“What?”
“Apparently, the Agency’s spooks get their own space. You might wanna go patch things up.”
Parker left me sitting there.
I had four hours before I had to ride into a firefight and a shit ton of stuff to do, but all I could think about was Daniel. I wanted to see him smile and laugh again. I wanted to feel his arms around me.
Hell, I’d give anything for just a few minutes alone with him.
CHAPTER 18
DANIEL
I stormedout the moment the man dismissed the team, and I guess myself as well. Who knew. The man thought “embedded with” meant “conscripted to.”
The target held no more high-value intel than my teacher-sister did when it came to this fucking op. It was a suicide mission. He was sending Echo into a shitshow of epic proportions for something we could get in other ways.
“Agent Lennox?”
I turned, gritting my teeth to suppress the frustrated sigh that filled my chest. “Yes, sir. Can I help you?”
“Yes, Agent Lennox. You can help me by remembering to stay in your damn lane.”
As if intel wasn’t my fucking lane.
Swallowing the smirk that threatened to overtake my face, I said. “Excuse me, Commander, but the last I checked, your title was Commander, United States Navy, Naval Special Warfare, Group 1, Team 3. Correct?”
“Yes.” The man had actually preened.
“Well, then, sir, maybe you should stay in your lane, because my title is Central Intelligence Agency, Operational LiaisonOfficer, Naval Special Warfare, Group 1, Team 3. So, clearly, if anyone needs to remember their lane, it would be you, sir.”
“I’ll regret that, Agent Lennox.”
“I might.”
The smug bastard smiled, nodded, and turned to leave. “But, then again, so might you, Commander.”
“How’s that?”
I let the smirk I’d been fighting loose. “Since you decided to override the information your Intelligence Liaison Officer provided to you, I documented all the concerns I have for this op and emailed them to myself to create a paper trail, sir. So, you’d better hope the team comes back whole, otherwise I’ll put that information in the hands of the right people,sir.”
Turning my back on the man, I stalked off toward my room. I’d had enough for the day. I’d not slept more than a couple of hours at a stretch since we got here.
Cranking up the air conditioning and turning on my playlist on my laptop, I dropped to the bed. I let my eyes fall closed, only for them to pop open again.
“Fuck!”
I rose to sit on the side of my bed and scrubbed my hands over my face and head. The beard I had going on was getting out of hand, as were the curls. They’d gotten long enough that I could tuck them behind my ears.
I let my head drop to my hands, resting my elbows on my knees. I had four hours and private quarters. Or as private as you could get in JBad. At least we weren’t in Rhino anymore. Thank fuck. That place sucked. I’d never been happier than when we handed it over to the Marines.
The polygraph in my brain screamedLIEso loud it made my ears ring. I’d never been happier than I’d been before boarding that transport plane in Coronado. Curled up with Xander, fucking or not, that was when I’d been happiest.
And then I fucked it up by getting pissed at a modern-day alpha male warrior for trying to protect his person. I hated anyone thinking of me as a dude in distress that the big, strong SEAL needed to hide away, like that scene in Fee’s favorite book, where the highland lord stuffs his female love interest in a rock crevice to hide her from a rival clan. The number of times Fiona read that book, the name of which escaped me, and expounded on that scene and one about firewater or some shit, burned that book into my brain. I always felt the author portrayed the female character as weak, and that’s how Xander made me feel. As if trusting me to watch his six was a ridiculous idea. Just thinking about it shoved me back into that mindset. And if I couldn’t find my way out of it, I’d never figure out how to right this sinking fucking ship of a…Hell, I couldn’t even bring myself to call what we had a relationship. More like the promise of one? Maybe.
Grabbing my laptop, I opened the email from Fiona where she screwed my head on straight.
You’ve never liked that book. Nor did you ever understand it. Does the Buchanan think she’s a weak girl? Yes, in the beginning, but she proves him wrong time and time again. He comes to know she’s strong. And not just strong, but much stronger than him in many ways. And he realizes she’s not only his strength but also his weakness.
