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“Nik will be here with you,” he said softly.
She shook her head quickly. “Go. I’m fine. Nik is fine.”
Her voice sounded hollow, distracted. Micah felt the fine tension that filled her body and he saw the pain in her eyes.
“A few hours, that’s all,” he promised.
She nodded sharply. “A few hours. I’ll be here.”
“Micah, we have to go,” Jordan spoke from the door. “Black Jack is waiting. It’s time to clear out.”
Micah breathed in roughly before cupping her cheek and staring into her ravaged gaze. “I’ll be back soon.”
Her lips twisted in a facsimile of a smile. “I’m not a child,” she informed him, her voice cool. “I’ll be fine. Do what you have to do.”
He was going to leave anyway, Risa thought as she watched him grimace. She accepted the brief kiss he brushed across her lips and stored it in her mental stack of memories. It was a lousy good-bye kiss, though.
She watched him leave. He was dressed in black. Black pants, black long-sleeved shirt and gloves. With his black hair and black eyes he looked like a dark avenger.
Finally, the apartment cleared out. She was left with the quiet, icy-eyed Viking-like member of the team, Nik.
She lifted her gaze to his. “Will he really be back?” she wondered aloud. “Does he return or just disappear into the sunset?”
Nik’s expression never changed. “If he’s smart,” he finally said, “he won’t come back. It would be better for both of you.”
Her chest tightened at the statement. Forcing herself from the couch, she got to her feet and moved for her bedroom. Nik wasn’t the talkative type, and that was okay, because she didn’t have anything to say. She’d asked her question and he’d answered her. The fact that the answer still didn’t tell her one way or the other if Micah would be back didn’t matter.
She locked her bedroom door behind her and moved to the dresser. She pulled a pair of lounging pants from a drawer and a matching long T-shirt. Socks. Her feet were cold. It was too bad she had nothing in her room that would warm the cold, empty places within her soul.
As she removed the beautiful dress she had worn for such a short time and dressed in the warmer cotton pants and shirt, she rubbed at her arms, hoping to chase away the chill taking hold of her.
She washed the makeup off her face, smoothed lotion into her cold skin, and tried to tell herself everything was going to work out as Micah had promised.
They would take Oswald Heinrick and question him. He’d tell them who Orion was, and they would capture the killer. She would be safe then. And Micah would be gone. He would never return.
She pulled the clip from her hair after smoothing the lotion into her skin and stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror.
She wasn’t ugly. She wasn’t a beauty queen. She would never stop traffic with her looks, or really even most men. But she wasn’t ugly. She was a little plain. She might have flashes of prettiness if she was lucky.
Micah liked her. He was attracted to her. He got hard for her more often than just for a pity fuck.
She touched her cheek. Her skin was clear. Her eyes were a little pale, but her nose was straight. Her fingers trailed to her neck where a faint red spot marred her skin. Micah’s mark.
Her knees went weak, a sob caught in her throat, and she had to brace her hands against the sink to keep from sinking to the floor.
He’d marked her flesh and her soul. And now he would make certain that demons from her past were eradicated.
He cared for her.
He might not love her, she thought, but perhaps he cared for her. She was certain he cared for her. It had been in his eyes before he left.
Caring wasn’t love, though.
She shook her head and forced herself out of the bedroom and back into the living room.
Nik was sitting in a large easy chair, but he seemed to dwarf it. The man was seriously large. His shoulders were heavy and broad, his legs long and powerful. The hint of a beard and mustache darkened his strong jaw and emphasized the slightest bit of fullness in his lower lip.
He wasn’t a handsome man, she thought. He was unique. Savage in his looks perhaps, with the prominent cheekbones and the dark tint of his skin.
