“What do you want to ask me?” she said. Conversation, yes. Much safer than staring.
Jack’s slouched posture instantly gave way to a taut awareness. He leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his knees. “How about we start with anyone you can think of who might want to stalk and kill you?”
Boom. Direct. Morgan wasn’t really surprised. That really was the heart of the matter, after all, and she suspected Jack would be a pretty bottom-line man.
“Honestly, I can’t think of anyone. I’ve had weird fan mail, but not this weird.”
“It seems as if this guy knows you pretty well, where you live, where your friends and family live, where you might run to.” Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me about your relationships.”
“What do you mean?”
“Previous lovers,” Jack’s raspy voice demanded as intriguing shadows played across the hard angles of his face and torso. She could stare at the man for hours and never be bored. Hot and bothered, yes. But never bored.
Damn it, she needed to keep her mind on her safety, her show, not her protector himself.
She shook her head. “The last one left me, not the other way around, so I doubt he’d suddenly demand that I belonged only to him.”
“Before him?” he barked.
Morgan felt a flush creep up her neck. “I was involved with a pro football player a while ago, but when this started happening, he would have been on the road, so he couldn’t be taking pictures and leaving them for me. I dated an ambassador briefly. He’s currently abroad. So it’s not him, either. I hooked up with a guy in college who’s married with a daughter now.”
“Who else?”
“Who else what?”
The line of his jaw hardened. “Who else have you let f**k you?”
The intensity of his voice—and the words—suggested that he asked for reasons that weren’t strictly professional.
“You’re getting awfully personal, not to mention crude.”
“Just getting a full list of suspects and cutting to the chase, cher. Answer me.”
His no-nonsense tone had returned, and she found it oddly difficult to argue. “No one else. Actually, I didn’t even sleep with Ambassador Sweeny.”
“Three past lovers?” Jack asked, curiosity ripe in his voice. “No more?”
She supposed that having only three lovers by the ripe age of twenty-five made her an anomaly. But she wasn’t going to give him all the details about her sex life just to appease his curiosity. The point of this exchange might be to build a list of suspects, but the low-voiced probing in his tone had a sexual edge that shouted warning.
And he wouldn’t stop staring. With every clinging gaze, he lashed Morgan with memories of his kiss, his touch, the way he took control. Her body kept warming like an oven on pre-heat.
“Why does it matter?” Morgan shot back, aware she was dodging the question. “Aren’t the most important facts that this monster knows my habits, my friends, family, and the places I’m likely to go?”
He shrugged. “Cher, there isn’t a man alive who isn’t willing to kill to get a woman he’s truly desperate for. But if she’s running from him, thwarting both him and his lust…that man can get a hell of lot more ruthless.”
With a shiver, Morgan wondered if Jack somehow meant to imply that description could apply to more than just her stalker. Did he include himself in that group? Somehow, she didn’t picture Jack needing a lot of excuses to get ruthless, but she also didn’t picture a lot of women turning him down.
“He’s especially dangerous if he’s already had a taste of what he’s missing. I need to know all the possibilities so I can check them out, run them down. Then we’ll get to your other questions. Now, you’ve had just those three lovers?”
“Yes.”
“I need names, vital statistics, age, and last known addresses to start digging.”
“This is embarrassing.”
“This is critical. Start talking.”
Morgan sighed, squirmed in her place, and looked down at her hands folded in her lap. “Sean Gardner is…about five-ten, maybe. Sandy hair, brown eyes. I think he’s twenty-eight by now. Last I heard he’s living with his wife and kid in San Diego.”