“Not yet.” Her voice turned serious again. “What exactly are you doing with my friend?”
Hawk patted Amber’s bottom and watched the other woman’s expression turn to amusement. “Her? Oh, nothing quite as humiliating as what she did to me. Want to watch?”
The smile returned and she slowly lowered her weapon. “Is it anything kinky?” she asked. “She’ll hate it if you do anything kinky to her.”
Hawk cocked his head. “Lady, she tied a note around my dick. That’s not exactly prim and proper.”
She shook her head, her smile turning impish. “I didn’t see it, but suspected it from the look in her eyes. Ah well. I suppose that revenge of some sort’s proper. You did pass her test, after all.” She nodded toward Hawk’s back. “That’s where you want to go. This is the kitchen.”
Hawk raised his eyebrows. “You’re letting me walk in there with your friend, just like that.” This was a very unusual woman. “You trust me not to hurt her.”
She shrugged. “I’ll just kill you if you do. She’d do the same for me.” She glanced at her watch. “Besides, from what I’ve heard, you need her to help you in your mission, don’t you? You have fifteen minutes, Mr. McMillan. Is that enough time?”
“Plenty.” He started to turn around, then added, “You sure you don’t want to watch? Shouldn’t you be protecting Amber?”
The woman laughed. “Honey, what’s life without a little fun? I’m Lily, by the way. And watch that you don’t overdo that revenge bit. I’ll find you and hurt you before you can hide behind Dilaver’s big ass.”
Hawk gave her a smile and nodded, then turned toward the room Lily had indicated. He looked around as he walked toward a big bed that looked very comfortable. Spacious, with very few things on the walls. It didn’t look anything like the feel-good-Americana décor downstairs. A desk with her laptop. A big love seat in the corner by the window. That was it. No frou-frou pillows on the bed, or hand-crafted throws, or anything that matched the downstairs persona.
He bent down and slid Amber onto the bed. She settled into the feather mattress, her blond hair loosened from its knot, leaving bright wisps against her face and the dark pillow.
Hawk sat on the edge, taking a good look for the first time. She wasn’t anything like he’d imagined. He was still surprised at how small she was, although he knew this from the night before. He also knew how strong she was, yet nothing about this woman betrayed that.
She looked refined, with a peaches-and-cream complexion that made him want to touch her face, just to see whether her skin was as silky as it looked. With her mussed-up hair and her mouth slightly open, she reminded him of some sleeping princess.
Oh yeah, and he was just the prince to wake her up. And let’s not forget the princess was a well-armed woman with quite a number of skills. Which reminded him. He was here to make a point, not to admire the woman’s beauty.
He had never played a game of one-upmanship in quite this way before. He and his best friend, Jazz, were fiercely competitive, and had each done some pretty outrageous stuff to get the other’s goat. This time was no different, Hawk told himself. Tit for tat. Even if the opponent was a woman with gorgeous skin.
Hawk gently lifted her skirt. Those legs…Without warning, he suddenly had a vision of them wrapped tightly around him while he was naked. The image segued into a more masculine fantasy of him on top of Amber and doing the plunging, instead of the hypodermic needle she had with her.
Damn it!What the hell was wrong with him?
Determinedly, he pulled the skirt higher, until the holsters were in sight. He hesitated for only a second, then reached down to unfasten the first one. His hand spanned around her thigh, his tan from Asia very dark against her paleness. He stared, mesmerized by the contrast, and against his will stroked the soft skin with his thumbs. He wondered whether she was smooth and silky like this all over.
A deep sigh halted his rampant thoughts. Hawk looked up. Amber was still out, but he’d better hurry before her girlfriend outside changed her mind and came in guns ablazing. He unsnapped the holsters one after the other and removed them. Then he took a permanent marker out of his tool belt and gently nudged her onto her side.
If Dilaver was right, Amber Hutchens had a boyfriend anyway. Was he ever going to be pissed off when he saw she’d been marked. He grinned. He actually pitied the poor bastard. This woman was obviously a control freak who would run her man ragged with mind games. He uncapped the marker.
Lily didn’t think Hawk McMillan would really hurt Amber. Embarrass her a bit, maybe. She would respect the man a lot less if he hadn’t retaliated in kind for what her friend did to him. Lily worked with a lot of men and considered herself quite good at understanding them.
Most men, she corrected, but she wasn’t going to go into that again. She had done enough thinking abouthimout on the deck. And she wasn’t going to throw another pity party for herself again tonight.
Life was for living, and she planned to have a good time doing it. She knew Amber could sense her moodiness and she intended to remedy that somehow. She didn’t want anyone to think that she was anything but happy. Because life was for living, she repeated. She had seen enough misery to know her lot was way, way better than most women’s around these parts, and she would help give some living back to the poor girls as long as she could.
Lily checked her watch. Five more minutes. If he didn’t come out by then, she would go in. She wondered what he would do as revenge. Strip Amber? Hmm. How tediously boring. And if he did that, he surely knew he would have a war on his hands and Amber would kill him. No, he already knew that he needed Amber’s cooperation, so he wouldn’t do something too drastic.
But men were stupid and the last agent they had sent—Lily shrugged—well, that one deserved being caught. Better him than Amber or she, certainly.
She was well aware of the risks both of them were taking, but they had agreed that some of those risks were worth it, as in the case of the girls and children. Somebody had to do something. Why not them? They were in the position to do it, and if they were extremely careful, who would know?
So a CIA boy playing cat-and-mouse games with her good friend didn’t bother her conscience. It should. Sometimes she thought she didn’t have any feelings left, even about caring for Amber’s well-being. She would protect her, even kill for her…but she wasn’t sure whether it was because that was the thing to do or because she was just programmed that way. She just liked protecting people, she supposed.
Sixty seconds. Not that she was doing a good job protecting Amber at this moment, she admitted with a wry smile. A stranger in the bedroom with her friend. What was she thinking, allowing him fifteen minutes? That was enough time to do a lot.
She started toward the room. She supposed if she blew away another CIA agent, she would be forgiven this time if he happened to be naked and on top of Amber. The door was ajar, so she just pushed it open and walked in with her weapon.
A quick glance told her that Amber was alone. He was gone.
