Free Eve of Darkness by S. J. Day Page B

to keep Eve close. She would have to see him coming, because surprising her with a pounce would shatter her trust further, and she needed to trust him. Otherwise he had no hope of keeping her alive.
    As if she sensed his intent, Eve shot him an arch glance and tightened the belt on her robe. “You went to see him like that? With it all hanging out?”
    He shrugged. “It’s not as if I had a choice.”
    “I can’t do this, Alec. You got me into this, you get me out of it.”
    “I’m trying.”
    “Try harder.” She gave a little growl, like a pissed-off kitten. “Listen. I can’t watch horror movies. I get freaked out just walking alone through parking garages. Being the Bionic Woman isn’t going to change the fact that I don’t have it in my programming to kill things.”
    “This is coming from the woman who met me at the door with a loaded gun?”
    “Self-defense is a different story,” she argued, turning her back to him and guzzling her neglected coffee.
    “He wouldn’t have marked you if you couldn’t handle it.”
    Eve choked and glared at him over her shoulder. “We’re talking about the god who promised Moses he’d go to heaven if he worked like a dog and ruined his life, then at the last minute reneged on the deal.”
    Alec’s jaw clenched as he linked his fingers behind his back. “I’m starting to think He picked you not because of
me,
but because of
you
. You’ve got a lot to learn.”
    “Whatever. Your brother said I could have a trial. I want one.”
    “It’s too late for that.”
    A terrible stillness gripped her. “Because of what you did?”
    He nodded, hating the unfamiliar feeling of dread weighting his gut. Eve had to trust him, implicitly. And now she had every reason not to. The battlefield was not a place to doubt the person watching your back. “I can’t help you if I’m on the other side of the world. I had to do what I did to stay with you.”
    Eve walked away, departing the kitchen and heading down the hallway to her bedroom.
    He followed. “Where are you going?”
    “You’re not my favorite person right now.”
    “Angel . . .”
    Eve spun about in a flurry of ebony hair and blood-red silk. The movement was agile and inherently graceful. Sensual.
    “I
will
get you out of this,” he said, struggling against his body’s reaction to the sight of her. He was so hard it hurt.
    Her gaze dropped and her lips parted on a silent gasp. She pointed viciously at his erection. “Put that thing away! It’s gotten me into enough trouble as it is.”
    She entered her room and slammed the door.
    “My gear is in there,” he called after her, smiling.
    A heartbeat later his jeans and shirt flew into the hall and hit him square in the chest.
    “You prefer me to go commando?” he asked.
    “Shut up and get dressed.” But there was a hitch in her voice that told him she wasn’t unaffected by the idea.
    “We’re not done talking.”
    “Give it a rest, okay?”
    He moved to the guest room, his bare feet on the polished hardwood creating a mournful tempo. The extra bedroom bore the same sparse modern styling of the master bedroom and was nearly equal in size. Massive slabs of polished, lacquered pine hung from metal tracks on the ceiling and acted as doors for the floor-to-ceiling closets that occupied the entire right wall. The matching wood floor was littered with several fluffy white rugs cut in irregular shapes. A built-in system of shelves decorated the bottom half of the rear wall, while the top half was covered in black-and-white photos in silver frames.
    The bed was to the left. It sat low to the ground and was quite large. A California king, Alec guessed. It was covered with a chocolate satin duvet and cream pillows with brown and rust-colored trim.
    The sight of the perfectly made bed both lured and depressed him. He was exhausted. While Eve’s body had been changing and storing up energy, his had been drained by worry, guilt, and lack of sleep. If he had a