2

Going to do it myself.

But that thought made me want to curl up under my bed and never come out. Giving the gift to Elle was gonna be humiliating enough. Marching up to Uri’s massive front door and demanding the blue-eyed titan who lives there to, ahem, hand me back over my giant purple alien dildo, please?

That’s asking for death by embarrassment.

What other choice did I have, though? I tried telling myself that Uri or his housekeeper would just throw it out. That I could just order a replacement and forget all about this embarrassing little oopsie-daisy. But none of that calmed me.

The most painful part was that I could still see it sitting on his front stoop. Right freaking there. That was when my worst idea came to life. If I waited for nightfall, maybe I could sneak over the fence and steal it back without anyone being the wiser…

Somehow, of all my plans, that was the one that won out.

I told myself I’d be fast. In and out like a ninja. I even changed into all black clothes so I didn’t raise any eyebrows.

“It’s all gonna be fine,” I whispered to myself just before I stepped out into my backyard. “In and out like a ninja. In and out like a ninja.”

If Ziva could’ve seen me then, she’d have busted her gut laughing. I glanced over at her picture sitting on the mantel. A photo of the two of us at high school graduation. The Walsh twins, both of us in matching mauve dresses with matching seventeen-year-old smiles.

Mine hasn’t changed much over the years.

But hers is frozen like that forever.

I ripped my gaze away. I needed to focus. Eye of the tiger time.

At first, everything went well. I hopped the fence like I was on American Ninja Warrior: Sex Toy Exfiltration Edition.

Darted up to Uri’s stoop.

Picked up my package and high-tailed it back to the fence, tossed it over into my backyard, started the climb myself…

Then: disaster struck.

The nail struck, more specifically. It sliced open my thigh and pinned me in place. Garfield came out to say hello.

And now, the man of the hour is here to ask me one very reasonable question.

“What the hell are you doing on my property?”

URI

There’s a half-naked girl hanging from my fence.

I pause a few feet away from her and stop to survey the scene. She’s dangling helplessly. One hand on the top of the boards, so close to freedom and yet so very fucking far away. There’s some kind of orange cartoon cat printed on her ass. The tattered material of her leggings flaps in the wind.

She doesn’t look like any assassin who’s ever tried to kill me before.

But there’s a first time for everything, so I keep my distance for now.

“What the hell are you doing on my property?” I snarl.

She flops where she’s hanging, enough for the curtain of hair to flow back from her face. I vaguely recognize her as the girl who lives next door, in that little shack the city zoning board refused to let me bulldoze.

“Most people would offer a girl some help down,” she gasps. She kicks again and sucks in a sharp wince.

My eyes track downward to see blood on her skin. There’s a loose nail responsible for cutting her open. She needs medical care and a tetanus shot.

But she chose the wrong property to trespass on if she wants a Good fucking Samaritan.

“That’s not an answer to my question.”

“I’m—” She coughs and winces again. “Can’t breathe…”

My God. If she is in fact one of Boris Sobakin’s hired killers, like I first suspected she was, then she’s his most pathetic attempt yet.

It’d be easy to leave her here. My security will come to do what they’ve been trained to do with thieves and would-be criminals. She’d disappear forever. Hell, I might be able to finally raze her house to the ground.

But something stops me. Fuck if I know what that something is. Pity, maybe.

Or maybe it’s the curve of her leg peeking off from beneath the ruined leggings. Maybe it’s how depressing I find her washed-too-many-times, never-been-seen-by-a-lover panties. They tell a story of a life spent shying away from the gaze of men like me, men who dominate everything set in front of them. Maybe it’s that I want to rip those things off and see if her pussy is as sweet and innocent as the rest of her.

“Pity” is the simplest explanation, though.

Rolling my eyes, I stride forward. I put two hands on her hips, lift her carefully away from the protruding nail, and set her down on her feet.

I ought to let her go once the job is done. But my hands stay plastered on her waist for a few seconds longer than they should. My eyes bore into hers. She’s got light blue irises, almost translucent, cotton candy cerulean. Her lips are soft and bow-shaped and a tiny, scared breath passes between them as she looks up at me and swallows.

Too innocent by a fucking mile. I peel my hands from her hips and tuck them in my pockets where they belong. Just touching this girl is almost enough to ruin her. Entertaining my fantasies of shredding that orange cat underwear to pieces would absolutely do the trick.

“I’m not most people,” I murmur.

She recoils and blinks in confusion. “What?”

“You said ‘most people’ would help you down. I’m not most people.”

“Oh. Well, yeah. Duh. You live in a castle, for starters.”

I snort and glance back at my house over my shoulder. Compared to her tiny little hovel, it does have some castle-like qualities. “Envy is unbecoming,” I remark as I turn my gaze back on her.

The girl rolls her eyes. “Ah, the luxuries of being able to shit in a different bathroom every day of the week. Good to know it hasn’t gone to your head.”

“I was an egotistical bastard long before the house.”

She claps two sarcastic hands to her face. “It’s self-aware, too!” Then, gesturing vaguely at me, she adds, “Were you also an egotistical bastard before all this?”

I follow her gesture in confusion. I’m wearing my usual: charcoal Cesare Attolini suit, black Hermes tie, Tom Ford loafers as dark as my hair. The watch on my wrist reflects the rising moon. “Before all of what?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know you’re well-dressed and good-looking.”

“Don’t act like I’d be any different if I wasn’t.”

“My God, do you have a smooth retort for everything? It’s infuriating. I feel like you’re reading off a movie script.”

I shift in place as the breeze wafts her scent to my nose. A sweet, salty sweat and vanilla perfume. My cock stirs. “What happens next in this movie then?”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “We just established that you’re the one with the script. Why don’t you tell me?”

“Dinner,” I answer immediately. My response takes even me by surprise. I have to run a hand through my hair and bring myself back under control before I add, “You’re going to come sit at my table and explain to me what the fuck you were doing on my property.”

I watch intently as the girl swallows again. Her throat bobs nervously and she toys with a charm bracelet on her wrist. I don’t think she’s even aware she’s doing it. I glance down to see a link with the letter “Z” embossed in rose gold as she twiddles it back and forth.

“I don’t think so,” she says at last. “It’s nice of you to offer, though.”

That pisses me off. People don’t tell me no. Not anymore. “It wasn’t an offer, narushitel. Let’s go. You’re coming with me.”

I start to turn away, but she stays stubbornly rooted in place. I pivot back in exasperation.

“My mom taught me a long time ago not to just go off into strange places with strange people,” she explains.

“And mine told me to shoot trespassers on sight. Whose mother should we listen to?”

Even in the moonlight, her face goes pale. I feel a twinge of something I don’t feel often: guilt. She looks terrified suddenly and I don’t blame her—my mother did tell me that, actually, and it was my first instinct when my security team informed me that someone had passed over the southwestern gate.

But shooting her would be a waste of a bullet. She’s no killer and she doesn’t know a damn thing about who I am or what kind of organization I lead. She’s just a shy, scared woman—albeit an irritatingly attractive one—and so interrogating her over dinner sounds like punishment enough.

Sighing, I point at her. “You just tore your thigh open on a rusty nail. You’re favoring your other leg, so I know it hurt worse than you’re willing to admit. I also know that there isn’t a fucking chance you have an extra tetanus shot lying next to the half-eaten salad and the moldy loaf of bread that are no doubt rotting in your refrigerator right now. I happen to have medical supplies aplenty. So do yourself a favor: stop being stubborn, come join me for dinner, and I’ll give you the medical care you need. Otherwise, you’re going to wake up with lockjaw, trespassing charges, and an ugly scar that’ll last you the rest of your life.”

She still doesn’t look convinced. So I stick out my hand. She flinches away before she realizes what I’m doing.

“I’m Uri Bugrov,” I tell her. “No longer a stranger.”

Delicately, she places her tiny hand in mine. “Alyssa Walsh.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Alyssa. Now, are you going to walk to my house or am I going to have to carry you?”