Marcus Marinos was so screwed. He barely succeeded in swallowing back the groan that rose up within him when she turned around and finally, finally gave him her eyes. He’d been aching for those eyes since the moment he’d slammed into that freezing cold basement and seen the light slanting perfectly across her face.

He’d wanted her to give him those eyes when she’d sat so still in the bathroom while he’d washed her. He’d desperately wanted those eyes when he’d fed her slice after slice of that orange. He’d wanted those eyes, badly, when she’d started humming in the car, the delicate length of her thigh kissing at his every time the sway of the truck jostled her. 

He hadn’t been sure what color they were and now that he knew—the clear blue of clean Arctic ice—he wished he didn’t know. The second her eyes melted into his, he knew that her gaze was going to be the last thing he thought of when he attempted to sleep tonight.

She was already consuming his thoughts professionally. And now he was worried that those eyes had just catapulted him into personal territory. A very dangerous place during a mission like this. He couldn’t afford to have his attention split. The life of the woman in front of him, finally giving him those eyes, depended on his ability to keep her safe from harm at any and every cost.

The thought hardened something inside of him and it must have shown on his face because suddenly she was dropping her eyes from his and turning back around to look out at the view. Marcus had to resist taking a step toward her. The second he lost her gaze he wanted it back. He felt the loss of it like the warmest blanket being tossed off of him on the coldest winter morning.

“It’s beautiful here,” she spoke and like usual, her gorgeous voice was shaking as she addressed him. It made him want to place a firm hand on her shoulder, to calm her. But of course, he stayed across the room and simply let his eyes rest on the graceful line of her back.

“Yeah.” He paused. “The bedrooms are upstairs.”

“Okay.” She turned obediently, her eyes on the floor like usual, and walked past him toward the stairs in the middle of the room.

He hadn’t meant to tell her to go up there, but the woman was very sensitive. She’d been trying to shrink away and hide pretty much from the moment he’d met her. He was totally fine with giving her the space to lick her wounds, but something told him that the second she disappeared into one of those rooms, he wasn’t going to see her again. That shouldn’t bother him. In fact, it was ideal in terms of keeping an eye on her.

She was moving past him, more than an arm’s length away, when he spoke again. His voice made her stop in her tracks, stare at her feet. “You can take any room you want, just not the one on the corner. That one has too many points of entry from the balcony to be safe.”

She nodded to show that she was listening and was gone, moving faster up the stairs than he’d thought possible for a woman so slight.

As soon as she was out of sight, the thin, tight line of tension that held between them finally gave way. Marcus let out a long breath as he walked toward the big sectional couch that looked out toward the ocean. He was fucking this up.

He flopped down onto the couch and pulled the black backpack toward him. The beginning of this job had been perfect, flawless. Well, except for the fact that she’d been abducted en route to him. Marcus had barely accepted the job when he’d gotten the call that he had to go rescue her. He’d been staring at her case file for the first time when the specs of the mission changed. It had gone from keep this girl out of trouble to get this girl out of trouble.

He thought of how he’d snuck up on the warehouse, lit only by a few dim streetlights in the distance. His handler at the bureau had led him there perfectly, given him every bit of information that CCTV had given her. He knew that there were ten men holding her in that building. He knew that she was being held somewhere in the southwest section of the building. He knew that the two bozos guarding the north door were hired muscle, bruisers with virtually no combat training. He’d dispatched the two of them easily, the element of surprise being pretty much the only thing he’d needed in that regard.

Things had gotten stickier when he’d gotten inside because he’d wanted to remain quiet and covert. There were at least two men on the inside that he didn’t want to run into on his own. His handler, on the bud in his ear, had warned him that there was intelligence that two of the men on the inside were former Marines. Yeah. Marcus was good. But running into two former Marines who wanted him and his target dead while he was alone was not on his bucket list.

Fortunately the building had been symmetrical and a quick perusal of the halls on the north side had told him what he was in for on the south side. He’d found the room where the two Marines had sat at a table across from one another arguing over whether or not to kill the girl Marcus was charged with collecting.

“She’ll be worth more if we can use her to lure him out. He’ll come for her, no doubt,” said the darker one who’d leaned menacingly over the table they both sat at.

“Look,” the stockier, light-haired one had said. “We don’t know what exactly he told this woman. She could have every piece of information the feds would need to dismantle this operation piece by piece. The only thing we know is that her fucking brother is a snitch and that he snitched right into her little ear. This bitch needs to get familiar with the bottom of the ocean quick!”

The other rolled his eyes and leaned back. “You’re making my point for me. We don’t know what exactly she knows. And until we can get that out of her, we keep her alive. She’s the key to figuring out exactly what her fuckhead brother knows and exactly where he is. We’re not gonna last much longer with him in the wind. And if we merc his sister, you can bet that he’s never coming in. A sneaky bastard like that will disappear into thin air. And pretty soon, this entire operation will as well.”

Marcus, though the crime solver in his heart was itching to know exactly what they were talking about, knew it was time to go. It was enough to know that his target was alive somewhere in the building and the two most dangerous people he could come across were otherwise occupied in a lover’s spat.

He’d melted back down a hall, and knowing he’d have to be more than quiet so as not to alert the two Marines he’d just left behind, he crept quietly. He knew which doorway she was behind by the three men who guarded it.

By that math, he knew there were at least three other men, unaccounted for, somewhere in the warehouse. He assumed they were probably guarding other entrances, and that they were probably as burly and unskilled as the first two men he’d incapacitated. The three men in front of him, however, looked like they knew how to handle themselves a bit better though.

So it was with particular gusto that Marcus incapacitated the first. Quietly, efficiently, and inexorably, he put the man in a sleeper hold, holding him down just long enough to inject a paralyzing agent into his neck. He was down, almost gracefully and without drawing any particular attention.

The second man put up more of a fight, knocking Marcus back into the wall and alerting the third man to what was going down.

There was no hesitating. Marcus smashed the second man’s head into the ground, not hard enough to kill, although that was always a possibility at moments like this. It wasn’t like the movies where the good guys know exactly how to incapacitate without causing true bodily harm. There was only so far that training could bring you, and Marcus hoped that the man whose forehead was weeping blood would be alright on the other side of it all.

But he didn’t have much time to worry about it as he deftly swung to one side, avoiding the third man’s neat, swinging punch. He didn’t, however, avoid the lurching kick that connected with his ribs. Marcus grunted into the pain, used his momentum and sprang at the third man. The paralyzing agent was already poised between his fingers and the third man went down like a bag of flour. There was no avoiding the heavy, thumping fall. He lay, inert, but mostly aware, as Marcus knew he would be for hours, with his eyes open and his back slumped against the wall. Marcus took the man and dragged him by his feet to lay flat on the ground, knowing there was less of a chance that the man’s airways would crimp in that position.

He didn’t waste any more time before he banged his way into the room where the woman was being held. This Iris Stanton.

He wasn’t ready for how small she would look in that chair. Her delicate little heart-shaped face swung to one side as if to ward off a blow and Marcus felt raw rage explode in his chest as he realized that one of these piece of shit assholes had knocked her in the eye. A slice of light bracketed across her face, and Marcus felt a deep surge of protection swell inside him.

This wasn’t supposed to be how it went. When Marcus had accepted this job of protecting her, she was supposed to be delivered to him by the bureau, in one piece and unharmed. From there, he would move along to the prearranged safe house and she’d be offered all the protections the bureau had to offer. Including personal attention from Marcus himself. He hadn’t been crazy about the idea of bodyguard duty. As a trained and experienced federal agent, it had offended his sensibilities. But like his handler had repeated over and over, it was better than riding a desk. Which was his only other option after what had happened in January. He’d taken the requisite time off, gone to therapy. And now he was ready to get back into it.

He’d accepted the job. But she’d been abducted en route and there’d been no time to hatch any other plan than Marcus sneaking in and getting her back, disappearing with her. So there he was, cracking the back off a wooden chair and dragging this fragile little blonde out of a warehouse, disappearing with her.

Once it became clear to him that one of those four stooges that had escorted her to Maryland had been a rat of some kind, Marcus knew that he’d had to go dark. His handler was the only person at the bureau that he’d trusted unequivocally. And he wasn’t about to risk this woman’s life by doing anything stupid.

So the motel it was. And that’s when things had gone off the rails. She was just so delicate. Shivering and scared and completely in shock over everything that had happened. Marcus didn’t blame her. But he was partly shocked that she’d acquiesced to him so easily.              

She’d let him feed her, for god sakes.

Marcus shifted on the sectional sofa and frowned out at the ocean as he listened to her scraping around upstairs.

He hated to admit that he’d liked that. Her soft little mouth closing around the fruit so close to his fingers. She was so quiet, so obedient. It had brought a swell of confusing emotions inside him. He’d wanted her to listen to everything he said, but he also wanted her to fight back. He wanted her trust but he also wanted to know that she had fight within her.

It had pleased him to no end when she’d asked him to prove who he was. She was starting to reclaim a little autonomy. And he was both grateful for it and resentful at the same time.

This was insane. He scraped a hand over his eyes and then his five o’clock shadow. He needed to focus on this like he would any other job.

It didn’t matter that she was so pretty. Really fucking pretty.

It was only getting under his skin because of this dumbass celibacy thing he’d been doing for the last year. He hadn’t had a woman in way too long. That’s why this one was calling to him so hard. Any man in such tight quarters with a woman that pretty would be tempted.

Besides, she was the opposite of what he was looking for. Marcus needed a sturdy woman. A woman who could handle him. Who could handle the tougher sides of a rough man and his desires. That woman upstairs, Iris, she looked like a hard glare could crumple her. He thought of the delicate set of her slight features in her heart-shaped face. He thought of the wispy blonde of her long hair. Yeah, she couldn’t handle Marcus.

And then he thought of the electric shock of her blue eyes. The striking, tart heat within them. Those were eyes that saw—that really saw. As much as he’d craved them, he hadn’t been ready for what was in them. There was knowledge and intensity in them that belied the fragile set of the rest of her.

Why did that drive him a little crazy?

Marcus refocused his attention on the backpack in front of him. This was work. This was a job. This required his ultimate focus and attention. Her life and safety deserved his concentration. He didn’t need to be perseverating over this. She was off limits. And she needed him, professionally. That was all there was to it.

He unzipped the bag and saw that his handler had provided a good amount of weaponry, lots of survival supplies, and a healthy first aid kit, amongst other things.

Marcus snapped open the first aid kit and was glad to find a little tube of Arnica cream. She needed it for that shiner.

He carefully tucked the bag into a closet that he locked with a key he slid into his pocket, the tube of Arnica in one hand.

Marcus took the stairs two at time and then allowed himself one, inward groan when he saw the single closed door on the hall. She just had to choose that room. The one bed that would torture him a little to know that she was in it.

Shaking off the unprofessional feeling, he strode to the door and knocked resolutely. She opened it a second later and Marcus’s chest tightened when her eyes found his for just a second before they dropped. It was almost like she was forcing herself to look him in the eye but lost her gumption after a second. She’d unbraided her hair and it hung loosely around her shoulders, some of it fell over her face and covered her bruise.

“For the discoloration,” Marcus said and held up the tube of Arnica. She stared at it. “It’ll help, I swear,” he insisted before pressing the medicine into her hand.

He ruthlessly ignored the rumpled covers of the bed she’d obviously just been sitting on. It wouldn’t do him any good to imagine that. Instead, he focused his eyes on the dresser behind her. “Do you mind if I grab a few things out of the dresser?”

She stepped aside, her brow furrowing as she watched him grab a few sets of the clothes that he kept there for when he visited Eli in the second home.

“Oh my god,” she gasped, her hands over her mouth and her eyes wide as if she’d committed some major faux pas. “Is this usually your room?”             

He waved his hand in the air. “Don’t worry about it.”

“No! Really, I’ll choose another one. I’ll move.”

“Iris,” he said, crossing back over to her and laying a hand on her shoulder. She flinched and he immediately dropped his hand, regretting every part of it. “Stay here. It’s totally fine.” He walked to the door and turned back. “If you want some clean clothes, Tia, Eli’s fiancée, keeps some in the dresser in the big room. They might be a little big on you. But they’re clean.” He kept pausing. “I’m going to make some food from what they keep in the cabinets. I’m sure you’re as hungry as I am.”

She just stared after him, her eyes pinned somewhere on his chest. And when she still didn’t speak, Marcus just closed the door after him and went to change his clothes in Jay’s room.

He was just finishing up making the pasta and sauce he’d found in the cabinet when he heard her light footsteps on the stairs. Good. He’d thought he’d have to bring her food up to her. And eating her food alone in her room wasn’t a precedent he wanted to set.

He scooped some pasta into a bowl for her and then himself and turned, setting them on the dining table that overlooked the ocean just the same as the living room did. His eyes ran over her and he pursed his lips in frustration when he saw how good she looked in an oversized dark blue sweater and Tia’s jeans rolled at the ankle.

She was cute. That was all there was to it and he was just going to have to get used to it already.

“Thank you,” she whispered as she gathered the bowl toward her and scooped a single penne on her fork. She chewed and swallowed slowly, with great care.

“How are you eating like that?” he asked, shoveling food into his mouth. “It’s four in the afternoon and you haven’t eaten since last night.”

She shrugged, color rising in her cheeks. “I’ve always eaten slowly. It makes the food last longer.”

He squinted at her. “There’s plenty of food in the cabinet. We can always make more.”

Her color deepened as she shook her head. She was embarrassed and he didn’t understand why. It frustrated him. She stared at her food and out the window at the ocean. Not at him. It drove him crazy. He wanted her eyes.

He was most of the way through her bowl of food when she spoke again. “Why is this happening, Marcus?”

He got a funny little jolt in his belly when she said his name. He ignored it. “Why is what happening?”

She looked up at him, just for a split second, a flash of thirst-quenching blue, before she took it away, looking out the window again. “Why did those agents come and collect me in the first place? What is all this about? Who were those men who captured me? Why me?”

Marcus blinked at her. He remembered the way she’d looked so confused when he brought up the name Kutros in the truck. Could she really be an innocent in all this? “You really don’t know?”

Her brow furrowed as she pushed her food around. “I- I can guess that it probably has something to do with my brother.” She looked up at him again, a flash of blue. “He’s always getting into trouble. And getting me into trouble with him.”

Marcus frowned. When all this was over, he was going to have a word with this brother of hers.

“To be honest, I don’t know a lot. All I know is that I’ve been assigned to protect you by my handler. Apparently you have or know something that’s valuable to the FBI.”

She worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “And to those men in masks. You—you said they were part of the Kutros family?”

Marcus nodded, cocking his head to one side, studying her while he chewed.

“The name sounds familiar to me. But I can’t remember why.” She glanced in his direction.

“Alright,” he said, swallowing his bite and frowning at the amount of food still left in her bowl. “The only thing that you and I have to worry about is keeping you safe right now. We don’t have to solve any mysteries, okay?” He didn’t bother telling her that he was going to be working double time to figure this shit out so that she was out of the line of fire on both sides.

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Eat.”

The word was out of his mouth and making her flinch before he could even think to sensor it. He almost winced at her reaction to the word. She’d turned her face away from him the same way that she had when he’d burst into the room where she’d been tied to the chair. As if to ward off a blow.

He cleared his throat as she sat there, frozen. “Please,” he added.

She glanced up at him, a flash of blue. “I am. Eating.”

“Alright. I’m just saying, you haven’t had enough to eat over the last two days. And you’re picking at your food like a bird.”

She stared down at the bowl of pasta for a second before clearing her throat and glancing back up at him quickly. “No. I’m eating my food like a human woman who doesn’t care to look like a wild animal while I eat.”

She raised an eyebrow at his overloaded fork and Marcus couldn’t help but grin. Her defiant answer had given him the same topsy-turvy feeling as when she’d asked for his identification. Half of him wanted her to just do what he thought was best for her and the other half was thrilled that she was talking back to him. He liked to see her sticking up for herself, however fragile it might be.

They clashed eyes for one second and his smile had the corners of her mouth perking up for just a brief breath. “Fair enough,” he grumbled, jamming the food in his mouth.

She went back to picking at her food and Marcus wondered if she was still in shock over what had happened or if she was always this quiet. He didn’t mind silent time at all, he was naturally inclined to it, but growing up with his two best friends, Jay and Eli, there hadn’t been much quiet time amongst the three of them. There was always something to laugh about, fight about, dissect in great detail.

“Are there rules about what I can and can’t do here?” she asked quietly, eyes still on her food.

“If you want to do something, just tell me first and I’ll make sure it’s safe for you to do. But I’d rather you didn’t leave the property.”

She nodded and looked down toward the water. “And the beach? Swimming?”

Marcus hesitated, ruthlessly ripped the image of her in a bathing suit out of his brain. “Just tell me and I’ll go with you.”

She nodded silently.

Marcus cleared his throat and continued on. “And as for the house, there’s nothing that’s off limits. You can use anything. The TV, the kitchen. There’s a little workout room in the basement.”

Iris laughed and then immediately sobered when she saw his face. “Oh, you’re serious? Yeah. I don’t work out.” She lifted a delicate arm and poked at her bicep as if to prove her point.

Marcus furrowed his brow. “Well, maybe we’ll work on that.”

She said nothing.

“There’s other stuff to do in the house too,” he continued. “Puzzles and board games and a bunch of art supplies. Do you paint or draw or anything?”

She shook her head.

Marcus thought about the lovely timbre in her voice as she hummed in the car. “There’s a piano in the other room and—”

“Really?! And I can use it?” She sat straight up as she spoke at a normal volume for pretty much the first time. Her light blue eyes were bright and staring straight into his.

Marcus cleared his throat and gathered his wits. “Yeah, of course. I think there might be a guitar around here somewhere.”

“Ah!” Iris dropped her fork and gathered her hair back into a ponytail as she rose from the table, pushing her chair back.

“You haven’t finished eating,” Marcus said as he watched her nearly bubble over with excitement.

“Yeah,” she waved her hand at it. “I like cold food better anyways. I’m gonna go fiddle around on the piano for a minute. Leave the dishes for me. I’ll do them in a bit.”

And then she was gone and Marcus stared after her. He’d wanted her to light up like that since he’d seen her in the basement. But now that she had, he was worried that he could never un-see it.