Book Two of The Guardians Series
"Does that mean you're in?" he asked softly, staring down at her.
She arched a brow. "As opposed to staying here, hiding under your ma's bed?"
"Big, bad, brave Ruby." A hint of smile suddenly touched his mouth, softening him, and for a moment, she couldn't look away. "That's my girl."
Sweetheart. My girl.
"Don't," she warned him.
He only stared at her, eyes gleaming.
Tension made her so stiff, her spine ached.
"You can't blow it up," she said again.
He lifted a brow. "But I like blowing things up."
She remembered the chilling, scary man she'd met in her apartment and wasn't surprised. "Rafe."
He stared at her for another long, motionless moment, his gaze stroking over her, and something glinted in his gaze, something she didn't recognize and didn't trust. Something that made her far too aware of herself, of him, and flushed her cheeks with hot, stupid color.
Then he handed her the sketchbook and sat down beside her.
"Show me," he said, watching her.
◆◆◆
When the boy who broke her heart crashes back into Ruby Jones's life, she's determined to give him the boot. There are some things a girl simply can't forgive, and being forgotten is at the top of the list.
The last person CIA Agent Rafferty Blackheart expects to find while retrieving the message left for him by his dead partner is the girl he left behind two decades earlier. But the woman he discovers bears little resemblance to the girl he remembers, and even though the sight of her breathes life into everything he's spent years fleeing, walking away from her is an impossibility.
Because Rafe is on a mission, one he can't complete without Ruby. So no matter their painful history, their mutual distrust, or the unwanted, intoxicating pull between them, they must come together. To avenge the death of an innocent; to save a child. And to stop a mad man bent on reshaping the human race.
Before it's too late.
Romantic suspense at its best.