Stop worrying about what’s going to happen tomorrow,he scolded himself.Enjoy the time you have with her now. Soak up every minute and every kiss and every smile.
“Grace?” He poked his head around the doorjamb. “I’m jumping in the shower to wash off this massage oil. Join me.” He chuckled and shook his head. “Goddamn, I meant…join me?”
She turned onto her side so she could prop her head in her hand. The curve of her hip down to her waist was amazing. The way her heavy breasts shifted against her rib cage was the very definition of femininity. And that coquettish look in her eye? Pure seductress.
“Asking for things isn’t your strong suit, huh?” she said with a grin.
“Apparently not.”
“Why do you suppose that is? Is it your military background? You got so used to giving orders?”
He knew she was teasing him. And any of the other Knights might’ve been able to go along with her light banter and come up with something appropriately clever. But for the life of him, the only answer he had was the truth.
“I think it’s probably more of a throwback to my childhood. If I asked for something, it gave the adults in my life the opportunity to say no. I got used to just stating my needs. That generally got me better results.”
Just as he’d known would happen, the teasing light dimmed in her eyes.Whycouldn’t he be more like Sam or Fisher? Quick with a quip? Easy to laugh?
“I know you just gotoutof the shower,” he told her. “But unless you want to slip and slide around the cabin like a seal for the rest of the day, you’ll need to wash off the oil.” He held out his hand. “Will you do me the honor of joining me?”
“Sugar.” She deepened her accent, and she might as well have wrapped her lips around the head of his dick the way the sonofabitch perked up. “I would like nothing better than to get wet and soapy with you.” She stood and sauntered toward him, her hips swaying so dramatically he nearly went cross-eyed. “Plus, we were so hot and hurried earlier I didn’t get the chance to kiss you in all the places I wanted to kiss you.”
“Oh, yeah?” He arched an eyebrow. “And where did you want to kiss me?”
“Everywhere. Absolutely everywhere.”
He wouldn’t have thought it possible, but he was hard again.
“Good.” He dragged her into the bathroom. “We can take turns.”
For the next forty minutes, until the hot water ran out, that’s exactly what they did.
22
Black Knights Inc.
“Assmonkey!”
Boss and Sam were standing on the second floor near the top of the stairs when Hannah let loose with another colorful curse in what was turning out to be a mile-long string of colorful curses.
Frank “Boss” Knight, who’d come in to work shortly after they’d had the exchange with Kerberos, chuckled and shook his head. Then he returned to his task, which was getting everyone’s pizza order because ten minutes earlier, Becky had declared herself “hungry enough to eat the north end of a southbound camel.” Which was when Sam had realized it’d been hours since he’d inhaled Eliza’s quiche and was fairly famished himself.
He wasn’t one to miss a meal. But the day’s hubbub, and especially Hurricane Hannah’s arrival, had distracted him from the rumblings of his stomach.
In fact, it was safe to say Hannah had distracted him from just abouteverything.
It was so strange to see her sitting in the war room, her vibrant hair twisted up and secured with a pencil, and her red lips pursed in concentration. Because hiseyessaw a pretty woman, but his heart still looked for that wide-eyed kid.
“So that’s a meat lovers for me and Becky,” Boss said. “A supreme for Eliza, a pepperoni with extra cheese for our resident computer whiz.” He hitched his chin toward Hannah. “And a Hawaiian for you.” This last part he said with a curled lip.
“What?” Sam demanded. “I like it. The sweet of the pineapple and the salty of the ham?”
“It’s a crime against humanity.” Boss gave a sad shake of his buzz-cut head. “Or, at the very least, it’s a crime against pizza. And you have the cojones to call yourself a born and bred Chicagoan? You should be ashamed.”
“Shitgibbon!” Hannah shook a fist at the monitor.
Boss rolled in his lips to keep from laughing again. “She has a rather remarkable command of profanity. I mean, I’ve been around plenty of cursing in my time. But I can’t remember ever meeting anyone who did it with quite so much…panache.”
“She’s…uh…” Sam scratched his chin and glanced over at Hannah, “experiencing some frustrations with the emails.” When he turned back, Boss had crossed his arms over his chest and was regarding him consideringly. “What?” he demanded.
