“She might look like a delightful lady lollipop, wonder boy. And I’m sure you’re tempted to take a lick,” Michelle whispered in his ear. “But remember she’s triple dipped in nosiness. She’s going to snoop while she’s here. Yessiree, Bob. Without a doubt.”
Before he could respond, Michelle drifted off. He turned back to find Becky the Green-Faced Goblin glaring up at him. “Well?” he asked. “Let’s have them.”
“Have what?”
“Your two cents.”
She grinned. Her mud mask was a spiderweb of cracks. “Oh. Well, that’s simple. Don’t make me go Gitmo on your ass,” she warned, her brown eyes flashing, her blond ponytail swinging.
“Oh, talk like that really steams my trousers,” he told her, forcing the kind of easy, flirtatious response she expected from him. The kind of response that would have come naturally before the bombing. “I can understand why Boss put a ring on it. With a dirty mouth like that, you’re a catch. How about you ditch him and marry me instead?”
“Rrrright.” Becky rolled her eyes just as he had known she would. “You couldn’t handle me even if I came with a set of instructions.” She trailed after Michelle.
Ozzie looked toward the table where Emily still sat, stroking Peanut. The attention had caused the feline colossus to turn over his motor, and the tomcat’s loud purr rumbled through the entire room until Ozzie could feel it in his chest. “Staying down for a while?” he asked.
Emily was a new addition to the team, but she fit in like she’d always been there. “Yepper.” She nodded. “I’m too wired after all the brouhaha.” Her Chicago accent made the word the sound more like da. She focused over his shoulder on the spot Christian occupied, looking like she was gearing up to do what she did best—give the poor guy shit.
And that’s my signal to leave, Ozzie thought.
When he got to the base of the stairs, Christian grabbed his arm and pleaded, “Don’t leave me alone with her. I’m pretty sure she bites.”
Christian liked to pretend Emily Scott’s arrival was the prelude to Armageddon and that the woman herself was none other than the Antichrist. But Ozzie knew better. He knew better because Christian’s pupils dilated every time he looked at Emily.
“And if she did bite, you’d love every tooth mark she left behind,” Ozzie told Christian with a confident smirk, pulling his arm free to tiptoe up the stairs.
“You, sir, are proof that shit can grow legs and walk!” Christian hissed after him.
Ozzie didn’t have time to jump into the ring for another fun round of name-calling. He needed to grab a quick shower and some dry clothes and check on Samantha.
Samantha…
Her name seemed to wind itself around his brain, pulsing, sliding, rubbing…
Chapter 7
Emily Scott had never met a man quite like Christian Watson.
And that was a bold statement, given that she’d spent seven years working for the CIA and was used to that whole International Man of Mystery thing. But Christian…well, Christian took the word mystery and raised it to the power of ten.
He was a former SAS officer, but he was working for the U.S. government. Since coming to Black Knights Inc., he hadn’t set foot in England and avoided the subject of his friends and family the way one avoided poison ivy. And he’d chosen to accentuate his ridiculous male perfection not with a biker jacket and faded jeans like the rest of the BKI crew, but with designer clothes, Italian-made shoes, and accessories that would make a fashionista weep with joy.
But it was like he was a shined-up wooden nickel. Emily was certain that underneath that thin veneer of pomp and circumstance lay a rough core. A deliciously intriguing core that she only caught glimpses of when she scratched his surface.
Which I do every chance I get.
“Go on, then,” he said, still standing by the bottom of the steps, all long and tall and handsome. It wasn’t the pretty kind of handsome or even the cute kind of handsome that had been popularized in America, but the manly kind of handsome. The kind of handsome that came with harsh features, strong bones, and a mop of wavy dark hair that seemed to cry out for the caressing touch of a woman’s fingers. The kind of handsome she had grown up with in her working-class Bridgeport neighborhood. “Speak your piece so I may—”
“Shhh.” She raised her hand from scratching Peanut’s furry belly. “This is such a rare moment, you standing there looking like something I’d draw with my left hand. Mind if I take a couple of minutes to savor it?”
Mrrreow! Peanut complained, so Emily resumed her petting duties while still eyeing Christian’s delightful level of dishevelment. With his hair all wild, his clothes damp and conforming to every bulging muscle, and a smudge of dirt across his brow, he looked more like what she thought he really was. A barbarian. A savage. An uncivilized man who had been forced to live in a civilized world.
Ohhhh, be still my heart.
“As a matter of fact,” he replied darkly, his expression shuttered. “I do mind. I’m knackered. I’m wet. And a long, hot shower is calling my name.”
So much sophistication. So much control. But there was heat in his spring-green eyes. The kind of heat that made a woman imagine he was tamping down embers in a place only he could see.
