He was big, over six feet. Long, muscled legs in worn jeans. Motorcycle boots. A gray T-shirt and a worn black leather jacket that fit him like a glove. Dark hair cut neatly, a little shorter at the sides and longer on top. Dark, trim beard. High cheekbones, gray eyes with dark lashes. He looked at me from those eyes as he leaned a little over the desk and held his hand out. “Hey,” he said. “I’m Jace.”

He was good-looking, sure, but not the kind of guy who could be a model. He was too rough for that. He looked like a thug, like a car thief, a con. He wasn’t bulky like a football player, but seeing him head-on, my eyes trying not to crawl the flat stomach above his silver belt buckle, I couldn’t help but notice he was absolutely one hundred percent muscle, like a man who could knock you over with one blow.

But it was his eyes that caught me. They were calm, intelligent, deep with thought. A little sad, maybe. Eyes that had seen things. Eyes that were, right now, seeing me.

I cleared my throat and said, “Hi. I’m Tara. I’m, er, John’s replacement.”

“They told me.” He shook my hand. He wore three silver rings, one on his fourth finger, one on his middle, and a thin silver circlet on his thumb. I felt them brush my skin before he pulled away,

He sat in the chair across from me, slouched back just a little the way big guys do. I looked at the line of his thigh, the line of his shoulders in the jacket. I looked at his mouth, framed by the short beard. Holy hell. I was having a visceral reaction to this man, and it had to stop now.

“I think you know,” I said, resisting the urge to fidget with the papers and pens on my desk, “that this is a court-mandated follow-up visit. To discuss how you’ve been doing since your release.”

“Yeah,” Jace Riggs said. “I know.”

“We can talk about your life since you left the halfway house,” I said. “How has it been, Jace? How do you feel you’re adjusting?”

He looked at me for a long moment. I wondered what he saw. A nice enough looking woman, I supposed. I was twenty-seven, and I’d twisted my brown hair at the back of my neck. I dressed carefully for this job—too formal, and my clients saw me as unfriendly, too casual and they didn’t take me seriously. I compromised today with dark jeans, ankle boots, and a silk shell top with a casual blazer over it. The silk shell was feminine and would be revealing on most women, but my breasts were so small I could wear it without them spilling out.

So that was my look: competent counselor with small boobs. Some of the men I worked with tried to check them out, as if they could inflate them by staring. Jace Riggs didn’t seem to notice.

I couldn’t read his expression, but he tilted his head, just a tiny fraction, as if he was waiting for me to say something.

I was quiet. One of the first rules of counseling is that you can let quiet happen. The counselor should never talk just to fill the void. Filling the void is the client’s role, not yours.

Still, Jace looked almost expectant. Then he said, “I’m adjusting fine, I guess.”

“Are you employed?” I asked.

He frowned, a graceful turn of his mouth as he watched me. “Isn’t that in your file?”

“No. Nothing since your last parole officer report, in the halfway house in Detroit, is here in your file.” I tried giving him a friendly smile. “That’s why we’re here to talk.”

“Hmm.” He lifted a hand and rubbed his index finger along his lower lip. He had remarkable hands, large and full of masculine grace, the fingers long and capable. His rings were very male and not showy, silver bands stamped with patterns, the narrow circle on his thumb. The skin at the base of his thumb had a smear of black on it—motor oil.

“Is something wrong?” I asked him, to cover the fact that I was slowly getting turned on by looking at his hand.

He stopped rubbing his lip. “To be honest, I’m trying to figure out what you want me to say.”

That surprised me, and I raised my gaze to his face. “I want you to say the truth.”

Amusement rippled across his eyes. They were like a calm ocean, those eyes, gray and beautiful yet deeply alive. And his lashes were ridiculous. Good god, I needed to get a grip.

He waited another moment—this was one client who was fine with letting the quiet happen—as if he thought I might say something more, and then he said, “I’m working at my family’s auto body shop.”

The one his father had run, that had stolen cars moving through it. “I see,” I said.

“You think I’m still dealing in stolen cars,” Jace said, reading my mind. “I’m not. My brother Luke and I have taken over the shop with Dad in prison. We reopened it and we’re running it our own way. The legal way. Where we make money by actually fixing cars.”

“Do you get along with your brother?” I asked.

Jace laughed softly, and I stilled in fascination at the sound. The sons are all trouble, John had said. “Luke and I haven’t killed each other,” he said. “I suppose you can call that getting along.”

“So you fight?”

“We bloodied each other’s noses plenty as kids,” Jace said. “We keep it more civil now.”

“I see. There’s some tension, then.”

He tilted his chin again, that tiny movement I only saw because I was watching him so closely. “You’re asking because you think I have family issues that affect my patterns and my behavior.”

I was doing that. Exactly that. So of course I said, “I’m not doing anything. I’m only asking how you’re doing.”

“Do you get along with your siblings?” he asked me.

I opened my mouth, and so help me God, the words almost came out: I’m an only child, and I haven’t seen my parents in months. That was how easily he could trap me. I backtracked and gave the right answer instead. “We aren’t here to discuss me. However, in your case it’s quite possible that your father instilled behavior in you from an early age that makes you—”

“I think you’re an only child,” he said.

Jesus, was he psychic or just uncannily observant? How could he even know? I ran my fingers along the edges of the file on my desk. “Mr. Riggs—”

“I’m Mr. Riggs now.” Amused.

“Jace.” I emphasized the word to show I wasn’t afraid of him. “What you’re doing may seem clever to you, but in fact it’s a very common tactic. I’ve seen it many times before.”

“What tactic?” he said. “I find you interesting.”

Another hit. It was like he was shooting arrows from the other side of my desk, sending them straight through my armor. Because people found me nice. They found me competent. A few of them even found me attractive. But the fact was, no one found me interesting. No one except Jace Riggs. If he was telling the truth, that was.

“The tactic,” I said clearly, “is deflection. Sending the questions back in my direction. It’s a defense mechanism, Jace. Because you don’t want to talk about yourself. Because it’s too painful.”

“It isn’t painful to talk about me,” he said, annoyance flaring in his voice and his expression. I’d scored my own hit. “It’s fucking boring to talk about me. I fix cars, I come to bullshit appointments like this, I do whatever my PO tells me to do. That’s all I do. I don’t drink, I don’t fuck, I don’t snort coke up my nose, and I don’t have father issues. Whatever little boxes you need to check in that file, you can’t check a single one.”

I glared at him. I was torn between annoyance—John and I had almost literally talked about which boxes to check in the file before Jace came to this appointment—and a sort of weird fascination, mixed with lurid curiosity at the words I don’t fuck. What did that mean? He was celibate for some reason? Heartbreak, or sexual dysfunction, or something else? Was he into men? Please, God, let him not be into men. Though that would be admittedly hot. But still.

“Okay then,” I said, because I’m a terrible person and the curiosity about his sex life won. It totally fucking won. “Let’s backtrack. You mentioned your personal life. Where are you living now that you’re in Westlake?”

Jace rolled his eyes. “I’m living in the guest house at the family place while my brother and his girlfriend live in the main house. Still not interesting, doc.”

“I’m not a doctor,” I corrected him. “I’m licensed to practice, but I don’t have a medical license. I can’t prescribe.”

“I told you, I’m not doing drugs. I’m not here looking for Lorazepam or Oxy.”

How had this conversation gone so far off the rails? “It sounds like you have a stable living situation,” I said, trying to act like the counselor I was supposed to be. “How about your social situation? You’ve lived in Westlake all your life. Do you have a circle of friends for support?”

His gray eyes went a little hard at that. “I don’t have friends,” he said. “My brothers and I have never had friends. Everyone in Westlake has always thought we’re scum, and they still think it.”

“Surely that’s an exaggeration,” I said, thinking of John saying the sons are all trouble, like he knew perfectly well. “People aren’t as judgmental as you think.”

“Yes, they are,” Jace countered. “Though we never gave anyone very many reasons to befriend us. Dex beat up half the boys in Westlake, Luke beat up the other half, and Ryan screwed all the girls.”

I didn’t know what to make of that, but we weren’t talking about his brothers. “And you?” I asked him. “What did you do?”

“You mean, did I do the beating or the screwing?” Jace shrugged. “It didn’t matter what I did. I got the consequences anyway. I’m a Riggs. The truth isn’t interesting to anyone when you’re a Riggs.”

“The truth interests me,” I said. “I told you that.”

“Fine. What truth do you want? Tell me so I can give it to you and we can get this over with.”

I put my hands palm-down on the desk. “I am trying,” I said slowly so I wouldn’t scream, “to do my job here. It would help if you were even a little bit cooperative.”

He just looked at me, with those ocean-gray eyes. Not promising a yes. Not promising a no. Just waiting for me to come at him.

“Okay,” I said, fighting for control of the conversation, like it seemed I had since he walked in the room. “You’re not close with your brothers. Your father is obviously not a source of support. You don’t have friends. What about romantic relationships? Is there someone in your life?”

It took him a second. His eyes stayed flat and hard at first, and then the penny dropped. His chin tilted up. “Oh, I get it,” he said. “That’s what you’re really asking. You want to know if I’m single.”

That was when I did the most unprofessional thing of my career. I jerked my chair back, stood up, and grabbed his file, slamming it on the cabinet behind me.

“That’s it,” I said. “This session is over.”