He stopped.
Still nothing.
“What the f**k?” he clipped.
He turned and prowled to his car. He opened his glove compartment, got his kit and prowled right back. He squatted by the doorknob, pulled out his tools, and in about five seconds picked her shitty, going-to-be-replaced-tomorrow lock.
He shoved his tools in his back pocket, opened the door and saw her instantly, standing in the foyer, staring at him, her big, pretty blue eyes huge.
He slammed the door behind him.
Hanna jumped.
She was very lucky that she’d changed into an adorable pair of very short drawstring pajama shorts and a skintight ribbed tank, both that left little to the imagination, both in colors that highlighted the golden tan that shimmered on every inch of her skin. She was also lucky she had her hair up in another messy knot his f**king hand f**king itched to yank out or he wouldn’t have had the patience to draw in the breath he needed to calm down.
But he drew in the breath he needed to calm down.
In that time she whispered, “Oh my God. You picked my lock.”
“How’s your headache?” he asked.
Her eyes, which had moved to the doorknob, shot to his.
Then she started backing up.
“Smart,” he murmured as he advanced.
“Raiden—”
“You heard me on the phone.”
She visibly swallowed. Her shoulder hit the doorway to the back hall and she shifted sideways.
Raid followed her. “You came to the table and lied through your teeth, right to my face.”
“I—”
“You told me you had a goddamned headache, which worried me, then you pressed tight to me, giving me your mouth and takin’ it away, a bullshit bitch tease move I didn’t know you had it in you to execute.”
She stopped dead. “I wasn’t teasing you.”
“What was that shit then?”
She stared into his eyes and announced, “A good-bye kiss.”
It was at that Raid stopped dead. “What?”
“Raiden, the gig is up,” she declared, and Raid closed his eyes.
Jesus, how could the woman be so infuriating and so f**king cute all at once?
He opened his eyes and asked, “The gig is up?”
She leaned into him and hissed, “Yes.”
Fuck, he wanted to kiss her.
He also wanted to shake her.
“Baby, it’s jig,” he corrected, and her head jerked, which made that mess of hair on her head jerk, which reminded him he wanted his hands in that hair.
Then elsewhere.
He needed to speed this shit up.
“Sorry?” she asked, sounding confused, and he looked from her hair to her eyes and saw she was, in fact, confused.
Yeah. Infuriating. And f**king cute.
“The jig is up, not the gig,” he told her.
Her eyes narrowed. “Seriously? You’re correcting my street lingo?”
“Think that street lingo was the street lingo about eight decades ago, Hanna. So now it’s just lingo.”
Hanna threw up her hands. “Now you’re giving me a street lingo history lesson?”
Raid found what he thought was the impossible happening.
He lost patience with Hanna Boudreaux being cute.
“Why are we talkin’ about this shit?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Why are you here at all?” she shot back.
“I’m here ‘cause I wanna know why you lied to me. I wanna know why you didn’t come to the table and talk to me about what you heard so I could explain it and shit would not right now be totally f**ked.”
“I’m sorry, did I mess with your plans, Raiden? Were there more ways you could use me like Bodhi and Heather used me before you threw me away?”
At her words, Raid went completely still.
Then he asked, dangerously quietly, “Come again?”
She missed the danger, but she didn’t miss his words. “You used me and now you’re here acting like a jerk. Why?”
“How did I use you?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t go to the table, tell you I overheard, allow you to explain the intricacies of your plan of pretending you were into me so you could ascertain if I was in on my oh so very ex-friends’ fiendish plot to use my afghans as cover for transporting drugs. So I don’t know all the ways you used me. I just know you, like them, used me.”
“Pretending I was into you?” Raid whispered, and she threw up her hands.
“Raiden, I know,” she snapped.
“You don’t know shit,” he clipped.
“Really? So, you don’t notice me for months—no, for years—then suddenly you’re everywhere I am and how I’m,” she lifted up her hands and did air quotation marks, “linked to drug dealers or transporters or, uh… whatever you call them.”
“Yeah, babe, for years I didn’t notice you, then I did when two pieces of shit used a kind, trusting woman as cover for transporting dope.”
“Right, then, now that we have that cleared up, you can leave,” she announced.
Jesus.
“I’m not leaving,” he returned.
“Why?” she cried. “It’s over. You know I have no part in it. I don’t know your part in it. I don’t want to know your part in it. But my part is done. This is over. You don’t have to pretend anymore. Why can’t you just go?”
“I’m not pretending jack,” Raid bit out.
“God!” she yelled. “This is insane!”
Then she made a big mistake.
Huge.
She impatiently shoved her hand in her hair, not remembering it was up in a knot. She encountered whatever was holding it up, yanked it out and her hair tumbled in a shining mess around her face and down her shoulders.
Raid watched it, lost it, and advanced.
Hanna retreated, slamming into the wall at the side of the stairs.
Raid caged her in, putting one hand to her hip, fingers spread, pads digging in, one hand to the wall at the side of her head and he bent low so his face was in hers.
She’d quit breathing, which was good.
That meant she couldn’t spout more bullshit.
He forced his voice to gentle when he said, “I get you’re tweaked about this shit. I get you’re hurt that your friends f**ked you over and how they did it, which is huge. What you need to get, honey, is that I’m not using you. I’m not pretending jack. I am into you.”
“Stop it,” she whispered.
Fuck him.
“Do not transfer the pain you feel that two people you let into your life and your heart f**ked you to me, Hanna,” he warned.