Wishing he’d never answered her original question about profiling, he nodded once, hoping his expression would forestall any further inquiries.
He should have known better.
“Why’d you leave?”
Because I was practically invited to get the hell out.
“Wyatt offered me a job. I took it.”
She had circled the table once, paused to glance at the laptop screen, then walked around again. “Did you leave on bad terms?”
“Do you always ask such intrusive questions?”
Shrugging, she replied, “Do you always answer questions with questions?”
“Look who’s talking.”
Her soft laughter gave him the first real flush of pleasure he’d had in hours. He liked this woman’s laugh. Liked its huskiness and the way it brightened her eyes.
“I was a journalist, remember,” she explained after she had circumnavigated the table once more. She seemed to have gotten her wanderlust out of her system, because she sank into her chair again. “I couldn’t help noticing your reaction when your boss mentioned the BAU.”
“They’re going to want in on this the moment they realize the suspect we’re chasing is the same one they’ve been after for a couple of years. At least, we think he is.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
Of course it was. It just wasn’t going to be a comfortable thing, not for any of them. Him, because seeing his former colleagues again wasn’t going to be the highlight of his millennium. Wyatt because, judging by the way they were stonewalling him-and had been since last summer’s Reaper case-somebody in the BAU had it in for the man.
“It’ll be fine,” he replied, wondering if he sounded as unconvinced as he felt. “We’re all on the same team.”
“Okay,” she said, dropping the subject, as he had hoped she would.
Silence descended between them, though it wasn’t an uncomfortable one. It was broken every minute or so, when Sam would refresh the screen, emit a sigh, then perhaps tap a response to another of her visitors. Somehow, during the long day, they’d fallen into sync with each other. A snap of tension might still exist beneath the surface, but they’d maintained complete focus on the job for hours.
Alec had long since given up on the jacket and tie and had loosened the top buttons of his dress shirt. After five, he didn’t give a damn where they were. A fourteen-hour day entitled him to an unbuttoned collar.
As for Sam, she’d held up beautifully, as patient and thorough as a professional. Her response had exceeded anything he’d have expected from a civilian who hadn’t even known this monster existed until yesterday. Though she didn’t try to pretend her fear had left her entirely, she’d grown at least a little more relaxed during the day, both when the room had been filled with agents, and now, when they were alone. As if she’d accepted the fact that they-that he-would not let anything happen to her.
While calm, though, she was visibly fatigued. Dark smudges had appeared beneath her eyes, and she stretched occasionally, as if to relieve cramped muscles.
“Need some more coffee?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Despite how exhausted I am, I’m also wired. I’ll be awake all night as it is. How do you handle this kind of tension all the time?”
“Scotch and video games.”
One fine brow arched, and a soft trill of surprised laughter emerged from her pretty mouth. “Excuse me?”
“What can I say? Beating the hell out of little cyber dudes on the Wii helps my mood tremendously at the end of a crappy day.” His words brought another tiny laugh and a smile that stayed on her lips.
“Okay. Scotch and video games. Can’t say I have any scotch, but I can twist the top off the bottle of Jose Cuer vo Tricia gave me for Christmas.”
“Tequila instead of a sweater or one of those plastic bags full of flour and chocolate chips that you’re supposed to use to make your own damn cookies? Maybe you should forgive her phone manners.”
She laughed again, and this time a gorgeous dimple, which she probably hated, if she was like most women, appeared in her cheek. Obviously she had gotten over the embarrassing answering machine incident. “Like I said, a pain in the butt. But she’s also the best friend I’ve ever had.” Clearing her throat, she softly added, “She’s the one who got me, the, uh, nightshirt I was wearing this morning.”
He’d noticed the nightshirt. Actually he’d noticed what she had on under the nightshirt. Especially the absolutely nothing she had on under the nightshirt.
“It probably seemed a bit angry.”
Actually, it had seemed sexy as hell to him. But he’d go with angry if it made her feel better. “I think divorce is a pretty angry subject.”
“You?”
He shook his head. “Never married.” Something made him add, “I did go through a breakup last summer. We had dated for over a year.”
“Rough,” she murmured. “Do you miss her?”
“I miss my dog.”
Her jaw dropped. “She took your dog?”
“Yeah. I was…” He thought about how to explain without really explaining. “I couldn’t take care of him for a while. She had given him to me in the first place, and she loved him. So she got him from my place and took him to hers, temporarily, then refused to give him back.”
“What a bitch.”
Her anger on his behalf both amused and warmed him. “Nah, he was male.”
She rolled her eyes. “That was so not funny.”
“What can I say? Considering my ass is falling asleep after being in this chair all day, I guess I’m not at my wittiest.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. Having given up on finding any comfortable position, he was now sprawled back in one of the uncomfortable seats, arms linked across his chest and legs extended, crossed at the ankle.
She shifted in her own chair, obviously feeling the same way. Like the tenacious woman she was, she got right back to the subject. “How could your girlfriend do such a thing?”
“She thought he would be better off with her.”
Another eye roll. “Lame excuse.”
“Actually, it wasn’t. At the time, she was probably right, which is why I didn’t fight her on it. I was away from home for quite a while.”
“Yeah, but stealing your dog-that’s cold.”
As cold as whacking up your laptop with a golf club? The question almost emerged, but he swallowed it down. Along with the curiosity that had been nagging at him today as he’d pictured the possible reasons for the incident, and the identity of the person holding the club.
“Anyway, once I got back, I wasn’t capable of running with him or taking care of him the way I once did.”
“Why not?”
He hesitated, wishing he’d cut the story short. He should have thought about how inquisitive she was and expected her to quickly stop focusing on the dog and zone in on the backstory. “I had been pretty badly injured.”
She cast a quick, instinctive glance over him, from his head down the length of his body, as if she might spot some sign of what had happened to him.
Then she looked again. Nothing quick about it this time.
Her attention shifted. The perusal became about something other than casual conversation. Almost feeling the heat of her stare sliding all over him, he knew what she was seeing. With his clothes rumpled and his jaw lightly grizzled, he probably didn’t much resemble the guy who’d shown up at her door Tuesday.
She didn’t seem to mind. In fact, her expression implied the opposite.
Her lashes slowly lowered in almost sultry fashion, until she was watching him from behind half-closed lids. Those expressive eyes darkened; the lush lips parted. A soft, nearly inaudible sigh flowed across them, and a flush crawled up her cheeks.
No. She no longer looked afraid. She looked hungry.
He was being visually devoured by a beautiful, sensual woman who’d been wearing a shield of angry armor toward men since her divorce and had suddenly remembered she once had a sex drive.