He hadn’t gotten where he was by giving in to temptation, no matter how sweet and sultry it seemed. He had an iron-hard will, and nothing could break it—not torture, not lust, not mercy.
“The car’s here,” he said, and she blinked at his words, taking a belated step back from him. He might almost have thought she’d forgotten all about her secrets, but that guilty look was in her eyes again.
“How do you know?”
Score one for him. She’d been too caught up in the moment to hear the tires on the gravel road that ran up to Dr. Gentry’s shack. He could even tell which car Wilson had brought—the anonymous gray Lincoln. Good choice.
“I listen,” he said. “Why don’t you go see if you can find a shirt or something to wear over that dress? Doc wouldn’t mind.”
“I don’t want to wake her . . .”
“She’s not here,” Ryder said. “I think she was hoping we’d end up in bed. She’s always telling me I’m too intense, that I need to get laid more often.” There, he’d put it out there, just to see her reaction.
She turned pale, but her scoffing laugh was almost believable. “That’s never going to happen. We don’t even like each other.”
“Who says liking each other has anything to do with sex?” He gave her a faint smile. “Find a shirt or a coat or something and let’s go.”
“I’m not cold,” she said stubbornly.
“I can see your nipples and they’re either hard for me or you’re freezing. Or maybe both.” He reached down and picked up the discarded shawl, dumping it around her shoulders, and for a moment he let his hands rest on her. She quivered under his touch, but he could feel her, soft, yielding.
Wilson was waiting, smart enough not to come in and interrupt something that wasn’t happening. “Let’s go,” he said, releasing her, and headed out into the early morning.
He gave Wilson a nod of greeting, and the young man immediately went around to open the back door of the vehicle. He even kept his eyes averted from Parker’s scantily clad figure, a rare feat for any red-blooded male.
She stepped into the back of the car, settling in, and Wilson gave him an inquiring look.
“No, I think Ms. Parker has had enough of my company for a while.”
“Yes, sir,” Wilson said, opening the passenger side door for him like the perfect chauffeur. On the way back around he popped the trunk, or whatever you did when the damned things were automatic, fetched something from the depths, and opened the back door, wrapping a rich-looking wool blanket around Jenny. He tucked it in with gentle hands, and for the first time Ryder saw Parker smile without the shadow of irritation and defensiveness, and he found the whole thing fascinating. Deeply annoying, but interesting. Clearly she didn’t think she had anything to hide from Wilson, just him.
Well, Jenny Parker was his cross to bear, and Wilson was going to have to learn to keep his hands to himself. He should’ve been the one to wrap her in cashmere, damn it, if only to see her muffled fury at having to be grateful to him for anything.
Wilson slid behind the driver’s seat and Ryder gave him a sour look. “Take us back to headquarters,” he said briefly.
He should’ve known Ms. Parker wasn’t down for the count. She’d snuggled into the thick, oversized blanket like a sleepy kitten, but her snippy voice emerged.
“Headquarters? You call that beautiful old house headquarters?”
“That beautiful old house, as you call it, is a state-of-the-art surveillance and intel-gathering operation, and an armed fortress besides. Which is exactly why you’re going back there and staying there until I find out who’s trying to kill you.”
“Why do you care?” she murmured sleepily.
Good question. He shouldn’t care, but he was damned curious. “They shot at you at my front door, they nearly killed me when they blew up your house. Let’s just say I have a vested interest.”
“But . . .”
“Go to sleep, Parker. I have to talk business with Wilson and I don’t want you eavesdropping.”
“Now I’m determined to stay awake,” she responded, her eyes half closed.
“Sure you are. Go to sleep,” he said again. “You’ll have plenty of chances to eavesdrop in the future.” He turned back to Wilson, resisting the urge to growl. “So what’s been happening with our other unwilling houseguest?”
Chapter Nine
Jenny was asleep before she heard the answer, and by the time she woke up, Ryder was already carrying her up the broad front stairs. He must have felt her startle awake. He gripped her tighter and growled in her ear: “If you put up a fuss I’ll drop you and let you roll down two flights of stairs. And while I might find the sight amusing and potentially interesting, I don’t think you’d enjoy it.”
“So instead we get to reenact Gone with the Wind?”