Slow Heat (8 page)

What the hell was she thinking? Maggie tried pulling her hand free of his.

Micah’s fingers tightened around hers, preventing her freedom. But only for a moment. Her hand seemed colder than the rest of her when he finally let her go and dropped his hand to his side.

“No contracts. No receipts. No records.”

“But—”

“No,” he said with finality. “Enter into a verbal agreement with me. That will require that you trust my decisions and my actions, always. A piece of paper holds a lot less value.”

Maggie almost dropped her wallet. Her skin prickled. There was unleashed, raw lust emanating from his body. If she didn’t take the upper hand immediately, he would have her begging him to take off her clothes, ravish her, do what he wanted with her body. She tried for a deep breath. Her reaction to him had to be a result of so much relief that he’d agreed to help her out.

“All right. We’ll do this your way. This will be a working relationship,” she told him. “I am hiring you. Contract or no, you will report your daily activities to me. I’m paying you for a service and I expect full cooperation and communication from you.”

Maggie wasn’t prepared when he grabbed her jaw. Micah didn’t hurt her, but long, hot fingers embraced her neck, pressed against her jugular, and stroked her chin when he tilted her head back and stared down at her.

“This will be a working relationship. But I am the one who can do this job. You will trust me, cooperate with me fully, and trust that I always have your best interest at heart. I will share with you what I can while doing my research but you will accept that I am doing everything in my power to find whoever it is who is laundering money through Club Paradise. That includes you not questioning my every action.”

“Is this how you treat all your clients?” Maggie grabbed his wrist, not that she could pull him off her if she tried. His pulse beat strongly against her fingertips.

“No.”

“Why are you treating me this way?”

“Because of the charged lust radiating off you, and me,” he said, his voice that low raspy growl again. “It’s strong enough to fog both of our thinking. I’m putting it under control right now. I believe that you think you’re innocent. I’ll find out the truth, and you’ll accept that truth once I show it to you.”

Denying what he just said would make her a fool. Plus, something told her that if she did, he would prove her a liar. How he might do that caused a powerful throbbing inside her pussy. Moisture pooled as she looked up at him. “I need to know what you’re doing,” she insisted. Lust or no lust, she was unwilling to lose control.

He searched her face as one of his fingers moved to the edge of her lips. Maggie fought the urge to open her mouth, to taste him.

“I’ll get the job done.”

He didn’t release her. He didn’t move but continued staring down at her. Maggie finally stepped backward and was amazed how easily he let her go. He was right about the fog of lust. Shoving her items back in her purse, she clutched it against her side and turned for the door.

“Okay,” she muttered, and hurried out of his house.

Micah picked up her car keys she’d left on his coffee table and opened his front door. He watched her almost run to her car. His dick was hard watching her perfectly shaped ass sway as she walked away from him. He’d wanted to grab her hair, feel how soft it was in his fingers, and tug on it until she completely submitted to him.

Maggie hadn’t denied his comment about their lust being off the charts. That had made his blood boil through his veins. She desperately wanted control, probably because she had it in her everyday life. That life was gone to her, at least for the time being. He was in charge now, of her, and her future.

She wasn’t going anywhere. Micah waited until she reached her car then turned into his house. He endured the pain of walking into his kitchen with a stiff dick. Then, grabbing two business cards from the small stack he kept by his napkins, Micah wrote his number on the back of one of them.

When he was at his front door again, Maggie was standing at her driver’s-side door. He couldn’t read her expression but waited until she looked up, over the roof of her car, and stared at him. Micah held up her keys. She exhaled noticeably and dropped her head, letting her hair shroud her face.

When he was eighteen, Micah’s father had told him there were few men out there who could read another at a fair distance. He said Micah had that gift. Micah wasn’t sure if he’d call it a gift, but he detected Maggie’s embarrassment as he crossed his yard. She raised her head when he neared the back of her Civic Hybrid.

“Thank you,” she said, holding her head high as she reached for her keys. Maggie didn’t move from her driver’s-side door.

Micah pushed the button on her key holder and unlocked the car. It was new, possibly less than a year old. Maggie dressed well, too. He wasn’t sure how much a bookkeeper for a nightclub would normally make, but he intended to find out. He also planned on learning where Maggie lived. If she had a nice house he would definitely say she was living beyond her means, unless somehow those means had been padded. But looks were often deceiving. He wouldn’t judge her yet.

Micah stepped into her space, forcing her to take a step backward, and opened her door. “This is my number.” He handed her both business cards and still held her keys. “Write your number on the other card for me, unless you have a business card.”

“I don’t.” She pulled a pen from her purse and used the top of her car to write her number on the back of her card. “Do you charge by the hour, by the day?”

“Neither.” He took the card, studied her penmanship for a moment, then slipped the card into his pants pocket. “I’ll be in touch soon after I look into a few things.”

Maggie shoved her hair behind her shoulder and faced him. “Okay, so I’ve hired you, right? Is this our verbal agreement?”

“Yes.” He wasn’t sure why he added, “I’m not much into paperwork.”

Something shifted in her expression at his comment. It didn’t surprise him much that a bookkeeper, legal or illegal, would prefer things in order and documented. Micah had lived a lifetime of not documenting anything. “I’ll do some checking around and be in touch with you in a day or so.”

“If I don’t answer, leave voicemail. I don’t know how long I’ll be with all of my family.” She tilted her head, studying him. “Do you come from a big family?”

“No.” He didn’t really come from a family at all. His father and uncle had trained him more than raised him.

“Oh,” she said, nodding once. There wasn’t approval, or disapproval, but she shifted her focus from his face quickly.

Maggie wasn’t trying to divert her reaction to him not having much family. They weren’t in the confines of his small living room anymore. But even outside with the entire neighborhood, and a huge metropolis beyond that, the sparks of need still clogged the air around them. It was a bit too strong for Micah’s liking. The urge to reach out and touch her damn near overwhelmed him.

There was still time to back out of this. Tell her no, go back inside, and continue with life as he had for the past three months.

Her next comment floored him. Micah hadn’t pegged Maggie as being so forward. “I’m not going to have sex with you,” she said and stared up at him with those sultry bright blue eyes of hers.

Micah was well trained and quick on his toes whether on a hunt, or dealing with an unpredictable, gorgeous lady. “Is it because I don’t have a strong family name?” he countered. “Or because I’m not Catholic?” he added to throw her off. His Saint Michael pendant suddenly seemed heavier around his neck.

“No.” Her fingers fluttered around her hair. “No,” she repeated. “It’s just that you said inside…” Her words tapered off. “I mean the way you touched me,” she tried again.

Micah took advantage of the moment. Reaching out, he ran his fingers over her silky smooth hair. He managed not to suck in a harsh breath, but Maggie didn’t. She gasped, and froze.

“I would never do anything you don’t want me to do,” he whispered, and handed her the keys.

Chapter Three

Micah walked silently across the Kings’ living room to the hallway that led to their kitchen. There were pictures of the Kings’ three sons at different ages hanging on the wall. Micah saw these as landmarks to help him know where to go in the house. His father had taught him to be perfectly in tune with his surroundings. It was the only way to stay alive.

“They’re all down there.” Haley King pointed to an open door off the kitchen. “Enter at your own risk.”

He hadn’t worked on the weekend so far since he’d been working for the Kings. The environment was completely different than it was during the week. Haley wore a T-shirt and shorts and stood barefoot, holding a bottle of water to her lips. A young woman, an absolutely gorgeous young woman, sat at the kitchen table, smiling at Haley’s comment. She didn’t say anything and when Micah looked at her, she held on to her friendly expression but didn’t give him a second look. He might have said something to her but noticed the wedding ring on her finger. Micah didn’t mess with another man’s woman.

He went through the door Haley had indicated and descended stairs into a large family room, complete with two pool tables, a bar, a dartboard on the wall, and a foosball table. That was just to his left. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, large couches and comfortable-looking chairs were arranged in a half circle in front of him; to the right, a large flat-screen TV hung on the wall. The Kings sure as hell weren’t hurting for money. Speakers were nailed to the wall, enabling surround sound. Micah stepped on to short, firm carpet, which was a dark gray, perfect for hiding stains.

It was highly unlikely the Kings made enough money to live like this from running bounties brought into them by bondsmen. They did run the occasional personal hunt. Micah knew of a few. Even then, ten grand here and ten grand there wouldn’t finance this type of lifestyle. Maybe a major hunt, with no kill, paid more than he realized.

Micah could hear the women upstairs in the kitchen chatting quietly. He heard his name mentioned and paused, taking in a couple of large paintings hanging on the walls. He didn’t know a lot about art but guessed they were painted by a local artist. When he turned to the right, there was a third painting of the King house. The beach was visible behind it, and a breathtaking sunset made the picture captivating.

He listened to the women while taking in the large room. All he heard was something about him being recently hired, then the conversation shifted to something about handguns. Many might think it odd to overhear two women sipping bottled water in a kitchen while discussing weapons. Micah wasn’t surprised. The Kings lived and breathed the hunt. They were a unique family. If his mother had remained with his father, and they’d had more children, he imagined his family might have been very similar to this one.

Where the hell did that come from? His upbringing hadn’t been about family. It had been about training Micah to be the perfect assassin.

Taking in the contents of the room one last time, Micah decided it wouldn’t hurt to do a bit more research on the Kings. There was only one type of hunt that paid well enough to live like this. In fact, it was that exact line of work that had him here, staying low until things cooled down.

Micah followed the sounds of men’s voices and quickly picked up on Greg King and Ben Mercy talking and laughing. He pushed his way through a door and stared at a door frame set up in the middle of the room, held up with boards. The room was unfinished, looking more like a basement than the rest of the downstairs.

“Hey, Jones,” King said, turning and grinning. “Glad you could make it. You’re just in time for a reenactment here.”

“Reenactment?” Micah remained where he was, not just because both men held guns, but because he was once again taking in his surroundings.

Micah never entered a new environment without knowing all of the exits, and who was in the room as well as what they were doing. His father had drilled that into him by the time he was ten.
The hunter must always know the playing field better than the hunted.

“Marc’s wife took out four security men on the other side of a closed door during a case,” Ben explained while running his fingers over the gun in his hand. He looked at Micah with blue eyes almost too bright to be masculine. “King here swears the story is true. All I had to do was doubt him once and the challenge was on,” he added, grinning and not looking at all reprimanded for calling their boss on a good story.

“So that’s when I decided it would be good for both of you to step in on this little exercise. And it really did happen. I saw them all crumpled in a pile. Granted, she was scared out of her mind and admits she might not ever be able to do it again,” he added, chuckling. Then, gesturing at the door set up in the middle of the room, he sauntered over to it. “Let me explain.”

Micah had his thoughts on Maggie ever since he’d woken up that morning. Taking a break from mentally analyzing a person often helped put things in perspective. When Haley had called him that morning to find out if Maggie had come by, Micah had simply told her he’d accepted the job. That’s when King had gotten on the phone and insisted he come by and run through a drill he’d set up. Micah wasn’t going to tell his boss he wasn’t in the mood for a drill. Nor did he need drilling on anything pertaining to weapons or killing. He couldn’t tell King that either.

“What happened?” he asked. Getting into whatever it was King wanted from him would help get Maggie off his brain. He studied the door, which stood open with the door frame propped up and held in place by two-by-fours.

King gestured for them to follow as he walked to the other side of the cement room and outside through two double doors. His detached garage, where King kept his Harley, was just outside that part of the house. King opened a side door to the garage, and the two men followed. Leaning over, he flipped open a cooler and pulled out two cold, wet bottles of beer.

“Sorry, man,” he said to Ben.