On Her Master's Secret Service (Masters and Mercenaries #4)(50)

He’d made sure she had the choicest cut of steak and had put a large portion of truffled mashed potatoes on her plate before getting his own helping.

And she’d eaten it even when she knew she shouldn’t. Damn Sean. She couldn’t pass up his artistry. Maybe she would need those training sessions.

“Go back to bed, Eve.”

She’d already been to bed, and there was no way she could sleep in that big bed while waiting to see what Alex was going to do. She’d half expected him to walk in and demand every right she’d denied him for the last five years. She had to make him see that she hadn’t betrayed him. “I knew you wouldn’t call off the op.”

He had a glass in his hand. She couldn’t tell exactly what was in it, but she would bet it was Scotch. All the men in her life seemed to turn to Scotch. “Did you?”

He’d shrugged out of his shirt when he’d walked through the room ten minutes before. She’d rested there in bed, waiting for him to come in and start laying down the law as her Master, but he’d simply turned off the security system and slid out onto the balcony wearing nothing but a pair of jeans that hugged his ass.

“Yes, I knew there was no way to stop you, so I came with you. Amanda can’t handle an op like this. You were being reckless when you chose her to watch your back.”

He took a long sip from the glass before answering. “I have Sean to watch my back. I just needed Amanda to look pretty and keep her mouth closed.”

She took a long breath and prayed for a little patience. “Which just shows that you don’t know her at all. Amanda isn’t known for keeping her mouth shut. She likes to insult every single female around her. She also has a deep-seated need to please whoever she considers to be the alpha male of a group. What happens if she decides Chazz is the alpha male?”

Alex turned, an arrogant look on his face. “Really? That little weasel?”

He wasn’t thinking at all. “Just being the biggest and the best looking doesn’t make you top dog, Alex. Chazz has power, and Amanda would be attracted to that.”

He frowned and ran a hand over his nearly non-existent hair. There was maybe a quarter inch of his dark brown hair left. He’d buzzed it, and he’d been right to do it. It changed his features, making him look harder, leaving nothing to detract from the stark, masculine lines of his face. “Fine, I should have vetted her better, but you had no right to replace her without consulting me. This is my op. I don’t want you here.”

Well, he couldn’t put that any more harshly. He didn’t want her. Fine. She could handle that. She was tough, and he was stuck with her now. “I can do the job, Alex. It’s not my first rodeo. I will grant you I don’t have the field experience that Ian does, but until Ian decides to hire another couple of females, you’re stuck with me. You needed a woman for this job and you needed one you can trust.”

“I needed one who wouldn’t f*ck everything up.”

Hurt flared through her system. “Are you calling me incompetent?”

He sighed and turned around again. “No. I would never call you that. I’m calling you a distraction I don’t need. I need to be sleeping or working on this case, but my dumb ass is standing out here thinking about the fact that I haven’t kissed you on the lips in five years and I feel like a stupid kid hoping I don’t f*ck it up.”

Her heart softened immediately. God, she hadn’t thought about what it would mean to really be here with Alex. They’d been on plenty of undercover operations before, but never one that forced them together with such intimacy. Somehow, the thought of kissing Alex scared her far more than the operation. She’d been able to hold herself apart from him because she’d only allowed him sex and discipline. Kissing was different. Kissing was intimate.

She’d never forgotten the way Alex had kissed her—like she was the only woman in the whole world and he couldn’t get enough of her.

Kissing was dangerous.

“Alex, maybe we should talk about this.”

“All you ever want to do is talk. I’m not your patient. I’m your husband.”

Just the word could make her ache. “We’re divorced. We have been for a long time.”

He laughed, a bitter little huff. “I’ll always be your husband. Just because you chose to sign a piece of paper and forced me to sign it too doesn’t mean I don’t feel like your husband.”

“I didn’t force you to sign anything.” And in her calmer, more reflective moments, she could even admit that the divorce had been a drastic measure. She’d wanted to jar Alex out of the angry place he’d been in and force him to see her again.

He’d simply signed the papers and continued to look for Michael Evans.

“I asked you what you wanted and you said you wanted a divorce, so I gave it to you, but I didn’t even move out of our house, Eve. It wasn’t until we moved here that we didn’t share a house.”

But he’d moved from their bed the night she’d come home from her ordeal. He’d sat up in a chair beside the bed, watching over her, but he hadn’t slept beside her because she couldn’t stand to have anyone touch her at the time. The trouble was, even after a few weeks, they had still been sleeping apart. “It was obvious to me that our marriage was over. You didn’t sleep with me. You barely touched me.”