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Her lips trembled. It was sexy, and vulnerable. That vulnerability touched him in a place he hadn't known existed. In the heart he had sworn he didn't have.
"Why are you doing this?" She tugged at her skirt, straightening it, her hands trembling as she stared up at him in confusion.
That look did something to him. Something he couldn't explain. It pierced a part of his soul that had remained frozen hard, solid, for so many years.
"Why am I doing what?" Brushing her hair back from her face, he had to admit Mikayla Martin could make even a dead man dream.
"Why are you messing up my life, Nik Steele? I was fine before you arrived."
"You were bored," he assured her, his fingers brushing along her jawline. "I saw you at the bar, baby. I watched. If your eyes had become any more glazed you would have been comatose. Tell me, have you even heard from the bastard since that night? The one you were there with?"
She hadn't. Nik saw it in the nervous way her tongue peeked out to touch her upper lip.
"I heard he was dating the daughter of one of the firm's partners after that night." Her shoulders lifted in a tight shrug. "No big deal." Her date hadn't even called to see if she had arrived safely, Nik knew. Actually, the man had spent the night in the other woman's bed. And every night thereafter. He'd preferred the barracuda to the gentle woman he'd been with.
The good girl. The virgin.
God help him, Nik wanted to be the man to share that first climax with her. The one who watched her eyes widen, watched her body shudder, and heard her cries as she came around him.
"This isn't over," he told her as she shifted away from him, his gaze locked on her.
"You want to think it is, Mikayla, but you know as well as I do that it's not."
"Why?" Pushing her hair back, she watched him in dismay. "You can have any woman you want, Nik. Why me?"
"Why me?" he asked instead. "Why are you opening a door I didn't know existed inside me? Why, Mikayla, are you making a dead man dream?" He froze. He hadn't said that. Fuck.
He jerked the door open without another word and stalked through the shop and out the door.
This was finished. It was simply over.
And he knew better.
It wasn't over. It couldn't be over until he had the scent of her out of his head, the taste of her from his tongue. And he knew he couldn't stay away from her long enough for that to happen anytime soon.
Striding to the parking lot at the side of the shop, Nik swung onto the Harley and within seconds roared down the street. He wore the helmet, though he wished the wind were in his hair, the scent of a coming rainstorm filling his senses. But rather than wiping 64
the smell and the taste of Mikayla from his mind, it would only remind him of her. She was as wild and as free as the storm, beneath that good-girl exterior. In her eyes he saw more than the dressmaker, more than the virgin. He saw the woman fighting to hold on to safety when safety was the last thing she truly wanted. He should leave her alone, but he knew he wouldn't. He knew he couldn't. The part of him that had been dead was slowly coming to life for her. Staying away wasn't an option.
Reaching up to the side of the helmet, he activated the link to the base and the woman manning communications.
"Jordan is getting nervous, big boy," Tehya informed Nik as she answered the link. "He needs you back here."
"Not yet," he answered, his voice hardening at the thought. "I need you to get some intel for me."
"Jordan finds out that I'm fucking around working on your 'favor'
then he's likely to punish me," she drawled.
Nik waited.
"Okay, maybe he'll actually get around to that spanking he keeps threatening me with." She laughed lightly. "What do you need?"
"Luke Nelson, Maddix Nelson's son," Nik answered her. "You didn't tell me he had dated Mikayla."
"Baby, your little Miss Martin dates a lot," Tehya informed him with a thread of amusement. "In the past year she's gone out with eight different men. Even the little controversy between her and Nelson hasn't slowed down her social life. Rarely the same one for more than a few dates, though. She's very popular. She attends many of the parties that her dresses are worn to. Before Eddie Foreman was killed she was a very popular guest in many homes. That's actually risen since she accused Maddix Nelson of murder. This war between them keeps everyone highly entertained, it seems. If you want to know more about the families you should ask Eleanor Longstrom." Eleanor Longstrom owned the antique store down from Mikayla's shop. An exCIA agent and contact for the unit, she could dig up information others only dreamed of acquiring.
"Check him out. While you're at it, see if you can dig up anything on Maddix that I don't already have. Something's wrong here, Tehya. Both of them can't be telling the truth."
