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“You’re beautiful.”
He was back.Standing just a few feet away.
“I remember the first time I saw you in person.You were behind the counter at your shop.I walked in, and the whole place smelled so good.There were flowers everywhere and…you.You smiled when you saw me.Your eyes were the greenest eyes I’d ever seen.Your lips were full and sexy, and for a moment, I couldn’t move at all.”
Their first meeting.When he’d come to her and lied about needing flowers for his mother.“You said…that was the first time you saw me in person.”A telling phrase.In person.
He advanced.
She kept sitting on the side of the bed.She’d pushed the hem of the blouse down so that the tops of her thighs—and her sex—were covered.Modesty at this point seemed ridiculous, but being completely naked?Too vulnerable.
“I’d seen your photo before that day.I’d already worked up a profile on your brother.”A tight pause.“And on you.”
This was not the after-sex talk most women dreamed of hearing.“You had created a profile so that you could seduce me.”
“I created a profile so I knew what you wanted.”He didn’t look away.“And I became that man.”
Her lips pressed together.Do not dare cry.
“You wanted someone upstanding.Someone you believed was the true-blue type.”A roll of one big shoulder.Oliver was completely naked and didn’t seem to care at all.No vulnerability for him.Just power.Muscles.Strength.
A giant cock.
Her gaze whipped up and off said cock.
“With your past, I knew trust would be an issue for you.By telling you I was a Fed from the first moment, I was cementing the idea of me being one of thegoodguys in your head.By saying I was there to get flowers for my mother, I was indicating that I was a family man.That I had close ties to my mother.That I was the reliable sort.A good son.”
Her breath choked out.She really, really should reach for her jeans.
“But in reality, I was none of those things.”He put his hands on the mattress, settling them on either side of her and caging her in.“Want to know why I hunt monsters?”
“Because you’re good at it.”Except with my brother.With Lane, you made a—
“I could think like them long before I entered the Bureau.I studied abnormal psych so much in college and grad school.I did it not because I was preparing for my career with the Feds, but because I was trying to figure out my own damn self.My past.My future.”His stare bored into hers.“I come from a line of killers, Lark.”
What?She shook her head.“No, no, I read about you.You’re the only son of Esme and Doug Foxx.They were a sweet couple from Kansas City who worked for a charitable organization to help former prisoners to—”
“They adopted me when I was three days old.My father was in prison when I was born.He died in prison.That’s what happens when you go on a shooting spree and you take out four innocent people.”He swallowed.His Adam’s apple rose and fell.“My mother was with him during that spree.A demented Bonnie and Clyde.She never got out of prison, either.Took her own life when she found out my dad passed.”The words were cold.So emotionless.“My dad’s father was just like him.Went up for murder when he was twenty-four years old and never saw the light of a free day again.They are in my blood.They are in me.And Ineverwanted to end up like them.”
She had to touch him.He seemed too cold and distant, but he was right there.Her arms curled around his neck.“You’re not like them.”
“I’m a predator, Lark.I see prey everywhere I look.I always have.I wanted to channel myself.Get focus.Learncontrol.”
“You have control.”Even when they’d just been fucking like mad, he’d been careful.Never hurting her.Never being too rough.
“I hunt the killers because I could always think like them.I learned as much as I needed in school so that I could pass any psych test given to me.So I’d always know the right things to say and the right things to do.”
She shook her head and refused to let go of him.“Youareright.You’re not pretending.”Is that what he was trying to say?That he was one of the monsters just hiding beneath the guise of an FBI agent?“Bullshit.”
He blinked.
“You’re not your father.You’re not your mother.Or your grandfather or whoever else you’ve got in your family tree that did bad things.You’reOliver Foxx.The famous FBI agent who puts the killers in jail and keeps people safe.”
“Lark…”
“You keep people safe,” she said again, voice firmer.“You’re keeping me safe right now.You’re not bad.I wouldn’t want you so much if you were.”I wouldn’t love you so much.
He dipped his head forward and pressed a kiss to her mouth.“This is the part,” he rasped against her lips, “where you were supposed to run from me.”
