He certainly hadn’t lived like this. He’d shared a room the size of her front hall with two of his brothers growing up. In XOps, he’d grabbed sleep where he could—usually sitting upright in a chair facing a door with a gun in his hand.

“I’m on the third floor,” she said from a number of steps up on the landing.

He nodded and got his ass in gear. It turned out she was actually the whole third floor. The master bedroom was a sprawl with its own sitting area, fireplace, and French doors that opened to what he guessed was a private terrace.

“In here.”

He tracked the sound of her voice, going over to the walk-in closet she’d disappeared into. The damn thing was as big as some people’s living rooms, with wall-to-wall creamy carpeting and legions of clothes lined up and hanging by category.

The air smelled like her perfume.

She was at the back, shifting aside a dozen or so serious-looking suits to reveal . . . a four-foot-high, three-foot-wide grate that appeared to be nothing more than an old-fashioned radiator cover. But what do you know, the thing slid back and revealed a crawl space.

Little click and the light came on.

She went in first and he was tight on her going into the cramped confines—and there it was.

Holy . . . shit.

As they knelt down side by side, he thought, Man, good thing he wasn’t a techie type or he’d be swooning. The setup was as sophisticated as it got—no little pad with ten numbers and off, stay, or away to choose from. This was a computer-linked system that monitored the various zones in the house on multiple levels. And if he was reading it right, the only way to get at the components was all the way up here, and disarming would be tricky.

Except . . . “I didn’t see you turn it off when we came in.”

She handed over something that looked like the key fob to a car. “The pad is calibrated to my thumbprint. I take this with me wherever I go, and the system’s engaged now.”

As he turned the thing over in his hand, she said, “Good enough?”

He flipped his eyes up to hers. “Good enough.”

Long moment. Too long for where they were.

Way too long for who they were.

“Anything else,” she said.

Yes. “No.”

Grier nodded and worked her way around to step out of the confines. After he emerged, they put the grate back and walked into her room—go fig, he couldn’t help but look at her bed. Big. Lot of duvets and pillows. On the far side, there was a small TV on top of a choice antique table, and a bookcase lined with precisely ordered DVDs.

He frowned and went over, even though it was none of his business—because he couldn’t possibly be seeing the titles right.