I lean down a little just to draw in her scent. She smells faintly of something flowery. It could be her shampoo or her lotion. It’s not strong enough to be perfume, and for some crazy reason that pleases me.
When have I ever cared about a woman wearing perfume or not?
She caught my attention as soon as she stepped into the ballroom, hitching up her shoulders and taking a deep breath. Steeling herself as if she were walking into battle. Something about the way she looked around the room with a worried frown on her beautiful face called out to me. And when I glimpsed the shapely leg flashing through the slit in her dress, my body moved toward her before my brain caught on to what I was doing.
Fuck.I’m in trouble.
Her fingers flex once on my shoulder, like she’s reminding herself I’m real. “You look very comfortable,” she murmurs, her mouth close enough that the words brush my skin. “Either you dance a lot, or you’re very good at pretending.”
“I’m good at many things,” I say smoothly. Pretending is definitely one of them. Like right now, when I’m pretending I’m as calm and collected as I made my voice sound.
She hums. “That didn’t answer the question.”
“No,” I agree. “It didn’t.”
Her gorgeous green eyes lift to mine. They’re bright, inquisitive, and far too perceptive for my liking. As soon as I found out she’s a journalist, I should have walked away. Theircurious minds and impeccable instincts provide a risk I can’t afford. They see patterns where others don’t.
Kind of like an MI6 agent.
And yet, here I am, pressing her body lightly against me, just because I wanted to know what that feels like.
Because when I saw her, I knew I couldn’t face going on with my life without knowing what touching her feels like.
And it feels fucking incredible. Worth any risk.
“Let me guess,” she says. “You’re one of those people who never answers a question directly.” Her dark
“I answer plenty of questions directly.”
“Just not the interesting ones.”
I smile. It’s reflexive with this woman. She brings something out of me I haven’t allowed to surface in a long time. “The interesting ones are rarely safe,” I say.
Her brows lift. “That sounds like experience talking.”
“I’m older than you, so everything I say sounds like experience talking.” She’s probably only six or eight years my junior. But her sparkly eyes and enthusiastic interest when she looks at the surrounding people make me feel decades older. The things I’ve seen…and done have prematurely aged me.
She laughs quietly, and the sound hits low in my chest. I tighten my hand at her waist without thinking, thumb pressing into the soft fabric of her dress. She inhales sharply, a soft, surprised breath, and for half a second, the world narrows to that.
I should loosen my grip. I don’t.
I should step away from this bright young woman so my harsh, cynical world doesn’t destroy her.
And yet, I can’t.
“You’re very smooth,” she says.
“Am I?” Of course I fucking am. I trained for that. That is, I appear smooth and confident on the outside. But if she sawhow much she actually affects me, how my insides are twisted up and my mind races just because she’s near me, she’d think me anything but.
“Yes,” she says. “It’s suspicious.”
“Everything is suspicious if you look hard enough.”
She studies my face like she’s memorizing it. “You always dodge like that?”
“Only when it matters.”
“And does this matter?” She asks softly, her eyes still sparkle, but there’s a glimmer of seriousness in them too.
