“There’s work and there’s work,” he said, his eyes steady.
“Just like there’s touching and there’s touching?” she asked, arching her eyebrows, reminding him of their earlier banter. “You sure have a way with words.”
He leaned back, too, and surveyed her lazily for a few moments. The spray from the moving water had dampened his hair into dark tendrils. A thin gold chain with a small pendant gleamed against his wet chest. The pendant had an unusual shape and color, but she couldn’t really make out what it looked like.
“We could talk, but what are you going to do when you have to leave?” he asked.
She looked at him seriously. “What if you have to leave first?”
His lips curved again. “I’m a very patient man.”
“And do you always get what you want?” she asked lightly. Heath was here for something. She would bet her next chocolate milkshake on it.
“Most of the time.”
“Even if you have to kill to get it?” she asked.
Distraction in the midst of attraction. It was something she had never done before. Most of the time, when she had to distract a target, it had been during an operation, or she was being polite to unwanted interest, or she had to be creative to get out of trouble. This time, she was doing it to distract herself.
“Sometimes.” His tone of voice didn’t change. “You had a long day and then some, even by COS standards. Why aren’t you in bed, Helen?”
“You know, men have been asking me about that all night,” she quipped.
“The last time I saw you, you’d been tranqued. And your leg was injured. The serum should be about out of your system by now, yet you don’t act like you’re in real pain. Either you have miraculous healing powers or you’re on some kind of drugs.”
“I took some painkillers,” Helen admitted, “and it could be why I can’t sleep just yet. And what’s your excuse for not being in bed?”
“You should have come to me. I’m very good at taking pain away,” he said, then gave her that sexy smile again. “I’m trained in pressure points.”
Pressure points. And he avoided giving an answer to her question very nicely. “Do you use that in your job a lot, this talent with pressure points?” she asked.
“When I have to.”
“Like tonight?” she asked. “I saw you from the observation room.”
“I know.”
“Do you use it during interrogation?” She searched his expression. That smile was gone and his eyes had the same flat look she had seen previously. “It’s not just for taking away pain, is it? You can give pain by pressing on the right pressure points. I’ve seen it done before.”
He was silent as he continued watching her. He raised one hand and pressed the button on the side of the tub. The rushing jets stopped and the noise fizzled into a tense silence as the water around their bodies slowed its movement. The bubbles were slowly disappearing and it wouldn’t be long before he could see through the water.
“Coward,” she mocked softly. “You don’t like my question so you’re now trying to punish me by embarrassing me.”
Heath leaned forward, his gaze hooded. “Affirmative,” he said.
He moved a little closer toward her and she felt his hand on her leg. “Heath,” she warned, not sure where this was leading to. An image of a hand slipping into her pants floated in her head…Helen pushed the thought firmly away.
“Relax,” Heath murmured. “I’m just going to check your leg. Trust me, if I were planning to do more, I would have come in here naked.”
His hands lifted her leg above the water. He touched the bruise that ran down the side of her thigh to her calf and gave a soft whistle. “Are you sure you don’t feel more than a little pain?”
Helen closed her eyes. There was pain when she had to move the leg. But the moment things were still around her, like now, no noisy water, no jets massaging her legs, no movement…She shivered as his fingers trailed the side of her leg. It was starting again.
“Are you cold?” he asked.
She shook her head, not opening her eyes. She bit her lower lip as he applied some pressure with his forefingers under her knee. He moved closer, bending her leg higher as he pressed harder.
“It’s beginning to hurt,” she told him, opening her eyes.
