Free Heat Seeker by Lora Leigh Page A

kitchen.
    “We’re alone,” she assured him as she indicated the coffee. “Have a seat, Mr. Vincent, and tell me why I shouldn’t shoot you for trespassing.”
    She slid her Glock from the pocket of her robe and laid it casually on the glass-topped breakfast table beside her coffee.
    His brow arched in amusement as he glanced at the weapon before moving to the table.
    Bailey pushed out the opposite chair with her foot and waved her hand toward it.
    “At least you’re going to allow me a cup of coffee beforeactually shooting me,” he said, chuckling. “How would you explain that to the authorities?”
    “Explain what?” she asked with a shrug. “I’d simply hide the body. I wouldn’t have to explain anything.”
    The dark, low laugh that vibrated in his throat sent a rush of sensation chasing up her spine. Damn him, she should shoot him for that alone.
    “I knew you’d be trouble when I first saw you in Atlanta,” he told her as he wrapped one hand around the coffee cup and brought it to his lips. “Pure fire wrapped in the sexiest package I’ve ever glimpsed.”
    She grunted at that as she leaned back in her chair and watched him cynically. He was definitely charming. Something about his smile, the movement of his body, invited a woman to trust him, to lean into him. She knew better than to trust or to lean into anyone.
    “Compliments won’t soften you?” he asked as he set the cup back on the table. “For shame, Bailey. Are you a bit conceited?”
    “A bit disbelieving perhaps,” she admitted, amused by him, turned on by him. “Now what the hell do you want? I have things to do today and I don’t have time for your games.”
    “I don’t play games.” There was a glimmer of warning in his gaze.
    “And I don’t play at all,” she told him. “So get to the point.”
    She wanted him out of here. She wanted him out of her sight and out of her life before it was too late. Before she lost more of herself than she already had to a too-charming man and her own hormones.
    “An impatient woman as well.” He shook his head as though he pitied her. “I had heard you were quite patient.”
    “I don’t know where you heard such a thing.” She widened her eyes in false surprise.
    “Orion.”
    That shocked her for a brief second. Bailey could feel her training kicking in as she held her expression. Bland amusement, no surprise. She merely stared back at himwith innocent curiosity, as though there was nothing Orion could possibly know about her.
    She wondered if the bastard had actually kept files. How insane would that be for an assassin—to actually keep records? Of course, if he had, perhaps they held a clue to who or what Warbucks actually was.
    “I rather doubt Orion had much to say about me,” she finally said quietly. “What could he know other than how deep to slice my wrists to keep from killing me?”
    She heard the anger that filled her tone, the edge of bitterness. And she was angry, just as she was bitter. Orion’s death had been stolen from her. For so many years she had dreamed of being the one to pull the trigger and blow his fucking head off. She’d deserved the chance to do it. She had deserved the right to call his life her own.
    “Orion wasn’t that easy to find,” he finally told her soberly, his gray eyes serious as he wrapped his hands around the coffee cup. “You couldn’t have done it on your own. He wouldn’t have allowed the payoffs to continue from whoever sent those deposits to assure that you weren’t killed. You were becoming a risk to him, baby.”
    She had meant to become a risk. She had wanted him to come after her, to make that first move that she could have used to identify him and kill him herself. “What do you mean by that?” She feigned surprise at his statement.
    John clucked his tongue as he shook his head at her. A smile tilted those beautiful male lips and for a second, all she could think about was kissing him, eating those lips until her need