Oh, hell no. “Noni.” He let his voice harden. There was no time to coddle her. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” She kept her gaze out the front window and drew her legs up. Her slim arms wrapped around her knees.
His chest heated, and he wanted nothing more than to pull over and offer comfort. But keeping her alive was more important. He turned onto a road that passed through a residential area, and the cheerful Christmas lights strung on every house seemed foreign. As if they twinkled with lives he couldn’t even imagine . . . which was probably true. “I left you safe,” he muttered.
Her head swung toward him, and that glorious hair flew. “I can keep myself safe, you dick.”
He barked out a laugh, unable to help himself. God, she had absolutely no clue what was out there. Who was out there. What form evil could take. But he had to explain it to her, even if he scared her. “Noni.”
“What?” she snapped.
“Why did you put our picture on dating sites, missing persons sites, and some blog calledFind My Man, and why are there gang members trying to shoot you?” He’d kept his voice as calm as possible while he wanted to snap. He couldn’t help her unless he knew all the facts, so he’d stay factual and clear. This was just another case, and he could treat her like another client.
Yeah, right. Her scent of wild orchids, amplified in the cozy truck cab, was sending his system into overdrive. In a million years, he’d never forget the spicy way she smelled.
“I’ve changed my mind,” she said softly, sadly. “Just let me off at the nearest motel, and you can go. I’ll take the picture and posts down.”
He glanced her way, his fingers itching to run through her thick hair again. “They’re down already.” He’d set his brother to it the second he’d rushed out to catch Noni at the motel where she’d all but advertised she’d be staying.
She straightened. “How? I put the posts up. Only I can take them down.”
Jesus. “You want to tangle with gang members, you’re gonna need to lose the naïveté.” Sad but true. “The pictures and any trace of us together on the Internet, on both the light and the dark web, have been scrubbed.”
Her mouth softened into a little O. “Who are you?”
If he knew, he’d probably tell her. “Doesn’t matter. Time to fess up, Noni. I want all of it.” So he could plan. That’s what he did. He planned every op and then executed it. So he’d treat this the same way. “Why did you want my help?” After the way he’d left her, she had to have been desperate to reach out. The idea of her in danger flashed fury down him, through him, and he quashed it. For this, he needed to banish the emotions attacking him and just think. Clearly. “Well?”
She shook her head, turning back to the snowy world outside. “Doesn’t matter. Drop me off, Denver. If that’s your real name,” she muttered, bitterness in the tone.
He barely kept from wincing. He’d hurt her, and that was a punch to the gut. “It is.”
“But your last name isn’t Peterson,” she said.
“No. Jones is the closest thing I have to a real last name.” Peterson was an alias he used on cases. One of many. His mouth still burned from the kiss in the motel room. For months he’d dreamed of her mouth. Of kissing her. Of losing himself in her softness. Yet the reality blew every dream away. He had to concentrate when all he wanted to do was kiss her again and make promises he could never keep. So he kept his words clipped. “Story. Now.”
“No,” she replied just as shortly.
He sighed. “Listen, Noni.”
“Why? You actually going to talk?” she snapped. The hair on the back of his neck rose. His chest heated. In his entire life she’d been the only woman who could shake his self-control. Slowly he swallowed down his temper until his anger banked low and hard in his gut. Where it belonged. “Yes,” he said calmly.
She snorted.
Oh man, he wasn’t going to be able to hold on to his temper. “You don’t know me,” he warned.
“I’m fully aware of that fact,” she said evenly.
“If you did, you’d stop pushing. Right now.” He drove down another road, heading west.
She turned again, facing him. “Is that a threat?”
“Yes,” he said easily. There. They were on the same page. Good.
“Screw you, Denver.”
His head snapped back. Sonoton the same page. “Noni.”
“What are you going to do? Pull this truck right on over?” she taunted, a smugness in her voice.
