He’s a strange one. He kills human beings but saves an animal sanctuary. The picture with the article is much more recent, dated two years ago, and I stare at it. Holy crap, I’d be terrified of him if he’d appeared in my father’s living room looking like this. He has a short mohawk and a beard. His ears aren’t pierced, but his eyebrow is. The muscle-t he’s wearing lets me see a lot of his arms. His shoulders are like boulders. He’s wearing faded jeans with a slight rip at one knee and hefty shoes on his feet. On his left wrist is a hefty watch, and a closer look tells me it might be a Breitling. He has a silver chain hanging around his neck with dog tags on it.

His arms are ridiculously big, and he towers over the two men standing with him.

The guy looks like he’s from a post-apocalyptic action movie.

Footsteps have me clicking the back arrow again, wiping my search clean and quickly going into my history and deleting the last hour.

He enters the room just as I finish, and I look up, my cheeks heating a little.

“It won’t be long.”

“What are you making?” I ask, curious as to what it is he’s going to try to force me to eat.

“Chicken broth, Japanese style. It’s easy on the stomach if you’re feeling nauseous with anxiety.”

That’s considerate of him. Crap, I feel bad now for snooping on him.

He settles in the chair opposite me and takes his phone from the pocket of his jeans.

I’ve never spent time around a man so full of muscle. It’s almost like having another species in the room with me, something wild and untamed. I can’t stop myself from sliding him glances every now and again.

Maybe it’s a natural response. No matter how much of a feminist I might be, and I am, a man that size could overpower me in an instant. It makes sense to be hypervigilant around him.

Oh my God. What is that?

A pulse of arousal at the thought of him overpowering me has me deeply uncomfortable.

Did my feminism just leave my body at the first sight of a hot, ripped dude? Damn, this is why women never get equality. We set ourselves back by falling for the big idiot with the widest shoulders.

Not that Samuel is an idiot, but he might not be very nice either. In fact, he most likely isn’t. I don’t think snipers win awards for being soft and cuddly.

He’d protect you though, a voice says.

Shut up, we protect ourselves, my inner feminist replies.

For a while, we sit in a somewhat strained silence, then Samuel gets up and goes to the kitchen. After some clanking of pots and crockery, he calls me.