Jackson swallowed hard. He knew Dare still had to suffer his own torment over what Molly had gone through.

“I wanted to beg her to be quiet.” Alani stared at him, her expression desperate. “But I was afraid to say anything.”

He drew her hand to his mouth and kissed her white knuckles. “I’m glad Dare killed them.”

“Yes.” By small degrees, she composed herself. She stared at her half-empty plate before searching his face. “You’d have killed them, too?”

“With pleasure.”

“You…have killed people?”

Jackson went still inside, wondering what she needed to hear, how much he should tell her. He tried to weigh the ugliness of truth against the morality of justice.

Alani’s smile came and went. “It’s okay. I know you can’t say much.” She started to pull her hands away.

He didn’t let her. “When it’s warranted, I have no problem at all putting someone out of commission.”

“Meaning…” She had a problem with the word, saying tentatively, “Dead?”

He had no problems. “Definitely dead.”

Unfazed by his answer, she asked, “Have you saved any women from human traffickers?” She rushed on to explain. “I’m not being nosy. Well, I mean, I guess I am. But I know most of what Trace and Dare do these days centers around that.”

“Yeah.” Seeing that she was back to herself again, he let her hands go and pressed her plate toward her. “How about you finish eating while we talk?”

He waited for her to say she wasn’t hungry. He waited for her to give in to the upset of old memories, to maybe have lost her appetite.

Instead, she agreed and cut into her steak again.

In so many ways, she pleased him. “From what I understand, Dare and Trace started out doing anything and everything they considered righteous. Like saving a senator’s kidnapped son, rescuing a businessman held hostage in another country, busting up a cult—” he raised a brow “—or busting up a government conspiracy. That kind of stuff.”

“Seriously? Wow. I knew he did dangerous work. And I knew he had some major contacts. But I hadn’t realized…”

“He’s shielded you.” Jackson couldn’t fault Trace for that. “Some of the shit they’ve dealt with isn’t fit for sharing with a baby sister.”

“How do you know? Do you have a sister?”

“Nope. No brothers, either.” Now wasn’t the time to talk about Arizona, and he really didn’t want to go into family comparisons. “They’d tangled plenty of times with human traffickers, sometimes out of the country, sometimes in. Then you were taken, and that made it more personal for Trace.”

“But it’s not personal for you?”

Since meeting her, it’d gotten real personal, but he only shrugged. “I’m good at what I do. It suits me better than anything else could.”

She finished off her iced tea and pushed back her near-empty plate. “You really are confident, aren’t you?”

“If you’re worried about me keeping you safe, don’t be.”

“It’s not that.” Going all sweet and shy on him, she ducked her face. “After those men took me, I couldn’t seem to get very interested in any man. I tried, though.”

“With Marc Tobin.” Saying the bastard’s name left a foul taste in his mouth.

“That’s just it. The reason we split up, I mean. I wanted to like him. I did like him as a person.” She shrugged. “Not so much as a man.”

Was she saying what he hoped she was saying? “You didn’t sleep with him?”

Hesitation held her, and then she shook her head. “No.”

Damn. Bet that burned Tobin’s ass. Jackson knew firsthand how it was to want her but not have her. Venturing a guess, he said, “You got tired of him pressing the issue?”

“Yes.”

The last rays of the setting sun blazed across the sky in fiery shades of red, casting mysterious shadows over Alani’s face. “But you slept with me?”

Her deep breath drew his attention to her br**sts. “You.” She took two more breaths. “And only you.”

His gaze shot to hers. He croaked, “You were a virgin?” And he’d missed it? Not that he’d ever before considered a woman’s virginity to be a prized asset, but with Alani…yeah. He loved the idea that no one else had touched her.

“And you were incredible.” She tipped her head, timid but determined. “I’ve thought about this ever since, and if you don’t mind showing me everything there is, everything I’ve missed—”

“Hell, yeah,” he rushed to say.

But she hadn’t finished. “If you don’t mind a no-strings-attached type of relationship…” She let that trail off, something stark in her expression as she watched him, waiting.

What the hell? He pokered up in affront, unsure what to say to that.

Softly sighing, she braced her shoulders and stared at him. “Well then, I’d like to…you know.”

Damn it, that “no strings” comment stung. He wasn’t ready to dissect his own feelings, but he did feel something. Lots of things, actually, not all of them physical. It burned his ass that she might not be as involved as him.

“You want to experiment with me? Is that what you’re saying?” He made it sound like a sneer, expecting her to correct him, hoping she’d say that she wanted more—from him and with him.