LITMIR.BIZ

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we can come up with an arrangement of sorts.” She held her bottle on the table, drumming her fingers along the label. “Temporary, of course.”

      “I’m all ears.” Temporary would give him the time he needed to flush a certain nemesis from whatever shadows the bastard was using for cover. Yeah, temporary worked.

      Although Patrick still couldn’t help but wonder if that was all Annabel assumed he was good for.

      “Cut your hair.”

      What the hell? “Cutting my hair is your deal?”

      She shook her head. “Your comment. Being all ears. I just realized I only see them when you tie back your hair.”

      “Is this about your Delilah complex?”

      “You’re not exactly Sampson,” she said softly. “Your hair isn’t a source of strength. It might put off more people than you know.”

      Now he was getting irritated. “What people? The ones who are supposed to be considering me for work?”

      Not that there were many of those—and there wouldn’t be until he decided what he wanted to do with his life. He had money to live on for the moment, thanks to a combination of reward and bounty money, and it seemed a waste of time and energy to take a job for the sake of saying he had one. He’d learned a lot about priorities during the last few years, and doing for himself mattered a lot more than trying to please all of the people all of the time.

      Annabel nodded. “Them. My neighbors. Little children on the street. Elderly ladies with heart conditions. Puppies—”

      “Yeah, yeah.” He shook back his hair, which suddenly seemed burdensome, if not a reminder of the savage life he’d known. “It’s not my hair that’s the problem.”

      It wasn’t even the piercings or the tattoos. It was the expression in his eyes. And that he wasn’t sure he could change.

      “Not completely, no. But you do look like a thug. And if you want to cater the New Year’s Eve showing at Devon’s gallery, I can’t have you looking like one.”

      He sobered completely. “Cater? Me? Are you out of your mind?”

      Annabel’s dark brows lifted. “Oh, that was another Patrick Coffey seducing me earlier with promises of grilled salmon and crème brûlée?”

      “Seduction and catering are two completely different animals.” Catering meant putting his work out for those other than family, appearing in public, behaving accordingly. People pointed out too often that his behavior mirrored the don’t-give-a-damn look in his eyes.

      “It’s cooking, Patrick. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

      “The serving? The presentation?” She was handing him a silver platter loaded with a legitimate reason for her to keep him around. And all he could think about was the exhaustion of maintaining a civilized veneer despite the rude stares and speculation.

      His survival skills told him he’d be borrowing trouble should he accept. His protective instincts quickly took charge.

      This wasn’t about him. This was about Annabel.

      “I’ll handle the arrangements,” she was saying. “I have the menu already approved. All you’ll have to do is prepare the food.”

      “And the back side of the deal?” The side he figured he would like even less than putting his passion out to be judged by strangers.

      Annabel’s closed expression confirmed his suspicion. “After the showing on New Year’s Eve, we’ll say our goodbyes.”

      Yeah, he’d had a pretty good idea that was going to be it, and it still sucked that she wasn’t wanting to keep him around.

      Annabel was the only one with the guts to tell him about his potential. She never treated him as a pariah. Whether or not she truly believed in him didn’t matter. She’d given him reason to harbor a remnant of the same hope he’d held on to for three years.

      He huffed. Maybe one savior per lifetime was all he deserved. And he sure didn’t want Annabel suffering Soledad’s fate.

      Draining his bottle, he lazily pushed himself to his feet and dug into his pocket for his knife. With Annabel looking on, he flipped open the blade. He stared at her for a long moment, looking for even a hint of apprehension, seeing nothing but a mild curiosity.

      He wanted to damn her for being unflappable, but damned himself for letting her get to him instead.

      As he raised the knife, the flame of a lighter on the street below caught his eye. His heart bolted; his blood raced. His muscles contracted, and he froze, watching the first bright glow of a cigarette catching fire. He couldn’t make out any of the smoker’s features—

      “Patrick?”

      —only dark clothing, dark hair. It could be Dega. It could be anyone, except the balcony seemed to be in the smoker’s direct line of sight. Another long draw and the cigarette fell to the ground. The smoker turned and walked away, swallowed immediately by the shadows.

      “Patrick?”

      If he hit the fire escape, he could be on the street in seconds. He could make sure. He would know—

      “Patrick!”

      Annabel grabbed his wrist. Adrenaline shot him in the heart; he flinched. It was a long, tense moment later before he was able to force enough of a smile to put the both of them at ease.

      With a roll of her eyes, Annabel released his wrist and shoved him away. “I hate it when you do that.”

      This time he knew what she was talking about: the way his feral instincts kicked in anytime he sensed danger. He glanced back down to the street, only to see that his hesitation had cost him what edge he might’ve had. Shit. A lot of protection he was going to be. Shaking his head, he turned away, slid his free fingers into his hair close to his scalp and pulled.

      Only then did he use the blade.

      He watched Annabel look on as the hunk of hair fell to the balcony floor. She watched as he sliced off another and another until he stood there with nothing but choppy tufts on his head. He returned the knife to his pocket. She returned her gaze to his face.

      If asked, he would’ve denied the pleasure that rushed through him at seeing the encouragement in her eyes. When it reached her mouth, he couldn’t help but tighten his grip on that one last remnant of hope. Maybe, just maybe, he deserved to have survived.

      “I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, and when he inclined his head in answer, she turned on her heel and motioned for him to follow. “I’ll get the clippers from my makeup case. You get the broom.”

      SHE COULDN’T TEAR her gaze away. She’d tried, truly she had. But he was entirely too compelling, making the task an impossibility when she’d thought herself impervious to his physical allure.

      After she’d repaired the mess he’d made of his hair, they’d made love with the lights on. For the first time since he’d bought her at auction, she’d wanted to see his face while their bodies were joined. Until now, she’d imagined him as a fantasy, a mystery, a lover that came in the night when her defenses were down and her body an open book.

      Their encounters were purely sexual, a disassociation from the rest of her life, an entertainment, recreation, an indulgence. Tonight that glass bubble had broken. He was real, a man, a beautiful male specimen of whom she couldn’t get her visual fill.

      Her sheets were fine white Egyptian cotton, the headboard an extravagant Victorian piece in dark wood. Patrick lay sleeping in the center of the bed, an arm beneath his head in lieu of a pillow, the barest edge of a sheet draped over his groin.

      Dark hair tufted in the pit of his raised arm, ran in a line from his navel down beneath the sheet. His chest was bare, his legs lightly covered, while the thatch that cushioned his sex grew

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