The Problem with Peace (Greenstone Security 3)

He didn’t run a mile.

He kissed me until I was crazy and then took me home.

To his ‘crash pad’ that served as the one constant he could come back to after months, years of war.

It wasn’t in a terrible area of L.A., not that I was one to care about ‘areas.’ But the cars parked on the street were nice, the apartment buildings all well-kept, and the streets were well lit.

He lived in one of the highest buildings on the block, top floor but where that didn’t mean a penthouse, it just meant the exact same, shoebox apartment without hearing the neighbors practicing tap dancing on the floor above.

You walked in with a small and modern kitchen on the left, an equally small and sparsely furnished living room directly ahead, with doors opening off to a small balcony.

His hall consisted of one door to the bathroom, one to his bedroom.

From what I saw of the place, it was lacking any kind of personality but was meticulously clean.

The bed I was sitting on had army corners and everything. I had yanked at the comforter just to create some disorder because the pure crispness of it all made me uncomfortable.

The room had a large dresser, not a single thing sitting on top of it. Not a photo, not a jumbled array of aftershave and deodorant.

Not one thing.

Ditto with his bedside tables.

There was a lamp on either side and a digital alarm clock.

He said he didn’t want a hotel room because he wanted a home. Hotel rooms had more personality than this.

My heart burned with the knowledge that this was his version of a home.

It was only as I was blinking away tears at that thought did I realize that the man I’d been crying for was standing in the door, with one glass of water in his hand and his eyes on me.

I wondered how long he’d been there, staring at me while I had grieved over his version of a home. Or lack thereof.

“Your bed is far too neat,” I said.

He blinked.

“Like, I know it’s good to make beds when we’re not sleeping in them,” I continued. “Believe me, I know, since my entire family are bed makers.”

Heath’s jaw ticked. “You say that like they’re serial killers.”

“They might be,” I deadpanned. “Serial killers like order after all.” I paused. “Now would be a terrible time to find out you’re a serial killer. Now I’m alone and at your mercy.”

The jaw tick disappeared. And pure male hunger replaced it.

My inner thighs clenched together as I responded to the look physically.

He moved then, rounding the bed to place the water on the bedside table and then yanking me up off the bed and into his arms.

He toyed with a strand of my hair, his hand biting into my hip. “No, Sunshine,” he murmured, not taking his eyes from me. “I’m the one at your fuckin’ mercy.”

Cue another thigh clench.

A fricking huge one.

And a stutter in my heartbeat.

A fricking huge one.

He didn’t move to kiss me, didn’t brutally throw me down on the bed like the darkness in his eyes communicated.

“I haven’t done this before,” I said, trying to sound proud of my virginity instead of slightly ashamed, as I did right now.

Which was completely and utterly unreasonable. Up until tonight, or right this second, I had been proud that I didn’t give in to society’s pressures of ‘losing it’ like some sort of race where there were no winners but a small number of losers who would take home an STI or an unplanned pregnancy as their prize.

My whole identity was about being me in spite of what the world told me to be. But now, I had a vague sense of regret that I hadn’t gotten the messy, awkward—I had no such romantic notions about the first time being ‘magical’—act out of the way so it wouldn’t be messy with Heath. It was awkward already because I was being awkward. Which was not something I was familiar with. Because I liked this man. Really liked him. I felt like there was a lot riding on this.

On us.

I wanted to not be an awkward virgin.

So then I would know about sex, and not seem like the little girl in the bar he’d rescued, and she was now offering up her virtue as thanks.

I supposed it was a modern-day fairy tale if I wanted to look at it that way.

Because I had retreated into my head, as I often did, it took me a long moment to realize that Heath hadn’t replied to my admission.

I blinked him into focus.

Then I blinked away my response at hot freaking hot he was.

He hadn’t moved since I spoke.

Crap.

His eyes locked on mine as if he sensed I was now mentally present and not thinking about fairy tales.

“You’re a virgin?”