Fortunately, my brain-to-mouth filter was functioning for once, so what Iactuallysaid was, “Not if you kept that zipped up in your jacket too.”
Bending, I set my flashlight on its end by my feet, so that the light shined straight up. That left me one hand with which to search Murphy. I had to stand on my toes to reach his wrists, and when I stretched to run my hand down his arms, the front of my jacket brushed the back of his coat. He inhaled, and his torso expanded against me, his neck mere inches from my nose. He smelledso good. Undeniably masculine, yet fresh, and clean, and warm, like the first summer rain.
I breathed him in, and images flashed through my mind. They came fast and hard. I couldn’t stop them.
I didn’t want to…
Cale Murphy and me, standing in the rain, half-sheltered by the awning above us. Thin rivulets of water running down his face. Shirt stuck to his chest. Hair plastered to his head. Blue eyes shining in the moonlight, flashing with each bolt of lightning overhead. My hand on the warm, hard planes of his arm, slick with rain.
His fingers tangle in my hair. His free hand clenches my hip. His eyes stare through me. His lips meet mine, and he tastes so good. So indescribably, fantastically scrumptious. I open my mouth, and we’re…
… standing in the plane, cold and dry, my hand on his down-clad triceps, stretched over his head.
My nipples were hard beneath layers of leather, cotton, and satin. My breathing was frantic. My pulse raced. I could still feel the rain on my skin, his lips against mine. I could stilltastehim.
Damn it, Lex, focus!
I shook my head to clear it, to get back to the job at hand. Murphy chuckled as if he knew what I was thinking, and my teeth ground together. I patted his arms quickly and thoroughly, overcompensating for my lapse of professionalism by patting too hard. Searching too rough. He didn’t seem to mind. Didn’t object at all, in fact.
Murphy’s arms felt normal, from what I could tell through his down-filled snow jacket. No blades, no weapons of any kind. His right side was clean, but beneath his left armpit I felt the familiar hard edges of a gun. He’d been telling the truth.
I reached around Murphy’s chest, trying not to touch him any more than necessary as I unzipped his jacket. I pulled his arms down behind his back and tugged on the first coat sleeve. The steel band still closed around my right wrist shook free of my jacket cuff, clanking against the length of severed chain.
“What was that?” Murphy craned his head for a look. I shoved the side of his face into the corrugated metal wall, ignoring the question. He grunted, and I smiled. I was back in control, of both him and my own treacherous body.
“Seriously? Was that necessary?” he asked, his mouth half-smashed against the metal.
“Move again before I’m done, and I’ll take away more than your gun.”
“Awfully cocky, aren’t you?” But he didn’t move as I pulled his jacket off and dropped it next to my flashlight. Beneath the coat, he wore a thin, ribbed black sweater, snug against his well-toned chest. Over that was a black vertical-draw holster, cradling a Glock nine-millimeter. I ripped open the Velcro strap to take the gun, but Murphy jerked to one side, trying to stop me. “Don’t—!”
I slammed my free hand into his shoulder, shoving him back into the wall. My left hand swung at his head, automatically following up the restraint hold with a blow to his skull—with the butt of my pistol. I didn’t even think about it. It was habit. Training.
Murphy slapped one hand to the back of his scalp, where a bump was already rising. “Damn it! Why did you hit me?”
“You went for your gun.” I pulled the nine-millimeter from his holster and checked the safety, then tucked it in the back of my jeans, beneath my coat. The gun was nothing special, no doubt a backup weapon, but it was mine now. And he was unarmed—just the way I liked my men.
Not that Murphy wasmyman…
“Ididn’t go for my gun.Youwent for my gun. I was just trying to keep you from stealing all my toys, like the overgrown playground bully you obviously are.”
Was hewhiningat me?
“Quit bitchin’ and stand still,” I ordered, tugging on his arm to turn him around. I ran my hands down the sides of his shirt and across the front and back, checking not-quite-perfunctorily for weapons. A quick but thoroughly interesting pat-down of both legs turned up strong thighs and lean calves, but no guns or knives. He had a single car key in his hip pocket, and the wallet in his back pocket was suspiciously thin.
Satisfied that he was unarmed—now that I’d taken his gun—I stood and stepped back, preparing to holster my own weapon. In a sudden flash of movement, Murphy lunged toward me, ice-blue eyes sparkling in the light shining up from my flashlight on the floor. Deep shadows made a mask of his face. I pulled my left arm back for another pistol-whip, but he seized my wrist freezing my arm in the air.
My right hand curled into a fist. Murphy caught it almost immediately. He spun us, driving me backward into the wall where he’d stood a moment earlier, grinning in brash satisfaction. Staring boldly down into my eyes, he held me against the side of the plane with only his hands. His body stretched a scant inch from mine, from head to toe. I felt his breath on my lips, breathing in his scent with each inhalation. But he didn’t touch me, other than to hold my arms against the wall.
I fought his grip, lunging forward, and for one terrifying moment, I wasn’t sure whether I was trying to get free from him or get closer to him. But in the end, it didn’t matter, because my struggle was useless. I was pretty tough, and not just for a woman. But I couldn’t budge him. He was too strong.Waytoo strong. Andfast.
With a sudden leap of intuition, I realized Murphy wasn’t human. Not completely, anyway. No human could move like that.
My face blazed in anger, and in other things I would never have admitted to. Where was that strength and speed before? Had he been toying with me? Pretending to be slow and careless while waiting for a chance to catch me off-guard? If so, I’d given him just the opportunity he was waiting for.
I jerked on my left arm, putting everything I had into the effort, but he held on tight, his nose almost brushing mine. He squeezed my wrist in warning, but not hard enough to make me drop the gun.
Why let me keep the gun?
