He believed her implicitly when she said she didn’t have a man in her life, that she didn’t go in for what he thought of as pickup games.
That was all the more reason he knew that he could have her in his bed tonight.
She was impressionable. She had convictions. She was honorable.
He was none of those things. Not anymore.
Maybe he had been, once, a very long time ago, but the years had left their mark on him. He had lived in the shadows too long.
He was not impressionable. He knew what life was like and nothing could ever change that.
He had convictions, but they’d been honed by the fires of war, and skills a woman like her could never imagine and, he fervently hoped, would never discover.
As for honor…assuming he’d ever had any, his had given way to reality and the acceptance of life’s immutable truths.
Trust no one.
Believe in no one.
Give yourself to no one.
Stick to those rules and the world might just leave you alone.
This was not a woman for him, not even for one night.
His head knew that.
His body was telling him a different tale.
It said that he could get her out of those clothes—his clothes, and, hell, was there anything sexier than a stunning woman in a man’s clothes? He could get her out of them and into his bed in less time that it had taken him to heat the soup.
She was reacting to him. The simple truth was, she was dazzled by him. Everything about him was alien to her. She existed in a place of three piece suits, Ivy League degrees and polite conversation.
He was surely the opposite of everything she knew.
On top of that, they were in what could only be called an unusual situation.
They were isolated, as alone up here as they’d have been on the top of a mountain. No lights. No phone, except for a cell phone whose time on earth might be short. And there was no way of knowing how long their isolation would last.
Almost without thinking, he turned her hand over, lightly rubbed his thumb on the underside of her wrist.
Her pulse went crazy. Jesus. So did his.
He looked up, caught her eyes with his, watched as her pupils all but swallowed the pale blue irises.
The ache in his belly turned into a knot.
And, goddammit, what kind of an SOB was he? Did he need the comfort of a woman’s body so badly that he’d resort to becoming a predator stalking its prey?
Zach dropped Jaimie’s hand, shot to his feet, made a dumb speech about clearing the counter, stacking their dishes in the sink, putting a kettle of water on to boil so they could have coffee or tea.
He knew he’d surprised her, but she made a quick recovery.
“Let me do that,” she said.
He did.
He was brisk. Businesslike. He pointed to the cabinet where she’d find mugs. Tea bags. Cookies or crackers, whatever his housekeeper had bought because he never paid much attention to stuff like that. He liked a good meal as much as the next guy, but mostly food was fuel for the body.