With Every Breath (Slow Burn #4) - Maya Banks Page 0,33

her to the wolves—or rather wolf. One large, surly lone wolf. But even losing her trust, friendship and loyalty was worth it if the end result was her safety, and one thing Dane had learned in very short order was that what Wade Sterling considered his, he protected with his every breath.

Eliza couldn’t be in safer hands. Even if she didn’t yet realize it.

SEVEN

WADE Sterling stood inside the open gate to Eliza’s small courtyard which was surrounded by a privacy fence to give her seclusion not only in the front of the homey end unit but all the way around the townhome, encompassing the slightly larger backyard where she’d obviously spent a lot of time landscaping and making it into her escape from the rest of the world. He’d made sure he blended with the shadows so his presence wasn’t detected until he was ready to reveal himself.

Not that he’d ever been invited inside her private domain. The few times he’d approached her in the parking lot in front of her building, she’d made it clear there would be no invitation into her inner sanctum. Her apartment looked like all the others in the complex—on the outside. Wade would bet everything he owned that the inside likely resembled the control room of the CIA or FBI. The image amused him. Hell, she amused him, and, he’d grudgingly—finally—admitted that not only was she a source of rare entertainment for him, but she intrigued and fascinated him. It wasn’t a feeling he was accustomed to when it came to women.

He wouldn’t go as far as to say he was an expert on females. Who in the hell in their right mind would ever make, much less convince others to believe, such an absurd statement. Women, especially their moods and temperaments, changed with the wind.

Except Eliza Cummings. He found that interesting indeed, because he was certain there were a multitude of things buried deep inside. Feelings, emotions, reactions she never allowed to surface because of training and rigid self-discipline that enabled her to suppress them, control them and never allow them their freedom.

He wondered just what it would take to unleash tightly controlled emotions. Then he shook his head in disgust. While he was skulking around her apartment building, not paying attention to his primary objective, she could have easily given him the slip and he wouldn’t have known until it was too late.

As it was, Eliza would be pissed and likely shoot him on sight if she knew he was this close to her and that she was so completely unaware of his presence. Something that pissed him off.

A woman who made her living in security, protecting others, but, most importantly, keeping her own hide from being kidnapped, tortured or riddled with bullets just as she’d been a few short months ago should damn well have better instincts than this. And leaving her door wide open in the middle of the night without once doing a perimeter sweep set his teeth on edge. Was she just trying to get herself killed? Did she have some sort of morbid death wish and that was why she was an unstoppable force for DSS, always taking assignments even if she’d just come off of one after three days of no sleep? She needed a damn keeper, something he’d voiced to her before, and that hadn’t gone over too well. Not that it was a huge surprise. But she couldn’t continue her current pace. Even if her coworkers couldn’t see it, Wade could see the shadows in her eyes that seemed to slowly grow deeper. She had a burned-out look that said if she didn’t have her shit sorted in short order, it was only a matter of time before she got killed on a job. And for reasons he refused to examine or dwell on, that bothered him. It bothered him a hell of a lot. Hell, bothered was too mild of a term. It pissed him right the fuck off.

Observing her with her barriers down, when she thought no one was watching her, made him understand now why Dane Elliot had called him. He hadn’t quite known what to make of the phone call or the fact that a man who had obvious animosity toward him had basically humbled himself by asking for help. He’d never admit it in a million years, but he’d already planned an impromptu visit to Eliza’s apartment with every intention of finishing or at least going a hell of