The call came in to Axe’s Brotherhood-issued cell phone at around four a.m., and he answered it as he sat in front of the fire in his father’s cottage.

“Hello,” he answered.

Sure as if he had conjured her up out of nowhere, the female he had been thinking about non-stop said, “Hi, it’s Elise.”

“Did I get the job?”

There was a pause. “Yes, you did. The other bodyguard that came was a female, and my father—”

“Would never have hired her. Yeah, I guessed.”

“Um … is there any way you could come back to the house? My sire would like you to sign some documents and then I thought we could talk a little more about the next couple of nights? I’m not sure we ironed out how many evenings—”

“Give me ten minutes.”

“Ah, okay. All right. Thank you.”

Axe ended the call and sat there with his phone in his hand. And three … two … one—

Sure enough, the call from Peyton came in next. And Axe didn’t bother with a greeting, he just accepted it and kept the phone where it was, down by his thigh.

Through the tiny little ear speaker, the male went off, his voice all treble. “Are you fucking kidding me? What the hell kind of lies did you tell them? You have no business—none!—guarding my cousin. You are—”

Axe put the phone up to his ear. “Not your decision, Peyton. Sorry—”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Axe cranked his head around to the front door. “Are you kidding me.”

“Open your fucking door!” came the demand.

Axe ended the connection and got up, his knees cracking. Muttering under his breath, he went over, cranked the knob, and opened up.

“FYI, I don’t lock this place,” he said in a bored tone. “Next time you come to rant at me, just walk on in.”

As he pivoted away, he had every faith that Peyton would ride his ass, and surprise!, surprise!, that’s what the aristocrat did, marching through the little room toward the fire.

“What, you can’t turn the heat up?” Peyton snapped. “And it’s dark as a cave as well as cold as fuck.”

“Are rich people like you bred to be judgmental? Or does it just happen because of all the money?”

“This is not a fucking game, asshole!”

Axe pivoted and rolled his eyes at the guy. “Do I look like I’m playing Monopoly over here?”

Peyton got right up in his shit. “Tell them you’re not going to do it. Or I will.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are? Coming in here and trying to order me around? You don’t know me, we’re not kin, and what I do on my free time is none of your fucking business.”

“Deny that you want her. Go on, lie to my face and tell me that you don’t want her—and then you can piss around a whole lot of bullshit that you’re going to be even halfway professional in this!”

“FYI, Richie Rich”—Axe jabbed two fingers into the SOB’s chest—“I’ve spent all my life around things I can’t have. So I’m really fucking used to it. And you should feel pretty cocksucking good about that. That’s what you people do, right. You look down your noses at commoners like me.”

“You’re a male. This has got nothing to do with where you come from.”

“Ohhhh, okay, right. So males can’t have any self-control. None at all.”

“They can’t! Don’t be a little bitch—”

“So you’re fucking Paradise, then. Behind Craeg’s back. Got it. Good to know.”

The guy frowned. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Axe smiled coldly and leaned in. “You want that female. You want her so fucking bad you can taste it. I see you looking at her, pretending like you’re smooth and shit. But you ain’t. So, yeah, if males can’t exercise self-control, then clearly you’ve got your dick in her mouth—”

The right hook came flying in at a perfect angle, and you want to talk about a light show? As contact was made, Axe’s head snapped up and over, his brain going loose-cannon in his skull, his vision briefly browning out.

“You’re fucking deluded, man,” Peyton spat. “You’re totally—”

Twice. In less than twenty-four hours. The douche bag punches him twice.

Axe pulled the gun he kept tucked in his waistband out and put it to the guy’s temple so quick, Peyton didn’t have time to step back. “The safety’s off. And I have nothing to lose. So how ’bout we start with you never fucking hitting me again. You got two shots on me. The third will put you in a grave.”

Peyton blinked. A couple of times. And Axe met him right in the eyes just so the male knew how dead serious he was.

“Get out,” Axe said in a low voice.

“You’re wrong about me and Paradise. She’s with her male. She picked him. I’ve never been with her and I never will be. So you just drop that bullshit—and if you don’t call Elise’s father right now, I’ll go over there myself and tell him you’re out. You are not getting into that house—”

Axe moved the gun to the side a thin inch and pulled the trigger. The pop was loud; the impact of the bullet in the wall was louder.

Peyton shouted and covered his head, dropping to his knees. But Axe was done. Reaching down with his free hand, he grabbed the fuck-twit’s expensive jacket and spun the male up and around, punching him back into the wall by the fireplace so hard the plaster cracked.

“You want to know why it’s so cold in here?” Axe gritted out. “It’s because I can’t afford heat. And that’s the reason there are no lights on, too. You may have the luxury of not worrying where your next meal or your next Mercedes is coming from, but I’m pinching pennies and eating at the training center as often as I can. You have no right to tell me to do shit—and my not taking a job just so you don’t have to face the fact that your other cousin was recently murdered is not my fucking problem. Oh, and P.S., fuck you—don’t stand there in your fancy loafers while you’re not with the female you want, and maintain for one second that just because I’m poor, it doesn’t mean I can’t do the same. We can’t help who we’re attracted to, but thoughts are not actions. Even for commoners.”

Axe punctuated his little speech with another bam into the wall. Then he released his hold and walked off, prowling around the tiny living room with its haphazard furniture and the drapes that were all wilted and the threadbare rugs. As the silence stretched out, he hated the fact that he was ashamed of his father’s house.

It was yet another betrayal of the male. And more than that, Peyton and his platinum-plated double standards were hardly anything worth living up to.

“I’ll pay you,” the male said grimly. “Whatever you’re making, I’ll double it. Triple it.”

Axe twisted around and stared at the guy.

Peyton put his palms up. “I’ll give you a year’s worth up front. Right now.”

Axe opened his mouth. Shut it.

In the end, he just grabbed his leather jacket and walked out of the room for the front door.

“Where are you going?” Peyton demanded.

“Shut the door behind you. Or don’t. I don’t give a fuck. But if I don’t leave now, I’m going to have to explain to Elise why I killed you, and I’d rather talk about her class schedule.”

Elise’s heart was pounding as she paced back and forth over the gray and white marble squares of the foyer’s floor. Her father had left for a meeting across town with her uncle. The butler and staff were working quietly in the rear of the house—which, considering her family’s mansion was over twenty-five thousand square feet in size, meant they were nowhere to be found. And her aunt was upstairs in bed.

Looking across at the French ormolu clock on the bombé chest by the grand door, she double-checked her watch. Then she turned to the antique mirror next to her and stared at her wavy reflection. The distortion seemed apt. She wasn’t sure what she was doing, what she was going to say.

Fiddling with the collar of her cashmere sweater, she made sure her wide-legged Donna Karan slacks were smooth over her hips. Her shoes were nothing special, just Tory Burch flats.

She wished she were in jeans, but her father didn’t approve of them.

As if the house were a country club with a dress code—

A rattling sound made her frown. Her phone, which was on vibrate, was going off over by the clock and she rushed to the thing.

It was Troy—

Great thunder rolled through the open space, the front door knocker being used by a strong hand.

As she put the phone back down without answering, she thought, Well, wasn’t that a revealing choice.

Her heart skipped behind her rib cage—and then she jumped as the butler came out of the library.

“Oh, I have it,” she told him with what she hoped was an easy smile. “Not to worry.”

The doggen shuffled to a halt as if a polite dog fight between his sense of duty and her direct order were jamming his circuits.

“It’s all right,” Elise said. “Do return to your more important duties.”

He hesitated for another moment, his eyes going to the big brass handle as if he had to go through at least a mental projection of doing the deed before he could leave. And then he bowed to her and returned to whatever polishing, dusting, or inspection he’d been performing.

Elise took a deep breath and opened the heavy door. Bracing herself to look up, she—

“Oh, my God!”

Axwelle was still in the clothes that he’d worn to the interview, the turtleneck and simple black slacks just as appealing on him. Hair was still thick and black and cropped. Face remained as rugged and compelling as it had been.

But he was bleeding.

Underneath his left eye, or maybe it was off to the side, there was some kind of cut, the skin broken and leaking. There was a bruise coming up, too, the cheekbone beneath the laceration swelling and turning red.

“You told me to come,” he said with a frown.

“Your eye.” She pointed to the injury. “You’re hurt.”

He put his hand up and touched his face, but rather than being alarmed, he merely seemed annoyed.

“You got a Kleenex?” he asked.

“What?”

“Tissue? Or toilet paper will work just fine. Point me in the direction of your bathroom.”

“You’re serious.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” She grabbed his hand before she knew what she was doing. “Let me take care of it.”

There was some initial resistance as she shut the door and tried to walk off with him, but then he followed. At least until she got to the foot of the curving staircase.

“We’re going upstairs,” she said, pulling on his hand. “I have a first aid kit in my room. And I also have my schedule for next semester up there.”

“You don’t have it on your phone? And come on, we don’t need to make a big deal about this—”

“Scared?”

Axwelle stopped short, and the glower that hit his face made his eyes glow. “Of what.”

“You tell me. Because I can’t figure out why you don’t want to go upstairs.”

With a curse under his breath, he took the steps two at a time, and Elise found herself smiling a little as she jogged behind him.

“So what happened to your face?” she asked his huge shoulders.

“Nothing.”

“FYI, if you’re going to lie to try to get me off the scent, at least make it believable. We’re not heading for a Band-Aid because ‘nothing’ happened.”

“It’s none of your business, how ’bout that. And Christ, I’m getting really tired of telling you people that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Big house,” he commented as they came to the second floor and he looked at the hall that went off in both directions. “How many rooms?”

“Really.” She put her hands on her hips. “That’s your next best?”

His stare locked on hers, and as he leaned in, his incredible size and power registered—but not in a threatening way.

More in a way that made her eyes flick down to his mouth for a split second.

“I’m not talking about it to you,” he said. “If you want to play nurse, that’s fine. But just because you’re insisting on mopping me up, doesn’t mean you’re due some kind of explanation. Are we clear?”

Elise looked at him for a long moment. They were dangerously close to getting off on a seriously wrong foot. And if she lost him? If he decided to walk out on her?

She didn’t want to give her father an excuse to rethink his decision.

Answer the damn house question, she told herself. Get on neutral ground.

“I don’t know how many rooms we have.” She cursed under her breath as she went to the left. “Maybe forty? Fifty? Something like that. My father built it in nineteen ten.”

She was very aware of him behind her, sensing that body of his. His presence. His aura.

In fact, she found herself walking differently, her hips moving from side to side more, her shoulders shifting. She had no idea how she knew this … but she was sure he was measuring the shape of her ass, her thighs. Then again, it was exactly what she did—what she was doing—to him.

“Here’s my room.”

Opening the way in, she resisted the urge to Vanna White the exotic objects in the room, like the bed!, the vanity!, this beautiful desk!, the wallpaper!

What was it about physical attraction that turned even the smartest people into babbling idiots?

“My bath is in here.” She indicated the way through the open double doors. Like he might have no frickin’ clue what the marble space was. “Come with me.”

Inside, the mirror over the double sinks gave her a wide-angle view of him as he stopped in between the doorjambs and proceeded no farther.

“Just give me something to wipe the blood off.” His eyes moved over the claw-foot tub, the glassed-in shower in the corner, the banks of windows that were dark. “I’ll take care of it.”

His huge mass and all the black clothes were completely out of place among the pale marble and the crystal and gold accents—and a shiver of thrill went through her. He was standing in a place she was naked in on a regular basis.

She wasn’t sure why this occurred to her or even seemed so erotic. But it did.

Elise pulled a monogrammed hand towel off a gold bar and cranked on the gold faucet. Putting her fingers under the rush, she waited for the water to—

“It doesn’t need to be warm,” he muttered.

It seemed silly to argue with him. So she just stood there until the temperature was right, and then wet the terry cloth.

“Just give it to me,” he demanded as he held out his hand.

Squeezing the excess free, she went over and put the towel into his palm. “Be careful—whoa! What are you doing?”

Well, that was obvious. He was trying to scrub off that whole side of his face.

She grabbed his forearm, and as he recoiled, like she’d surprised him, she took advantage of the reaction and snatched the towel back. Yanking him farther into the bathroom, she pushed him down onto the bench by the tub. Stepping in close, she batted his hands out of the way and went to work properly.

“How’d this happen?” She dabbed with care. “It doesn’t look dirty. Who hit you and is he still alive?”

Axwelle’s response? A jaw that ground his lower molars into his top ones—like he was having a conversation with someone in his head. Her? Or the person he’d fought with?

Probably her.

“You can tell me, you know.” Elise went over to the sink again and rinsed out the towel. Came back. “I’m not going to judge.”

Leaning in still closer, she focused on the laceration. “I think this is going to need stitches. It’s deep and wide? Can you see out of this eye?”

No answer. Just more of that tightly locked and ever-rotating lower jaw.

“Okay, Mr. Chatty, let me see what I can cover this with. And then you need to go see Havers. You’re obviously healthy, so you’re going to heal, but this might get infected before it closes itself.”

Elise patted the area dry with the other end of the towel and went to her cabinets, bending over the center drawers as she pulled them open one by one. The first aid kit was in the last one by the floor.

Rifling through the Band-Aids and gauze patches, she took one of the big squares out. “This’ll do.”

She shucked the wrapper into the wastepaper basket and headed over to her silent, morose patient.

“So, yes, thank you for asking,” she murmured as she got in close again. “I love going to school. I’m really good at it, but just as important, it’s where I get to be myself. No assumptions or restrictions because of where I come from. Nothing but my own actions and words defining who I am. It’s freedom to me.”

She peeled the backing off the two adhesive ends, pinched the gaping hole in his flesh, and covered the laceration, making sure that the bandage squeezed the wound tight. Crushing the little tabs in her fist, she stepped back. Axwelle was staring straight ahead, as if he hadn’t been able to stand her getting near him.

Cursing under her breath again, she felt like her chance to keep going to that human university was disappearing in front of her very eyes.

“Look,” she said with exhaustion. “I know you and I are doing the oil-and-water routine here, but I really need this to work. I need to finish my doctorate. It’s years of my life. I mean … if you don’t want the job, just back out now and let me try to find someone else, okay? Hello? Are you listening to me even in the slightest?” She threw up her hands. “This is ridiculous. Why did you come here at all?”

Maybe she had gotten him wrong. She could have sworn he’d been staring at her because he found her attractive. Maybe it was the other way around—

Abruptly, his hands gripped his knees and squeezed.

“Are you stroking out or something?” she demanded. “Because my medical expertise stops at Band-Aids.”

When he just stayed where he was, she put her hands on her hips for the third time in his presence. “Will you just tell me what the hell is going on here? Do you need an ambulance? Did they hit you so hard you have a concussion? Whatever it is, you better tell me right now or I’m going to drag you out of this house and leave you to die on my front lawn.”

His upper lip curled up off his fangs and he shook his head.

“You really are a coward,” she muttered. “Big tough guy like you, but you can’t talk about anything—”

“Coward?” he bit out. “You think I’m a coward.”

“Yeah, I do. What’s the other explanation?”

“Coward, huh. Fine. How’s this for a problem.”

With that, he rose to his full height, mirrored her pose with his hands on his hips—and just stood there, like that said it all.

Elise shrugged with a frown. “Yes? And? You want to remind me that you’re six-six? Six-seven? Dressed in black? What—”

Annnnnnnd that was when she saw it.

It was a very big it. A very … erect it, straining the front of his pants.