Hell for Leather (Black Knights Inc. #6)(48)
“And don’t think just because I’m agreeing to your help right now that it means I’m swallowing that load of hogwash you’re dishing.”
“First it was horse crap and now it’s hogwash?” She wrinkled her nose. He did not make note of how cute it was. “None of that is very appetizing, is it?”
“I mean it. The minute we find Delilah’s uncle,” he pointed a finger at her, “I’m going to be all over your ass like a bad rash until you come clean with whatever it is you’re hiding from me.”
“A bad rash, huh? I’ve heard calamine lotion works wonders for that.”
“I’m dead serious,” he warned.
“Ooh.” She shivered dramatically. “I love it when you bring out the sound and fury.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Spoken like a true scholar.”
He scowled down at her. She grinned up at him. And the Black Knights appeared to have been stunned into silence. The air around them vibrated like a yawning black hole of complete conversational failure. Then Chelsea’s iPad dinged and a set of real-time infrared scans appeared on her screen.
The Knights gathered around her as the first image took shape and Mac leaned in close, whispering, “Well, I tell you one thing, she’s got some snap in her garters.”
Yeah, Dagan thought uncharitably, that’s one way of putting it. Another way of putting it would be to say she was a serious pain in the ass.
***
The Knights were eyeing the CIA agent with differing levels of curiosity and suspicion, and Delilah had to admit that Chelsea Duvall was not what she imagined in a government spook. Short, slightly plump, and adorably cute with her mixed heritage and smattering of freckles, Chelsea looked more like she should be teaching kindergarteners their ABCs and 123s and less like she should be chasing bad guys around the globe.
Then again, perhaps that was the whole point. A spy wasn’t supposed to look like a spy, right?
Mac’s knuckles brushed the back of her hand when he stepped up to get a closer look at the screen on Chelsea’s iPad, and Delilah would swear she felt the touch somewhere much more intimate. A slight shiver convulsed her muscles, and she just barely held back a gasp as she glanced into his big, square, unfairly attractive face.
Oh, goody-goody-gumdrops. So the Mask of Inscrutability has returned!
And how he could manage to look completely unfazed when mere minutes ago he’d been sucking her nipple and grinding the hard, hot length of his erection against her she’d never know. For her part, she couldn’t seem to come down from the high. Her body was still piano-wire tight, the blood rushing through her veins as sharp and warm as the hot toddies she liked to serve when a nor’easter blew through Chicago.
She now knew what it meant when those historical romance novels she liked to read claimed the heroes “ravaged” the heroines. Because, really, considering the way Mac had held her, stroked her, kissed her, tongued her, there was no other way to describe it. And if she was going to call it a ravaging, then she also had to call Mac completely, deliciously beastly. He’d been growling and groaning and—for the love of tequila—to say it’d been hot would be like calling lukewarm bathwater hot. Because enigmatic, self-disciplined, Bryan “Mac” McMillan losing control of those reins he usually kept such a tight hold on had been way beyond hot. It’d been volcano-hot, surface-of-Mercury-hot, exploding-star-hot. So hot she was still feeling singed, and he was…
Well, he was ignoring her and watching the CIA agent’s screen with concerted interest.
Ugh. She didn’t know if she should be depressed or impressed.
“Yorp!” Fido sang from his position by the back door, wagging his tail enthusiastically. Obviously, he had no interest in what Agent Duvall was showing them, and Delilah sort of envied the big yellow dog. How nice would it be to have no worries except for when your next meal or game of fetch would be?
Then again, that wasn’t necessarily true. Because poor, sweet Fido had lost his master as surely as she’d lost her uncle. And, okay, so that was one way to take the edge off the lust still zinging through her system. Thoughts of Uncle Theo…
“Check that out,” Ozzie said, pointing a finger at the screen. “Why are there four people in that building downtown?”
Delilah couldn’t help herself, she moved in closer so she, too, could see what Ozzie was motioning toward. To her utter consternation, she couldn’t understand the information on the agent’s iPad. It just looked like vague gray outlines in a series of geometric shapes with four green dots moving around inside one of them.
“Squatters?” Mac supplied. “Or kids in there havin’ a toke?” When her arm brushed against his, he took a small step back. She glanced up at his face and was rewarded for her effort with an expression that was no longer the Mask of Inscrutability. That was the good news. The bad news? Well, now he’d reverted back to his second most favorite look. Disapproval.
Oh, you’ve got be kidding me! Her feelings must’ve been evident on her face because disapproval quickly morphed into dismissal.
Wahoo! We’re three for three, folks! And, oooh, where was a rock when she needed one? Something small and hard that she could zing toward his stubborn head? Just whack! Knock some sense into him with one blow. She was stopped from glancing around the room in search of a serviceable item when Ozzie replied, “Mmm. Yeah, you’re probably right. Ask for the next scan, Agent Duvall.”