Her grin became wider. More wicked. “Yeah?”
“Except for the Honey Bun Bun. I cannot. Will not.”
“Excuse me? Love. Puddle.” She gave him a meaningful look. “Explain that.”
His dark brow rose. “It’s actually Kissy Kibble Love Puddle. It came out during a moment of passion.”
“Uh-huh.” She almost laughed when he said it. How long had it been since someone had outjoked her?
“Okay, they have my pic and will, hopefully, get in touch with Jared.” When she raised her eyebrow, he added, “My boss at TITAN. So what’s our plan?”
She slid her arms down his broad back and grabbed his wet ass. “We go out there, fuck like rabbits until the power gets cut.”
He laughed. “It’s hard to get weaponized in the dark, you know.”
“Well, this is how I’d do it. We get dressed. I’m sure there’s something out there waiting for us because of the way my ring’s buzzing, so we’ll have to act really, desperately in love. I secure you to the bed and you’re going to play love slave.”
He stared down at her. “Seriously?”
“Well, they think you’re secured, but you aren’t. I’m very good with knots. And they would be listening to you being honey-bun-bunned to death.”
His face blanched just a little. “No.”
“It’s a great distraction! And then, poof! Time for action. Come on, the words will keep them riveted. It’s just like playing the air guitar.”
“Air guitar. You’re comparing us to playing air guitar.”
“Have you ever seen Bradley Cooper play air guitar? That man was pure sex on air guitar, even with a clown wig on him. We have to be funny and sexy, that’s all.”
“Clown wig,” he repeated.
At the continuing disbelief in his face, she turned the shower off, and took his erection in her hand. “I see you need a little encouragement.”
* * *
Walker walked out of the bathroom first, releasing steam and the sounds of Nadine—no, Nadia—drying her hair amid non-stop chatter of babies, her being sick for the baby and his being there for the baby. God, the woman’s act could make porridge out of a man’s brain. It was a form of “distraction,” as she called it, something she did extremely well. GEM operative, huh? He tried to recall what he knew about them. He’d had several indirect brushes with them overseas and had been instructed by his handlers that most of them were harmless social workers with a fancy BS name.
What he’d seen of them kind of reiterated that opinion. He’d seen a couple who had worked as interpreters in the border refugee camps, organizing financial and food aid. When he’d gone undercover within a warlord’s camp, one of the GEM agents had shown up to negotiate a female prisoner’s freedom, which had generated quite a bit of male laughter among the men. But she did leave with the prisoner and her success had intrigued Walker back then.
The Middle East, with all its dark chaos, was a thick mess of agencies with different agendas. One grew used to stepping into a mire and recognizing opposing forces moving in the very same circles while their factions fought bloody wars somewhere else. The warlords and their system of honor, which could turn on a dime against anyone or anything. The CIA operatives with their furtive covert work. The contractors bringing in weaponry in exchange for information. Social workers and doctors working for the good, mindful of their lives as they worked from Points A and B.
Sometimes, he’d wanted to make contact with some of them for their own good but he had always been unable to. Back then, his cover could not be blown at any cost. So, here and there, suicide bombings took place. Here and there, he had to stay inside when there were drone attacks outside and he couldn’t save the innocent lives affected. It’d taken a toll on him. The final stage of his coverup, after fulfilling the agenda of his handlers, was the total elimination of the whole camp of bastards, which he’d done, with his own hands. People who had called him partner, but whom he’d seen murder women and children. People with whom he’d trained and who thought he didn’t understand the different codes and vaults they were setting up for stolen uranium. People who planned the entire destruction of villages without a thought for its inhabitants. He eliminated them all. Efficiently. Proficiently. He’d used his anger and those moments of feeling helpless to fuel him and his revenge was relentless until completed.
Then he’d dropped all his weapons and left the camp to come home.
His files told the whole story, but only Jared, his new boss, understood the emotional toll. That was why his assignment had been local for now. No more international battles for a while, he’d said.
And here he was with a GEM agent who had made him laugh more times than he could remember in the past few years. All amidst the danger of being found out by men he knew were perfectly capable of violence. He’d been around their kind long enough to recognize the body language. Nadia was aware of this too, and still she was able to bring some light into that darkness. An ordinary grim operation of being prisoners, which could have turned bloody, especially with him around, had become a caper involving, of all things, a gone-wrong elopement, a lot of puking and a pregnancy. She had tied her captors up in knots.
Just as he was. In love knots.
He shook his head mentally. He couldn’t deny the attraction. He’d lived on the edge for so long, he was now standing literally at the edge of temptation. And he’d a feeling he was about to jump.
“Why so quiet, Honey Bun Bun?”
Nadia’s smoky voice interrupted his reverie as she marched out from the bath in just those amazing tight pants, heels, and her bra. The sight almost made him stride to her and sweep her off her feet and do all kinds of kinky things on the inviting bed nearby.
“I was just admiring the food table they’d brought in,” he said. “Not bad for being prisoners. Maybe they didn’t lock the doors.”
