With Every Breath (Slow Burn #4) - Maya Banks Page 0,15
His eyes became sharp and piercing, examining every inch of her face as if he could see behind her outer mask.
Fuck this. Only one man had been able to do that and she’d spent years finding ways of mentally strengthening her natural shields and barriers. She’d taken every class on psychic abilities available. She’d read countless books on the subject matter. Dug through thousands of articles. She would love the chance to try her blocking abilities with Gracie, but she hadn’t thought she’d ever need that ability until that damn phone call and now she couldn’t take the chance. She couldn’t risk not being able to block Gracie from her mind and, besides, if she couldn’t block Gracie she would be defenseless against Thomas. And right now, all she had was hope that she would be successful. If she knew she would fail, then her already flagging confidence and courage would vanish and she’d be spilling the entire story to Dane, begging for his help or running in the opposite direction as Thomas instead of straight to him. As far from his reach as she possibly could, even if it meant landing halfway across the world. But even there, he’d find her. She knew he would and that made her feel even more helpless.
“What is it you don’t want Gracie knowing, Eliza?” Sterling asked so softly that she almost didn’t hear him above the surrounding noise.
Eliza froze. She had to act fast. She’d always been good on her feet and quick-witted—when she had her wits about her. In other circumstances she would be smug and triumphant at how easily she thought of a way to throw Sterling off her trail, but right now she just felt desperate and scared to death he’d see right through her lie. Well part of it was a lie. Part of it was truth. Just the details were muggy.
Her face fell, a carefully orchestrated act as if she’d been caught out and wasn’t happy about it. She even managed a convincing glare from underneath her eyelashes, one that told him what she thought of his intrusion into her privacy.
“I’ve been planning a surprise for her,” Eliza said grudgingly, making sure she sounded her normal pissed off self any time she came face-to-face with Sterling, which until yesterday hadn’t been often. Why he suddenly popped up on her radar after so long of mutual avoidance she had no clue. But whatever the reason he could just slink back to whatever rock he lived under and get the hell out of her life.
“A surprise?”
There was no disguising the outright disbelief in his voice or expression. His eyes narrowed dangerously, and it was clear his Eliza-truth radar was beeping nonstop. He looked as though he wanted to wrap his hands around her neck and throttle her. Given his really large hands, she doubted he’d have any difficulty.
“Wade,” she said in a pleading voice, giving him her best big-eyed totally girl plea. It wasn’t a look she could remember using in a very long time. It was rare for her to dip into her feminine arsenal when a snarl, a threat or an ass-kicking would achieve the same results. But she could do none of those things with a roomful of people surrounding her and worse, every single person she worked with was halfway across the room and they’d certainly notice.
He looked shocked, his eyes widening and he stared at her like he didn’t know whether to throttle her, kiss her—oh God!—or take her to the hospital for psychiatric evaluation.
“That’s the first time you’ve ever said my name,” he said in a low husky voice that made her knees go weak and tremble. A voice and expression that said he liked it. A lot. His eyes were soft, a slight crinkle at the corners as he studied her, and for some reason her gaze was drawn to his lips that weren’t contorted into his usual Eliza scowl of exasperation. In fact, the ends were curled upward slightly, not a smile. Something altogether different. Something she wasn’t about to analyze or figure out because his entire body language had changed and, worse, his hold on her had tightened so an air of intimacy shrouded them. Now she realized she should have gone with the snarl, threats and ass-kicking. Fuck!
She nearly groaned out loud and had to physically restrain herself from banging her head on the nearest possible place, which happened to be his shoulder. He was right. She never called