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That’s when it had happened It was just as if the man had put a spell on her The very instant her eyes had one blank All she’d been aware of was the strangest sensation—an electric jolt that had hit her right sh her whole system
The next thing she’d known, the pasta was lying at her feet with little bits of shattered glass sparkling through it And that had been just the beginning of the disaster When she’d knelt to clean up the lass in her hand Before she could even react, Cole had lifted her up, settled her on a counter and begun to administer first aid
If si him hold her hand had nearly destroyed it Close up, the man’s effect on her had increased to the point that she’d been tempted to kiss him—a man she hadn’t even met!
Even now, she could recall that moment when his face had been so close to hers that she could see the color of his eyes, a fascinating reen And she remembered exactly how his breath had felt on her lips, how that whisper of heat had sent flashes of fire along her nerve endings And she also vividly rerown inside of her All she would have had to do was lean a little bit forward and she could have tasted him The desire to do that had bordered on desperation
And it still did Mentally, she plunged a second pin into the rag doll’s other arm Then she forced herself to recheck the French doors in the living room of the suite Each tith of her desire to kiss the rown into an obsession And she couldn’t seeet away from him
Every time she did some field work, her brothers invariably sent Cole to check on her The only reason he wasn’t here tonight was because Evan Atwell had assured her brothers that he was confident she could handle the Monet babysitting job by herself
And that was another thing that she could blame Cole for He’d ruined her romantic life Evan was such a nice man, and thanks to Cole she’d had to break off her relationship with him She and Evan had dated for almost three months, but she couldn’t in all conscience continue to see him when she felt the way she did about Cole Even if she was deters
Mentally, she considered a spot for a third pin and decided on a leg and stabbed it in
Cole Buchanan was the last man on earth she should be attracted to They were literally as different as night and day Plus, he just happened to be her biggest nightmare coe and her brothers had hired hiht after they’d hired her She’d moved to San Francisco determined to prove to her newly discovered family that she could fit in and the person she had to co a super hero
He was an ex–CIA agent, and she was an ex–Philadelphia debutante He was good with guns; her hand shook whenever she picked one up Oh, she was great at the shooting range, but she didn’t think she would ever have the nerve to actually point her weapon at a real person Cole was trained in hand-to-hand combat; she was enrolled in a karate class The list went on and on
It simply wasn’t fair Not only had he ruined her rooal of beco a partner in her brothers’ firm How could they possibly consider her for the position when they could have him?
But in spite of the fact that she was about to stick another pin in hiht now, she’d want to kiss him
The sudden ringing of her cell phone had her jued to catch it before it hit the floor Her heart sank when she saas Luke, her oldest brother
“Is everything okay?” he asked
“Everything’s fine” Except she washer mind on the Monet Just to make sure, she ran back into the bedroo was still there on its easel
“You sure you can handle this alone?” he asked
She stiffened “Evan thought that I could”
“Yeah, I know” This coh Pepper knew the tone of that sigh She’d heard it often enough It was the sarandmother had made whenever she’d failed to live up to the responsibility of being a Pendleton