After she wrenched her gaze away, she could still feel his stare sliding down her body inch by heated inch.
Her fingers still hovered over the tablet, but the offshore routing numbers only jumbled into a tighter black knot.
When someone touched her elbow, she sucked in a breath, expecting to catch Angelo’s body-tingling scent, but Opal was standing there.
Her friend was studying her, and if anyone would see how off-balance Ellory was, it was Opal.
She attempted to slap a pleasant look on her face.
“Come on.” Opal pitched her voice low so as not to interrupt the discussion of thermal signatures from the SEALs clustered around the big screen.
Ellory lifted a brow. “Where are we going?”
“Let’s let them work.”
She blinked at her friend. “But they need me here. My skills.”
She wasn’t some civilian who needed to be shuffled out when things got serious. She’d tracked down financial data that led to people connected with Cipher. She’d survived an attack.
She’d earned her place at this table.
Opal’s expression was full of understanding, but her words were firm. “I know. But sometimes being part of the team is giving the team space. And giving your own mind a break.”
Ellory glanced at Con, who was assigning their final roles. Where Ash—Angelo…god, she didn’t even know what to call him now—sat with every line of his body hardened like he was ready to raid bunkers in third-world countries.
The memory of those shoulders flexing above her last night sent an unwelcome rush of heat through her veins. His hands had beeneverywhere.Rough. Demanding. Then achingly gentle. And his mouth…
Not now.
She forced the images away and looked back at Opal, who was watching her like she’d seen too damn much.
“All right.” Ellory saved her work and stood.
She opened her mouth to say something to Opal, but her friend was already moving down the hallway with purpose. When they walked into the kitchen, it was alive with activity.
Kennedy stood at the big island with a fat loaf of Italian bread on a cutting board in front of her. Her blonde hair was twisted into a perfect knot on the back of her head, and even in a T-shirt and jeans, she looked sensational.
May was at the range, bowls lined up in front of her as she mixed what had to be meatballs, judging from the garlic and herbs perfuming the air.
Alyssa claimed a stool at the corner of the island, a cutting board in front of her and a pile of vegetables for a salad. Izzy was pulling plates out of a cupboard.
“Italian night,” Opal announced, steering Ellory toward the stove. “On nights when they have missions, we cook together.”
Ellory glanced at the faces of the women gathered here. More than one bore a crease between their brows or a drawn expression that told her they cooked as a way to keep their minds off what the men they loved were walking into.
Opal opened a large drawer to reveal pots and pans. She pulled out a hefty pot and set it beneath the filler spout on the range. As water trickled into the stainless steel, she tilted her head toward the refrigerator.
“Sophie already made her famous marinara sauce. Do you mind getting it out?”
Ellory drifted to the fridge and located the big plastic container in the well-stocked depths. All around her, the room hummed with the ladies’ conversations. It was such a normalthing. Such adomesticthing that shouldn’t fit in so easily on a ghost ops base.
And yet the way the women moved around each other spoke of a ritual born from too many nights of waiting, of needing something to do with their hands while the men they loved ran into danger.
Ellory carried the container over and set it on the counter next to the range.
“Oh, damn,” came a breathless curse.
Ellory glanced over to see Alyssa climbing off the high stool and attempting to pick up the dropped slice of bell pepper with her pregnant belly impeding her movement.
