She whips off her sweatshirt and tosses it on the step. Presses up against the metal support beam, stretching her arms, her back, her legs.

Wanting to be strong and sexy, too. She lets her hair fall forward over her face as she concentrates on stretching.

He sees her and sets the weight bar in its cradle. Stands up. His muscles ripple under the spread of nubbly burn scars on his stomach and chest. He’s narrow and gangly and muscular. Not beefy. Just right.

And Janie’s really happy that he doesn’t seem uncomfortable without a shirt on in her presence anymore.

Janie has an urge to attack him right there on the weight bench. But after all they’d been through together in such a short time, neither of them wants to mess up the relationship on the sex end of things. And Cabel, conscious enough of his many burn scars, isn’t quite ready to show off the ones below the belt. So Janie admires him from five feet away instead. And hopes he’s gotten over his issues about Janie helping with this case.

“Your eyes are bright again,” he says. “It’s good to see you rested.

And your scar is wicked sexy.” He picks up his towel and wipes the sweat off his face, then rubs the towel over his honey-brown hair. A few damp strands travel down his neck. He walks up to her and moves her hair away from her face, getting a good look at the inch-long scar under her eyebrow that is now healing nicely. “God,” he murmurs.

“You’re gorgeous.” He plants a gentle kiss on her lips, and then he towels off his chest and back, and slips on his T-shirt.

Janie blinks. “Are you high?” She laughs, self-conscious. She’s still not accustomed to attention, much less compliments.

He leans in and runs a finger lightly from her ear, across her jaw line, down her neck. Her heart pounds and she closes her eyes inadvertently, sucking in a breath. He takes advantage of her distraction and begins to nibble on her neck. He smells like Axe and fresh sweat, and it’s making her crazy. She reaches for him. Pulls him close. Feels the heat from his skin blasting through his shirt.

It’s the touching they both long for.

The holding.

Spent their whole lives, each without any. Figure it’s time to make up for it.

Cabel hands her the weight bar.

“So…,” Janie says carefully. “You feeling better about me doing this, uh, bait thing?”

“Not really.”

“Oh.” She lowers the bar to her chest and presses upward.

“I don’t want you doing it.”

Janie concentrates and presses again. “Why? What’s your problem?” she huffs.

“I just…don’t like it. You could get hurt. Raped. My God…” he trails off. His jaw is set. “I can’t let you do it. Say no.” Janie sets the bar in the cradle and sits up, her eyes flashing. “It’s not your decision, Cabe.”

Cabel sighs deeply and rakes his fingers through his hair. “Janie—”

“What? You think I can’t handle the job? You can go out and mess with dangerous drug dealers and spend nights in jail, but I can’t get involved in anything dangerous? What kind of a double standard is that?” She stands up and faces him.

Looks him in the eye.

His brown silky eyes plead back at hers. “This is different,” he says weakly.

“Because you can’t control it?”

Cabel sputters. “No—It’s just—”

Janie grins. “You are so busted. Better get used to the idea. I’m in for the ride on this one.”

Cabel looks at her a minute more. Closes his eyes and slowly hangs his head. Sighs. “I still don’t like it. I can’t stand the thought of any sicko teacher anywhere near you.”

Janie wraps her arms around his neck. Rests her head against his shoulder. “I’ll be careful,” she whispers.

Cabel is silent.

He presses his lips into her hair and squeezes his eyes shut. “Why can’t you just be the one safe thing in my life?” he whispers.

Janie pulls away and looks up at him.

Smiles sympathetically.

“Because safe equals boring, Cabe.”

Janie spends almost an hour lifting weights. Three weeks, Cabel says, and she’ll start to see the changes. All she knows is that her glutes are killing her.

6:19 p.m.

Janie and Cabel step on each other’s feet in the small kitchen as they broil fish in the oven and fix a mountain of veggies. Cabel is a healthy eater. And he insists Janie eats that way too. Now that she’s lost so much weight. Now that he realizes what she’s in for, for the rest of her life. “It makes me crazy, seeing you so thin like that, you know,” he murmurs as he checks the salmon. “And not in a good way.” At night, on the nights she stays over, he massages her aching fingers and toes before she drifts off to sleep. Falling into one nasty nightmare will do that to her—leave her fingers numb and aching for hours after.

Cabel, having learned recently to control his dreams to some extent, has made dream control into a religion. He spends an hour a day in meditation, talking himself into calm, sweet dreams, working his way to his ideal—no dreams at all. At least when Janie’s over. So he can keep her nearby. He’s managed to prevent himself from dreaming one entire night now—with Janie as his witness. She woke up so refreshed, he hardly knew her.

That’s another reason why this new assignment is putting him on edge.

He knows the dreams will make this harder on her than on him.