Very faint, but so intriguing she leaned toward him. “Do you have an accent?” she asked.
His smile provided both warning and invitation. “You’ll know me well enough to be able to answer that question soon.”
She tried to swallow again. The man was throwing her completely off balance. Seeing him in action earlier had set her hormones into overdrive, and that was a huge problem. A betrayal by her own body, for Pete’s sake. He was all about control and loyalty to the team, and he’d never understand that she wasn’t. She couldn’t be. Even so, she couldn’t help but study him as the stupid elevator took its time deciding whether to take them up two floors or just drop them according to gravitational laws. Man, he was something to look at.
Jet-black hair, thick and a bit wavy, showcased a hard-ridged and symmetrical face. His eyes were as dark as his hair, and they often seemed to look right through her. His lean physique was muscular, and she’d thought he moved with the grace of a swimmer. Apparently, based on the fight at the diner, a swimmer who could kick your ass if necessary. The guy probably had an exercise regimen he kept to religiously. He seemed like the type.
He returned the survey,notbeneath his lashes. The man had no problem keeping an eye on her.
That was part of his job, of course.
“Stop looking at me,” she murmured.
“You’re looking at me,” he returned easily as the elevator stopped abruptly and jumped twice. The door did not open. He frowned, finally releasing her gaze from his spell. “This thing can’t be safe.”
No doubt. Finally, as he focused elsewhere, she could breathe. Brigid pushed her unruly hair away from her face and forced thoughts of small spaces out of her head. Kind of. “You know we can’t pretend to be engaged, right?”
Raider shrugged. “That’s the assignment, Irish.” His tone remained unconcerned, and he appeared relaxed. Yet a tension, a promise that he could leap into action in a nanosecond, always emanated from him. It both fascinated and irritated the heck out of her.
Brigid bit her lip and stared at the closed elevator door. “Shouldn’t this be opening about now?”
“Yes,” he said, leaning back against the scarred wooden wall. “The door will open soon. Probably. Who knows. It’s ancient.”
Wonderful. Being stuck in a rickety elevator with Raider, especially this new unmasked version of him, was the last place on earth she wanted to be. Well, the second to the last place. Prison had sucked—royally. “You don’t have to come with me to see my father. I can handle the mission on my own.”
Raider didn’t answer.
Irritation clawed Brigid’s throat. She couldn’t handle him pretending to be all bad-boy on her. It was too much. “I said you’re not needed.”
He lowered his chin, his gaze more than a little direct. Oddly so. “I’m your handler. Where you go, I go.”
Handler. The way he said it, or maybe the way she heard it, sent sparking tingles through her that she did not need. Not at all. It was crazy, insane actually, to look at Raider as anything other than another governmental drone put on earth to make her life painful and frightening.
Yet there was something about him, a respect or just politeness when he dealt with her that she couldn’t figure out. Especially since she’d seen him so casually use violence against those guys in Boston. She was a former con, and he was an HDD agent. Yet he treated her with respect, watchful though it might be, and never once had been unkind. Not once. “Why are you here?” she whispered.
He looked at the closed door, as if contemplating what to do about it. The elevator was so old that there wasn’t even a phone inside. Or an emergency button. “I told you.”
“No.” The walls were starting to close in on her, and she took a deep breath. “Come on, Raider. I’ve now seen you leap into action.” Far faster and more efficiently than what she would’ve imagined. Even when relaxed, he was way too alert. Sure, she’d heard he got into trouble by sleeping with his boss’s wife without knowing who she was, but something told Brigid that he could’ve fought being demoted. “Why are you stuck babysitting me?” Or now agreeing to pretend to be her fiancé?
“You’re a threat.” He said the words simply, his gaze meeting hers again. “Your ability with computers, with hacking and coding, make you dangerous to this country and everything I believe in. Watching you, making sure you don’t create a disaster, is an important job.” He scrubbed a hand through his thick hair, giving her more space, as if somehow knowing she needed it.
There was something else. She could sense it beneath his surface just like a hidden line of code. “What else?”
“Keeping you safe is just as important.”
Her eyebrows lifted on their own accord. That wasn’t it, but his claim was interesting. “Keeping me safe? I’m not in danger.”
He gave her that look then. The one she’d seen more than a dozen times in the last two months, since they’d met. The look that said he thought she was slightly nuts. “You’re one of the best. You’ve been able to hack into systems that are unhackable.”
“Nothing, no system, is ever unhackable,” she returned without thinking.
“Exactly. You’re known now. After being arrested and incarcerated, your name is known worldwide. Do you have any idea what a foreign enemy would do to get their hands on you?” he asked, his voice soft.
What abouthishands? Her mind had to knock it off. “You’re overestimating me.”
“Not even close, Irish.”
She blinked. “My accent isn’t strong enough to warrant the nickname,” she muttered. Her father had been Irish, her mother Bostonian, and her speech pattern held slight, very slight, hints of both. That’s all. She grew up on a farm in the USA, for Pete’s sake.
