Never Gonna Happen - Cynthia Eden Page 0,52

right?”

Delicately, she cleared her throat. “No, I’m afraid you’re wrong.”

“The fuck I am.” His eyes glittered even more.

She nodded. “The fuck you are.”

He stalked toward her. She knew exactly how prey felt in that moment but she just lifted her chin and kept swinging her legs as she sat on that exam table. “I do have a question, though,” Alyssa announced. “Why do spies keep sneaking into rooms? I’ve noticed it’s happening a lot.”

He stepped between her swinging legs. He put his hands on either side of her hips and flattened them on the white paper thing that hospitals always had on their exam tables. Sebastian leaned in close.

“You are not risking yourself again,” he growled.

“Uh, Sebastian, you need to back up,” Antony told him. He clapped a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder. “You’re crowding my sister.”

Her breath was coming in shallow pants. She couldn’t look away from Sebastian’s eyes. This was such a different guy. No flashing dimples. No drawling, mocking words. Just a lethal intensity that had her stomach knotting.

“I’m going to do a whole lot more than crowd her.” His eyes turned to slits, and he didn’t back away. “You don’t ever try to—”

“So, you’re sexy when you’re all intense and dangerous, I have to give you that.” She saw the flash of surprise on his face. A flash that was very quickly masked. “But here’s the thing.” She wet her lips.

His eyes dropped to her lips.

Wow. That stare of his heated even more.

She swallowed. “There was a red dot on my brother’s chest. I’ve seen enough TV shows to know what that dot meant. There was no way—let me repeat, no way—I was just going to stand there and let Antony get shot.”

“Thanks,” Antony muttered. His hand had fallen from Sebastian’s shoulder. “Appreciate that.”

She didn’t look at him. It was too hard to look away from Sebastian. His gaze had risen from her mouth and locked with hers again. “And if that dot had been on your chest,” she told Sebastian, aware that her voice had gone all husky, “I would have done the same thing. I’m not going to stand there when I can help. I get that I’m not some super spy. It’s not like I’m going to be signing up to go on secret missions with you, but I can still do what’s right. I will protect you both whenever I can.” There. She waited for Sebastian’s response. Would it kill the man to say that she’d done a good job? She had saved Antony, after all.

But Sebastian’s face didn’t exactly show wonderment at her bravery. Nope, his expression was still all hard and dark and stormy.

“You think you’re going to do the same thing again?” he finally rumbled. “You think you’ll risk yourself for him?”

“He’s my brother,” she answered. “What else would I do?”

Antony sidled closer to her. “You know, Sebastian, I don’t like the way you’re glaring at my sister—”

Sebastian’s glare whipped to him.

Antony winced. “And I don’t like the way you’re glaring at me. See? This whole thing you have going on?” He pointed at Sebastian. “The way you turn things off and you run on fury? That’s why you should have always stayed the hell away from Alyssa. I told you before, you’re my best friend, but Alyssa can’t handle the kind of danger that you like—”

“Get the hell out,” Sebastian snarled.

Antony’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

“I need to talk to Alyssa alone. So get the hell out.”

But Antony’s shoulders straightened. “I don’t think so. Like I said, I don’t like the way you’re glaring. I don’t like this whole looming thing you’re doing with her, and I don’t like—”

“I would damn well cut out my own heart before I hurt her, so just step outside and give us a minute.”

Alyssa’s heart surged in her chest.

Antony frowned. “Well, of course, you wouldn’t physically hurt her. I’ve always known that. But there are all kinds of pain in this world, and I don’t want Alyssa—”

“You don’t want—what? For her to get shot? For her to get her arm sliced open when she tries to save your ass? Or mine? Because guess what? I want the same thing, and that’s why I need to make sure that Alyssa understands me very, very well.”

Okay. Now he was pissing her off. “I understand the situation extremely well, thanks so much.” He was still…looming over her. Trapping her. His hands were on either side of her hips, his body between her legs. His face was inches