Her eyebrows vanished beneath her bangs and she blinked behind her glasses. “You… don’t do tombs? What does that mean?”
Her bangs needed cutting; they were constantly in her eyes. “It means, Miss Magee, that if it’s a tomb you’re looking for, I don’t find them.”
Her stare was a little too direct. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t like heat, or sand, or going to places I find unpleasant.” Not unless I’m fully armed and have some asshole bad guy in my sights. It was in a desert that he’d received his injuries. Thorne was in no rush to go back.
Only 322 days to go, he thought bitterly.
“How… limiting.” She pushed her glasses up her nose again. “Isn’t it your job to go wherever the client needs you to go?” She paused, and when he didn’t respond, said, “Who says the tomb I want found is somewhere hot and sandy? Maybe it’s the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Hietaniemi cemetery in Helsinki? Or the tomb beneath the Arc de Triomphe in Paris? Or—”
Terrier, meet bone. He repressed a sigh, a groan, and the words fucking hell. “Do you have a general location?”
Her fingers tightened on her purse. “Egypt.” She cleared her throat, and just in case he was hard of hearing repeated firmly, “Egypt.”
Bugger it. Magee? Egypt? He joined some dots, and didn’t like where they led. Fuck. He resisted cursing in any or all five languages, and opted for a teeth-clenched, polite “Did you bring me something?” While Thorne didn’t believe in coincidences, some people did. Anything was possible. He hoped that wherever his logic was leading him, it was dead wrong.
“Like what?” Her lips twitched. “A Bundt cake?”
Thorne’s back teeth ground together. “Like something I can hold so I can tell you where your tomb is.”
She leaned forward in her chair, avid curiosity sparkling in her eyes. “Right. That thing. How does your superpower work?”
“I’m not a freak.” Even if that’s what he considered himself in his heart of hearts, he didn’t have to admit it out loud. And he sure as hell didn’t have to sit under her suddenly too-interested microscope. “What I do is referred to by scientists as a well-developed sixth sense.” Which had materialized full-fucking-blown after he’d died on the table and been brought back to life eight months ago. He started to rub his thigh under the desk, then realized what he was doing and placed both hands on the desktop. A desk, for Chrissakes!
“Oh.” Leaning forward, she contemplated him for several moments. “How does it work for you?”
He leaned back. Her subtle movement made him feel… invaded. Ridiculous. He’d killed men twice her size with his bare hands without a single flutter of his heartbeat. Why should this slip of a woman with her Bambi eyes rattle him? She didn’t, of course; she was just the most interesting thing to happen to him since he’d started working for Zak. Which just showed how restricted his life had become.
“I hold something and can tell you where the person who had it last is located.”
Her brilliant smile stole his next smart-ass comment. Her teeth were white and straight, except for her eyeteeth, which were just crooked enough to charm him. If he were a man who was enchanted by teeth that needed braces. The smile, which lit up her whole face, was like an electric shock jolting his body. It took her from pretty to stunning and caused an unwelcome, and annoying, chemical reaction in his body.
“Perfect!” she told him cheerfully. “They told me to bring something connected to the tomb when I made the appointment. But I couldn’t figure out how the box would help you—” She dug in her bag and withdrew a chamois-covered item about the size of a ring box. She gave him an inquiring look.
“Put it down, and slide it over.” Not because her placing it in his hand diluted anything, but Thorne wasn’t ready to stand just yet, and for reasons he refused to explain to himself, he didn’t want to touch her.
Opening the bag, she dropped a small gold box covered in hieroglyphs into her palm. Clutching the purse to her middle and the box in one hand, she rose to lean over the desk and nudged it forward. His response to her nearness was immediate and visceral. His head swam with the enticing fragrance of her cookie-scented skin. He could drown in her