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night. If you want my help getting back to bed, then do as I say. But not one more word.” Her voice broke on the last part, betraying the cost of her assistance at that moment.
    Her defiant gaze dared him as nothing and no one ever had before. The unwonted urge to take her mouth swamped him again, flooding his judgment, consuming his control. Only this time he understood what had stopped him before. He wanted to cover her lips with his, to taste their intriguing fullness, to thrust his tongue past them and find out what hidden temptations lay in store for the one bold enough to take the risk. He wanted, and it wasn’t cold, it wasn’t calculated. And, God help him, it wasn’t because of any damn mission.
    That was the difference.
    Jarrett jerked his gaze away and looped his arm over her shoulders as impersonally as possible, ignoring the feel of the tight muscles that wrapped her slender frame. He focused his mind on the painful act of pulling hisbody into an upright position. The faster he hit the bed, the faster she’d leave him.
    Throughout the effort and well past the time when he was lying on clean, cool sheets and Rae was long gone from the bedroom, Jarrett’s lips remained clamped so tightly shut, it would have taken the Jaws of Life to open them again.
    Rae gripped the counter by the kitchen sink and held on for dear life. What in holy hell had happened back there in that bathroom?
Her
bathroom. She’d sat down next to him, her mind exclusively on bandaging the cut, and the next thing she knew, she’d found herself trying her damnedest to ignore Jarrett’s body. His hard chest and arms, the heat that emanated from him, the way the muscles in his thigh rippled and tightened when she’d taken his hand, even the way that damn towel clung to him by some miraculous force that certainly wasn’t gravity.
    Just when she’d achieved some success at focusing on his wound, at holding on to his blunt, battle-scarred fingers and dabbing at the cut without wondering what his hands would feel like on her, she’d made the mistake of looking up into his eyes. She’d realized then that she’d been lying to herself in the worst way if she ever believed she could control her reaction to this man.
    She felt her skin heat in mortification even as she damned herself for the renewed tightening of her breasts. What had he seen in her eyes? What had sherevealed to him to cause the stunning change she’d witnessed in his usually controlled expression?
    Rae shuddered, then yanked on the cold water. Dear God, when he’d looked at her like that, like he wanted to … like he … Hell, like he simply
wanted.
    There was nothing remotely simple about it, though.
    She splashed cool water on her face, then held a fresh towel there far longer than it took to dry her skin. Facing him down after two years of peace and solitude was tougher than she’d have imagined. The addition of this new element, this … tension between them, made it even worse.
    She had to go right back in there and face him. Now. Before she let those tumultuous seconds in her bathroom take on some ridiculous importance in her mind.
    She had to prove to Jarrett, and more importantly herself, that she was still in control—of herself, of the situation, of her life.
    She grabbed the water pitcher and filled it. It wasn’t until she was pushing open the bedroom door—without knocking—that she realized that for the first time she’d thought of him as Jarrett. Not as her ex-boss, not as McCullough.
    She ignored the rough jolt that gave her and strode directly to the bed. He was lying flat on his back, the sheet and blanket drawn up to his waist, his eyes closed. The turquoise bath towel was heaped in the bedside chair. Rae carefully kept her gaze on his face.
    “I’m going into town. I’ll be back by nightfall.” She placed the refilled pitcher on the bedstand.
    When she looked back at him his eyes were wide-open,and the determination she saw in them