He lifted a dark, sleek eyebrow that asked,Do you really want to know?
Yes,she really did. But fear held her back. It was the fear that if she really got to know him, if she crossed over the line that tiny bit, then all the walls she’d built against him would come crumbling down.
She shook her head no.
That’s what I thought, his twitching lips responded.
Angel glanced back and forth between them, trying to interpret their silent conversation. Eventually,he shrugged and threw his leg over the windowsill. In a flash he was gone, leaving the rest of them to make their way downstairs and wait for his distraction.
Emily took a seat on the sofa, her palms itching with adrenaline, her toes tapping out a nervous beat on the polished wood floor. Patience had never been one of her virtues. Neither had sitting around waiting for something portentousto happen. She prided herself on being a woman of action, a woman who took charge and—
A thought suddenly occurred, and she flicked Christian a considering look.
“What?” he demanded.
“That’s why you came to work for BKI, isn’t it?”
“What is?” He looked genuinely confused.
“Because you were kicked out of the SAS.”
“We call itdecommissioned.”
“Same difference.” She waveda hand through the air.
“To coin a ridiculously overused American phrase.”
“Cut the crap.”
“Another delightful American phrase.”
“I’m serious.”
He blew out a ragged breath and gifted her with one of his sexy,sexyglares.
“I would have thought it was obvious by now that your death-ray gaze doesn’t work on me,” she informed him. Which was sort of a lie. Itdidwork on her.Just not in the way he might think.
Nothing was ever as fun as matching wits with Christian. It warmed her blood, lit her up from the inside out. Both were dangerous sensations, but she couldn’t stop herself. When it came to him, she had discovered she liked playing with fire.
“Okay. Fine.Yes,” he grumbled. “That’s why I came to work for BKI. I tried working for a security firm afterthe SAS. I tried donating my time to teach little old ladies self-defense. Itriedto be a civilian, but I was bloody awful at it. I’vebeenbloody awful at it since the day I turned seventeen and got caught nicking a loaf of bread and a bottle of HP Sauce from the corner store and the local magistrate told me it was either a detention center or the army.”
“That’swhy you joined?” Ace lookedbemused. “Because it was either military service or jail time?”
Christian shrugged. “It was a common-enough tale back then. And I must admit, it was the best thing to happen to me. One month into training and I was totally army barmy. The military provided the security and consistency I never had as a child. It would have taken plastic explosives to get me out of the service in the beginning,and it nearly took plastic explosives to keep me out after Kirkuk. Then I heard about Boss.”
He’d stolen a loaf of bread and a bottle of HP Sauce? The military had provided the security and consistency he hadn’t had as a kid? Holy crap! Had Christian grown up poor?
Emily tried to imagine him scrawny and scruffy, with holey jeans and worn tube socks, and couldn’t quite form the picturein her mind. Grown-up Christian was always so composed, so unruffled, so completely,expensivelyput together. She’d always assumed he shot out of the birth canal in a pair of Gucci chukkas.
Then again, his explanation made it startlingly clear why he’d been right there with her in demanding that Angel make sure whichever car he decided to blow up had an insured owner.
She thought sheheard a rumbling noise.Shit.Surely it wasn’t the foundations of those walls she’d built against him. Right?Right?
Afraid to answer her own question, she posed one for Christian instead. “Boss? What about him?”
Frank “Boss” Knight was their esteemed leader back at Black Knights Inc.
“Our paths crossed when Boss was a SEAL,” Christian said. “After I was decommissioned, I heard he’dquit the Navy to start a chopper shop.” Right. Because BKI’s cover was that of a custom motorcycle shop. Only the CIA and those on the very top rungs of government knew the truth of the matter. “I gave him a ring to ask him how the bloody hell he was doing the transition to being a civilian.”
