Chapter Seven
Phoenix
Her hands moved with a language I hadn’t tried.
ASL.
Which told me two things. She was American, and she was lying.
She was also stunning, and she’d avoided every one of my security cams like she knew their exact field of view.
Stilted, intent, she signed again. “Did the owner invite you for dinner, too?”
“I am the owner.” And I didn’t have time for this. “Kneel.” It wasn’t a request. My Sig palmed, expecting different company, I’d already clocked her gaze as it’d left mine just long enough to glance at my right arm before quickly looking toward the dock.
Less than one second away from becoming a statistic, she faked a confused look and signed. “I am sorry. I do not understand.”
Not reading my lips, not even glancing at them, the woman wasn’t deaf. Understanding me perfectly, she shifted her weight to her left leg and bent her knee slightly.
I knew the premeditated move.
“I’m not going to tell you again.” If she attempted to kick me, she’d regret it.
Not responding, she stared.
Taking in her bright blue eyes, sunburnt cheeks, the fact that she had no tan lines and wore her bikini like a second skin, I counted her three gold necklaces and noted the gold clip in her hair.
Then I recounted her tactical errors. “You didn’t sense the vibrations of my steps as I approached.
You hesitated before you picked the second lemon.
You didn’t track my mouth to lip-read as I spoke, and your ASL isn’t fluid.
All signs that you’re not hearing-impaired. You have two choices. Kneel.”
She gave up the pretense and spoke. “Telling me to kneel isn’t giving me two choices.”
Slightly lower in pitch, dulcet, and with a downward dip in tone at the end of her sentence, her voice was both intimate and confident. It was also seductive as hell.
“I’m not telling you.” I was ordering her to. Or suffer the consequences. “Two seconds. Decide.”
“And if I don’t kneel?”
I drew.
She dropped to the ground with fluid grace, her bag landed next to her, and she glanced at the 9mm aimed downward at my side.
Then she looked up at me.
Face flushed, lips parted, she glared.
My dick took notice of the dichotomy of her expression and jumped at the possibility of a challenge. Ignoring it and the fact that my finger was firmly on the slide instead of the trigger, I grabbed my cell from my pocket and snapped her image. “Name.”
She glanced from my phone to me. “Did you just take my picture?”
“Yes.” Already logged into my network and running her through facial rec, I repeated myself. “Name.”
“Why?” Shifting her weight to her haunches, she glanced toward the dock again. “Getting me on my knees wasn’t enough for you? You want to know my name before you fuck me?”
“Who said anything about sex?” I’d kill her before I fucked her.
“I did.” She eyed me with disdain. “After you implied it by telling me to kneel.”
The facial rec came back inconclusive. “Country of origin?” Initiating an expanded search, reassessing my preliminary impression of her, I mentally tallied reasons why the woman would be off the grid.
None of them were good, and the Agency topped the list. Except she didn’t fit the usual profiles, and she hadn’t been trained at the Farm.
If she had, she wouldn’t be on her knees right now.
Her full lips tipped up with a suggestive smile. “If you want me to leave, just ask.”
She wasn’t going anywhere until I knew who she was. “Where in the States?”
“Who says I’m American?”
“Your accent.” Dead giveaway. Which she knew, but that didn’t necessarily mean she’d come from there before trespassing onto my property.
“I don’t have an accent, but you do.” She glanced from my cell to my Sig. “Your French is terrible.”
My French was fine. “Last chance. Name.” The search was almost complete. If she came up as anything other than a grifter, I was eliminating her.
“Last chance,” she mimicked. “Why am I really kneeling?”
The software gave me a name and a decade-old photo, but it was her.
Expired passport.
Last stamped in Madrid four years ago. Reykjavik, Iceland, two years before that.
No facial rec hits in either country.
No hits anywhere.
Then there was the address on the passport. Northern California. Bureau of Land Management, King Range National Conservation Area.
Also known as the Lost Coast.
And this little trespasser had made her way here. Onto my estate.
“Isla Sennan.” Pocketing my cell, I gripped my Sig with both hands and aimed dead center on her chest. “Why are you on my property?”