His smile grows, replacing some of my annoyance with giddiness. My teetering moods can easily be excused. Isaac is an extremely attractive man. Unique-colored eyes, a panty-wetting face, and the strength to carry me up three flights of stairs when a panic attack rendered me a wheezing idiot guaranteed him a spot on the Top Ten Most Handsome Men list I’ve been compiling since high school.
He didn't even bat an eye when my dinner was ejected in an awfully unladylike manner. He just held my hair out of the firing zone before cracking open a window to lessen my queasiness. In different circumstances, I would have assumed his chivalrous act was a ploy to get into my panties. But for some reason unbeknownst to me, I know he isn't acting. This is who he is. He's a protector. An alpha male. The very definition of the virile man I usually gobble into my spank bank for future examination.
If my mind would stop veering to the handsome blond agent who created more moisture in my sex than my eyes with his gallant effort tonight, I could come out of this situation a winner. It is a pity my body knows whom it wants, and it doesn’t mind sidestepping equally attractive obstacles until it gets him.
My god—I can still smell the testosterone pumping out of the agent’s pores when he raced across the field with another agent on his back. His back was against the wall, but not once did he give in or cower. He tackled the issue head-on, his fight one I wish Luca could have imitated. If he fought with one-tenth of the grit the agent did tonight, he would be sitting beside me, squeezing my hand like Isaac is.
“Can you open the window? There is too much maleness in this room. It’s suffocating me,” I mutter, blaming the heat of three bodies in a small space for the moisture gliding down my cheeks.
When the unnamed man does as asked—for once—I shift my focus back to Isaac. He has spotted the tears slipping down my face, but thankfully, he acts ignorant—for the most part.
“What does a cartoon have to do with our faces appearing onAmerica’s Most Wanted?”I ask, hoping to get our show back on the road. “I’m sure TV execs won’t display our mugshots during preschool time-slots.”
That hurt just to say. Bye-bye dreams of becoming a lawyer. Hello four by four concrete cell. Maybe I should change my name to Bertha? It’s more befitting of a trailer-living momma with fifteen kids and a husband called Billy.
A quivering breath parts my lips when Isaac brushes away my tears with a sweep of his hand. For how swiftly he removes them, it appears as though their arrival frustrates him as much as me.
Confident my cheeks are moisture-free, he assures, “We won’t be featured onAmerica’s Most Wanted.”
His tone is confident, but it doesn’t lessen my worry in the slightest. “They don’t just have me fleeing a crime scene, Isaac; the surveillance images containotherillegal stuff.” For a woman known for her smarts, I sound like a moron.
For the first time tonight, Isaac’s smirk morphs into a genuine smile. “My contacts handledallaspects of your time at Substanz. As far as anyone is aware, you've never stepped foot in the place, much less operated your little side business from its core."
My spine straightens to a rod, the anger burning my veins sufficient to remove any residual moisture from my eyes. “I’m not a prostitute!”
“Never said you were,” Isaac rebuts, smirking. “Although next time, I recommend not swindling an agent for a bonus.”
“We didn’t know he was an agent.” I’m five seconds from stabbing myself in the throat for how whiny my voice sounds. “We thought he’d be easy prey.”
“Did your dad not teach you anything? If you look hard enough, you’ll spot a sucker in every crowd. He was giving off plenty of signs. None of them screamed ‘sucker.’”
The ridicule in his tone shocks me. “What are you saying? You knew he was an agent all along?”
Isaac nods without pause. “In under a second.”
Spit flies into the air when I make apfftnoise. “Whatever. Even an in-depth search of someone’s private life leaves some stones unturned.”
My mouth falls open when Isaac denies, “Not all the time. I know you very well, and we’ve only just met.”
My eyeroll ends midway when Isaac nips my attitude in the bud by saying, “Regan Myers, graduated top of your high school class, which wasn’t hard considering there were only seventeen other students in your grade.”
I punch him in the arm like we’re old friends, unappreciative of the candor in his tone. Even if it is true doesn’t mean it is laughable.
Isaac continues, “You grew up on a dairy farm in a little town in Texas. Your parents were high school sweethearts who married only a few weeks after their twenty-first birthdays. You were supposed to take a gap year to backpack Europe, but after a financial blunder saw a forty-five percent share of your family’s ranch transferred to foreign investors, you went straight to college, where you’ve remained the past four years, working your tail off in the hope of graduating early.”
His eyes flicker like he is reading my life history in the stalker dictionary inside his head. “Did I miss anything?”
I twist my lips to hide their quiver. “Just a few things.”
When his brow arches in hushed confirmation, I say, "I was crowned Miss Moo Queen my senior year. I had two boyfriends; both were wankers, hence my love of battery-operated company. And my dog's name is Isaac."
Isaac throws his head back and laughs, assuming I am being funny. I’m not. “Woof woof. You’re a miniature chihuahua.” I toss a photo frame from my bedside table onto his lap.
I nearly punch him for a second time when he laughs even louder upon spotting Isaac’s fangless growl.
“He kept biting the cows. They retaliated,” I disclose, smiling my first genuine smile in nearly three years.
Isaac’s eyes lift from my furry companion to me. “Did he learn his lesson?”
