“You can meet him right now. He’s making pizza. I actually came to see if you’ll join us.”
She was used to getting tossed into a lot of new situations, and this was just one more in her long career. Opal led her to the patio and an outdoor kitchen that was loud in a way that the rest of the house wasn’t. Voices overlapped and someone was arguing about toppings. The scent of baking cheese made her mouth water.
As she stepped onto the patio, she felt it again. The weight of a stare on her.
Before she even glanced up, she knew that the quiet, dangerous man who’d watched her so closely—at the table in the bank, in the SUV and in the war room—wasn’t finished assessing her yet.
He wasn’t watching her like a threat to be neutralized. He was watching her like a problem he hadn’t yet decided how to solve.
TWO
Ash stood at the outdoor kitchen, forearms braced on the stone counter, watching heat ripple off the brick dome. Their two resident pizza experts, Sinner and Izzy, ran an assembly line. Dough slapped down. Sauce spread. Cheese tossed on top.
He didn’t know why they’d asked him to help—they had it covered.
He felt awkward when the team forced him to participate. He didn’t fit in.
At first, he’d told himself it was because he was the newest. Months later, he knew better. It wasn’t about rank or time served. He just wasn’t willing to participate in all the group activities—and he’d stopped pretending he was able to fit in. He had his team’s six. That was enough. It had to be.
Sinner had Ash tending the fire of the oven, and it was hot work. He cracked a bottled water and brought it to his lips.
Izzy reached across him and plucked a couple of olives from the prep bowl. She popped them in her mouth, eyes dancing when she looked at Ash.
“Your hair’s getting long enough to curl.”
Damn. He forced himself not to rub a hand over his skull. He kept his head shaved because if it was growing, it was curling. Growing up, he’d been teased relentlessly and by the time he was in his teens, he started shearing it off.
Thinking about his hair made him think of his mom. She passed while he was in boot camp, leaving him alone in the world and making him the perfect candidate for Blackout. They were all dead men walking, issued death certificates on the day they signed their papers.
Sinner glanced over, bare forearms dusted with flour. “Dude. You got curls?”
Ash gave them both a flat look. “No.”
“It’s okay, Ash. Lots of guys have curly hair.” Izzy’s smile widened.
At that moment, Steele drifted outside. Lucky for Ash, whenever Steele was around, Izzy was glued to him. Which thankfully shifted the topic away from his curls.
Steele moved toward Izzy like she was the sun and he needed her for warmth. He settled his hands on her hips and pressed his lips to hers. “Kennedy is looking for you.”
When she looked at him, love lit up her entire face. She dusted off her hands. “Ash, take my place.” She stole another olive on the way, then Steele slipped his arm behind her back and led her inside.
Laughter spilled from the open door between the patio and the kitchen, punctuated by the wooden scrape of the pizza peel and the hiss of fire.
He took over for Izzy, placing toppings on the pizzas Sinner slid across the counter. For a while, they worked in companionable but not awkward silence.
Then Opal walked out with Ellory beside her.
Ash’s hand hovered over the bowl of sliced green peppers, his body locking before his mind caught up.
Ellory had changed out of her sexy office attire and into a borrowed sweater and a pair of slim-fitting jeans. She’d pulled her thick oak-brown hair back in a knot that showed the line of her throat. And her glasses were perched on her head instead of her pert little nose.
He was trained to be observant, but he shouldn’t notice details like how the soft material of the sweater clung to her breasts. Or how its deep blue color made her eyes even bluer.
Her gaze drifted from Sinner to the pizzas they were making…and landed on Ash.
Her gaze snagged on his for a single beat, long enough for him to see some question flicker through.
Opal crossed the patio to Sinner’s side, and he paused mid-toss of a crust to lean in and brush a kiss on her temple.
