“And for the record, I like the pink. The color suits you.”
We were sitting close together, and as the smile he gave me in that moment was almost exactly the same way that he’d looked at me when we were alone in his room. Right before everything went wrong.
If we hadn’t been interrupted, how far would we have gone?
Would I know what his body felt like by now?
Guilt pricked at my heart, giving a bitter edge to the heat pooling in my stomach. I shouldn’t be thinking about such things when we were still waiting to hear that our friends were safe. There were bigger things to worry about than my sex life—or lack thereof—but my cock seemed to have developed a mind of its own and insisted on making its interest known.
I quickly snapped my legs together to hide my reaction, but that only caught Kitt’s attention. He glanced down toward my waist with a knowing smirk on his face.
“Having some trouble?”
I covered my lap with my hands, trying to will my erection away, but I accidentally pressed too hard. The friction of my pants against sensitive flesh just made everything even more sensitive, and I had to bite my lip to keep myself from moaning.
“No,” I managed to choke out. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?” He leaned a little closer. “Because I could?—”
Whatever he could do remained a mystery. Before Kitt could finish his suggestion, we were interrupted by a stranger suddenly sitting at our table across from us.
The woman had long black hair that she wore twisted up into a loose bun held together with a jade hair stick, and long dangly flower earrings. At first, she seemed unremarkable, other than the fact that she was sitting at our table. Just a regular woman dressed in business casual, with a slightly girlish theme to her clothing. However, her dark eyes were sharp as they locked onto Kitt and me, and I knew this was no chance encounter.
She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say a word, Kitt beat her to it.
“Lily Kim.”
Her mouth snapped closed, but rather than look bewildered or upset at the interruption, she instead seemed pleased.
“I see Gabe already told you about me.”
Very slowly, Kitt nodded, his hand landing protectively on my leg under the table. “He said you’re the FBI director’s personal secretary, and on a very short list of people we can trust if the situation turns dire.”
She glanced around the coffee shop and noticed that the end of her hair stick had been carved to an unusually sharp point that caught the light when she moved.
“A dire situation, huh? That seems to about sum things up for you right now.”
Kitt squeezed my leg a little harder.
“Gabe also mentioned that you’re the woman with her finger on the pulse of all information coming in and out of the FBI. Which begs the question, why are you here?”
The woman, Lily Kim, stirred her floral smelling tea. “Why else? I’m here to warn you.”
The hand on my leg was clearly a signal for me to remain silent and let Kitt take the lead. That was fine with me. MissKim’s title might have just been that of a secretary, but I could tell she wasn’t someone to mess with and was way above my pay grade to deal with.
Kitt, on the other hand, didn’t even flinch.
“Warn us about what? And why are you here instead of telling Gabe or the others?”
Tapping the teaspoon against the side of her drink, she waited for the last drop of liquid to fall away.
“You aren’t my first choice. I tried contacting Gabe first, and the other investigators as well. While I’m sure they’re still alive, they’re in hiding. I can’t contact them. You’re the only ones I could find, and I think you’ll want to hear what I have to say.”
She set the teaspoon down on the table with a click.
“Your quarry is about to escape from you. It may not seem like it, but the bell ringers are getting desperate. The evidence is piling up. If you manage to make your case in court, you have a good chance of winning your trial and they know it.”
Really?
