I Beleive Now by Hurri Cosmo Page A

and waving a hand in the general direction of any of his people and they would go to work. They'd do his bidding with confidence and preciseness, and sometimes with that cold-blooded ruthlessness he had joked about with Asher. Now, he could not do such things. Now, Asher's wellbeing was hanging in the balance. He was going to now base all decisions on that fact. In the past, with his casual sex partners, he regarded such feelings as a nuisance, especially since there had been people who tried to exploit those relationships.
    He sighed as he remembered one particular partner who had decided Max's feelings were actually more than they were. Faren had evidently felt she needed to gain a better foothold in Max's life. She thought getting another man interested in her was the way to do it. Unfortunately she decided "just another man" was not good enough, so she ended up trying to start a turf war, pretending to have been attacked by one of Max's self-proclaimed enemies. In truth, she had seduced the man and she had the idiocy to think Max wouldn't find out. Faren expected Max to be jealous and, in a rage, take out the other man. But since Max never actually fell in love with any of his sex partners, it was not hard for him to walk away from them. He tried hard to make sure each and every one of them understood that simple fact.
    He had taken Faren with him when he met with his supposed-to-be rival for a friendly brandy. And right there in front of everyone, Max offered up his " ex -partner", and yes, he emphasized that title, as a sacrifice for the "sake of peace". He was never going to forget the look on her face as his rival made it perfectly clear, not only did he have no past interest in the woman but absolutely no present interest either, and he politely rejected the offer.
    It wasn't that she was unattractive. Max was quite sure his rival enjoyed himself immensely with Faren in his bed. He wasn't sure what Faren had told the man and truthfully didn't care, but the man seemed to understand immediately what was expected of him and was grateful to be given such an easy out. After the man shook Max's hand and quickly darted out the door, Max leaned in close to Faren's ear and whispered, "You don't screw with me, then screw with me." He threw a hundred dollar bill on the table, gracefully rose to his feet, brushed his perfectly pressed pants into place then walked out the door alone, leaving her there, sputtering and seething.
    There were no emotions involved, because emotional involvement basically led to bad decisions and he just didn't do that.
    But now there was Asher. This exasperating, irritating, infuriating, annoying, frustrating…breathtaking Asher!
    And it was good. He felt good about this emotion stuff.
    But he shivered nonetheless. This feeling—as new and different as it was, as wonderful and exciting as it was—was debilitating in its effect. He could not move forward until he knew Asher was safe. All thoughts, all plans, all attention was on the path of bringing his young man home.
    Alive.
    So that is what he was going to do.
    Max's sources said Jackson was most likely going to set it up to try and shoot him again, once he knew Max was carrying the flash drive with all the information concerning the route. He probably wouldn't send in a bunch of snipers like he did last time. If Max didn't miss his very well-experienced guess, Jackson planned to have only one man, very possibly two, positioned on a roof or in a building and it was going to be up to Max to know where. He could work with it. He'd have to. Jackson had to know Max would expect it. But then again, they were supposed to be allies this time. Even though Max was basically buying Asher's freedom—or at least that was what he was supposed to believe he was doing—going forward, they were theoretically business partners.
    Plus, of course, Jackson was setting up the location. Max knew it was going to be an airport because of the need to transport the