Their eyes locked and held and the air thickened instantly. His muscles bunched, tension rippling through him. If anyone needed protection, it was him from this woman. For now, he’d settle for a distraction. He reached for the phone. “You hungry? I’m ordering pizza. You can go over the restaurant staff with me while we eat.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “I’m hungry.”

The air crackled and damn if he wasn’t ready to say “fuck the pizza” and go with her instead. He arched a brow. “For pizza?”

“Pizza. Yes. Cheese.” His lips hinted at a smile that said she knew what he was thinking.

“Cheese. Somehow I thought you’d be more complicated than that.”

“Sometimes the answers are simple.”

Blake snorted. “Rarely.”

“I didn’t say easy. I said simple. There’s a difference.”

“Touché,” he murmured, releasing a heavy breath on the word. After all, what he wanted was pretty cut and dry, pretty damn simple. Find the enemy. Kill the enemy. And damn it, to save Kara, which should not be on the list. And save her from what anyway? Mendez? Richter? Herself?

Blake scrubbed his jaw and turned away from her, reaching for the phone, and hesitating. Kyle was right. She could be undercover with an agency and he could get her killed if he wasn’t careful. Considering the last woman he’d tried to save had ended up dead, maybe he needed to just get the hell away from her. But he knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Fuckfuckfuck and add about a thousand more “fucks”, because not only was he entangled with this woman, and on dangerous ground, he knew he was going to try to stop saying “fuck” because she wanted him to. He cared what bothered her. He hadn’t let himself give a damn what anyone thought in a long while and he didn’t want to give a damn now. But he did.

Oh yeah. He was fucked up where this woman was concerned. He might as well order the pizza and stop wasting time trying to convince himself he wasn’t.

Then he’d “fuck” her again and hope she didn’t do him “Denver style” afterwards.

Chapter Eight

CHAPTER

EIGHT

When Kara heard Blake order four pizzas, her blood ran cold at what seemed the certainty that guests were coming.  She wasn’t waiting around to be dessert for a bunch of Blake’s crew, who surely he’d called to San Francisco. What had she been thinking to come here alone? And why did she keep thinking that sleeping with a monster was anything but sleeping with a monster? He was one of them. She hated them.