Jennifer Lynn Barnes

“What are we doing here?”

“Sighing melodramatically,”

Michael leaned forward and brushed his lips against mine. Then he pulled back and studied my face. Whatever he saw there, he liked.

“Thank you,” he said. “That’s all I needed to know.”

“So take whatever time you need. Figure out how you feel. Figure out if Dean makes you feel the way I do, if he’ll ever let you in, and if you want him to, because the next time my lips touch yours, the next time your hands are buried in my hair—the only person you’re going to be thinking about is me.”

It was one of the great ironies of my life that I’d inherited all of my mother’s features, but none of the magic with which they’d come together on her face. She’d been beautiful. I was odd—odd-looking, oddly quiet, always the odd one out

The truth he’d been dancing around for the past hour was suddenly incredibly clear. He and his team, this program—they didn’t just want to teach me how to hone my skills. They wanted to use them to catch killers.

Serial killers

“You’re leaving the Porsche in Denver?” I asked.

He leaned forward, close enough that his forehead was almost touching mine.

“The devil’s in the details, Cassie. I never said that Porsche was my only car

What makes you think she has a boyfriend?” Dean asked, and under his quiet drawl I could hear curiosity—and maybe even admiration.

I shrugged in response to his question—mainly because I didn’t want to tell him that the reason I’d been sure this girl wasn’t single was the fact that the entire time we’d been there, she hadn’t so much as glanced at Dean.

From a distance, he would have looked older.

Even in jeans and a faded black T-shirt, you could see the muscles tensing against the fabric of his sleeves. And the muscles not covered by his sleeves.

His hair, his eyes, the way he stood, and the way he moved—if she’d been single, she would have looked.

I was everyone’s problem and nobody’s.

Whoa there, Cassie, I told myself sternly. Let’s keep it PG.

Tanner Briggs. The name.

Special Agent. Job title.

Federal Bureau of Investigation.