Free THE PERFECT TARGET by Jenna Mills Page B

strides, his big powerful body moving with a stunningly virile grace. And for a moment, a dangerous moment, she wanted him to pull her into his arms again, against that warm, reassuring chest, to tell her this really was one of her father's drills and if she just played along, the morning would come and with it her freedom.
    But deep in her heart, she knew that wasn't going to happen.
    "Everyone knows the United States doesn't negotiate with criminals," she said, backing away from Sandro. The wall stopped her before she could insert more than inches between them.
    "You're right," he said. "America doesn't negotiate. That's why I was there this morning, to make sure you didn't become a pawn in a high-stakes game you're not the least bit equipped to handle."
    She'd become that pawn, anyway, and the game extended far beyond rules of fair play.
    She looked him in the eyes, determined to convey strength, when really she wanted to slide down against the increasingly cool wall. "Why didn't you just tell me this straight-up?"
    It would have been easier that way; she would never have indulged the fleeting, dangerous fantasy that the tall dark-haired stranger had really wanted to take her picture.
    You're not a woman for shadows.
    "Would you have believed me?" he asked now.
    "The truth is always better than lies."
    "Not always, bella," he murmured, then lifted a hand to her face. His touch was warm, gentle. Unbearably sad. "Sometimes, they're one and the same."
    Her throat tightened. They stood body-to-body, the room darker by the second, the only sound that of their breathing. She looked up at him, at that mouth he'd pressed to hers in the alley. He'd only been trying to staunch the flow of her words, but the feel of his lips on hers had tapped into another flow, this more like a lazy river, a foolish, ill-fated river that now lapped against a papier-mâché dam.
    Miranda could count on one hand the number of men with whom she'd wanted to share intimacies. For the most part, the boys and men with whom she'd had contact had been as stuffy, predictable, and uninteresting as geology textbooks.
    That within only a matter of hours her father's new yes-man had created the need to engage her other hand blew her mind.
    "I'd better clean and bandage your shoulder," she said, ducking under his arm and returning to where the supplies lay strewn on the cold stone floor.
    "I hardly feel a thing," Sandro said from behind her.
    That's what she was afraid of. He was a man who followed orders, doing what needed to be done regardless of impact. He'd come on to her with the same efficiency with which he'd fired his briefcase gun. He'd kissed her with the same thoroughness as the shopping trip he'd made into town. No detail escaped his attention.
    And other than the mention of his friend's death, he gave no indication that anything that had happened today fazed him one way or another.
    Just another day on the job.
    "So you'd rather let it fester and risk infection?" she asked pointedly.
    He turned her to face him, having moved without making a sound. "Careful, bella. A man might think you care."
    "You saved my life today," she said. Caring involved emotion. What she felt right now, this … longing, involved an entirely different area of her body. Because of the danger, she rationalized. She'd heard men and women whose lives had been in jeopardy responded by reaching out to each other to affirm life.
    "No matter what else happens," she said, "nothing can erase that. I don't want to see you suffer."
    Sandro winced. "It's a little late for that," he muttered.
    Miranda blinked. His shoulder, she told herself. That was all he meant. "Then sit," she instructed. "And let me help."
    That glimmer again, a speck of light in those dark, dark eyes. "How?" he asked, lowering himself to the floor. "With a kiss?"
    She looked at him sitting there, one long, incredibly muscled leg stretched out before him, the other bent, his darkly tanned chest bare, that broad shoulder