The Negotiator (Professionals 7)

That interest, though, was exactly why I had been swamping myself in work, had doubled up my efforts to find Chernev. Not because that was necessary since I had a team of dozens of men handling both situations, but because I found I needed time away from her. I was thinking of her too often, was finding it harder not to reach out and touch her, to grab her, to lead her down the hall and into my bed.

I’d never been a man who couldn’t control myself. But I found I was struggling to do so with Miller. A woman whose real name I didn’t even know.

So I stayed out longer than needed.

I locked myself in the office with some of my men.

I ran the stairs three times a day to get rid of the excess energy that I would much rather spend with her in bed.

I was getting ready for my late-night run when Miller jumped off the couch, rushing to block the hallway before I could exit it.

“I want to go.”

“You complained just days ago about the stairs.”

“Yes, well, that was before I had been locked in a house day in and out with no way to really move around. I need some exercise. I’m going stir crazy.”

“You can’t leave the grounds right now.”

“Then why can you?” she shot back, brow raising, arms crossing, the perfect picture of defiance.

“I was not the one that Chernev threatened.”

“His threat to you went without saying,” she told me, rolling her eyes. “Obviously, he wants to kill you. And likely Alexander.”

“It’s different,” I insisted, pushing past her.

“Why?”

“It just is, Miller. Let it go.”

“No, I’m not going to let it go. If you want me to let it go, let me leave. Then you won’t have to listen to me bitch anymore.”

“You know I can’t do that either.”

“I am not an irrational person, Mr. Adamos,” she told me, following closely behind as I made my way through the house. “Give me a reason why you can walk around as freely as you choose while I can’t, and I will accept it.”

“No, you won’t,” I said, a chuckle in my voice because she simply was not the kind of woman to let something go if she had her mind made up about it. It was a quality I respected, even when she was using it against me.

“Is it because I am a woman?” she asked, reaching to grab my arm, trying to stop me before I could storm outside and way from her, knowing my men would stop her and haul her back into the house. “That’s the reason isn’t it?” she demanded, voice getting louder.

“Yes!” I shouted back, turning suddenly, making her step back so she could crane her head up to look me in the face, making her back press up against the wall. “Yes, it is because you are a woman,” I told her. “I don’t care if you don’t like that explanation, but it is the truth. You are a woman. And if you knew what Chernev did to women, you would be falling on your knees thanking me for my protection.”

It was when I finished speaking that I realized I had kept moving forward while I spoke, the urge to make her understand just how dangerous an adversary he was had pushed me into her personal space, my chest against hers, trapping her to the wall.

I could feel the breath expanding her chest, pressing her breasts against me as she slowly sucked it in.

“You could have told me that,” she said, her calm, almost soft voice in complete contrast to the loud, passionate one I had used on her.

“You could have trusted me,” I responded, voice going lower as well.

“You have to give people reasons to trust you, Mr. Adamos.”

“I have given you shelter. Food. Protection. Half the items on your ridiculous list.” The others I was still working on tracking down.

“You gain trust by sharing with people, not by expecting it in return for physical things.”

“It was ugly information,” I told her, momentarily distracted by the way her throat moved as she swallowed.

“I am used to living in an ugly world.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” I told her, my eyes finding hers.

“You don’t get to make that decision,” she told me, voice going even softer.

“If I gave you the information, would you have stayed willingly?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“I do. You would have gone. You would have been at risk. And if you had been hurt, I couldn’t have lived with that.”

“It wouldn’t have been your fault.”

“I brought you here. I put you in this situation. It would have been my fault.”

“I’m a grown woman, Christopher,” she insisted.

It was the name that did it.

Ripped away the small bit of control I’d had left.

She never called me by my name, save for that one time while arguing with me. It was always Mr. Adamos. Which, after a while, became sexy in and of itself.