“It’s worse than that,” he said. “There are a couple guys on the team—especially Gage and Mike—who are walking lie-detector machines. They can pick up on stress responses, changes in breathing patterns, elevated heart rates, the whole bag of donuts. We’ll have to be careful what we say when we talk about each other and what we tell them to cover ourselves when we’re together, or they’ll catch us that way too.”
Crap. She wasn’t a very good liar. She ran a hand through her hair. “It is crazy to try this.”
Xander put his arms around her, resting his cheek against her hair. “Probably, but I can’t see any other way short of us walking away from the Pack. Or each other.”
Khaki didn’t answer. She wanted to be in the Pack and on the SWAT team more than anything. She’d worked hard to get here, and she wasn’t ready to give it up.
But at the same time, she wanted Xander too—with an intensity she knew it would be impossible to ignore. Openly declaring their relationship to the Pack wasn’t a possibility, not if they hoped to keep working together.
Xander was right. They’d have to try and keep their relationship secret. It might be impossible and was likely going to blow up in their faces, but they didn’t have a choice.
She went up on tiptoe and kissed him. “I’m not walking away from anything.”
He smiled down at her. “Good. Then let’s get cleaned up.”
Chapter 11
“You should keep your shirt off all the time,” Khaki said.
Xander glanced at her as he turned onto the road leading to the SWAT compound. She was sitting as far away from him as she could, which was too far away for his liking. He would have preferred to have her snuggled up close like she’d been last night on the drive to her place. But they couldn’t take the chance of getting their scents all over each other again.
Any thought of wearing the same shirt he’d had on last night had disappeared the moment he’d found it this morning, shredded to pieces on the floor of her living room. He was going to have to remember that in the future or he’d be going through a lot of shirts.
“Maybe I will.” He grinned. “If you ask nicely.”
“I can think of one or two ways to ask nicely I’m sure you’d appreciate,” she said with a husky laugh that did crazy things to his cock.
Down,boy.
Khaki had been quiet for most of the ride, clearly lost in her own thoughts. Xander was feeling a little subdued himself. Not because he was worried about the Pack learning their secret, but because he was completely at peace with the decision he and Khaki had made to be together.
He realized now that he hadn’t fully appreciated how hard his inner werewolf had been snarling at him to say the hell with the rules and give in to his desires to be with Khaki. Now that he’d taken that leap, it was like his conscience was assuring him he’d done the right thing.
While his mind might have been calm, his body was anything but. Even though they’d made love for hours last night, his need for Khaki burned like a flame deep inside him. Every time he looked her way, those glowing embers threatened to grow into a roaring fire. But if they wanted to not only be together, but work together too, they were would have to control their attraction to each other.
It helped that Gage had called Xander’s cell phone right before he’d been about to step into Khaki’s shower. Nothing like hearing your boss’s voice at five o’clock in the morning to banish all those sexual thoughts.
Gage had wanted to let him know that the FBI bank robbery task force was having another big, multi-agency meeting and they wanted SWAT to be there. Another bank had been robbed last night and all the evidence pointed toward it being the same crew that had hit the bank on Jackson.
“It was a big haul and the FBI didn’t have a clue it was going down,” Gage told him. “I think they’re starting to feel the pressure on this one and it’s making them more willing to work with the locals.”
After the way the last bank job had ended, with Khaki essentially calling Thompson a dumb shit in front of the entire world, Xander thought his SWAT team would be the last people the FBI would want to work with.
“The meeting starts at eight,” Gage added. “Who do you want to take with you?”
Xander’s gut was to bring Khaki, but he hesitated. He didn’t want to single her out and make it look like he was playing favorites.
“Becker and Cooper, I guess,” he finally said. “They need the experience working with the feds.”
“What about Khaki?”
“I thought that might not go over too well with the FBI agent in charge,” Xander said. “Especially after the way Khaki got in his face the other day.”
“All the more reason to bring her then,” Gage said. “It’s time to show the feds we’re not going to play nice anymore.”
Xander didn’t argue. Suddenly, the idea of spending hours sitting in a big conference room listening to boring FBI briefings didn’t seem so bad, not if Khaki was there.
Besides, the meeting got him and Khaki out of PT, and for that he was glad. He wasn’t sure he could get through a workout smelling the pheromones she put out when she exercised. He’d have to deal with it later, but after the night of earthquaking sex they’d had, he wasn’t sure he could survive it.
