Too Hard to Handle (Black Knights Inc. #8)(27)

Her blood grew warm at the recollection of his lips, his big hands, his hard body against hers. Moving. Brushing. Rubbing. Liquid heat bloomed low in her belly and between her thighs. She crossed her legs and squeezed, chastising herself. Really, Penni. You just convinced yourself that now is not the time.

Right. She had done that, hadn’t she?

“Looks like we’re in luck. No electronic creepy crawlies to worry about,” he said, pushing to a stand. Whew! Not seeing his broad back and underpants helped to return her focus. Sort of. Okay, not really. “He won’t be able to say the same for too much longer.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder and crossed back to the bed.

The way he walked, all sinewy coordination and fluid movement, reminded her of a wild animal. Something big and sleek and powerful. The ache to touch him, to hold him, to harness all that power for herself was incredibly strong, tempered only by the silence in the room as he selected a few things from the stuff on the bed, reloaded his backpack with the rest, and sauntered back to the adjoining wall.

For a few seconds she watched him run his hand along the plaster again, the quiet growing, growing, growing until it was almost deafening. Almost…crushing. Like a hundred pounds of pressure pushing against her eardrums.

She couldn’t stand it!

“I’ve noticed there’s some…er…tension between Chelsea and Zoelner,” she finally finished. Okay, and all things considered, that wasn’t a bad start. Neutral ground on which to begin a tentative conversation that would hopefully help close the distance between them.

“Ha!” His bark of laughter echoed around the room as he taped something to the wall that looked like the round electrodes used in hospitals to hook up a patient to the machines that charted their vitals. He stuck some wires into the electrode and then twisted the opposite end of the wires around themselves before threading them into a metal tip. He then inserted that metal tip into a handheld digital recorder.

Setting the recorder on top of the dresser, he moved to the other end of the wall and said, “Tension. I guess that’s one way of putting it.” He repeated the procedure with the electrode and the wires and the recorder. This time he set the device on the seat of the plush crimson chair pushed into the corner. “But I’d say it’s more a case of mutual lust or mutual loathing. Hard to tell the difference sometimes.”

Indeed. Although that’d never been their problem. Pretty much from the start it’d been mutual lust and mutual liking. Then again, that was before she’d made such a fool of herself at dinner. Before the Grand Canyon had sprung up between them. She ventured, “And do you know why there’s so much tension?”

He shrugged, and she totally did not notice the way the hem of his sweater rode up to reveal his belt buckle. All right already. So maybe she did notice that it was the same belt buckle she’d fumbled to unhook three months ago when—

Whew! Is it just me? Or is it getting hot in here?

The line from the song by Nelly ran through her head…so take off all your clothes. And, yeah. That’s just what she wanted to do. Take off all her clothes. Then take off all his clothes. To her utter shame, she had to remind herself yet again that she wasn’t there to jump his johnson, that he was on a mission and didn’t have time for…well…whatever. While doing that, she shrugged out of her parka and tossed it on the bed.

“There’s some history there,” he said, shoving his thumbs through the front two belt loops on his jeans so that his long, tan fingers made a little frame of his man bits. She’d become enamored of that stance in Kuala Lumpur, thinking at the time that he did it intentionally to draw the eye down to his rather…er…impressive package. But now, knowing him, she realized it was inadvertent, although it was no less hot.

Holy shit! What was with her?

“What history?” she managed even though talking was becoming more and more difficult. Her tongue felt heavy, swollen…like other parts of her.

“Hell if I know.”

“I just figured, given the last three months, that you and Zoelner had talked about—”

“Stop right there,” he interrupted, frowning at her. “Men don’t talk. At least not about feelings or relationships or anything that really matters.”

He flipped on one of the devices. A low hiss issued from its speaker, followed by what sounded like scratchy music. When he clicked on the second device, the same low hiss and muted music emerged from it. Lifting a finger for quiet, he cocked his head and listened. Then he nodded as if satisfied and pulled his cell phone from the hip pocket of his jeans. Punching in a number, he held the phone to his ear. After a second, he said so softly she had to strain to hear him, “Chels. It’s me. We’re wired up here.” Penni jumped when she heard his whispered voice coming from the speakers of the digital recorders. “Nope. But there’s music playing. I’m pretty sure he’s in there.”

The music was coming from Kozlov’s room? She stared at one of the devices in wide-eyed wonder.

“Roger that. Okay. Will do,” he finished softly. Stuffing the phone back into his hip pocket, he turned to her. “Where were we?”

“Forget that for a second,” she whispered and pointed to the electrodes and the wires and the recorders. “What are those?”

He glanced over his shoulder, then came to sit beside her on the bed. The mattress dipped under his weight, and she slid toward him. When her hip made contact with his, she caught herself before she let out a relieved sigh. Being next to him, touching him, felt right in way that nothing in her life ever had. Right and wonderful and…exciting. It’s like he was both a comfort and the cause of her internal chaos at the same time.