Page 19 of Along Came a Rogue

“Yes.” Another lie. Because when he returned, she’d be gone.

He took her shoulders and faced her toward him, and his eyes turned hard as they leveled on hers. “Brat, you are trying my patience.”

Her lips parted in stunned surprise as the heat he’d flamed between them vanished. “What do you—”

“You’re beautiful when you lie.” He arched a brow. “But you’re still lying.”

She desperately shook her head. “Grey, please—”

His hands tightened around her arms. “Are you in trouble?”

She fought back a gasp. Oh God, he knew…somehow, Grey knew! And for a heartbeat, she wanted to admit the truth to him and put an end to the lonely nightmare her life had become. But she couldn’t.

“No,” she lied, the single word barely above a whisper.

The hard flicker in his eyes told her he didn’t believe her. In that instant, she had a glimpse of the War Office agent he was, suspicious and wary, catching every detail.

Then he softened, and she glimpsed the man beneath the agent, who gazed on her with concern. He asked gently, “Are you in danger, Emily?” As she stepped back to escape his grasp, he pursued her and cupped her face in both his hands. “Let me help you.”

A knot of emotion tightened her throat at the strength and support Grey offered. And God help her, she wanted to take it. She wanted to crawl into his arms, to somehow bury herself inside him and finally be safe—

She groaned softly. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“If you didn’t want me at Snowden Hall,” he countered, crooking a half grin, “then you should have aimed lower with your gun.”

She didn’t laugh at his teasing. Instead, she fisted her hands helplessly at her sides to keep from reaching for him. “That’s not what I meant.”

He frowned. “Then what exactly did you mean?”

She shook her head, futilely attempting to chase away both the fear and the arousal blossoming inside her. She should never have allowed him into the room with her tonight, or offered him a drink, or let him ever get this close. While she wore nothing more than her robe and thin night rail beneath, Grey stood there in the firelight half-dressed himself, with his shirt collar hanging open wide and revealing the place where his neck and shoulder met. That place where she found herself longing to place her lips…

Madness! She would have laughed at herself if frustration weren’t grinding razor-sharp inside her.

“I meant—” She swallowed hard. “That you should leave tomorrow. I insist.”

He folded his arms across his chest, and the determined gesture frustrated her to infuriation. “I am not leaving unless you—”

“Stubborn man!” she snapped and stalked away.

His brow arched as he countered evenly, “Stubborn woman.”

In exasperation, she pressed the heels of her hands against her forehead, not knowing how to feel about him—if she should be furious, disappointed, aroused—or if she should grab her pistol and start shooting at him. Again.

“Why won’t you just leave?” she half demanded, half begged.

“I will,” he answered earnestly. “As soon as you tell me the truth.”

She threw up her hands in aggravation. “I have told you—”

A metal click sounded softly at the door, and the words strangled in her throat. She froze, sudden terror ripping the air from her lungs.

But Grey only frowned, staring at her in bewilderment. He hadn’t heard it. But she knew the sound of fear—she’d lived with it for the past five months, and it slithered through her like a sickening poison.

“Grey,” she whispered, so low that his name was nothing more than a terrified breath, “I think someone’s trying—”

An explosion boomed through the house, the sound of shattering glass lost beneath her scream.

Chapter Four