“As you’re here now…”
His eyes were like ice chips, but she met his gaze calmly.“I’m not sorry for letting curiosity get the better of me,” she admitted as the steel door hissed shut behind them, sealing them in a climate-controlled space.
“I trust you’ll find everything you need?”
Wow.Would she ever.
She gazed around at an impressive display of weaponry.Stacked on steel shelves, the inventory was as neatly ordered as Elijah’s mind had grown.“You used to be reckless,” she murmured as she examined the arsenal.“One handgun and a knife.”
“Three knives,” he corrected her.“One you could see?—”
“And two concealed about your person.”
“Correct.But that was then, and this is now.”
“And now control is your thing.”Her lips tightened into a line of approval as she walked down his arcade of death.
“Control keeps me alive.”
The sealed room was ordered and lethal.This was the domain of a man who was no longer a young fighter but a hardened strategist, honed by experience, and backed by sufficient wealth to support a private army.
“You approve?”
“Do you care?”
He shrugged.“Not really.”
Lounging against the wall, arms folded, he watched her inspection with a predatory stillness that set her senses on fire.Pheromones rolled off him, clashing with hers to create a vortex of tension that showed no sign of easing up.
She gasped involuntarily as he pushed off the wall.Elijah’s magnetism was overpowering.However cold he appeared, the charge between them was white-hot.
I hate that I want him—want it, want sex.
Subtle lighting carved harsh shadows beneath his cheekbones and across his jaw, where sharp black stubble, the same stubble she remembered abrading her skin, made him look like a marauding pirate.
Maraud away, she thought, wondering whether any woman with red blood in her veins could remain composed under these circumstances.Elijah could always tell when she was ready to mate, which used to be all the time he was around.
He halted when they were toe-to-toe.Her breathing faltered, and her body went on full alert.But he reached past to select a sidearm from its stand on the wall.“You’re gonna love this.It's better than anything you’ve used before.”
It took her a moment to speak.Why did she fall for this every time?The faint flare of amusement in his eyes told her he knew how he affected her.“Thanks for the suggestion,” she said, proud of her steady voice.“I take it you’ve got a firing range where I can test this?”
“Of course.”
Was he playing her?
Bastard.
He knew what made her tick—what used to make her tick for him.
“This is all very impressive.”She scanned the deadly gallery behind him: matte-black rifles, polished pistols, and steel blades resting in foam mounts.“You’ve come a long way.”
“As have crime and criminals.”
“And this?”She glanced at the locked compartment with its skull-and-bones insignia.
“Drones and other high-tech killing machines.”
Her stomach clenched.She was dragging him back into danger.Had she just wasted seven years?
