Snoring aside—soft and girly snoring, but still snoring nonetheless—she might be the most feminine woman he’d ever met, in spite of the tough-chick bravado she wore like a suit of armor. She was tender and passionate and surprisingly intuitive, guessing correctly that the feeling he got when kissing her was a little too . . . much. Though she was operating under a false idea of who and what he was, she still managed to recognize emotion in a stranger, and feel compassion for him. Compassion. Wasn’t that a laugh, coming from her? Lying beside her on the bed, with the sheets tangled between their legs and the first, faint pink rays of dawn creeping beneath the drawn curtains of her hotel windows, Hawk stared down at her, lost in thought. He’d seen pictures of her before, of course, staring vehemently into the camera as if she wanted to strangle the photographer, or on assignment in some hellhole with her hair in a messy ponytail, mirrored aviators on her stern, unsmiling face, wearing khakis and combat boots, gazing off into the distance.
