That right there. When he said things like that, how could she not melt in a puddle at his feet? How could she not care about him? God knows, Gordon had never given a rat’s ass about anyone but himself. After this declaration, all the times she’d compared the two seemed unfair.

“Thank you. Once we bring her home, I’ll need to stay with her while she recovers—”

Hunter started shaking his head before she even finished her sentence. “Until we know who’s after you and I figure out how to make you safe again, you can’t stay there. It’s too obvious. Whoever is after you will pick you off like a target in a shooting gallery. Do you want your family near that?”

Kata didn’t have misplaced bravado, nor did she want Mamá in danger. Put that like, she shouldn’t have come to the hospital with her mother at all.

“No. You’re right, but what about Mamá’s recovery? Gordon won’t take care of her. She’s this sick because he didn’t care enough about her to see to her welfare to start with, and my sister—”

“Shh.” He pressed a finger to her lips, making her tingle from head to toe. “I admire the fact that you want to take care of your mother, but there are other ways to accomplish it without putting yourself in danger. Trust me to make that happen.”

Jack’s words came back to Kata. She hadn’t trusted Hunter’s watchdog, Tyler. Which Hunter would, in turn, interpret as a lack of trust in him. She’d never looked at it that way, but Jack’s explanation made that logic seem so obvious. Hunter might be dominating and stubborn, but he was also very capable and resourceful. She was exhausted after the past few days, and knowing that she could count on his help was both hard to swallow and pure relief.

“Did you have anything in mind? Gordon won’t allow another man in the house.” So Hunter sending one of his buddies was out of the question.

“Duly noted. Let me make a few phone calls. I won’t do anything to make your mother’s situation more difficult.”

She squeezed his biceps, absently noting that she couldn’t even come close to wrapping her hand around it. He was solid through and through. “Thank you.”

Kata hoped that Hunter would kiss her. He didn’t.

Instead, he stepped back, agitation still pouring off him. With a sigh, she walked into the shadows of the room hanging over the bed and pressed her lips to her mother’s pale cheek, then followed Hunter outside just as the first fingers of dawn were spreading across the sky in hues of orange and gold.

Without a word, he helped her into a black Jeep she’d never seen. He slid into the driver’s seat, pulled out of the parking lot, then immediately reached for his phone. With two phone calls, he had a place for them to crash, courtesy of Jack, and a capable female to nurse her mother back to health, thanks to one of Kimber’s fellow nursing friends who was in between jobs.

Gratitude burned through her, and she felt ashamed that she’d leaned on Ben so much in Hunter’s absence. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Nurses aren’t cheap. How much do I need to pay—”

“I’ll take care of it.” His tone warned her not to say another word on the subject.

She’d offended his masculine dignity. Did he think she’d suggested that he was incapable of doing it himself? Kata winced. Stubborn man ... even if the sentiment was sweet.

Silence prevailed for the rest of the ride. Traffic began to pick up, and he dodged it smoothly, gripping the steering wheel, his shoulders bunched with tension. He flexed his fingers, then wrapped them even tighter on the wheel. Kata peeked at his profile. Sharp, clenched.

That wasn’t a good sign.

Suddenly, Hunter pulled into a parking lot and stopped the Jeep. An office building. What were they doing here? Before she could ask, he threw open the vehicle’s door and jumped out, slamming it behind him.

He marched around the Jeep, glaring at her through the windshield, then opened the passenger door, putting his body between hers and the street. “Let’s go.”

Kata had no illusions. Given Hunter’s agitation, once they got behind closed doors, there would likely be a hard spanking and a thorough fucking in her immediate future. Ignoring her shiver of anticipation, she eased out of the vehicle. She had to talk to him now, before they got too busy.

“I’m sorry about running out on Tyler. And about being on Ben’s lap.”

With a fierce scowl, he stalked across the parking lot, dragging her and her suitcase behind him, heading for the building’s gleaming black door. “We’ll discuss it later.”

“I need to say this now.” She followed him across the blacktop and lifted a hand to the steely solid width of his chest. “Because if I don’t, you’ll have time to stew and get more pissed off and mentally convict me of shit that never happened.”

Hunter grabbed her wrist. His blue eyes, usually filled with laughter or passion, looked like an arctic deep freeze. She’d never seen him close to the edge of his temper, but she imagined this was it. Discreetly, she tried to tug her wrist from his grasp. He held firm.

“Later. After we’re inside and this asshole trying to kill you can’t do an easy drive-by.”

He released her, dismissed her, and focused on the silver pad to the right of the door. After he punched in a code, she heard an audible click. Hunter wrenched the door open. “Get in.”

Kata hesitated. The independent woman in her wanted to fight his command. The logical part of her knew that loitering outside the building wasn’t smart. Somehow, the female in her hated disappointing him even more.

“Yes, Sir,” The words slipped out as she entered the building.

He rewarded her with a caress to her back, and she ached to burrow closer to his touch.

The door shut behind them with a deafening thud before he turned the lock and engaged the security system.

Tinted glass, sleek chrome, and ambient lighting filled the lobby. A couple of leather chairs, an empty desk.

“This is Jack’s official office. He only uses it for client meetings. It’s secure and out of the way. Come with me.” He grabbed her arm.

He led her to another door, swiped a key card in front of a plastic panel, then thrust her through the next open door—and into an apartment of sorts. A small living room decked out with a leather love seat and a long, padded ottoman, a kitchenette with everything modern, a dining room less than half filled by a little bistro table and some giant cross affixed to the wall. Hunter flipped on a soft, golden overhead light, then shoved her straight into a bedroom both stark and lavish.

Cream-colored walls except the one that anchored the wide bed. That was painted a deep, passionate red. Gleaming marble floors, two pedestal nightstands, and a massive headboard that looked positively medieval decorated the space. There wasn’t a single window in the shadowed room.

Hunter shut the door behind him, then turned sharply to face her. “Did you know that Ben has feelings for you?”

Well. Now that they were alone, he wasn’t wasting any time.

“N—not until this morning. He’s never indicated that I meant anything beyond—”

As Hunter tensed, Kata closed her mouth. Best not to remind him just now that she and Ben had shared a bed. Just a guess, but he probably wouldn’t appreciate the recap.

“A casual fuck?” he finished for her, his jealousy roared through the room like an inferno.

Kata tried to play it cool with a shrug. “He never seemed to care that much.”

“C’mon, Kata. He threw you a Vegas birthday party and went to a hell of a lot of trouble and expense to try to make your ménage fantasy come true. You must have guessed. And when you got your mom’s message, he was the first person you turned to, the one you trusted. What am I supposed to make of that? What are your feelings for him?”

“I’m not in love with him, if that’s what you’re asking. And I didn’t want to have sex with him, either. I just knew he’d come if I needed help.”

“Yeah, because he fucking cares. You care for him, too.”

“As a friend. And friends help friends, so yes, I knew he’d come.”

Hunter raised a brow. “Do friends also cuddle up against their friends’ hard-ons?”

She’d already said that she didn’t want Ben. “Damn it, stop twisting my words. You’re pissing me off!”

“You’re pissed? I’ve been prowling jungle shitholes nonstop for the last thirty-six hours, hunting terrorists more elusive than ghosts. We accomplished nothing but exhaustion and dehydration. One of the things that kept me going was knowing that I’d see you again. I’ve been harder than steel, dying to fuck you, since I got on the plane in Venezuela. I came back to find you on your lover’s lap.”

The way he growled, his eyes seething fury, all screamed that he was at the end of his rope. How pissed would she be if she came home from exhausting days away to find a woman on Hunter’s lap? Enraged . . . and beyond hurt. Maybe they both needed to count to ten.

She sighed. “I tried to tell you earlier, I don’t even remember falling asleep. And you knew from the start that Ben and I are hardly strangers. But, I swear, we’re not lovers anymore. I’ve been dodging his advances since Vegas. I don’t want him anymore.”

“Then why did he try to get territorial about you with me?”

“I really have no idea.”

Hunter pressed his lips into a grim line. “That doesn’t solve my real problem: You trusted Ben before you trusted me.”

Kata recoiled at the hurt in his voice. “You weren’t here for me to trust. I know you had to leave, and I don’t blame you, but my mother needed me. I barely knew Tyler. If he refused to let me help Mamá, I had no recourse, and I knew it. Why would I ask the guy locking me up on your behalf to let me go?”

“Tyler was there to protect you. If you needed help, you should have told him, not sneaked behind my back.”

“I’ve had, what? All of four days to reconcile myself to our marriage—while being shot at, grappling with your dominant expectations, and as my mother has been at death’s door. Excuse me if I don’t adjust my thinking fast enough for you.”

“That pretty little mouth is going to get you in deeper trouble, honey. You should have trusted that I would see to your needs.”

“Just like you should be trusting that falling asleep on Ben’s lap means absolutely nothing to me?”

Hunter swiped a hard hand at the back of his neck and stared at the ceiling, clearly willing patience. Then he exhaled and stared at her with blue ice chip eyes. “Strip.”

Her heart stuttered. Here? Now?

“Are you going to spank me?” Kata remembered the way he’d heated up her backside, then commanded her body to the ultimate pleasure at his brother’s condo. The thought that he might do it again stirred up a confounding, alluring mixture of fear and anticipation.

He didn’t answer. His glare silently repeated his demand, promising more punishment if she didn’t comply.

She and Hunter had already played this game once, and she’d wound up naked and at his mercy. Better to admit that she enjoyed being naked for him and save her strength for the battles yet to come.

With a bravado she didn’t feel, she kicked off her shoes, dropped her purse, doffed her shirt, shucked out of her capri pants, unhooked her bra, then shimmied out of her panties. The instant she was bare, a terrible sense of vulnerability, of being naked down to her soul, crashed through Kata.

At the sight of her, Hunter’s eyes flashed with heat. He fisted his hands at his sides but made no move to take her over his knee. Maybe there was no erotic spanking in her future. The possibility filled her with a disappointment that made absolutely no sense . . . but sat like a boulder in her belly.

“Now what?”

Hunter stared, remained silent, almost dissecting her with his gaze.

She sucked up her fear and thrust her hands on her hips. “If you’re going to blame me for shit I didn’t do and sulk, screw this. I’m going back to my mom.” She bent to pick up her clothes.

Hunter stepped on the garments and blocked the exit, his lean, tightly muscled body squarely in her path. “You aren’t leaving.” His face seethed with fury . . . and unmistakable lust. In that low, authoritative voice that made her shivery and hot, he ordered, “On your knees. Bow your head.”

Kata’s womb cramped at his command. She froze. Her instinct screamed at her to leave. Her logic told her that trying would only be stupid and futile. Might as well get this over with.

Hunter pressed his lips together in an angry line as he waited wordlessly in the lengthening silence. Slowly, she dropped to one knee, then the other, wincing when she fell too hard on the tile. But she wasn’t going to show him any weakness. And damn it, she wasn’t going to bow her head in repentance when she’d done nothing wrong.