LITMIR.BIZ

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so, at least.

      “Tessa?” he said, his voice choked and not sounding like his at all. He turned toward her voice, knowing this was real as the familiar scents of honey and almond filled the room. His heart slammed in his chest.

      “What the hell are you doing here?”

      “WELL, THAT KIND OF greeting sure makes a girl feel welcome,” Tessa Rose countered with no small bit of sarcasm, hoping to cover her nerves.

      She took a deep breath, in part for courage, and in part because seeing Jonas for the first time since the night of the attack had knocked the breath right out of her.

      He’d lost some weight, his dark hair grown out from military short to longish, brushing the tops of his shoulders. He was clad only in a very small white towel, slung low on his hips and slipping lower. She found herself licking her lips, and tried to push back the lust that always erupted when she looked into those dark eyes.

      Something was off, though.

      He’d looked right at her when he’d opened the door and then turned away, talking to her as if he had expected someone else. That told her the worst of it.

      “You’re blind,” she whispered, her voice stolen by her surprise.

      “Yeah.”

      She saw the change in his body language, the way he tensed as he turned his face away from her, his jaw tight. He was wounded and embarrassed about it. Ashamed to be caught this way, exposed and vulnerable.

      “I didn’t know.”

      “Your dad didn’t tell you? Oh, right, I guess you pissed him off royally, so he’s probably not confiding in you these days.”

      She drew back at the bitterness in his tone.

      Tessa had resisted the notion of having a bodyguard at first. It was reflex for her to resist her father. He was a great politician, she knew, but a total control freak, and he liked to control her life more than he should. It was an understatement to say they hadn’t gotten along, and they still had their problems, though things had changed a bit since her mother had passed away two years before.

      The senator manipulated everything to the benefit of his image, a necessity of his political career, he always claimed. Tessa had grown up resisting his control, and she’d be the first to admit that she hadn’t always done that in positive or productive ways. But then again, her father hadn’t always played fair, either.

      As she got older, they had hammered out a truce of sorts, but mostly because she lived in Philadelphia where she ran her business—and her life—the way she wanted to, and he stayed in D.C. They got together on holidays, and it was enough.

      When he said he was sending a bodyguard to her shop, they’d argued, but she’d relented when she sensed he was really concerned. He seemed to think this particular threat was very serious—and it had ended up that way.

      She’d expected some stiff in a suit, but then Jonas had walked in the store, over six feet of muscle, brooding eyes and sensuality all wrapped in well-worn jeans and a bomber jacket.

      Every bad-girl instinct she had surged to the fore.

      The feeling she had when she was with him was like that zing of perfect chemistry that she always experienced when she made a new scent.

      Scent was the most primal of the senses. Complementary scents attracted or enhanced a relationship, and the wrong scent repelled. It was the most basic principle of natural chemistry, the basis of most elements of survival. She and Jonas were a perfect combination, she could tell from the moment they locked eyes on each other.

      Jonas obviously hadn’t agreed. He kept his distance, his treatment of her businesslike to the nth degree, but she saw the desire in his eyes when he thought she wasn’t looking.

      That only upped the challenge. Tessa didn’t give up when she saw something she wanted. To that extent, she was very much like the senator. She wanted to make her bodyguard lose that rigid control. It proved to be more of a challenge than she thought, until that night in the parking lot.

      She’d met her friends for a birthday celebration—not hers—and she’d worn the sexiest dress she owned. Jonas didn’t think she should go, but she told him that she was going, and if he wanted, he could tag along. In truth, she’d dressed for him. Danced for him. Tempted him in every way she knew how. And she’d almost given up—the man seemed to be oblivious—until they arrived home. He didn’t say a word the entire drive back, but then hauled her against him as she’d stepped out of the car and kissed her until she couldn’t breathe.

      When she’d felt the hardness of his chest pressed against hers, she didn’t back away. He didn’t, either.

      His wonderful hands had been sliding up underneath the sheer fabric of her gown, holding her backside against his hardness, his masculine scent surrounding and seducing her like a drug, when it had all gone wrong.

      “We shouldn’t be doing this,” he’d whispered against her neck as she’d let her hands explore him the way she’d been dying to for weeks. He was a big man, in more ways than one, and her body craved him.

      “Maybe that’s why it feels so good,” she’d replied, and she would remember the lust that had burned in his eyes until her dying day.

      They were completely wrapped up in each other when the attacker hit Jonas from behind. He’d dropped from her arms to the pavement, leaving her to face her attacker, a political extremist who clearly was willing to cross the line to protest her father’s work. Tessa still could feel the icy fear of that moment, thinking Jonas had been killed and that she was next.

      She’d gotten very, very lucky, remembering the bat she had in the back of her car from summer softball games with her friends. Adrenaline served her well in fighting the man off.

      She figured at first, when there was no word from or about Jonas, that he was just laying low. Staying out of the limelight, since the story had been all over the news, at least insofar as her and her father were mentioned. The Berringers might not have existed, which is what she supposed made them effective.

      From her experience, some protective details, she knew, were all about the flash. They wore Armani and soaked up the media attention that guarding famous or powerful people granted them.

      Berringer wasn’t like that. They were serious security who put the client first. When she tried to find out about Jonas on the web, she’d found next to nothing; there were a few news articles from when he was on the police force, and the agency web page, which offered a minimum of information.

      The Berringer brothers in the background, keeping their clients quietly safe.

      It soon became clear that Jonas wasn’t just laying low. He didn’t want anything to do with her.

      Her father was caught up in business on the Hill when the attack happened, and Tessa kept her distance from Howie, who was holding court in her father’s absence. Tessa didn’t ask Howie anything about Jonas, since she didn’t want to encourage her father’s aide. Howie had come on to her a few times, and she’d made it clear that she wasn’t interested, but the guy didn’t seem to understand the word no.

      Jonas’s brothers wouldn’t tell her anything, either. She assumed that they all blamed her for distracting him and almost getting him killed. Rightfully so. She’d tracked him down now, intent on apologizing, but she hadn’t expected this.

      “I’m so sorry, Jonas,” she said on a raw whisper as she dragged her attention back to the present.

      He looked fierce as he closed the space between them. He might be blind, but Jonas honed in on her with no hesitation, his hands clamping hard over her shoulders.

      “Stop it, Tessa. Sympathy is the last thing I want from you, or anyone.”

      “What do you want, then?” she asked, her mind trying to grasp the new discovery.

      “What I’d really like

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