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His expression went blank, but she could tell she’d touched a nerve. “Maybe you’ve got a point,” he finally said.
“Just helping you do your job.” She flashed a cheesy smile.
Luke shook his head. “You’re just trying to make me feel guilty with this distraction excuse.”
Damn it, he was sharp. “No, I’m afraid for my life. You’re the only person standing between me and some whack-job who sends me threatening letters and pornography and tries to run me off the road with his minivan. I just want to make sure you have your mind on the job.”
Luke backed away and turned to the window. He gripped the wrought-iron bedpost and leaned against it, appearing deep in thought.
“Do you really think I’ve been distracted?”
“I think you’ve done a fine job so far, but if the threat is greater now, and if we need to be more careful, I think that includes not going at it hot and heavy every time we get the chance.”
She refrained from pointing out that that’s exactly what she would have advised in her books or her column, that she was only following her own good advice for once where Luke was concerned.
Luke smiled. “How about just every other time we get the chance, then?”
“Stop it!” She tried to keep serious, but she couldn’t help grinning.
“You’re right. We can’t afford distractions right now.” He turned back to his suitcase and began removing clothes.
That was easy—far too easy. Something was up, but she couldn’t guess what it might be. Luke was probably trying to use a reverse psychology tactic on her, and if so, he was way out of his league.
Jane watched as he took shirts and pants to the closet and placed them on empty hangers. When nothing remained in the suitcase except underwear and socks, he slid the case into an empty space on the closet floor and shut the door. Just glancing around, it was impossible to tell that her bodyguard had just taken up residence in her house.
“My couch pulls out into a bed, so you can sleep there at night.”
He tossed her a wry look. “How convenient.”
“I bought it thinking someday I’d have visitors and would need a place to put them.”
She definitely hadn’t been thinking her visitor would be a live-in personal protection expert with a sexual agenda.
Luke opened his overnight bag and pulled out a shaving kit, toothbrush and toothpaste. “Will I be using the hallway bathroom?”
“Um…yes.” She hadn’t quite imagined how dizzy it would make her feel to think of Luke showering, shaving, brushing his teeth…every morning, right here in her own private space. It would become his private space too, for whatever short time he was here. The sight of his toothbrush felt oddly intimate in a way that nothing else he’d unpacked so far had.
And intimacy, Jane realized in a sudden, cruel burst of understanding, was what she feared most.
She’d become a pro at keeping people at arm’s length, making sure she didn’t get hurt, even substituting her career for real relationships. She’d been working so hard to prove to herself and everyone else that she deserved recognition, she’d managed to convince herself that having a successful career was the same as having a successful personal life.
The question now was, did she want her personal life to include Luke?
“THE NUMBER ONE THING to remember, when it comes to self-defense, is that you can always fight back.”
Jane stood a few feet in front of Luke, arms at her sides, looking as enthusiastic about their lesson as a beached jellyfish. He’d been after her to continue their lessons where they’d left off with the last one, but she had produced excuse after excuse about why she couldn’t do it. Today, when he’d caught her surfing an online auction site instead of working on her next book like she’d claimed to have been doing, he insisted they have a lesson immediately, pointing out that her safety was infinitely more important than her finding bargains on junk.
Living with Jane was proving even more difficult than Luke had suspected. Not only had he failed to make any progress in the case, but he’d also managed to go damn near insane with wanting her. He’d been living in her house for nearly two weeks, and they’d been two of the longest weeks of his life.
He would have been happy to just have her company at mealtimes, but she went out of her way to avoid him, and whenever they were together and he was starting to think she’d relax and enjoy his presence, she’d make some excuse about having work to do and slip away to her office. The only positive thing that had come from his moving in was that there hadn’t been a single instance of harassment in the two weeks that he’d been there.
