Enigma: Prologue to Live Wire by Lora Leigh Read Free Book Online Page A

eyes. That brilliant, almost neon blue stared back at her somberly.
    Irish Eyes, her friend Sabella Blake had told her once. Jordan had Irish Eyes. Any woman lucky enough to steal his love would have a true window into his soul. Sabella had told her how she had once ‘seen’ the horror of her husband’s torture when he was kidnapped by a drug cartel owner, Diego Fuentes. That she had felt his pain, dreamed of his screams.
    Tehya had always wondered what such love would feel like. She had fantasized about possessing this man’s love. A fantasy. That was all it was.
    “I have to finish packing.” She heard the hoarseness of her voice and knew she wasn’t hiding her emotions as well as she had hoped to.
    “Tehya, I don’t want to lose your friendship either, not because of this,” he said as he pushed his legs into his jeans then rose and pulled them over his muscled legs.
    “Are we friends, Jordan? Were we ever?” She had never felt friendship from him.
    She couldn’t define exactly what she had felt from him over the years. She knew her own emotions had been in conflict more than once, but friendship had never been the definition she would have put on their relationship.
    “I hoped we were.” That edge of regret in his voice tore at her.
    She could almost feel the pity coming, and she really didn’t want to have to shoot him. If he dared to feel sorry for her, then that would be the least of the problems he would have.
    Giving her head a quick shake she turned and walked from the bedroom. She couldn’t handle this tonight. She couldn’t stand here and discuss friendships, see the pity on his face, or face the realization that six years of dreams had been wasted effort.
    Six years. God, it had been so long. It had been too damned long. Suddenly, she felt far older than she actually was, and far too tired to fight with herself any longer.
    “Tehya?” Jordan followed, standing in the bedroom doorway as she moved to the stack of empty boxes and protective paper stacked next to the shelves she hadn’t yet packed.
    Each of the trinkets had been collected over the years. The pocket dragons. There were fairies, there were expensive little keepsake boxes. And there were pictures. Pictures of the team she had worked with, their wives. In a few there were children of those men. In a few, there was an unsmiling Jordan. In one, he stood next to Tehya, one arm around her shoulders as they stared back at the camera.
    This was the past six years of her life.
    She picked up the picture of her and Jordan first, wrapped it, packed it.
    “Why do you think I haven’t taken you to my bed before now?” he asked from the bedroom doorway.
    “Why don’t you leave, Jordan?” She didn’t look at him, she couldn’t.
    She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream, and she wasn’t about to do it while he was standing there watching her as though waiting for her to break apart.
    Before she knew he had moved he was next to her, his hands gripping her upper arms as he jerked her around.
    She saw the anger then. His eyes were bright with it, the blue snapping down at her as his expression tightened with it.
    “I didn’t want to hurt you!”
    “And you haven’t.” She wasn’t backing down from him but she would be damned if she would cry for him.
    He hadn’t done this to her, he hadn’t asked her for what she felt and how many times had he pushed her away, done everything but told her that it couldn’t happen?
    It had been her own stubbornness, her own stupidity that had led her here. She had known better. At least she should have known better.
    Sex wasn’t love, and she could see now what he had tried to save her from.
    Yet the anger was there inside her as well. A feminine fury she couldn’t escape.
    “Tehya, we’re friends,” he ground out furiously. “If you ever need me…”
    “I didn’t need you before I came here, and I won’t need you after I leave.” Jerking away from him, she stalked to the far side of the