“Why do you do this every time?” Douglas’s gray brows furrowed as they tried to pin her through the mirror over the distance of the car.

“I could ask you the same thing?” She tossed her arms over her chest and stared out the window. Frozen rain battered the cars and streets.

“I do it because I care about you,” he retorted.

Larkin offered an exaggerated groan.

“You drown yourself in work. Someone has to pull you up for air.”

“I went to the party Saturday.” And received threatening messages before that, found a colleague inexplicably half dead in the bathroom, then vanish, watched my friend hit on me, then pass out, then I ran after HIM like a lunatic.

“And haven’t come out of your office since.”

“I was working,” she snapped.

“Through the night? Nights?” He dragged out the s, emphasizing his point. “It’s Monday, for the love of all that’s holy.”

Larkin shrugged and looked at the pre-war homes that had prompted her seclusion. It wasn’t the homes themselves, but the man who’d been lurking around them. HIM, and the fool she’d made of herself.

“You can’t drown yourself in work whenever life gets too hard.”

“Says that man who did just the same.” She found his gaze in the mirror.

“Learn from my mistakes, child.”

She couldn’t seem to learn from anything these days. Had she, Sunday would have been spent telling Douglas about the second CUNT card and the mess at the ball. Instead, she pored over the tech, financial, and production reports again and again.

“The next board meeting is tomorrow. Since we didn’t finish our business last time, I needed to familiarize myself with every aspect of each outcome of the decision I have to make.”

“You need a break from all that nonsense or you won’t make the right decision.”

“What is the right decision?” she begged.

“I don’t know. It’s for you to decide … after you’ve had some time away.”

“The meeting is in …” She consulted her phone. The 6:00 p.m. readout brightened the car’s interior. “Twenty-three hours.”

“I suggest you use that time wisely.”

Larkin unlocked her phone screen and pressed the icon to open her email.

“That is not wisely,” Douglas barked. “Shit!” His two sentences nearly merged. The car lurched.

The phone dropped to the floor. She grabbed the oh-shit handle and wished like hell that she’d heeded his advice and put on her seat belt. The car skidded ever so slightly before it slammed to an abrupt stop. Pedestrians darted in front of the car, clutching their umbrellas and the front of their raincoats and paying the car that nearly slammed into them no attention.

“That’s not wisely,” Larkin choked out.

Douglas grumbled a string of curse words to himself, then quieted. They both sat in silence through the light and then the next. They caught the unlucky timing and the string of lights between them and her uptown home.

She ignored her phone and stared out the window at the architecture she loved as they moved slowly from one light to the next. Several blocks from her home, they pulled up to the red light. A single man stood in the freezing rain, awaiting the proper signal to cross the street. Had it not been directly under the light of the crossing, had he not been so unique in the world of suits and ties, she wouldn’t have seen HIM. But it was, and she did. He wore a leather jacket, a blatant fuck you to the cold and the world. Jeans—not skinny chic, not runway ripped, but good old-fashioned work-worn jeans—clung to his ass. Frozen rain melted at his touch.

“Whew! It’s not a night to be caught out in this.” Douglas whistled.

Her heart pounded against her chest. She swallowed.

“Pull forward just a little, Douglas, and wait. Please?”

He did as she asked. The man turned to assess the car that’d pulled even with him as though it were a challenge. It was.

Larkin gathered her breath and opened the door. Their eyes locked. No metal, glass, nor tent obscured their view. “Get in.”

His head canted ever so slightly. Water fell off the cleft of his chin, running in rivulets down his dark hair and the taut skin of his neck.

“Please.” She hated begging, but she’d get on her knees in an icy puddle to get her questions answered.

He pivoted toward her and took two steps. The long strides put him in arm’s reach of the car. His gaze narrowed on her, and then the seat. He grabbed the edge of his jacket and shook it, causing droplets to sail through the air. “I’ll ruin your seats.”

“Here. Lay this down.” Douglas’s calf-length raincoat hit her feet, jerking her gaze from HIS.

She yanked the jacket from the floor, scooted to the far side of the car, and spread it out.

The giant stranger waited the longest eight count of her life before stepping off the curb and wedging himself through the open door. The car shifted ever so slightly under his weight. When he sat, the bench seat submitted to his form, dipping in and cratering the edge of Larkin’s side. She gripped the side of the seat to keep from sliding toward him. He closed the door behind him, and it created a vacuum in the confined space.

Silence sucked the air out of the car or maybe just her lungs. One of his wet boots, built for ass kicking, occupied carpet only inches away from her fur-lined winter ones. His hulking thigh was only a twitch away.

He’d been large on the roof, but in the back seat, he was a giant. Heat radiated from him despite the cold he’d just come from.

“I assume you know this fellow,” Douglas asked without asking.

With him this close, her lungs and mouth refused to operate. Confronting him consumed all her mental function.

“We’ve met,” the stranger’s voice rumbled so low it shook her bones.

“Well, Mr. …” Douglas let the second question hang in the air.

Larkin was just as eager to hear the answer. Hell, more so than her driver.

“Beckett,” the stranger offered.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Beckett. Where to?” Douglas tried again.

“My place,” Larkin blurted.

No way would she let him out of her sight. She had so much to say to him and didn’t know exactly why.

Dark eyes, darker than she’d ever seen, sliced to her and bore down.

She held the unrelenting gaze and straightened in the seat, reclaiming a bit of the space he’d stolen. Their knees touched. Through their pants, cold and wet, a mysterious energy poured, rendering her speechless once more.

“Sir?” Douglas wouldn’t take the man anywhere he didn’t approve of, no matter her request. Unless she wanted them dead. She had a feeling he’d take them somewhere quiet. Not that she’d ever ask. Especially not with this guy. As capable as Douglas was, this man epitomized lethal. That, and she didn’t want him dead. She wanted him. Period. No explanations. No equivocations. She had neither.

His gaze held hers for several seconds more, and then he nodded.

A car horn sounded behind them, followed quickly by another. Douglas ignored them while he situated himself in the driver’s seat and then gently placed the car in Drive.

Larkin cataloged every inch of the man, who’d scared time from her life on the roof that night, visible from her forward-facing position. She didn’t want to spook him by a full-on frontal evaluation, though she suspected it would take much more than just her to scare him.

Besides, her side appraisal gave her enough to handle. The connection of their legs scrambled her usual dispassionate approach to men and her sexual relations with them. Attractions had always been based on the physical or on her intoxication level. She hadn’t had even a sniff of whisky today. He, Beckett, wasn’t pretty. He didn’t boast charisma nor infectious enthusiasm. He was danger. He was the unknown.

The sheer size of his hands baffled her. They hung loosely between his legs, relaxed and, at the same time, ready. One could span her throat and squeeze the life from her with little effort. His leg, if put to use, could splinter a door or crush a skull, probably both simultaneously.

Too soon, they stopped in front of her house. She still had so much to inventory. Frozen rain pelted the ground with no signs of letting up. Without pause, Beckett opened the door and stepped out before Douglas placed the car in Park. He shrugged off his jacket, revealing a sopping long sleeve that clung to etched biceps, a full chest, and well-formed abs. While she was distracted by his body, he’d draped the leather over his arm. It created a makeshift umbrella that did little to cover him. He extended his hand without a word.

She slid her fingers into the cradle of his palm. Either the heat of his skin or the frigid air robbed what little breath she’d managed to gather riding over the last blocks. His fingers tightened around her hand and gently hoisted her. Nose to nose, the winter sky cried around them. Its pieces pinged off the roof and pelted the back of her coat. It clung to his exposed shirtsleeve. He remained still, almost oblivious to the weather. Those dark, reticent eyes tested her once more. They asked not a thousand questions, but one. Can you handle this?

Probably not but she’d die trying. Her thousand questions were too much not to fight for some answers.

“Come.” She dipped under his arm farther into the shelter he’d created for her, held fast to his hand, and tugged him toward the door.

He followed but not because she pulled. She couldn’t move his mass if her life depended upon it. Larkin fumbled in her purse for her keys. On nights like this, she wished she employed a doorman. The cost of maintaining a place she rarely used was enough without it.

“Mr. Beckett?” Douglas stood in the winter mix without his usual coat and umbrella. Rain pelted his face, but he didn’t flinch. His face read a stony cold blank she’d seen only once before. When her father had gotten out of hand with her.

“Yes?” He addressed her driver with what seemed his full attention. Yet his hand slid the key ring from her frozen fingertips, slipped the single key inside the lock, and opened the door. “Get out of the rain.” An easy push at the small of her back had her feet shuffling inside.

Douglas stepped close. Her driver’s head barely cleared Beckett’s shoulder. “I never forget a face. Harm a hair on her head, and mine will be the last you see.”

Larkin’s mouth gaped. Her heart crawled up her throat to peek at the action.

Beckett extended his hand. “You can’t pay a man for that kind of loyalty.”

“No, you can’t.” Douglas shook the hand Beckett extended.

The two men made some sort of chest-beating, gaze-slicing truce and parted. Douglas’s blue gaze found her. He nodded and offered her the sweet face she’d come to know and love.

“Thank you.” She smiled.

He turned and headed to the car.

The stranger, for all intents and purposes, closed her door. The streetlights disappeared, leaving them in total darkness, and her pulse ticked up a notch.

“You should leave some lights on.”

Metal scraped metal. She recognized it as the bolt sliding home. The moisture in her mouth multiplied when it should be drying. She was locked in the dark with a stranger, but all she could remember was the last time she was in the dark with him, and she’d been wrapped in his arms. She’d thought he’d meant her harm when he hadn’t. He didn’t now. Every move he made had her best interest in mind.

Hadn’t he?