Kissing Sin (Riley Jenson Guardian 2)

Gee, that was going to make it easy. Particularly if he meant "short-term" as in one-night stand. "How far back in the past?"

He hesitated. "Three and a half years ago."

Great. That was going to be a cinch to remember - particularly if it had happened during the moon phase. I rubbed a hand across my eyes. "How connected is that man to the woman I met tonight?"

"Very connected."

"Sister?"

"No."

"Lover?"

"No."

"What then?"

"That I cannot say."

Could not, or would not? Given the smile touching his lips, I suspected the latter. "Is the man we're talking about from the Helki pack?"

"In the same sense as the woman, yes."

Then the Helki pack definitely had to be checked out. What remained of them, anyway. "Can you give me a description?"

He shrugged. "Brown hair, medium build. Blue eyes."

Ordinary, in other words. Then I frowned. "I thought you said he was a member of the Helki tribe?"

"I did."

"How could he have blue eyes?"

"The color of the eyes change, depending on what form they're wearing."

I raised my eyebrows. "Then why wouldn't the fake Mrs. Hunt just complete the disguise and take on the original's true eye color?"

"Because such transformations take a lot of energy and power. The less you actually have to transform, the longer you can hold the transformation. And the eyes, believe it or not, are one of the hardest items to hold and maintain."

"Them being the windows to the soul and all that."

"Yes." He paused. "Has anyone ever said you've got extremely expressive eyes?"

"No, and I'm not interested in hearing it from you, either."

He smiled. It reminded me of a cat watching a mouse he knew he was about to eat.

"So, the man sent to seduce me three or so years ago wasn't wearing his true form?" Which meant remembering him wasn't going to help anyway.

"No."

I drank some more beer, then asked, "What did he claim to do as a job?"

"I believe he said he was military."

Military? I'd only ever danced with one military man, and had ended up losing part of my heart to him. But it couldn't be Jaskin. He'd been checked and silently approved by the Directorate - there couldn't have been anything remotely dodgy about his past.

And there'd been no other military lovers - had there? I frowned, remembering back to when I'd first met Jaskin. Remembered then the man before him - the man who had introduced us.