“I’ve been…watching you for a bit,” she confessed.
Well, hell.
“I saw when you’d use it. Don’t worry, most people would miss it. I just made a point of studying you closely.”
He hadn’t been aware that he’d been under surveillance. “Gray doesn’t trust me these days? He’s sent Feds in to keep an eye on me? How the hell long has this been happening?” And why didn’t I see you? He was usually good at spotting watchers. Was he slipping? Losing his edge because he’d been in this mess for far too long?
She nibbled on her lower lip. That ever-so-delicious lower lip. Then, “Gray didn’t know what I was doing.” A miserable whisper. “I was watching you on my own time.”
Was he supposed to be flattered? Or super worried? “You watched me? And you decided to teach yourself sign language?”
“I’m teaching it to myself now. Not like I’m completely fluent. I’m learning. Gray doesn’t know about that, either.”
“I didn’t spot you tailing me.” That bothered him.
“I wasn’t very close. I know to keep my distance. A good watcher can spy from a distance.” She exhaled on a soft sigh. “I’m good at not being seen when I don’t want to be.”
Uh, huh. Cass finally stepped away from the thin door. He closed in on her with slow steps. “Someone has been a naughty FBI agent.”
“Totally, you should spank me.”
What?
Her eyes closed. “Forget I said that.”
Never in a million years. The woman confused—and aroused—the hell out of him. “Who are you?”
Her eyes opened. “I’m Agnes Quinn. I…say kinda crazy, outlandish things when I’m nervous. I had this FBI shrink once who told me that it was a shielding technique.” She remained on the bed. “It was after my very first officer-involved shooting. A man had a put a gun to his pregnant wife’s stomach. He’d been screaming and raging, saying the kid wasn’t his and that he wasn’t going to put up with a cheating whore any longer. I knew he was going to kill her and the baby. I demanded he drop the gun. I yelled it three times. Three times. He didn’t comply. And he was going to pull the trigger.” An exhale. “I shot him in the leg. That got him to let her go. But then he raised the gun and aimed it at me as he screamed and screamed, and—when I fired a second time, I hit him in the heart.”
Shit. He stopped advancing toward her. Halfway between the door and the bed. He just stared down at her, shaking his head. “So you look delicate, but you’re very clearly not.”
“She raged at me. The wife, I mean. She screamed that I’d left her baby without a father. I did, of course, but…I kinda thought it was more important that the wife and the baby got to live. That I got to live, too. I was a big proponent of me living.” A roll of one shoulder. “So when I was talking to the shrink—see, you have to be cleared by the FBI shrink after a shooting. You don’t just get to head straight back into active duty. She told me that I used humor and flippant statements as defensive and shielding mechanisms. She explained that I tend to say outlandish things to redirect.” A nod. “Guilty as charged. I do that.”
He could see that. “You’re sharing an awful lot with me.”
“Yes, well, considering that I have to trust you with my life for the foreseeable future, I figured a bit of sharing was necessary. Especially since we began our relationship with me…lying to you.” Now her shoulders sagged. “Pretty sure you are going to be pissed.”
“Our relationship?”
“Well, yes, we have one now, don’t we? At least, I’m about ninety-nine percent certain you are going to declare me as your lady to the members of your MC. You’re going to take me with you when we leave this motel. Where you go, I go. I’ll be your ride-or-die. That whole situation is what we’ve got going, right?”
His back teeth had clenched. “Tell me about your lie,” he bit out.
“I will but, promise you won’t be furious?”
“You just said I’d be pissed.”
“Yes. I did.” A quick nod. “But I think, with you, there is a difference between being pissed and being furious.” Her gaze searched his. “I think when you’re pissed, you’re scary. Intimidating. You’ll make me feel super, super horrible.”
He waited.
“But when you’re furious, I suspect that is something quite different. I think that when a real rage takes you, it’s like the devil walks on the earth.”
His whole body tightened.
“So just promise you won’t be furious. Try to see things from my point of view, would you?”
He would make no promises. “You lied to me.”
