“You’re a dangerous man, Dakota Rivers.” Her voice came unsteady, like the kiss had knocked something loose in her too.
He made himself meet her eyes. “Not really. I’m a safe man.” Something in him needed her to believe it. “I really am.”
She studied his face for a long moment. Searching for something. Whatever she found made her expression soften, the fear fading into something warmer. “Yes,” she said quietly. “Yes, you are.”
She pulled back, retrieving her tea, and he watched her ease against the pillows. The moment shifted—still intimate, but different now.
The what-ifs still there, but maybe cast aside.
“I should eat something.” She reached for the soup. “And then probably sleep for another twelve hours.”
“The tour doesn’t leave until ten tomorrow. More wine tastings.”
“Perfect.” She took a spoonful of soup, hummed appreciation. “This is good.”
“The restaurant recommended it. Said ginger was good for congestion.”
“You really did take care of everything.” She looked at him over the soup bowl.
He lifted a shoulder. “It was a tactical assessment.”
She smiled—genuine, unguarded, the best thing he’d seen all day—and went back to her soup.
“By the way, I went to check on our bags. The one you had is missing.”
She raised an eyebrow. “So, the owner finally grabbed it?”
“Maybe.” He made a grim face. “Or it never made it here.”
She nodded, her jaw tight.
Dakota sat with her while she ate, answering her questions about the resort, the tour group, the wine country they’d explore tomorrow. As normal as it could be with his heart still hammering, the taste of her kiss lingering.
When she finished, she set the tray aside and slid back under the covers. Gave him a look. “Um, I see the tiny sofa in the next room, and I know you’re intentions. But . . . could you, maybe, stay?”
Stay. And right then, yep, that’s exactly what he wanted—and maybe shouldn’t—do. But, “Yes,” he said quietly as he kicked off his shoes, and moved to the other side of the bed. “I’ll be right here.”
He switched off the lamp.
She was asleep within minutes, breathing slow and congested, her body curled toward his warmth.
Dakota lay in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, listening to her breathe, and tried to think about Ham’s words. The mission.
Gender-neutral name.
Stay sharp.
Ham’s warnings played on a loop in his head. The profile fit. The circumstantial evidence was there. Any objective analyst would have her at the top of the suspect list.
But Dakota wasn’t objective. Not anymore.
He looked at the woman sleeping beside him—dark hair on the white pillow, face soft in the darkness, trusting him enough to be vulnerable—and made a decision.
She wasn’t the assassin. He was sure of it. Sure in his gut, in his bones, in the part of himself that had recognized her from the beginning.
Which meant someone else was. Mags Winston? The Novaks? Vic with his convenient nervousness? Someone on this tour was planning to kill the president, and Dakota was going to find them.
But first, he was going to keep Jayden safe.
