Page 30 of Guilty as Sin

When Jace didn’t go on, Paige said, “Explain.”

He took another sip of coffee, then unwound himself from his stool and headed to the coffeemaker. “Want more?” he asked, filling his own cup.

“Sure. I guess I know now why we both like coffee. If you were a… what?”

“Commando.”

When she just looked at him, and presumably when she didn’t fall off her stool from shock, he refilled her cup, came around the bar and sat on his stool again, swiveled to face her with one stockinged foot on the rung of the chair, and said, “Second Commando Regiment, Royal Australian Army. Special forces, Aussie version. Formerly.”

“Suddenly,” she said, “I feel much safer.”

He smiled, nice and slow. “Suddenly, I’m convinced you’re not posting me your undies. Not the reaction I was expecting.” The blue eyes that looked at her over the rim of his cup were warm, and she was feeling pretty warm herself, the tingles radiating down her body and going straight home. “Speaking of professions,” he said, setting the cup down again, “I haven’t known many undies-shop owners who named their pet goats ‘Motherfucker.’”

She gave him a sweet smile of her own. “Maybe you haven’t known enough undies-shop owners. And that’s not her name. It’s Tinkerbelle.”

“I must’ve misheard.” He lifted one big hand to her face and touched her cheek gently, tracing a slow line down until his fingers were beside her mouth. “I like these, by the way. Been wanting to tell you so.”

“My dimples.” She wasn’t doing so well with her breathing. He let his hand fall, and she set down the coffee cup she’d forgotten she was holding and reached out herself. Her heart was beating too hard, and all she was doing was brushing the sleeve of his black T-shirt with her fingertips. But when she raised her gaze to his face, that expression was more intense than ever. That expression could freeze a woman. Or melt her.

She kept looking into his eyes, and he sat perfectly still as she inched up the edge of his sleeve. And then she looked at what she’d uncovered.

That was anarm.Combat-built rather than bodybuilder-massive. Forearm, biceps, triceps, shoulder, all the parts as ordered, and every inch of it hard. That arm said “testosterone.” Or maybe it was her body saying it.Somethingwas sure saying it.

She pushed the fabric up nearly to his shoulder until she was looking at the entire tattoo. A pair of intersecting diamonds with an unsheathed dagger in the middle, long and lethal. With a banner across it.

She didn’t let the sleeve fall, because she could feel the tension in his muscles, his awareness of her touch, and she needed to keep feeling it. Her mouth had gone dry. “What does it say?” she whispered.

“Foras Admonitio.”

“Which means?”

“Without warning.”

“Ah.” It was a sigh, and then she did the other thing. She traced the diagonal white line, all four inches of it, that marred the tattoo. Just her fingertips running along it, and the muscle jumped under her touch. “And this?”

“Souvenir.”

“Mm.”

“You like that?”

“Yeah.” Barely a breath.

When his hand came up to brush over her cheek, she leaned into it, and her hand was still on him, her eyes still looking into his.

A gentle brush of his lips over hers, and her eyes were drifting closed. The pulse that went through her was nothing like gentle, though, and when his hand cradled her head and he deepened the kiss, she made a sound. She was afraid it was a moan.

She could feel his lips curving against hers, and he kissed his way to her dimple, lingered there, and whispered, “Like that, too?”

Oh, yeah.

Lily.

She sat up so fast, she had to catch herself on the edge of the counter, then shoved a hand into her hair, dropped it again, and said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

“But then,” he said, “you didn’t. I did.” His eyes had lost their softness. “What is this? What is it you want?”

“I just—I can’t—” She stopped. What did she say now? She slid off the stool and tried to think.