“I like you better naked.”

She ground her teeth and tried to push away from him. He held her easily. “No one is coming but you aren’t getting dress. You drugged me, Kara. I’m not giving you a chance to do it again.”

“I can’t be naked every time we’re together, Blake.”

“Every time we’re alone suits me just fine.”

She ignored the erotically charged reply that only made her more aware of his broad, well-muscled, bare chest. “How are we going to work together if you don’t trust me?”

“And you trust me?” he challenged.

“No, I don’t trust you. Why would I?”

“Exactly. No one trusts each other in this world.” He surprised her, sliding his hand under her hair and pulling her mouth to his. She surprised herself by not even trying to shove away. The feel of his hard body next to hers, his powerful arms holding her, was just too overwhelmingly right, even when it should be wrong.

His lips brushed hers, tongue teasing hers in a feather-light touch that left her trembling with need. “Taste that?” he murmured, his breath a soft, hot whisper teasing her lips with the promise of another kiss she desperately wanted. “Taste how much we want each other?”

“Yes,” she whispered before she could stop herself, but then it wasn’t like he didn’t know she’d just melted into him, that he possessed the power to easily seduce her.

“And how easily,” he continued, “we escape the distrust between us when we’re touching each other?” The words lingered in the air, the crackle of desire between them nearly combustible. He was right. At this moment, she could forget everything but him. She could get lost and…and just like that, he released her, stepped back from her, denying her his touch.

“Our hot encounters, Kara, are the closest thing to trust you’ll get in this life, and with someone else, they might get you killed. They make you drop your guard like you did to me in Denver. Get out while you can, Kara. My offer still stands to help you do it. Mendez will never know. I can make you disappear and whatever problem you are trying to deal with by working for him.”

An offer to be his kept woman shouldn’t make her stomach flip-flop, but it did. In some demented and odd way it called forward her long-dead schoolgirl Prince Charming fantasies. Only in those fantasies, Prince Charming hadn’t been a criminal. It was a sobering thought that snapped her back to reality. “No,” she whispered. “That’s just another way of being on someone’s payroll. I’m not interested.”

“I’m offering to get you out, not keep you in with me. Cash, living comfortably, and anything else you need, for as long as you need it.”

Baffled, she stared at him. “Why would you want to help me? You barely even know me. And I didn’t think…”— she stopped herself from saying “men like you”—“…just why?”

Shadows danced deep in his brown eyes, the same tormented kind she’d seen that night in Denver. “You aren’t lost yet.” His voice was a rasp of sandpaper. “Not like me.”

Her mind replayed something she’d said to him back in Denver. If I can be saved, then so can you. He’d replied We aren’t even in the same universe. Believe me. I’m lost. You can still be found. Emotion welled in her chest with the certainty of some deep pain haunting this man. She was right. There was more to Blake than met the eye.

But could she be saved? It depended on how this mission ended. It depended on what it forced her to do. And she’d do anything, absolutely anything to get what she’d come for. “You don’t know me well enough to know that.”

“I know. I know because I still see hope in your eyes.”

It was all she could do to not press her fist to the ache in her belly his words created. She did have hope. It was small but it was real, and she was desperate to discover it was for good reason. But that hope had everything to do with why she couldn’t walk away.

“I’ll make you a deal,” she said, fighting the tightness in her throat. “I’ll let you save me the day you let me save you.”

“I told you, Kara, I can’t be saved. I’ve made my choices. I have my reasons for staying my course. I’m headed to hell and I’ve accepted that.”

And to make this “hope” reality she knew that she was headed the same place. “Then I guess I’ll see you there.”

His eyes narrowed, sharpened. “I find it hard to believe that a woman who’s working in a dangerous environment to take care of a sick mother would welcome a trip to hell.”

“How do you know about my mother?”

“I had someone inside the company files before I ever walked into the building.” And, thanks to the contract he and his brothers had with a large number of airports, he’d been able to charter Kyle to San Fran the minute he’d known his destination. “I know what your HR file, DMV, and any other public record in existence says about you. I know Richter and Mendez believe you’re doing this to pay for your mother’s medical.” He closed the distance between them, towering over her again, the heat of his body radiating into hers. “I believe that’s what you set them up to believe; otherwise you’d jump at my offer to get out.”

“How does being in debt to someone else inside this life get me out, Blake? At the pay Mendez gives me, I only have to work here a year to leave on my own, on my terms.”