into bed. “But I’m supposed to be taking care of you.”
“It’s all right. I’m pissed now. Feel no pain past the fury that makes me want to go hunt down whatever animal did this to you and skin him alive while he screams.” He handed her a glass of wine. “I swear I’m going to find the bastard and —”
“We need to be productive with this, Talyn.”
“I am being productive. His mutilation would be a service to all Androkyn.”
“But it would get you a death sentence.”
He took a bite of her salad. “I could die happy with that.”
Rolling her eyes, she took a sip of wine.
Swallowing, he cupped her bruised cheek in his warm palm. “I’m sorry you were hurt and I’m sorry about your agency. I should have known better than to contract with you and drag you into my fucked-up life.” A tic started in his jaw. “I was so lonely that night I first saw your photo. Just looking up fighting stats on Steel Jaw when the ad for your agency popped up. I never click on them, but you were so beautiful and you looked so kind and sweet. Innocent.”
He stroked her cheekbone with his thumb. “It was the photo where you had your left hand up, pulling your hair back from your face. Your eyes sucked me in and I lost my heart to you in that instant.”
She snorted at him. “Yeah, right… that’s what you noticed. Not that I’m in my tiny bra and panties in that picture.”
He laughed at her surly tone. “Your bra and panties were more circumspect in that photo than the bikinis the others wore in theirs.”
“I thought you didn’t look at anyone else.”
He laughed. “I wasn’t stralen then, nor dead. I did look.” The humor died on his face as he locked gazes with her. “But I wasn’t interested in them.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, okay. It was a sports bra and briefs, not a thong. The agency cameraman had a stroke when he saw what I’d brought to be photographed in. They were all horrified over my choice… and the fact that I had more muscle mass than both of the males combined.”
He ran his fingers down her arm, raising chills in his wake. “I loved that you weren’t skinny, but muscled. The one where you were flexing your arms… that was the one that really got me.”
“Muscle? Please. Compared to you, I’m a flabby old female. I’m pretty sure your left biceps are bigger than my waist.”
Laughing, he sank his hand in her hair. “And these curls… they haunted me. All I wanted was to bury my hand in them and have you whip your hair over my chest.”
“So it was the curls and muscles that sold you, huh?”
“No. What sold me was the fact that when I logged in, there were no photos of you naked. Unlike the others, you were a real tara.” He traced her lips with his fingertip. “In all my life, I’ve never wanted anything as much as I wanted to talk to you. To see if you were as sweet and soft as you appeared.”
“Big letdown, eh?”
He shook his head. “You were so much more than I’d ever expected to find. I still can’t believe you’re here with me.”
She wanted to cry at the sincerity in his eyes. “Is that why you agreed to pay me your entire officer’s salary?”
He pulled back with a shocked gasp. “What?”
She narrowed her gaze on him. “I have to buy out the value of my contract with you from the agency. They sent me the bill for it. Fifty thousand a year, just to the agency? Are you insane?”
He looked away sheepishly.
Felicia wanted to choke him for throwing his money away like that. “That is what you’re paying, isn’t it?”
He cringed even more before he answered. “Actually, I’m paying seventy-five. The fifty thousand buyout was negotiated before the contract was drafted.”
For a full minute, she couldn’t breathe as those words fell against ears that didn’t want to believe them. “What?”
He nodded. “I had to pay thirty-five up front. And agree to seventy-five for the probationary period and first five years. And fifty for the next ten years, after that, provided you agreed to extend the contract with me.”
She slapped him with a pillow. “Are you mental? That’s over a million dollars for me! Oh my God. Talyn, you’re an idiot!”
He gaped at her.
“Well, you are! Who does that? Oh my God!” she repeated. But in