And back when I was a mortal woman, Hunter was exactly the type of man I’d study from behind the lens of my camera. I’d see them moving across a room with unconscious, predatory grace, and wonder what it would be like to be that powerful. What did it feel like to be able to run faster, jump higher, hit harder? To feel synapses firing in split-second bursts beneath the skin, testosterone making me jumpy?
Those were, of course, the covetous thoughts of a girl who’d been victimized in a way most men could never imagine. Back then, before I was a hundred times stronger than all those men I so jealously and suspiciously studied, I equated physicality with power. I thought the stronger you were, the more you controlled your own body and destiny. I even remember swearing in the abyss of night that if I’d been born with a male body I would never let it get out of shape or allow it to be less than what it could be. I’d have sculpted it until David wilted beneath his fig leaf in comparison. I’d have taken up as much space as possible. I’d have run just to feel power pumping in my thighs.
I hadn’t felt that envious twinge since my metamorphosis, but it struck me now, and surprise had me holding back as I studied Hunter from my location beside the wall cabinets. I’d never seen him without his shirt before, and the ambient light from the low-hanging bulbs captured the cuts and grooves of his muscles as he worked. His skin was burnished like faded copper…the result of sporting beneath the desert sun, not worshipping. More, there was a tattoo high on his back, above his right shoulder blade, and when he shifted again I crept closer to inspect it. It was a perfect circle of ink so black, his tanned skin looked pale in comparison. One side of the circle was shaded, the other left naked in the classic design of yin and yang. But the artist had left enough skin bare on the shaded portion to spell one potent word: Desire.
On the naked side? Fear.
“You’re in my light,” he said, not looking up. He knew my scent too. In fact, every fresh encounter between us strengthened that knowledge, and soon those silty layers would be thick enough to form a solid bedrock of intimacy. If a team of archaeologists could dig up the emotions lying between us, unearthing the beginning of my relationship with Hunter, the aureole we’d swapped and shared would mark a distinct altering of the hostility that came before it. It was hard to hate someone when you’d stood not just in their shoes, but the very seat of their soul.
And right now, with his scent invading my pores and the sight of him with fewer clothes on than I’d ever seen before, my vision clouded. All I could see was that damned tattoo, like some of those emotions I’d experienced while inside him had been inscribed on his skin. I could all too easily recall the slide of his lips beneath mine as I passed him the aureole, the power in both his body and mind mingling with mine. It was a memory I didn’t want.
And starting an argument, I decided, would be a good way to push it away.
“I’ll stand over here, then,” I said, before pulling out one of the flyers Regan had pelted me with and dropping it in his line of view. It landed at the toe of his left boot, and he merely shifted his eyes, the rest of him still as he remained bent over his work. “I mean, this is your good side, right?”
Now he did look up. “Where’d you get this?”
I crossed my arms. “They’re plastered all over town.”
Now he did straighten, stretching blithely, which annoyed me for some reason. “And when did Olivia Archer become a patron of the smut peddlers?”
“Actually, Ben discovered it. He’s decided he doesn’t like you.”
Hunter turned back to the pencil and scale he’d been working with. “Oh, I’m real worried about the mortal who keeps stepping on his own dick.”
“Hey!” I straightened, indignant.
He waved my protest away and kept working. “Big deal. So Ben told the little sister of his not-dead ex-girlfriend-who really is his ex-that he doesn’t like me. Meanwhile he’s dating her sworn enemy. Stop me when this gets ridiculous.”
I circled to the other side of the table and leaned forward so I really was in his light. “You mean ridiculous like pissing off a P.I. so badly, he shared everything he’s learned about Hunter Lorenzo with his new girlfriend?”
That had him looking up. “What?”
I shot him a grim smile now that I had his attention. “Ben didn’t show that to me. Regan did.”
I saw his mind working, body still as his eyes wandered the floor, mentally covering all the angles as I had. The Hunter Lorenzo identity, the odds of Regan tracking him to Valhalla. Finally his tensed shoulders relaxed. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does if she ever sees you at the casino. What are you going to say, security is your side job? Or hooking is?”
His jaw clenched, but he still offered no explanation. “You worry too much.”
He meant I asked too many questions. Feeling my temper rise, I linked my hands to keep them from curling into fists, and worked on keeping my tone light and even. “I’m not worried, just curious. I mean, what kind of women call you? Desperate? Homely? College girls come to Vegas to party? Doctors’ wives left alone too many nights in a row?”
He turned away again. “Business etiquette prevents me from speaking of my clients.”
“How quaint. An escort code of honor.” I held up my hands as his gaze whipped up to mine again. “Hey, I’m interested. I mean, do you go to dinner? Dancing? Or is it straight to the bedroom for horizontal gymnastics?”
He almost smiled, and I realized my voice had risen. “Whatever they want,” he said coolly, twirling his pencil lightly between thumb and forefinger. He was watching me carefully now. “Each woman’s needs are a unique and fragile thing.”
“Don’t go all new age call boy on me,” I snapped. “Warren doesn’t know about this, does he?”
Hunter shrugged. “He wouldn’t care. As long as I’m discreet.”
I glanced back down at the flyer with his face plastered across the cover.
Hunter’s jaw flexed as my eyes returned to him. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
I was in no position to argue; I’d turned him down repeatedly, and made it clear we would never be an item. Sure, I was physically attracted to him, but the imprint stomped on my heart was Ben-shaped, and it’d been there long before Hunter came along. No matter how honed that capable body and mind might be, he would never fit into that space.
“Fine,” I said agreeably, backing up a step. He watched me for a moment, sniffed, then pulled the cap off a bottle of water, downing it in practically one gulp. “So what are you working on?”
He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, then tossed the empty bottle into a lined trash bin without looking. “A new conduit.”
And anyone could see that designing the weapons each agent carried into battle was his true passion. Two oversized drafting tables took up the warehouse’s nucleus, and both were littered with sketches, pencils and erasers, rulers and flow charts. He then cast his experimental weapons in foam templates, though that didn’t mean his work was tentative. The weapons master prior to him had been an exacting teacher, breaking Hunter’s inferior efforts underfoot until he’d finally learned to abandon caution and rely solely on his warrior’s instinct. For every conduit created there were a dozen more abandoned-as evidenced now by the two full bins of discarded foam-but the result was weapons with responsiveness and punch, a harmonic blend of stiffness and tenuity that coupled with the individual agent’s personality and talents. These martial creations were a big factor in our troop’s success.