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“The woman doubts me,” he said, trying his best to scowl. “Damn right I do.”

“And your plan is…?”

“After breakfast, we’ll go to my hotel. Groceries? I’ll phone for room service. Straightening up? I guarantee that someone will have already done all the straightening you could ask for. How’s that sound?”

Bianca smiled. “It sounds decadent,” she said. “And absolutely perfect.”

There it was. That word again. Perfect. Her using it this time, not him.

The hairs on the back of his neck did that stand-up routine again. Before he could think about it too long, he gave her a quick kiss, set her on her feet and got to his.

“Go on, honey. Get dressed. Then we’ll find a place where we can get eggs, waffles, pancakes, sausage, bacon, bagels, biscuits…”

She laughed.

He grinned, spun her in the direction of the bedroom and stepped over to the sink.

Bianca had given him a toothbrush. He squeezed a ribbon of paste onto the bristles and began brushing.

Man, he needed a shave. As it was, he’d left red marks on her breasts and her thighs. When he’d tried to apologize for his dark stubble, she’d stopped him.

“I love the feel of it against me,” she’d said softly, and a weird kind of feeling had swept through him as he thought of how those light abrasions marked her as his.

Chay frowned at his reflection, spat into the sink, turned on the water and cupped his hand under the flow.

What was with him? So many crazy thoughts in his head… But why question it? He was happy, happier than he’d been since he’d come back from that last deployment. Happier than he could recall ever being.

His Tigress was happy, too. He could hear doors and drawers opening and closing in her bedroom. She was singing, too, something in Italian. Her voice was sweet and warm and—

She screamed.

It was the kind of scream that almost stopped his heart.

Chay ran into the bedroom.

Bianca was standing in front of the dresser. The top right-hand drawer was pulled out. She was staring into it, trembling, her hands clapped over her mouth.

“Baby? What happened?”

She nodded at the open drawer.

Something in the drawer. Okay. A big bug was his first thought. Women didn’t do well with big bugs. Or a mouse. Hell, this was an old building; this was New York City…

Chay froze.

The drawer held neatly folded bras. And neatly folded panties.

And something else.

A condom. A used condom. He could tell by the slightly bulbous shape of it. A used condom that the thoughtful user had knotted so the contents wouldn’t spill.

If anyone had ever asked him if a man could really go blind with rage, he’d have laughed and said no. But he was blind now. Blind, and crazed with rage.

His hands knotted into fists. His pulse roared in his ears.

And then he heard Bianca, and the little sounds she was making. Not sobs. Not cries. Not anything he’d ever heard before except from the throat of a wounded animal back in the Dakotas.

He reached for her, tried to gather her against him, but her body was rigid. “Bianca,” he said, and he pulled her to him, wrapped his arms around her, held her to him with a ferocity born of fury and desperation.