Taming the Beast

If she wasn’t careful, he’d eventually wear her down and she likely wouldn’t even notice. He was so good—so suave with that silken voice and knavish smile. The rumors were true. He was odd, all right, but she’d never heard he was sexy as sin, too.

He was at the bar? How’d I miss him?

He was right that she’d been there. She’d been hoping he’d lay off of the game he was obviously playing and answer her questions anyway, even if hostilely. She could work with hostile. She wasn’t the most masterful game player, however.

“How does this game work?” she asked. “Does the cost for each question escalate depending on how complex you judge it to be, or does each question have equal weight?”

“The first.”

Damn.

She drummed her fingers atop her thighs and ground her teeth for a few beats. She always found a way to do her job, and she wasn’t going to get deterred, not even by a gorgeous nightmare like Andreas Toft.

She let her breath out in a sputter and patted down her hair on the sides of her head. “Okay. Well. I suppose I’d better decide if asking a series of short, simple questions would hurt me more than fewer, complex ones.”

“I imagine you’ll pay equally in the end.”

“And not even in a way I can expense back at the office,” she muttered.

“You can certainly try to receive reimbursement. However, I can’t promise you’ll get the results you want.” He opened his dark-as-onyx eyes then and she had to close hers, or else be hypnotized or something. “Or perhaps you will. Who am I to guess?”

This is going to go so badly.

And yet, there she was, still standing there. She opened her eyes and could see the door. She could probably get there quickly enough to open it and shout outside before he could pull her back. There was no line in her employment contract stating that she had to go to such extents to conduct a fact-finding interview.

But, she couldn’t go. The man held her in thrall for reasons that had nothing to do with professional curiosity about a fender bender.

She took a seat on t

he end of the settee near his feet and set the recorder beside his leg. As she tapped the end of her pen against her thigh, she studied him. Pondered his off-ness.

He seemed to thrum, even when he was being still. His energy, or perhaps something about hers, was out of balance. She hadn’t had breakfast, though, and could have possibly been misreading what her psychic senses were telling her.

She cleared her throat and pushed down the plunger of her pen. “So, first question. What did you see on the day of June twenty-third?”

He clucked his tongue and shook his head. “I believe you know perfectly well I won’t answer that in the way you’d like, so perhaps you should be more specific. I’ll give you a second chance, free of charge.”

“Thank you for your generosity.” She fidgeted the pen and licked her lips.

He moaned quietly. “Are you quite certain you wouldn’t like me to taste you?”

“Behave,” she muttered, knowing damn well he wouldn’t. She needed him to believe she thought him capable of doing so, though; otherwise, the man would probably be far too cocksure for his own good. “Okay, let’s try this. What were you doing at the time of the accident you witnessed on June twenty-third?”

He stared at her for a few seconds, working his jaw side to side and tilting his head as if he were trying to get the flavor of the question—perhaps trying to pare it down to its elements and give only the most naked response. He took a breath and twined his fingers behind his head. “I was crossing the street.”

“In which direction?”

“The cost of that query will be…hmm.” He tapped his chin and rolled his bottom lip between his teeth. “Eye for an eye, I think. I’ll ask you a question in return.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine, but I’ll refuse the question if I don’t like it.”

“No.” He grinned. “You won’t. I’ll almost certainly follow up with a question you’ll like even less, so I suggest you answer the first-tier questions.”

“Fine. Ask your question.”

“Tell me your middle names.”

She shook her head. “You’re asking for multiple pieces of information at once. If you won’t allow me to do that, neither will I let you. I’ll give you one name for each response.”