Free Marisa Chenery by Warrior's Surrender Page B

eating, they’d done nothing but talk.
    Since Jaxon had given her run of the house, Chyna decided to check all the rooms she hadn’t seen. She loved his sprawling bungalow. Living here would be no hardship, not that she was getting ahead of herself. It was just if she and Jaxon ever reached that stage where they wanted to live together, she would be more than happy to give up her apartment.
    Chyna went to the wing that had the bedrooms. Two of the three spare rooms had their doors wide open. Inside each one was only a queen-sized bed and a dresser. No personal items were to be seen.
    The third guestroom’s door was shut. Her curiosity getting the better of her, Chyna tested the knob and found it unlocked. She turned it and pushed open the door. She stepped into the room, her gaze taking in all the pieces of what appeared to be ancient Egyptian art. Everywhere she looked there was a depiction of the jackal-headed god, Anubis. There were paintings of scenes from what looked to be tomb walls, even a few pieces carved in stone.
    Chyna walked over to one of the smaller statues that sat on a shelf along a wall. It looked as if it could be the real deal, a piece from Egypt’s past, but she had her doubts. She didn’t think Egypt would allow any of their antiquities out of the country, no matter how much the buyer was willing to pay. All of the items in the room had to be well-made replicas. They also tied in with the tattoo of Anubis that Jaxon had on his chest.
    The sight of what appeared to be a small altar at the end of the room caught Chyna’s eye. She walked over to it and frowned when she found a couple of slices of bread and a glass of beer sitting on it. They almost looked like offerings. She couldn’t see Jaxon coming in here and leaving them because he was too lazy to get rid of them. She’d yet to see him leave any kind of food sitting around once he was done with it.
    Chyna touched the bread and found it not too dried out, so it couldn’t have been sitting there for longer than a day. Thinking she’d take it and the beer to the kitchen just in case Jaxon had mistakenly left them in the room, she reached for them.
    Chyna.
    The sound of a male voice saying her name inside her head caused her to jump. She pulled her hands back and put one over her rapidly beating heart. She turned, half expecting to find Jaxon standing behind her. That he’d been the one to call her by name. But the only person in the room was her. She had to be hearing things.
    With a shake of her head, Chyna walked out of the room and shut the door behind her, deciding to leave the bread and beer where they were. She’d have to remember to ask Jaxon about that particular guestroom. No place else in the house had anything ancient Egyptian in it. Maybe he was a closet collector and didn’t want anyone to know.
    Chyna headed for the living room and sat on the couch before she turned on the large LCD television. She soon became caught up in a movie that played on one of the movie channels. It was a psychological thriller that kept her guessing who the bad guy was. At one point, she heard some creepy laughter. She gazed around, swearing the sound had come from somewhere in the room, but in the end she figured it had to have been from the home theater system Jaxon had hooked up to the TV.
    Blown away by the end of the movie, Chyna switched the channel to something else. It was starting to get late. Her eyes felt heavy. She stretched out on the couch with her head resting on the thickly padded armrest and turned on her side toward the TV screen. It didn’t take long for her eyes to drift shut a few times. Eventually, she lost the battle and they stayed closed and she fell asleep.
    * * * * *
     
    Jaxon returned home after an uneventful night of hunting. He hadn’t found one evildoer. Though he hadn’t encountered any prey, he’d put the time to good use. He’d thought about Chyna and what she was to him. Now that he’d spent more time with her,