In Rides Trouble (Black Knights Inc. #2)(45)
“Are you going to do the damned sketch or not?”
Every single hackle she had stood up and started shaking an angry fist. “Yes!” she hissed, thrusting out her chin. “I’ll do the damned sketch!” You big, stupid dill-hole!
“Good.” He nodded, then turned and stomped back to his office.
Oooh, the insufferable…
How she could continue to want him, to love him after the way he’d been treating her the past few days was a complete and utter mystery.
She was a glutton for punishment.
That was the only answer.
Chapter Eleven
A door opened down the hall. Frank knew that squeaky hinge. Becky was up.
He snatched his diver’s watch from the bedside table and glanced at the softly glowing dial. Oh-three-hundred.
What the hell was she doing awake at this hour?
He very much feared he knew the answer to that one. And his name started with an A and ended with an L and—
Sonofabitch!
He threw an arm over his gritty eyes and tried not to picture Angel and Becky together.
It was impossible.
Ever since the night he’d caught them doing the cute and cuddly bit on the couch, all he could see when he closed his eyes was Becky in that damn Mossad agent’s arms. It was enough to have him needing some of the Pepto-Bismol Bill had taken to toting around.
And yeah, so Angel hadn’t taken her to bed then, evidenced by the fact that she’d still been on the sofa the next morning—a miracle for which Frank had nearly dropped to his knees and thanked the good Lord—but that didn’t mean they weren’t currently giving each other the ol’ slap and tickle.
Ugh. Just the thought made him want to vomit.
On the verge of plugging his ears so he wouldn’t have to hear the sound of Angel’s door opening, he sat bolt upright when the muted chic-chic of a round being chambered met his ears instead.
What the hell?
He tossed back the covers and raced to the door, jerking it open only to be greeted by Becky’s wide, panicked gaze and the business end of Springfield XD-9 Subcompact pistol.
“Whoa!” He threw his hands in the air, wincing when his injured shoulder shrieked in protest of the movement.
“He’s here,” she whispered hoarsely, turning to aim the pistol down the long, dark hall. “Somehow he broke in and—”
“Who’s here, Becky?”
“Sharif!” she hissed. “He killed Toran out at the gatehouse and now he’s here and—”
She swung around and nearly blew Peanut to hell when the cat had the bad sense to plod out of her room and into the hall.
“Oh, God, Peanut! I nearly sent you to kitty heaven!” She cried even as she spun back and once more quartered the dimly lit hall, slowly moving in the direction of the stairs.
“Becky, I need you to—”
“Where’s your weapon, Frank? You need to get a weapon!” Her voice cracked on the hard edge of hysteria, and he realized what was happening.
He’d seen it all before. Men, fresh in from the field, seemingly fine, go to sleep one night only to wake from a nightmare so vivid they’re unable to tell what’s real and what’s simply a figment of their over-stimulated brains.
“Becky,” he told her calmly, “you had a nightmare. Sharif isn’t here. He didn’t get in. Toran is fine and still—”
He could tell by the wild look on her face, she didn’t believe him.
“Come with me.” He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and slowly led her down the stairs to the bank of computers on the office level. She didn’t relax her grip on the pistol the entire way and continued to quarter the area like a well-trained commando.
“Look,” he pointed to the screen showing Toran in the gatehouse. The guy was eating a jelly donut and sipping coffee from the cap of his drab-green thermos. Very much still alive.
“But I…I saw him. I mean…I think I…oh, God.” She shook her head slowly, then swallowed and carefully placed her pistol on the conference table.
He saw it coming. Her shoulders hitched up around her ears, her lower lip quivered.
And then his f*cking heart shattered, because tough-as-nails Rebel Reichert broke down in tears. No. Not tears. They were hard, heaving, gut-wrenching sobs.
“I must be going crazy,” she wailed into the hands she’d thrown over her eyes. “I was so sure…” She didn’t finish. She didn’t need to. He knew exactly what she was going through.
“I know you were,” he murmured as he gathered her into his arms—damn the bum shoulder and the protest it lodged. Damn his promise to himself to keep his hands off of her. “I know you were,” he repeated as he half carried/half dragged her up the stairs and into the media room.
He sat on the couch, pulling her into his lap as he smoothed her hair and let her cry herself dry.
It took everything he had not to kiss away each and every one of those tears, but he satisfied himself with simply burying his nose in her hair and breathing in her clean, sweet scent.
“I thought I was stronger than this,” she whispered against his throat sometime later. He tried to ignore her hot breath against his skin.
It wasn’t working.
Especially with her oh-so-fine, boxer-covered ass planted directly over his dick which, in response, was sounding a rousing chorus of, “happy, happy, joy, joys.”