Page 35

“Do I have something on my face?” she asked. Defensively.
“Yes. Makeup.”
Everly relaxed. Slightly. And kept her eyes averted from the gun, looking down into her bag instead. “Well, of course I do. I can’t go to work without makeup. I’d terrify people.”
It was a throwaway comment, so she was surprised when she looked up from a quick rummage through her bag to find him still studying her. With a look on his face that made her chest... hurt.
“No.” It was all he said. In a low mutter, as if the words were being torn from him against his will. “You wouldn’t.”
And Everly had to turn away to conceal the little pop of something like joy that burst in her at that. Luckily, she could mask her response by making for the front door.
“You always walk to work?” Blue asked, getting to his feet. She heard the stool scrape against the floor. But he didn’t follow her toward the door. “In those?”
“Those...?” She frowned down at her feet. “These are wedges, Blue. My favorite wedges, in fact.”
“They’re four inches high and completely impractical.”
“If they were rickety stilettos, I might agree with you, but they’re not. They’re like wearing tennis shoes.” She pivoted around to shake her head at him, and her eyes locked on the gun he’d hidden beneath a light jacket. “Would you like it if I lectured you on the appropriate handguns to use in your harness?”
“It’s a holster, not a harness, and I didn’t lecture you.”
“The lecture was implied in the commentary. I get it. You don’t like any of my shoes.”
“I don’t have any feelings about your shoes one way or the other,” he growled at her, and it dawned on Everly that she was... getting to him. Why else would he look so annoyed with her? “My only concern, as always, is how you’re going to handle yourself if the situation deteriorates. Can you run in those shoes?”
Everly took a breath and let herself savor the fact that she was managing to burrow under the skin of Mr. Tall, Dark, and Icily Remote. Right here in her own home. Simply by walking out of her bedroom wearing shoes.
If she could have marinated in the moment forever, she would have.
“Two things,” she said after a beat or two, because she might want to enjoy this, but she was also close enough to see the temper he was clearly fighting back. She didn’treallywant to tempt fate. Too much. “One, I don’t think you actually know what a practical shoe is or isn’t. Because, two, I could run a marathon in these wedges, the same way I could in those flats you also hate.”
“Somehow,” Blue said, hard and low, “I doubt that.”
“I believe you know a lot about a great many things. But ladies’ shoes and their varied uses are not among them.”
“Great,” he clipped out at her. “I’m wrong. Noted. Let’s hope we don’t get ambushed and need you to run that marathon, after all.”
Everly didn’t comment on that. Because she bit her tongue to keep from commenting on it.
And it was all hilarity and wit until they were in the stairwell.
Because Blue wasn’t cranky or grumpy or fighting off his temper as they took the five flights of stairs down to the lobby. Or if he was, he hid it—because he was working.
The switch in him made every hair on Everly’s body seem to stand straight up.
It reminded her—a little too forcefully—that while she might feel she was playing a role today, Blue wasn’t. This was who he was. It was why he was here.
He was the man who prowled ahead of her down the stairs, blocking her from whatever might lurk in wait with his body. He was the trained operative who melted soundlessly down one flight into the next, every part of him honed and ready. He didn’t have his gun out, but Everly had no trouble imagining that if he needed to draw it, he’d have it in his hand in a flash.
She felt a whole lot less entertained when they pushed through the doors in her lobby, out into the street. It was a typical summer morning in Chicago, not too hot but muggy. Everly felt that same prickling sensation, as if someone was watching her, but forced herself to simply walk.
Blue roamed there next to her as she walked down the block toward her coffeehouse, which made it difficult to pretend any of this was actually routine. She thought itwould be less noticeable if she were prancing around with a lion on a leash. And potentially less dangerous, too. For her.
By the time she had her daily skinny mocha latte in hand, she’d managed to get herself back into the right mind-set, she thought. It didn’t matter what she felt. All she had to do was play the part of herself, as if she hadn’t seen what she’d seen in her living room.
She told herself it was simple.
Blue, on the other hand, was complication on a whole different level.