Hell on Wheels (Black Knights Inc. #1)(15)

He was momentarily arrested because…man, six feet away she was pretty.

Up close like this? Total gut-shot.

Of course, having just seen all of her unmentionables didn’t help matters. Unmentionables?

Whoever came up with that ridiculous term? Underwear that fantastic deserved to be mentioned on a regular basis.

Shit, he wasn’t going to think about her underwear. Which, of course, only made him wonder what color she had on under those tight, distressed jeans and that thin T-shirt. Pink? Her shirt was pink. Women often matched their underwear to their outfits. At least that’d been his experience. So…probably pink.

Holy shit! He was not going to think about her underwear!

“Being quiet might be too tall an order.” She nervously licked her lips and he couldn’t help but eye the movement. “Y-you see, when I’m nervous or in pain I tend to talk. It helps me not dwell on the fact that I’m…well, n-nervous or in pain. Like right now? I’m both. So it’s best if I just keep talking. So I’m gonna keep talking, okay?”

He watched her slightly frantic eyes swing toward the table where it looked like a panty-bomb had gone off. Ozzie was standing wide-eyed with a bra in one hand and his pocket knife in the other. “I take it there actually was something in my clothes. Either that or Ethan, er, Ozzie has an aversion to purple satin.”

“Yeah,” he told her as he gently reached toward Peanut, determined not to think about pink silk or purple satin. “You’re bugged. Devices in all your underwear.”

“My underwear? My gosh, that’s so sick—”

“No, not sick,” he interrupted and managed to snake an arm around Peanut’s substantial middle. “It’s smart. You always wear underwear, therefore, you’re always bugged. Whoever tagged you knew what they were doin’, not to mention they were able to get their hands on some pretty hard-to-come-by, high-tech gadgetry.”

She shot him a look.

“What?” he asked.

“Where’s my journal? I want to jot this down for posterity.”

Huh?

He lifted a confused brow and she smirked, ornery light glinting in her amber eyes.

“You just spoke, like, what? A whole four sentences? Not to mention there were a few adjectives thrown in there. That must be some sort of record. It should be memorialized accordingly, don’t you think?” She batted her lashes.

Jesus, the woman was too much.

She rolled her eyes at his fierce frown. That is until he tightened his hold on the damned cat.

“Oh, aahhhh!” She shrieked as he swiftly lifted Peanut from her head and unceremoniously dropped the hairy ton of fun to the ground.

Wow, somebody needed to talk to Becky about what she was feeding the beast. Nate was pretty sure the floor actually shook.

“Here,” he reached into his back pocket and handed her the bandana he always kept there. “You’ve got a drop of blood,” he pointed to his own cheek.

“Thanks,” she said as she pressed the cloth to her temple.

“We, uh, need you to give us the underwear you’re wearing,” he muttered and tried not to glance at the multi-colored mountain of lingerie heaped on the conference table. It only made him imagine just what she’d look like in each and every piece and that certainly didn’t do a thing for the semi-wood he was sporting—semi-wood which threatened to turn into a Louisville Slugger with the slightest encouragement.

Was there a particular name for the kind of reaction this woman engendered in him? Compulsive fixation might begin to cover it. Unreasonable horniness certainly did.

Just the thought of her handing him a pair of panties still warm from the heat of her body—and the recollection it invoked—had a shaft of red-hot lust zinging down his spine.

That was immediately followed by a harsh flash of memory…his hand shaking on the handle of the bloody KA-BAR and Grigg’s mutilated, lifeless body going cold in his arms.

He was hit by a crashing wave of guilt.

Uh-huh, yeah, and that pretty much summed it up when it came to his relationship—or non-relationship—with Ali Morgan. Lust and guilt. The two were so intertwined it was a wonder he’d ever felt one without the other.

What a goatf*ck.

And now here she was, standing not a foot from him, probably wearing silky pink underwear, looking half-frightened, half-amused, with almond shaped eyes that titled up at the corners and sparkled like gold bullion.

Shit. Eyes that sparkle like gold bullion? She turned him into a friggin’ poet—and not a very good one at that.

“Right. I’ll uh, just go take care of that underwear issue.” She gathered herself, squaring her thin shoulders, trying somewhat successfully to throw off the weight of her fatigue. She’d been without sleep for over twenty-four hours. He knew as soon as her adrenaline dropped—which, by the slightly glazed look in her eyes was gonna happen pretty soon—she’d hit the proverbial wall and then he’d have to wait for answers until she’d gotten twenty winks.

He didn’t want to do that.

The sooner he figured out just what the hell was going on, the sooner he could fix whatever it was, and the sooner Ali would be on her way back home.

Halfway across the country.

Which sometimes still felt too close. Particularly when he remembered that day at the beach when they—