thoughts.
"Lead the way," she finished the credo, then waited for a reaction that never came. Unless you considered his eyes going dead a reaction. Given that she'd just witnessed an actual display of human emotion from him, she decided it was. A big one.
The elevator finally hit the ground floor. The doors slid open and he dragged her with him across the lobby at a fast jog, assured the change-of-shift security guard that all was well, and headed out the door.
As they scrambled toward the parking garage, Jillian tried to get a better handle on the workings of this frustrating man's mind. She was not an empath nor was she clairvoyant, and truth be known, she waffled between believing in either one. She'd researched and reported on a piece a year or so ago about a self-professed empath who had done some quasi-amazing work with the police department. While Jillian still swayed toward the side of disbelief, the absolute that she'd taken away from the experience was that some people fell into the category of sensitives. Sensitives knew when there was more to someone than met the eye. Jillian was firmly convinced that she was one of those people. Not in a hocus-pocus, booga-booga way but to a degree that made her instinctively aware when someone was withholding information, feeling guilt, or experiencing pain. Many people would simply call it intuition.
Whatever they called it, she had it. And she used it. It had helped her get to the heart of the matter more than once in an interview.
Right now, whatever it was, it was telling her that Nolan Garrett of the cool blue eyes and unreadable expression guarded not only her with his life; he also guarded secrets. It told her that he lived with an incredible amount of guilt. That he harbored an exhausting measure of pain.
As they moved at a fast clip toward the far end of the dark garage, she glanced at the uncompromising profile of the man her father had paid to protect her and, inexplicably, felt an almost overwhelming urge to comfort him. To tell him it would be OK.
And then she got a clue.
Not more than an hour ago she'd have cheerfully knocked him into next Tuesday. And now . . . now she had absolutely no idea why she wasn't still asleep and dreaming about ways to get rid of him. She needed some answers about what was happening. If she didn't get them soon— about where he was taking her and why—she might just decide Tuesday wasn't far enough.
She was about to demand he tell her where they were going when they reached an emerald green Mustang, from the 1960s. He stopped beside the passenger door. Turned and looked at her—and her breath stalled somewhere in the vicinity of Cuba. An unexpected and immediate sexual tension, as sharp as the knife he'd slid into his boot, suddenly electrified the air she needed very badly to breathe if she had an y prayer of clearing her head.
His blue eyes transitioned from ice to fire as his gaze slid down her body in a blatantly sexual assessment. He took his time about it, lingering on her bare legs, moving slowly up to the strip of skin exposed between her hip-hugger shorts and cropped T-shirt before snagging on her breasts and boldly holding.
Her pulse leaped at the shock of his less than subtle inspection. Something else reacted in shock, too. Her nipples tightened, tingled, pressed aggressively against the tight cotton knit. She would not flinch, she told herself, yet she couldn't keep from crossing her arms over her breasts to cover her body's reaction that was both knee-jerk and involuntary . And uncalled for.
His gaze shifted to her mouth, then lifted, ever so slowly, to her eyes, and just that fast, blue flame cooled to flinty ice.
Her breath whispered out on a relieved little rush that fairly echoed in the underground garage when he averted his attention to unlock the car door. She looked away, too. And blinked and settled herself and told herself she'd imagined all that... raw, primal heat. But her pulse said no, she hadn't
"Lead the way," she finished the credo, then waited for a reaction that never came. Unless you considered his eyes going dead a reaction. Given that she'd just witnessed an actual display of human emotion from him, she decided it was. A big one.
The elevator finally hit the ground floor. The doors slid open and he dragged her with him across the lobby at a fast jog, assured the change-of-shift security guard that all was well, and headed out the door.
As they scrambled toward the parking garage, Jillian tried to get a better handle on the workings of this frustrating man's mind. She was not an empath nor was she clairvoyant, and truth be known, she waffled between believing in either one. She'd researched and reported on a piece a year or so ago about a self-professed empath who had done some quasi-amazing work with the police department. While Jillian still swayed toward the side of disbelief, the absolute that she'd taken away from the experience was that some people fell into the category of sensitives. Sensitives knew when there was more to someone than met the eye. Jillian was firmly convinced that she was one of those people. Not in a hocus-pocus, booga-booga way but to a degree that made her instinctively aware when someone was withholding information, feeling guilt, or experiencing pain. Many people would simply call it intuition.
Whatever they called it, she had it. And she used it. It had helped her get to the heart of the matter more than once in an interview.
Right now, whatever it was, it was telling her that Nolan Garrett of the cool blue eyes and unreadable expression guarded not only her with his life; he also guarded secrets. It told her that he lived with an incredible amount of guilt. That he harbored an exhausting measure of pain.
As they moved at a fast clip toward the far end of the dark garage, she glanced at the uncompromising profile of the man her father had paid to protect her and, inexplicably, felt an almost overwhelming urge to comfort him. To tell him it would be OK.
And then she got a clue.
Not more than an hour ago she'd have cheerfully knocked him into next Tuesday. And now . . . now she had absolutely no idea why she wasn't still asleep and dreaming about ways to get rid of him. She needed some answers about what was happening. If she didn't get them soon— about where he was taking her and why—she might just decide Tuesday wasn't far enough.
She was about to demand he tell her where they were going when they reached an emerald green Mustang, from the 1960s. He stopped beside the passenger door. Turned and looked at her—and her breath stalled somewhere in the vicinity of Cuba. An unexpected and immediate sexual tension, as sharp as the knife he'd slid into his boot, suddenly electrified the air she needed very badly to breathe if she had an y prayer of clearing her head.
His blue eyes transitioned from ice to fire as his gaze slid down her body in a blatantly sexual assessment. He took his time about it, lingering on her bare legs, moving slowly up to the strip of skin exposed between her hip-hugger shorts and cropped T-shirt before snagging on her breasts and boldly holding.
Her pulse leaped at the shock of his less than subtle inspection. Something else reacted in shock, too. Her nipples tightened, tingled, pressed aggressively against the tight cotton knit. She would not flinch, she told herself, yet she couldn't keep from crossing her arms over her breasts to cover her body's reaction that was both knee-jerk and involuntary . And uncalled for.
His gaze shifted to her mouth, then lifted, ever so slowly, to her eyes, and just that fast, blue flame cooled to flinty ice.
Her breath whispered out on a relieved little rush that fairly echoed in the underground garage when he averted his attention to unlock the car door. She looked away, too. And blinked and settled herself and told herself she'd imagined all that... raw, primal heat. But her pulse said no, she hadn't
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