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Cleo had assured Jessie that he wouldn’t

Yet now that he was standing in front of her, she understood that deep down, she’d known this was all on borrowed time This small and cozy little life she’d built for herself in these past feeeks, her azine Street pretending she fit into the life all around her, her afternoons and evenings spent taking long, brooding walks around the hectic, frantic, beating heart of this old, battered survivor of a city while she told herself she belonged here

Deep down, she’d been waiting for him, and she really didn’t want to face what that meant

And he was even better than she rely male, so ferocious, drenched in his absolute authority and that air of coainst the sweet Southern night was almost too much to take in He was dressed in dark trousers and one of those soft-as-a-caress shirts of his that le muscle on his solid, lean chest, and he should have looked like one uishable from the rest

But this was Khaled He didn’t blend His gray gaze was too direct, too co Even the way he stood before her was a syrace and that carnal menace, like the ruler he ell used to deference and respect And obedience, that little voice inside of her reminded her His dark brows rose as he studied her, as if he expected all of that from her, too Now

He was in for a surprise, then

“It’s been a long six weeks,” Cleo said, and she e in her voice

“It certainly has”

She ignored that, the silken ferocity of it, the hint of his harsh teet in touch with er”

“Your anger? Did someone leave you under cover of dark?”

If she hadn’t been looking right at hiht have believed that soft, polite tone of his But she could see the flash of tehtened

She told herself she didn’t care, because she shouldn’t