Page 67 of High-Priority Asset

“How am I supposed to explain you’re armed?” she asked.

“You’ve got a dangerous stalker who blew up my bike. That’s explanation enough.”

She turned to go to her office.

“Hey,” he said, taking her wrist softly and a shiver ran through her at his touch.

Slowly he put her palm to his chest over his heart and cupped her face with his other hand, holding her gaze.

She tried to dismiss the way his gentle strength made her body thrum with electricity. The natural closeness that’d built between them, getting stronger each day. But how he made her feel was impossible to ignore. Impossible to deny.

“May I kiss you?” he asked, his voice deep and husky, stirring heat low in her belly.

The sexiest part wasn’t that this gorgeous hunk of a man could have his pick of women and wanted her. It wasn’t the tingles flooding her thighs or her chest tightening with anticipation. It wasn’t even that he seemed unaware of the effect he had on her.

The sexiest, hottest part was that he knew she was vulnerable and emotionally fragile and rather than taking a kiss when he could’ve easily done so, he’d asked.

Because he’d never harm her.

Even in front of his boss and Allison, he stood up for her, sought to protect her, defend her.

So what if it made her a fool. “Yes.”

He pressed his mouth to hers in the barest of touch. Brushed his lips across hers with such fierce tenderness in a whisper of a kiss that sent arousal humming through her body.

“If you can forgive me, if you come with me, I’ll prove to you every day how much I care about you. Not just with words, but with my actions. I swear it.”

A lump formed in her throat and she didn’t know what to say. “I need to think about it.”

He nodded and let her go.

Isabel smoothed down her skirt and walked back to the front. She felt his eyes on her and unlike creepy Chad, she liked the idea of Dutch watching her, wanting her.

“I ordered food for the three of us from the grill,” he said. “I hope that’s okay.”

“Sounds great to me.” Brenda put a vase of fresh-cut flowers on the desk. “Very thoughtful of you.”

Deep burgundy long-stem roses called Black Pearl. Isabel hadn’t noticed them when she came in. “You bought flowers to dress up the place?”

“No,” Brenda said, arranging them. “They were delivered this morning without a card.”

“Do you think they’re from Chad?” Isabel asked Dutch, turning to face him, but his gaze had veered past her to something outside. She glanced over her shoulder.

A black van rolled by. The man from the grocery store with teardrop tattoos sat in the passenger’s seat. He stuck the barrel of a machine gun out the window.

Isabel froze.

Chapter Eighteen

Time stretched, slowing, moving at half speed as a black van inched down the street. A man stuck a Heckler & Koch MP5 out the window.

Dutch didn’t have much time to think, to assess. They were all in serious trouble standing in front of the plate glass window with nothing to stop the rounds that were about to tear through them.

The man lifted the MP5 and let it rip, spraying the front of the gallery. Bullets shattered the plate glass, stitching in a fiery line toward them. Dutch grabbed Isabel, whirling her away from the incoming fire, as he dove to the floor.

Brenda was hit instantly and sent spinning and falling. The vase burst. Jagged shards of glass flew everywhere like tiny projectiles.

Shielding Isabel with his body, Dutch forced her to low crawl toward the back of the desk. He feared the men outside would stop the vehicle and come into the gallery to make sure they’d finished the job.