Dagan jumped into the fray, happy for the distraction. Anything to take his mind off Chelsea. “You going to let him dis your doodle like that, Christian?”
“This rumor is easy to refute.” Christian stood and reached for the top button of his jeans.
“I’ll thank you to keep your man stick to yourself.” Emily Scott sauntered in from the living room.
Whoops. Dagan had forgotten to mentionheras part of the team that had come to provide support for Chelsea. Although for the life of him, he couldn’t understand how. Emily, the former secretary to an FAS—a foreign area specialist inside the Central Intelligence Agency—and current BKI office manager, was the one who had kept the refrigerator stocked these last few weeks in London and the one who twisted their ears when the laundry piled up. Without her and her mother hen ways, they’d likely be living on pork and beans and wearing three-day-old underwear.
“Hand to God, I’d rather have my right eye gouged out with a toothpick than see Christian’s dick,” she continued, projecting a toughness that he knew covered a soft, gooey center. Emilycaredabout all of them. She just didn’t like to show it. “There’s enough testosterone floating around this place without the addition of naked wagging wangs.”
“Once again,” Christian said, “let me point out that you didn’thaveto come with us. No one twisted your arm.” His hoity-toity English accent made it sound likeyoor ahm.
“And leave poor Chelsea to fend for herself among you three animals?” Emily snorted. “Not likely.”
And great. Dagan had enjoyed a brief reprieve, but one mention of Chelsea and his brain was firmly fixed on her. Hehatedthat she was alone in that big penthouse with Roper fuckin’ Morrison. He hated worse that he couldn’t come up with a better plan to prove Morrison was Spider so that she wouldn’thaveto be alone in that big penthouse with Roper fuckin’ Morrison.
“And speaking of Chelsea…” Emily continued. When she turned to Dagan, she rocked the eye daggers of doom. “I really wish you would refrain from giving her grief every morning. The poor innocent woman has enough on her plate without you piling it on.”
Innocent?There was a word. When it came to Chelsea, Dagan’s thoughts didn’t live in the same zip code as innocent.
“All that shit on her plate is precisely the point,” he insisted. “She’s not—”
“Qualified or trained to do this kind of work. Blah, blah, blah. But news flash: she’s doing a bitching job regardless. And instead of sending her off every morning feeling like a can full of squashed assholes, maybe you could try sending her off feeling like she can conquer the damned world. Step up your game or keep showing up as lame, man. Jeez.”
“And how would you suggest I make her feel like she can conquer the damned world?” He took a sip of the tea Ace passed him. The Earl Grey wouldn’t do a thing to soothe his nerves, but itwouldsoothe the roiling in his stomach at the thought that his words to Chelsea, meant to be cautionary and to express his concern, were instead making her feel bad about herself.Shit.
“A dozen body-shaking orgasms should do it,” Emily said.
Dagan choked on his tea. “Excuseme?”
“It’s as obvious as the nose on your face.”
“What is?”
“That you’re hot to trot for our resident undercover CIA liaison.”
Was it just him, or had someone cranked the heater up about twenty degrees? “How do you figure that?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Emily rolled her eyes. “Maybe because if it were possible to impregnate someone with a look, Chelsea would be carrying around octuplets?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” That’s what he said. What he thought wasfuuuuuuck.
“Oh, for the love of Shoeless Joe Jackson.” As a born-and-raised Chicago South Sider, Emily’s White Sox fangirl was never far from the surface. “You’re so full of manure that if you laid in the dirt, you’d start growing little versions of yourself. How you’re always sniping at her? That’s your inner six-year-old’s way of getting her attention.”
Emily knew about his inner six-year-old? Doublefuuuuuuck.
“And here’s an idea,” she continued. “Instead of walking around like a boy in a man suit, how about just manning up and telling her how you really feel?”
When Dagan got good and pissed, or when he was homed in on a target, he went completely still.Spookystill, some had said. And following that stillness was always some sort of explosion. “Are you calling me a coward?” he asked quietly.
“I’m not calling you a coward. I’m calling you a fool and a man suffering from unappeased lust. They are often the same thing.”
“So by your logic, verbally sparring with Chelsea is just a cover for me wanting a little push-push-in-the-bush, huh?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Well, I wouldn’t have described itthatway, exactly. But, yes.”
He had her. Target locked. Time to let the lead fly. “That must mean you’re aching to knock boots with Christian then, right? I mean, you chew his ass every chance you get.”
“Uh…” All the color drained from Emily’s face, and for a beat or two, silence reigned in the kitchen.
