Page 41 of Too Guarded to Love

A wide smile graced his face as he glanced back at her. “Let’s get back to the bargain part in the mermaid book. In it, the mermaid tells the sailor who falls for her that she’ll answer every question of his if he answers one of hers.” He extended his hand. “You game to give it a try?”

She shook on it. “Fine.”

He pulled her into the elevator and into his chest, careful not to jostle her injured arm. “Tell me about the deal you were going to propose when we were in Gran’s room.”

Panic tightened her throat. “You agreed to forget about that.”

“I lied. Now we’re even.” He backed her against the wall.

“I didn’t lie.” The breathless words didn’t sound very convincing, even to her own ears.

He braced both hands next to her head. “We’ve already had a conversation about your deceit. Now we’re moving on to another discussion. I’m only going to say this one more time. Present your deal.”

Something jolted alive at his threat. “I was going to suggest we prove that what’s between us—this unwanted attraction—is nothing.”

“Trust me, I’m not happy about what’s going on between us either.”

“Good.” She pushed her palm against his stomach, unsure if she was mad at him for agreeing or if she wanted to feel his rock-hard body again. “Then move and stop being so damn⁠—”

He bent his head toward hers. “Sexy? Super? I get that a lot from the senoritas.”

“I’m sure you do, which is why what happened at the beach was supposed to stay at the beach.” Tempting the charming Casanova she’d heard tales about had been a gross miscalculation. Any woman who resisted that velvet voice deserved the Medal of Honor, and she was far from worthy. “You were supposed to be one night. One time. That’s the kind of guy I thought I was seducing.”

“Agreed on all counts, but there’s one problem. I can’t forget about a mission until it’s completed.” He stroked her cheek with his knuckle.

She shivered under his touch. “And I’m your mission?”

“One I didn’t choose to accept, and should abort for many reasons, but for the life of me can’t abandon the urge to see it through. I can’t complete it and move on without all the intel and you’re not sharing.” The elevator dinged. He stepped back. “We’ll finish this conversation later, and we will discuss your deal.”

She held her injured arm against her chest as she hurried past him, not because it hurt, but to stop herself from trembling. Tensing her muscles, she turned to him. “And if I don’t?”

“You won’t like the consequences.” He lifted one shoulder as he scanned the empty parking garage. “Or maybe you will.”

Twenty feet away, a wide black door rolled up from the ground. The two guards in a small booth next to it nodded at Nic. Headlights appeared underneath. A shiver that shouldn’t have felt so arousing danced down her spine. “My brother will kill you.”

A smile tilted his full lips. He didn’t look at her. His gaze remained on the garage door, but damn him, even a side view of that face caused the earth to shudder under her feet.

“You won’t tell him a thing.” He shifted in front of her as the door cleared the top of the sedan. “You don’t want him knowing your business any more than I do.”

“No, I…”

The sound of the garage doors grated in her ears.

An ear-splitting crack crashed through the building. This time, the earth really did move under her feet.

The force of the explosion hurled Nic into Olivia. Wrapping his arms around her, he twisted his torso and dropped them to the floor. His steel shoulder clanged against the concrete. Hot pain tore through his skin as his stitches ripped open. He rolled on top of her and covered her face with his hands as a mind comms message beeped in his head.

“Status?”

He could barely hear Ryan’s clipped voice over the ringing in his ears. “Explosion in the garage.”

Olivia shook underneath him as the familiar sting of his weaponry coming online prickled down his spine. He turned his head toward the garage door. A rectangular hole, where the lower half of the door used to be, exposed them to the street. The other upper half rested on the trunk of the sedan in a fiery union as baseball-size chunks of metal and glowing, spiky shards fell from the ceiling like a meteor shower.

“The vehicle is on fire.” Dark smoke consumed the garage—and Nic’s lungs—amid the flames that engulfed the rear of the SUV and rushed over the roof. He looked up, but no water sprayed from the ceiling. “The sprinklers aren’t coming on.”

“The team is on the way. They’re…”

The rest of Ryan’s words got lost in the mayhem as Olivia clutched Nic’s shoulder. He sprang up and dragged her with him. Shoving her toward a thick pillar by the elevator, he yelled over the roar of the flames as a wall of heat rose behind him. “Stay here.”