opened a crack.
Shit.
He reached out a hand to help her out of the truck. He should have let Grey do it but something in him, something he didn’t want to acknowledge, forced him to reach out.
To feel her skin against his.
She tucked her fingers into his palm and squeezed as she eased herself down. Sure enough, the minute their skin touched parts of him long-neglected shifted to the forefront, demanding attention.
No.
She locked eyes with him, her blue eyes, verging on the edge of teal with a sunburst of yellow around the iris, ensnared him with their charm. She blinked, and then broke the contact by retrieving her hand and turning to the boy.
According to Athena, Brynn had been with Skyler for all of a few hours. To watch them, you’d think she was his older sister and they’d been thick as thieves. She was a nurturer. A protector.
Every exotic fantasy he’d had of dark-haired beauties with tanned, glowing skin vanished, as if this Scandinavian shield maiden had obliterated them all with a swing of a sword.
He didn’t know what the hell had happened to him in the last ten minutes, or why, but whatever dimension he’d just been sucked into sucked.
Sucked big time.
three
Brynn never expectedthat investigating a story would turn into entering an unauthorized witness protection program.
At least, that’s what she told herself was happening. Fact of the matter was, she had no clue who any of these people were and if they were on the up and up. All she knew was that she trusted her friend Talia implicitly, and Talia recommended Athena and The Omega Team to keep them safe. She thought she was calling to borrow Talia’s vacation home. It turned out her friend had a whole bunch of tricks up her sleeve.
Some investigative reporter Brynn was.
She sighed.
“Are you cold?” Maddox asked from the driver’s seat, his hard stare pinning her in the rearview mirror. His ice-blue eyes locked on hers; his gaze searing into her made her think of a caveman thumping his chest and carrying his woman off to his cave.
Something about the way he watched her, the way he seemed to see right through her, sent shivers down her spine and heat spiking through her veins.
She’d never felt such overwhelming attraction for a man in her whole life, and the fact that he was so unlike every man she had ever been with, with his imposing size, hard muscles, and unyielding stance, ignited a bit of healthy fear in her.
He danced on the line of protector and predator, coiled and ready to strike.
For her.
Or against her.
At least, that’s the feeling she got.
“No,” she whispered. She wanted to know his story. There was something brewing under his volatile surface, and her never-ending curiosity had dozens of different scenarios running through her overtaxed mind.
An abused child. Abandoned. Damaged by war. Scarred by a woman.
What would he do if she dug into it?
Probably not smart, since he was enlisted to protect her.
“Is the boy sleeping?”
