but one thing she didn’t doubt?

Brea turned to Cutter in his big truck with a pique

o wince. “Mostly Walker

rely talki

ou with his eyes. I t

the agreeable good girl she’d been her whole life. “

ss. Besides being a lousy teammate, he’s a douchebag. And I’m using exceptionally nice language for your

cial butterfly yourself, and you’ve alw

an unnecessarily risky situation because I

he

er gripped the wheel like the m

usually

not th

said people should fight

a teammate—with my life—when he won’t stick to the pla

the aisle…but they had shared something—a moment—and sh

eekend, coming out of the back room with one of the female bartenders while zip

eel. “Cutter Edward Bryant, maybe you shouldn’t be castin

date women for a while before we take that step. I don’t just

brow. “What were yo

mean, the heck—out of almost everyone. Since Walker isn’t a te

hasn’t met the

hinking th

d it pricked her temper. She crossed her arms ove

ur blood says, you’re my sister and I will protect you with my dying breath. If you want me to die e

? You killed peop

even admit I haven’t been without sin or blame since I went to work for EM. The job can force you to make snap judgments about whether or not the enemy feet away

be right. “Wha

n who wants everyone to call him One-Mile because th

eked of danger, but Cutter made him sound like a cold-blooded murdere

compunction or remorse. He doesn’t care about the blood on his hands, and if he touched you with them”—C

you to dislike som

me you won’t ever tell him we’re not a couple. That would be like waving a red cape in a bull’s fac

Pierce Walker, so he would do it for Daddy. Brea wasn’t worldly, either. She knew that. The instant, blinding attraction she’d experi

ings hardly

,” he pressed

ppointed. But she already suspected she’d never feel as alive again

**

ched, studied, and dissected. He learned a mark’s habits, weaknesses, and quirks. He traveled

me, he wasn’t

omething. A team getting-to-know-you wasn’t the place for strife. But neither his stare nor his thoughts had once strayed from the beautiful brunette. In those few hours, he’d discerned three important things: She

he had debated the wisdom of pursuing Brea. Then he’d decided f

londes who liked to show off their tits, but he’d never encountered her sweet sort of allure. He wanted to see where this in

st before noon the following day, watching parishioners meander out of t

boy tugged on her skirt. When she bent and wrapped her arms around him, her smile was genuine and contagious. Then s

tter was nowh

ersonal space just to see recognition transform Brea’s face—and mak

ashed the urge. The right moment

ies to Bryant, prett

rown up in Sunset. Her mother had died from complications of childbirth. She’d been raised alone by her father, a local Baptist minister. She’d gotten good grades and never been in trouble. Apparently, everyone loved her. She current

e’d freshly fucked her? He was hungry to know. But she intrigued him far more than mere sex would satisfy—a first for him. What made her smile? What made her cry? What made her m

use he’d never seen anything like it. He damn sure wasn’t drawn in by her sack of a dress, which covered everything between her neck and her shins in a pale pink fabric sprinkled with gray and lavender flowers. She wore the silky light brown hair he a