She couldn’t let herself think that. It was the only memory she had that wasn’t tainted and somehow dirty. The touch of his lips, warm, gentle. That was what they had been, she told herself. Just gentle. So he wouldn’t hurt her.

And he had held her tight. Prayed, maybe. She could have sworn she had heard a prayer. Or maybe it was a curse.

She sat back in the chair and lifted the wineglass, tipping it to her lips and swallowing a healthy sip. Well, probably more like a drink, she thought as she rubbed at the back of her neck. If she didn’t manage to relax, she would never get to sleep tonight.

She was taking another sip—drink—when a heavy knock landed on the outside door.

Natches. Or one of her cousins. They checked up on her often.

She finished the wine quickly, wiping her lips as she moved around the desk.

“Just because the lights are on doesn’t mean someone’s home.” She pasted on a fake smile.

It froze on her lips. Because it wasn’t Natches or one of her cousins. It wasn’t even her uncle Ray or the overprotective Faisal.

It was Alex.

He stared down at her, his expression as stoic as always, his brows heavy over his thunderous gray eyes, his brown and dark blond hair a little longer than it had been six months before.

He moved into the office, the slightest limp betraying the wound he had come home with.

“Restaurant’s closed,” she told him, turning to face him, still holding the door open. “Or did you somehow miss the sign in front?” She widened her eyes innocently. “I forgot to put one on the back door, huh? Geez, who knew customers could get turned around that easy.”

“Don’t be a smart-ass, Janey.” He sighed, running his hand over his short hair. It wasn’t quite a buzz cut anymore, but it was close.

And he was too damned sexy for words. Dark flesh that always looked tanned. Those dark, stormy gray eyes and lashes thick enough to make a woman want to kill for them.

She closed the door. Slowly. Quietly. She wasn’t going to give in to the need to slam it. Robots didn’t slam doors, did they?

“Fine. So tell me what kind of problem you had with locked doors and closed signs.” She moved around him back to the desk, poured another half glass of wine, and faced him.

She had a feeling a bottle of whiskey wouldn’t be enough to numb her against Alex.

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his dark slacks, his lips quirking with a small grimace as he looked around the office, before his gaze moved back to hers.

“I’m sorry about Catherine,” he finally said.

Janey rolled her eyes. “You going to apologize for the rest of the night, too?” She shook her head and sighed wearily. “Hell, Alex, she wasn’t the first. She won’t be the last.”

He was silent, staring back at her, his expression heavy.

“Why are you here?” She waved the wineglass toward the room. “It’s after midnight. Didn’t Catherine

want to put out after you made her leave?”

His frown deepened. “Maybe I was the one that didn’t want to put out.”

“Oh. I’m sure.” She sat on the corner of the desk, pushing back until her feet dangled off the cold floor as she sipped at her wine. “Still hurting from that leg wound?”

She nodded to the hard thigh muscle—hell, she shouldn’t have looked there—where he had taken a bullet to his leg in Iraq. Alex was always getting shot, knifed, or almost blown up. He’d come home for a while, heal, and be back at it.

“The leg doesn’t stop me from putting out, Janey,” he drawled, that quirk of his lips turning into a half smile. “And I don’t need excuses not to spend a night with a woman. Catherine was being a bitch and she knew it.”

She widened her eyes mockingly. “You said the B word, Alex. Bad boy. You should never call a woman a bitch.”

He grunted at that.

“You’ve been in the military too long,” she told him.

“Probably.” He looked around the office again. “Do you live here, Janey? Shouldn’t you be upstairs relaxing instead of hanging around the office?”

“Shouldn’t you tell me why you care?” She arched her brow. “Really, Alex, your girlfriend didn’t hurt my feelings. You can go give her a little nasty with a clear conscience now.”

“What makes you think I wouldn’t be fucking her if that was what I wanted to do?” he growled.

Janey widened her eyes again, pretending to be scandalized. “Your language, Alex.”

Actually, she might be having fun.

“I don’t beat around the bush, Janey.” He pulled his hands from his pants pockets and folded them across that mile-wide chest of his. “You want to talk sex, I’m all for it. But don’t expect me to get flowery over it. And don’t think I forgot about the question I asked you.”

Why the hell was he here? Janey stared back at him, trying to make sense of his presence. Six months since he had pulled her out of Nadine’s house, a month since he’d come home, and she hadn’t seen him.

Why now? Why like this?

“I just closed up.” She lifted the wine and sipped at it. “I was relaxing a few moments before I had to haul my tired butt up those stairs.”

“Lock up. I’ll carry you up.”

He was serious. Janey blinked up at him, then forced herself to finish the wine before sliding off the edge of the desk. She could feel the tension now. It was coming off him in waves. Sexual tension.

“Just because I may have somehow caused you to miss out on a little piece of tail tonight doesn’t mean I’m willing to substitute myself for her.” She slid her shoes back on, the three-inch heels giving her almost enough added height that she didn’t feel as though he was towering over her.

She could feel that tightening in her chest again. But it wasn’t claws tearing at her; it was a sense of excitement. And she didn’t need it.

“Did I ask you to fuck me?”

Her stomach clenched at the sound of his voice. He might not be asking for it, but she had a feeling he was thinking about it. And she was thinking about it. And she was stepping into seven different kinds of trouble if she dared to mess with this man.

“Good thing you didn’t,” she told him softly, staring back at him regretfully. “I don’t think you’d have much fun.”

“Really?” he drawled.

“Yeah. I hear virgins are a bore to men of your advanced years, Alex. Go find your girlfriend. She’ll give you better sport.”

Alex stared back at her. Years of training kept his expression from slackening in total shock. And a superhuman effort kept his hands from reaching out for her and jerking her against him.

“A virgin?”

“See? I’m not even fair game,” she told him as she collected her purse and keys. “Are you ready to leave now? Because I’m kind of tired.”

She opened the door, forcing herself not to shiver as the cold February air whipped around her stocking-clad legs.

“I’ll walk you up.”

He looked determined, implacable.

“Alex, I don’t need another guard dog.” She sighed as he stepped out.

She set the alarm and closed the door, locking it quickly behind her before moving up the wide, wood steps to the small balcony and apartment door upstairs.

“There’s no inside entrance?” Alex asked behind her.

“Only in my dreams.” She felt like groaning. She hated walking these stairs every night.

Alex watched her walk, watched her cute, tight little ass bunch and her hips sway. He was rock hard; images of taking her, seeing the innocence in her eyes as he filled her, were torturing him.

She was right; he should have been turned off. The thought of a virgin should have him running for the hills. The hell if he should be following her to her apartment like an obedient hound.

He could have sat in his truck and watched her to the door.

But, he told himself, that wouldn’t mean she was safe. Someone could have gotten into the apartment.

Yeah right. Sitting in the truck wasn’t going to get him under that skirt of hers. And knowing she was a virgin wasn’t helping things.

It sent a shaft of possessiveness burning through him. And that, he didn’t want to feel. He didn’t feel possessive about women. It wasn’t allowed and it wasn’t part of his life.

So why the hell was he standing on her balcony now, watching as she unlocked the door and stepped inside? She disabled the security, closed the door behind them, and flipped on the lights.

He watched as she kicked off her shoes; spiky black heels, they made her legs look sexier than hell. She dropped her purse on the little table just beside the door and moved into the wide living room before turning on a lamp and turning to face him.

“See, I’m safe.” She lifted her arms out to indicate the room, the apartment.

Alex shook his head slowly. Safe from everything but him. “You know what I want, don’t you, Janey?”

Her arms dropped to her side. For a second, just a second, she lost that unemotional, cool expression she had worn every time she had seen him in the past month since he had returned home. He saw her eyes flare with interest, with need, a hint of fear. Then, just as quickly, they were gone.

“No, I don’t know what you want, Alex.” There was a thread of anger there now. “Do I owe you something? Is there something here that belongs to you?” Her lips quirked mockingly. “I don’t think there is. I don’t think there’s anything here that you want to do more than play with.”

And she wasn’t a toy. The implication was there, and he knew, son of a bitch, fury searing his guts, he knew what Nadine had done to her. How she had asked Dayle to let her just “play” with Janey for a while.

The doctor’s report, Janey’s recollection of it—it had all been in Chaya’s report to Timothy Cranston, the agent in charge of that investigation last year.

Alex had read it. He had forced himself to read it. To look at the pictures the hospital had taken of the bite marks on her breasts. Janey wouldn’t tell them if the bitch had touched her anywhere else. For months Alex had dreamed he had killed Nadine slowly, slow and painfully, rather than the quick death he had given her.

“There’s many different kinds of play, Janey,” he told her softly. “There’s nothing vindictive or painful in what I want. You know that.”

She turned away from him, one hand propped on her curvy hip, the other lifted. From where he stood he could see her chewing on her thumbnail, and he almost smiled. That was a “Janey” trait. It wasn’t a good sign. She was trying to hold back, anger, pain—whatever emotions Janey didn’t like to deal with.

He knew her. Sometimes he thought he knew her better than Natches did. Because there were times when he hadn’t been on assignment but had watched Janey, wherever she was, instead.

From that day on the lake, six years before, when Janey had teased when she shouldn’t have teased.

When she had awakened a hunger he hadn’t known lived inside him, though she had always brought out a possessiveness he hadn’t known he had. And he had worried about her. Worried to the extent that

several times a year he had shadowed her, watched her, kept tabs on her when he wasn’t there. Until this past year. Shit had gone to hell with the operation in Somerset, and he’d let himself get distracted. He’d pulled the tail off her to gather intel on other subjects instead. And this was what had happened.

Janey had nearly paid with her life.

She turned back to him.

“Leave.” Her mask was back. That cool, professional, I-don’t-feel-a-fucking-thing mask. She was protecting herself and her emotions, and no one understood the need to do that more than Alex did.

Alex grimaced and nodded. “I can do that.”