Midnight Kiss (Men of Midnight #7) - Lisa Marie Rice Page 0,2

vehicle’s roof. And someone had stationed the vehicle so that she stepped straight from the safety and anonymity of the covered stairway into the passenger seat without ever touching the ground.

The windows didn’t look dark but from the outside she hadn’t been able to see inside the vehicle at all.

Luke rounded the hood, slid into the driver’s seat and drove off.

“Look behind you,” he said and she did.

Oh my god! The transparent sides weren’t transparent at all. They were opaque. Absolutely nothing showed through. Not the railing, not the steps, nothing.

“See?” She turned wide eyes toward him and he nodded. “No one in the world knows where you are,” he said softly. “So relax.”

And she did. For the first time in days. Muscles unclenched and she drew in a deep breath for the first time in what felt like forever.

Luke punched a button and classical music flowed gently into the cabin of the car. Just loud enough to be heard, to weave gentle fingers over her body, but not loud enough to stop conversation.

She turned in her seat to look at him. For the first time she noticed how amazingly good-looking he was. It had taken a while because he didn’t put out those ‘I’m so handsome it hurts’ vibes like most handsome men did. He was entirely matter of fact, entirely unaware of the effect he was producing, and one of the handsomest men she’d ever seen. Even in the movies. Lightly tanned, with sharp, clean features, ice blue eyes, sharp blade of a nose, firm mouth. Actually … grim mouth. Because he was here for serious business, protecting a woman under threat.

Man, he was hotthough.

Hope needed to stop thinking what she was thinking. What she was thinking was entirely unlike her. Hope didn’t flirt and it usually took her months to work up an attraction. This instant — thing he inspired was kind of scary. Her entire body was awake, hormones firing, skin sensitive. He was such an eye magnet she turned her head to look out the passenger side window.

“So. Where are we going?” she asked the window, then looked back at him. Because he was such an eye magnet.

However, not knowing where he was taking her was so weird.

God. Her entire job was doing one thing while thinking five or six or seven steps ahead. She wasn’t thinking ahead now, just following this man, moment by moment, not knowing where she was going. When was the last time that happened?

Had the danger and fear knocked something loose? Something she didn’t know she had? Was she going to be sandbagged by her hormones at the wrongest moment possible?

Luke glanced at her briefly and it was like the sun shone on her for an instant.

“The company hires a suite in a very nice upscale hotel. No one will know you are there because it’s booked under another company’s name. We’ll have room service and you can debrief me knowing you’re safe.” He looked over at her, head to toe. She was dressed for work. Black stovepipe pants, oversized forest green linen top, oversized black linen jacket. “It’s a deluxe hotel, and you’ll fit right in, if anyone sees you, which they won’t,” he said. He blew out a breath. “Sorry I’m not dressed for it. I’ve been on a stake-out.”

She slid her eyes back over to him. His blond hair was too long and he had blond scruff softening a hard jawline. Not the deliberate kind of scruff that took a barber to curate. The real deal, that came from not shaving. He had on faded jeans, a shapeless, long-sleeved, grayish tee that had been washed too many times and a blue flannel shirt over it like a jacket. Everything rumpled.

Whew. It lifted her spirits.

She had her first smile in days. “Don’t worry. At my company, formal dress means your shoes match and your pants are zipped. You’re almost overdressed.”

Luke hadn’t expected Felicity’s friend to be so goddamned pretty. Maybe he should have. Felicity herself was a beautiful woman. The most beautiful woman in the world, according to her husband, Metal. He’d probably shoot the face off anyone who denied that.

But in Luke’s head, the odds against having two pretty women computer nerds were high. He’d spent ten years in the Army, most of them as a Ranger. A lot of fellow soldiers in the Army who were analysts or in communications were women, and as sexless as their computers to him. Most were more like bots than