Duty At What Cost?

Wolfe handed the camera to Eric. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ He didn’t bother to hide the contempt he felt for her type. Haughty princesses—real or imagined—who thought their needs took preference over everybody else’s. ‘Did I forget to tell you? My men take orders from me, not you.’

Her pout turned even sexier. ‘Convenient.’

He wasn’t in the frame of mind to appreciate her wisecrack and nearly reconsidered his need to verify her identity before tossing her back over the wall.

‘Eric. Dane. Take the Jeep and find her car. If it exists.’

She sniffed at his instructions and shifted her bottom on the wall. She must be completely uncomfortable by now. Serve her right.

‘I told you to keep your hands where I could see them.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Do you think it might be at all possible that I could wait on the ground for your men to return? I promise not to overpower you while they are gone.’

The air seemed to buzz with the antagonistic heat she imbued him with, and her accent lent her sardonic words a sexy edge. She was a wicked combination of beauty and spirit, and not even the way she spoke down to him was enough to keep his libido at bay. A truly annoying realisation.

‘I think I can handle you.’

Her eyes dropped to his mouth and Wolfe felt a kick of lust all the way to his toes. He waited, breathless, for the heat in his groin to dissipate, but if anything it got worse. Then her eyes blazed into his and the chemistry he’d been trying to ignore sparked like a live wire between them.

The way her eyes widened he thought perhaps she had read his thoughts, but that was impossible. Fourteen years in the business and Wolfe knew how to hide what he was feeling—hell, he’d learned how to do that by the time he could walk.

Perhaps she’d just felt the same burn he had. And had liked it just as little, if her wary gaze was anything to go by. Which gave him a moment’s pause. If she was a journalist—or, worse, some sort of political stalker—she’d have already used that connection to manipulate him, not shy away from it as if she’d just been singed.

His eyes took in wrists that looked impossibly slender within the cuffs of her masculine-style shirt, then moved down along fine-boned hands and nails buffed to perfection. She didn’t do hard labour. That much was obvious.

He knew instinctively she was who she said she was. It was in her regal bearing, the swanlike arch of her neck, in her sense of entitlement and the way she looked at him as if he was staff. His mother had often looked at his father like that and Wolfe had always felt sorry for the poor bastard.

She shifted again, her eyes on the ground. ‘Do you have any suggestions on how I might get down from here?’ And with a degree of dignity, her tone seemed to imply.

‘Perhaps you’d like me to unfold my trusty ladder from my back pocket?’ Wolfe mocked. ‘Oh, dear. Left it at home.’ He opened his hands, palms facing upwards. ‘Guess you’ll just have to jump into my arms, Princess. What a treat.’

His horse snickered and her eyes used the excuse to glance at the stallion before returning to his. ‘Channelling your inner Zorro?’ she asked sweetly.

His lips twitched. ‘Only because I left my Batman tool belt at home.’

‘With Robin?’

Despite his less than stellar mood he chuckled. ‘Cute. Toss down the boots first.’ The last thing he wanted was to be stabbed by one of those dangerous-looking heels, and by the gleam in her eyes that was exactly what she was considering.

‘I have a better idea. Why don’t I just go back down the way I came up?’

‘No.’

Her lips tightened. ‘It makes perfect sense. I can—’

‘Try it and I will shoot you.’

‘You don’t have a gun.’

‘I have a gun.’

She paused, her stillness telling him she was weighing up whether he was telling the truth or not. Her eyes slid down his torso and over his legs and he felt a rush of unexpected excitement, as if she’d actually touched him.

‘You are being overly obnoxious about this,’ she fumed.

‘Not yet, I’m not.’ Wolfe barely managed to suppress his rising aggravation at this physical response to a woman he already didn’t like. ‘But I’m getting close.’

‘If you drop me I’ll sue you.’

‘If you don’t hurry up and get down from that wall I’ll sue you.’

Her dark brows arched imperiously. ‘For what?’