Ghostwalker 06 - Predatory Game

Funny, he had never thought to be threatened by Brian. Saber had worked with him every night for ten months, nearly eleven, and she talked about him often. Why would the man follow her home from work?
    Everyone at the station knew Saber lived with Jess, at least half of his employees thought she was sleeping with him. He had never corrected the assumption.
    Saber ran into the room, barefoot, hair still damp in little ringlets all over her head, eyes dancing at him.
    “Did I make it?” Abruptly the smile faded and she hurried to his side, sweeping back the hair that was falling across his forehead. “What have you done to yourself?”
    His body stirred uncomfortably, jeans suddenly tight. “You’re two minutes late.” He tried to sound severe.
    “Jesse, answer me. You cut your head. It looks bad. There’s bruising and swelling. Maybe you should call the doc.”
    He caught her wrist and pulled her hand away, irritated that she could see the evidence of his fall. “It’s nothing. Let it go.”
    Saber heard the bite to his voice, hesitated, and then poured herself a cup of coffee. “So what’s up, caveman?” She brushed fingertips along the corner of his mouth, sending white heat coursing through his blood. “Stop frowning at me, Jesse. Your mouth is bound to freeze that way.”
    Strong white teeth snapped at and caught her index finger and drew it into the moist cavern of his mouth.
    His eyes burned black velvet as he used his tongue to caress her finger. She wasn’t going to embarrass him, and he felt the tension in him drain away.
    Faint color tinged her cheeks, blue eyes skittered away from his. She pulled her hand back as if he had burned it. “So what’s this all about?”
    He studied her small, slender form, the ribbed cotton scoop-neck T-shirt, the figure-hugging black denim. She looked ready to flee at the slightest provocation. He resisted the urge to capture her wrist. So close, yet so far away. He wanted her to make up her own mind, bind herself to him. At the same time, he wanted to just take possession finally, irrevocably, and never let her go, the hell with her choices.
    “Are you going to sit down or are you going to be flittering all over the house like a little butterfly? I can just see us having a decent conversation with me following you all over.”
    She perched on the countertop, regarding him warily over the rim of her coffee mug. “Conversation?

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    Uh-oh. What have I done?”
    “What makes you think you’ve done anything?”
    Her bare foot tapped the cupboard. “I know you so well, dragon king, you only get that particular look on your face when you’re burning to give me one of your lectures.”
    “Do I give you lectures?”He frowned.
    She grinned. “Oh, I don’t mind. I think you’re kind of cute when you do, and I don’t really listen anyway.”
    “That makes me feel good, baby. Honestly, I really feel so much better now that you’ve shared that with me.” The frown had vanished and there was a distinctly wicked gleam in his dark eyes. Jess eased his chair around the table until he was directly under her feet. The counter was low, built for him to use easily. “How well do you know Brian Hutton?”
    It was the last thing she expected, and it wiped the sassy grin right off her face. “Brian?” she echoed. “I don’t know. As well as I know anyone at work I guess. He’s great at his job. What do you want to know?”
    “What kind of relationship do you have with him?”
    Saber looked completely confused. “We’re friends, I like him, why? Has he been dipping into the till or something?”
    “What’s he like?”
    “You know him better than I do, Jesse, he works for you.” Saber rested her bare feet on his knees.
    “What’s this all about?”
    He shrugged. “Nothing important, I just wondered what you thought of him.”
    She studied his handsome face, and then finally shook her head. “Oh, no. This is really getting to be a bad situation here. We can’t have Mr. Straight-as-an-arrow lying. You need to give yourself lecture four.
    The one on telling the truth.”
    His fingers curled around her bare ankle. “You are in a precarious position, Saber,” he pointed out.
    “Am I?” She put down her coffee cup, tilting her head to one side. “So let’s hear the truth. Why the interest in Brian?”
    Jess sighed heavily. “He followed you home last night.”
    “He did