Too Hard to Handle (Black Knights Inc. #8)(75)

“Don’t be jealous,” Ozzie teased, shoving Dan away and dragging Zoelner in to wrap his arms around him. “There’s enough of Ozzie to go around.”

Chelsea hopped out of the Hummer at the same time Boss rounded the front bumper. “What do you mean she arrived early?” Boss asked, going back to Ozzie’s original statement. “I thought she was scheduled to show in thirty minutes.” He checked his watch. And then his questioning expression turned fierce when Becky—who’d finished putting away the giant grinding tool and setting aside the sheet metal—squealed and hopped into Dan’s arms. She squeezed Dan’s neck and peppered his cheek with kisses while telling him how happy she was to have him home. Boss waited barely a beat before grumbling, “Okay, Mrs. Knight. That’s enough of that.”

Becky pushed out of Dan’s arms, rolling her eyes at her husband. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”

“Well…yeah,” Boss harrumphed, crossing his arms and scowling dangerously.

Apparently the men of Black Knights Inc. were terribly proprietary when it came to other men putting their hands on their women. That Penni should feel a little zing of pleasure that Dan had treated her like she was his made her want to kick her own ass. She wasn’t some fawning heroine in a romance novel who needed to be the center of some chest-thumping man’s desire to feel complete. She was a modern woman who’d proved herself capable of anything and everything—without a man by her side, thank you. But still…there it was. That zing.

Someone should take away my Girl Power Club card…

“Well, you’ll just have to keep that green-eyed monster in check for, like, two more seconds,” Becky said, wrapping her arms around Zoelner’s waist and giving him a squeeze. Zoelner stiffened and patted her on the head like an older brother might do to a kid sister. But Boss didn’t seem to notice the platonic nature of the embrace.

“One Mississippi, two Mississippi,” he counted quickly, grabbing Becky’s arm and pulling her next to his side. “And where’s my warm welcome?” he demanded.

“You’ve been gone…what? An hour?” Becky reached into the hip pocket of her snug jeans to extract a Dum Dum lollipop. She used it as a pointer to indicate Dan and Zoelner. “They’ve been gone three whole months.”

“Still…” Boss shrugged. And if Penni hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she wouldn’t have believed the huge, hulking beast of a man could pout. But he did.

Becky chuckled and wrapped her arms around her husband, laying her face against his broad chest. “There,” she said. “Is that better?”

“Yes.” A grin twitched at Boss’s lips, highlighting the scar that snaked up from the corner of his mouth.

It hit Penni again. Family. This was Dan’s family. And what would they think of her when they knew, what would he think of her when she told him that she—

“Good, great.” Ozzie interrupted her thoughts. “The welcome homes are complete. Now everybody scram, because Geralt is stalling her, but he can’t do it for too much longer. She’s already suspicious, and if we keep her standing around out by the front gate, it’ll make her even more so. Which is exactly the opposite of what this little show-and-tell is all about. We’re trying to assuage her suspicions.”

Penni was hopelessly lost. Who was she? And, totally off subject, but who actually used the word “assuage”?

Obviously she wasn’t the only one suffering from what-the-huh? Dan was scowling so hard she was surprised his eyebrows didn’t slide right down the center of his nose. “What the hell is going on here?” he demanded.

“Ozzie has agreed to give Samantha Tate a f*ckin’ tour of the warehouse,” Boss grumbled.

Dan turned to Ozzie, blinking. The sunlight streaming in through the huge leaded-glass windows caught the blond steaks in his sandy hair and made them shine like spun gold. “That took some balls,” he said.

“Actually”—Ozzie scratched his head—“it was Becky’s idea.”

“So it took some ovaries.” Becky grinned. “A far more hardy reproductive organ.”

“And you chose Ozzie to do the honors because…?” Dan let the sentence dangle.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Becky gestured toward Ozzie’s ridiculously handsome face.

“I feel so objectified,” Ozzie mumbled.

“Just use all your charm and bullshit to distract her from asking any really probing questions,” Boss said.

“You say that like it’s so easy,” Ozzie huffed. “I’ll have you know, I’ve spent years honing my charm and bullshit to—”

“Who’s Samantha Tate?” Penni asked Dan from the corner of her mouth.

“That nosy reporter Boss mentioned,” he told her. “She’s been on our ass like a bad rash since the day we opened our doors, always hanging around trying to get something on us.”

“Like what?” she asked.

“You got me.” He shrugged. “Proof that we’re more than we seem? Something that’ll get her name above the fold in the Chicago Tribune?”

“Yikes.” Penni shuddered, knowing the reason Dan and the Black Knights were so effective was because they were such a clandestine group. Catching the eye of a reporter was seriously bad news.