Guarding Valentina [Paladin Protection Agency 3] (Siren Publishing Classic) by Susan Hayes Page B

His fingers moved up to sweep her bangs back from her face. “It’s just that I don’t date, Val. I’m never in one place long enough.”
    “Oh.” Val wasn’t sure how she felt about that announcement. On one hand, it meant this wasn’t going to be complicated or messy. She could enjoy Aedan’s company and not worry about things getting out of hand. But as she stared into his hazel eyes and felt his gentle caress, part of her was disappointed. For this guy, maybe the risk might have been worth it.
    She shoved the stray thought down deep and stomped on it with a mental equivalent of a combat boot. She’d sworn off men, all men. Even hot vampire hunters, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy some smoking hot sex if it was offered with no strings attached. She turned her head to nuzzle into his hand, letting her tongue flick out over his palm. “Well, then. I guess I’ll just have to take what I can get.”
    She heard his breath catch, and she stepped out of his arms. “But first, I should find us something for dinner. I hope you’re not a vegetarian.”
     
    * * * *
     
    As Aedan watched Val move purposefully around her kitchen, he found himself completely relaxed for the first time in ages. Not just taking a break, but a soul-deep decompression that made every breath feel a little easier than the one that had come before it. The last time anyone had cooked him a meal like this, he’d been a little boy. His grandmother had loved to cook. Whenever his da had pulled one of his disappearing acts or gotten himself tossed back into jail, his mother’s mother would come to fetch Aedan home with her. Those were the only happy recollections he had of his childhood. The scent of spices and the warm energy Val gave off as she prepared their dinner brought back those memories.
    “Where did you learn to cook like this?” he asked as she finished stirring the cream sauce she’d made from scratch as he watched.
    “The women of my family are all good cooks.” She wrinkled her nose slightly, as if she found the concept somehow distasteful. “Good cooks, good cleaners, good seamstresses. Good wives.” She grabbed a loaf of French bread and started cutting, using enough force that she nearly tore it apart with each sawing hack of the knife. “I’m a terrible disappointment to them all.”
    “Why would they think you’re a disappointment? How could they be anything but proud of you? You’re a capable, confident woman and a veteran of the military, for God’s sake.”
    She laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “I’m too skinny and too tall. Oh yes, and I have too many muscles. They always asked me what sort of man could want a woman who has no curves and can beat him up. I’m thirty years old, unmarried, and childless. By my family’s measure, I’m a complete failure and an embarrassment.”
    “We have that in common, then,” he muttered and stood up from the kitchen table. “Where do you keep the booze in this house? Suddenly I’m in need of a drink.”
    “Beer is in the fridge. The good stuff is in the pantry.” She inclined her head toward a door at the far end of the kitchen.
    “The good stuff it is.” He opened the door and whistled low as he took a quick inventory. There had to be nearly a thousand dollars in high-end whisky and scotch lined up neatly on the shelves.
    “You’ve been holding out on me, luv.”
    “There’s a twenty-five-year-old Middleton Irish whisky on the right, third shelf. If we’re going to discuss family, then I’m going to need it.”
    As his hand closed around the bottle, he realized he was holding several hundred dollars’ worth of liquor in his hand, and revised his estimate of the liquor cabinet’s worth up by a few digits and a zero. “Just how well does Paladin pay you people?”
    She laughed again, and this time her voice was full of amusement. “Remington doesn’t have my family’s issues about my true value. Paladin pays very well, which is