Free Outlaw Derek by Kay Hooper

you?”
    “No.” She hesitated another minute, then turned away toward the bed.
    Derek got up to turn off the overhead light anyway, leaving only the lamp by the couch on. He was unusually aware of the rustle of bedclothes in the silence, and reminded himself he was a grown man and perfectly capable of controlling his hormones. It didn’t help. He hadn’t really expected it to.
    He went into the kitchen to the hidden control box for his security system; Shannon hadn’t noticed and he deliberately hadn’t pointed it out to her. The box was concealed behind what looked like just another section of the painted brick wall, opening to his familiar touch by a hidden spring. He set the system with the necessary codes, activating the alarms set at both downstairs doors and all the windows. Another switch activated timers in the three other lofts in the building so that lights would come on and go off at irregular intervals, suggesting the lofts were inhabited, which they weren’t.
    He set three final switches: one to activate pressure alarms on the roof, one to turn onmotion-sensors and cameras placed strategically around the building, and the third switch to alert the building’s very dependable caretaker, who lived nearby, that Derek was “in residence” and not to be disturbed.
    Shannon didn’t know it, but she was sleeping in a virtual fortress.
    Having done everything possible to ensure an advance warning for them in case of visitors, Derek moved back toward the couch. It wasn’t until he glanced at the bed and saw Shannon sitting up that he realized she had watched his actions.
    “Who are you, Derek?” she asked softly.
    The light provided by the lamp barely reached her, and she was only an insubstantial shape, her silky pajamas reflecting the light in a faint shimmer. Derek sat on the couch because he didn’t dare remain standing; his body was having ideas that his mind found difficult to deny. “You know who I am.”
    “I wonder if anybody does. William would be surprised if he saw this place, wouldn’t he?”
    Derek didn’t think it likely. “In a fox hunt,” he said quietly, “the fox always has more than one way out of his burrow—if he’s smart. I’ve been hunted before, Shannon, so I’ve taken the idea a step farther. More than one burrow. And always more than one way out of each.”
    “What’s the other way out of this burrow?”
    He smiled faintly. “There’s a trap door inside the closet, and a tunnel leading to an outbuilding. James Bond stuff,” he mocked himself lightly.
    Shannon hugged her upraised knees and watched him, not yet ready to sleep because she was afraid she’d dream. “Has it been exciting—your life?”
    “I wouldn’t have stayed in this business otherwise,” he answered. “There are always benefits to my work. I’ve seen parts of the world the tourists will never see, for instance.”
    “And the drawbacks?”
    Derek fished a package of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one. “Those too.”
    After a moment of silence, she said, “You don’t want to talk about the drawbacks?”
    No, he didn’t. Not to her. Not now, at least, when she was living under the threat of some of those drawbacks. “You should get some sleep, honey.”
    Shannon slid down in the bed and drew the covers up, gazing at a shadowy ceiling. He
had
called her honey this time. But it probably didn’t mean anything. She wished it did. Wished she could tell him how afraid she was to sleep, because she wasn’t too tired to dream tonight. Wished she could ask him to just hold her because—
    She felt shaken suddenly. Shocked. When had she ever asked anyone for that kind of physical closeness? It was hardly something she was used to. Her mother wasn’t a physically demonstrative woman, and Shannon had always felt stiff and uneasy whenever someone came too close.Why was she longing, now, for strong arms around her and the comforting sound of another heart beating under her ear?
    Because she was