Nobody's Angel by Patricia Rice Page A

take. He was much better at persuasion than force, and the results could be very interesting.
    Maybe he needed to get sex off his mind first so he could focus better on the task ahead.
    As if she heard his thoughts, Faith swung around on the bottom step and glared at him with just enough warning to remind him that she carried a phone in her case and could call the police anytime she wished.
    They would definitely need to develop a level of trust before he could have his way with her, in whatever form he imagined.
    Uncomfortably aware of his lack of a current driver's license, Adrian stayed well within the bounds of the speed limit all the way back to the city, enraging the semi drivers barreling down the mountain behind him. The semis should have scared the shit out of him, but the woman beside him had already done that.
    If he intended to control this situation, he needed to hold Ms. Faith Hope Nicholls firmly within his limited circle of power. Leaving her without a means of transportation was a good start.
    “I don't know Knoxville,” he said innocently enough as they reached the outer lights of the city. “You'll have to tell me how to find your place.” He hadn't had time to track down her home, as he had the shelter. She wasn't in the phone book, and he hadn't followed her from the bar, though tempted to do it. That had been next on his list.
    She threw him a shrewd look but must have realized it wouldn't be difficult for him to find her. Sinking back in the patched upholstery, she returned to staring out the windshield. “Take the next exit.”
    Her directions led him to a deteriorating mansion in the city's inner streets. The sign out front advertising a vacancy gave evidence that the old house had been converted to apartments.
    “You'd be safer with me at the shelter than in there,” he said derisively. In the dark interior of the truck cab, he felt a protective urge toward the slim woman clutching her bubble-wrapped bowl. He couldn't undo decades of upbringing in one night. He wouldn't let his damned sisters go into a place like that.
    “I've never had any trouble,” she said quietly, opening the door.
    He didn't like it when she got quiet. He hadn't analyzed that reaction yet, but he threw open his door and leaped out of the truck. He really hadn't intended to follow her in, but he jammed his hands in his pockets and trailed her up the broken sidewalk, through the fallen gate.
    “If you can afford that expensive shop, surely you can afford better than this.” He tested her, still not believing her story. He'd spent four years building this woman into a selfish society bitch. He couldn't blow away four years.
    “I don't need much.” She shrugged as she removed her keys from her purse. “I rented this when I first arrived, and everything I earned went into the business. When the store started making money, I put the profits into a more expensive location instead of moving. Works for me.”
    Adrian noted the sagging porch steps and couldn't adjust his thinking fast enough to reply.
    “You needn't follow me in.” Scorn lingered beneath the otherwise calm of her voice as she inserted a key in the outer door. “I'm perfectly safe.”
    “Just because I spent a few years in jail doesn't mean I've forgotten what my mama taught me.” Reaching over her head, he shoved open the door as she unlocked it, verifying that no danger lurked in the foyer.
    Her resistance made him even more determined to follow. Sensing that, she stepped inside and strode toward the battered staircase. As he closed the door, darkness enveloped them, broken only by the electricity they were generating as he followed her up.
    She'd been his partner's wife, an expensively lacquered socialite accustomed to finger bowls and imported china, awoman who would perjure herself to protect her wealth, and she was climbing a battered staircase to a room not much better than his prison cell.
    She had sunk to his depths now, and he was more aware of