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It wasn’t an accident that Blue lived out here, far away from normal people and their quiet, contented little lives. There was a reason he surrounded himself with men just like him, savage to the bone. Men who still lived by strict codes of honor and still tried to do the only thingthey were good at, because that was the only way to survive with the kind of blood they had on their hands.
The kind he had on his.
Blue had always handled what needs he couldn’t repress or ignore with the adrenaline junkies, the women who wanted him precisely because of the danger he represented. Maybe that was empty, but no one got hurt.
He’d decided a long time ago that he was done hurting anyone, if he could help it.
It had never occurred to him that he would ever meet a woman who would tempt him to break his own rules.
“You’ve gone very quiet,” Everly said. She looked slightly apprehensive as she gazed up at him. “That doesn’t mean you’re changing your mind.”
She said it like it was a statement, but he heard the question there, hanging in the air.
“I’m not going to change my mind,” Blue said shortly, though he knew he should. That if he was even half the man he’d always imagined he was, he’d step away from this particular temptation right here, right now. He’d turn her over to Templeton, Isaac, even Jonas. One of his brothers could handle this, and her, without breaking a sweat.
And, he had to believe, without that unwelcome thing inside him that kept pushing him to act like someone else.
Someone undamaged. Someone unbroken and fit for human interaction, when he knew better.
God, did he know better.
There was a kind of knowledge in her gaze then, and it hit him much too hard, because she shouldn’t have been able to read him. She shouldn’t have been unafraid of him. She should have cowered a bit. Cried more.
She should have donesomethingto make herself less tempting.
“You don’t look sure.”
“Everly.” Blue gritted her name out like it hurt. Because it did, and he didn’t know what to do about that, either. “I’m sure.”
And that, at least was true. He was sure all right.
That he was boned.
Seven
Chicago had changed in the week she’d been away.
Everly told herself it was the long flight. Or, more likely, the man who’d lounged across from her in the biggest of the plane’s three different seating areas, apparently deeply engrossed in whatever he was reading on that tablet of his. Or studying the drawings she’d made of the men in her apartment that night and the ones she’d seen following her on the street. Or conducting almost laughably laconic mobile phone conversations that consisted of him saying single words likeaffirmativerepeatedly.
She’d wanted to focus on the fact that she was on a private jet flown by one of the mysterious Alaska Force men, but didn’t. Instead of marveling at her surroundings, she’d found herself fixating on that strange, breathless moment down at the pier in Grizzly Harbor when Blue had tucked a bit of her hair behind her ear.
Here, now, in the passenger seat of the SUV that had been waiting for them when they’d landed on an airfield outside Chicago, Everly fought off a shiver. Again. Just thinking about that brush of his fingers—
Her inner voice was stern, as if that might make a difference.You need to get a hold of yourself.
Not that she’d paid much attention to her inner voice so far.
Beside her, Blue navigated his way through the usual Chicago traffic as if he drove through congested major cities every day. Everly knew perfectly well the only congestion back in Grizzly Harbor was likely to come from the moose population, and yet Blue didn’t seem to be the least bit bothered. He had one hand hooked over the steering wheel, while the rest of his big, rangy body somehow took up twice the room it should have. She had to physically restrain herself from pressing against the passenger door, because she didn’t want him to have even the slightest inkling of the effect he had on her.
She didn’t want to admit it to herself.
And if she didn’t keep herself under control, she was afraid she would give in to the temptation to press herself against one of his absurdly sculpted arms. It was shown to entirely too much perfection in the T-shirt he wore, which strained to handle his biceps at all, and his forearm was a thing of such intense masculine perfection that Everly wasn’t sure how she was supposed tobreathewith itright there. It was safer to sit carefully and quietly still. It was better to stare straight ahead, out the front of the vehicle, at the city all around them, gleaming steel and stone in the last of the summer evening.
Everly had always considered Chicago her home, evenbefore she’d lived within the city proper. She’d spent her childhood and all her college years dreaming of moving here, and she’d made her dreams a reality the minute she’d graduated. But tonight it felt too big. Anonymous and threatening as it loomed above them. Blue inched his way into her neighborhood, and instead of feeling welcomed back or at home at last, she thought there was too much concrete. Everywhere she looked. Too many people jostling for space in the streets, on the sidewalks, and who knew how many of them were out to get her? It was hot and crowded and vaguely sinister. It made her feel as if there were a stone pressing down on her chest, forcing the air from her lungs. Crushing her bones where she sat.
She tried to shake it off.
After all, it had been a long day. They’d been up and chatting on a strangely lit Alaskan porch at one in the morning. Just about twelve hours later they’d taken a seaplane on a quick, beautiful jump from Grizzly Harbor to Juneau, where Alaska Force’s private jet had been gassed up and waiting for them.