Too Hard to Handle (Black Knights Inc. #8)(9)

“My name,” she said. “It’s just Penni. Penni DePaul.”

He shook his head, blinking at her. “I know your name. Jesus! Did you think I could forget you after everything—”

“Hello there!” A man with a shock of thick brown hair and a pair of storm-cloud-gray eyes walked up to them. Now she wanted to smack him upside the head. Geez, she was feeling particularly smacky today. Dan was just about to say something good—the first good thing that’d come out of his mouth—and this * interrupted him. “You must be the inimitable Agent Penni DePaul. This big lug’s told me all about you.”

He slung an arm around Dan’s shoulders and Penni lifted her eyebrows, turning to Dan. Now her silly heart decided to sprout wings and fly around outside her body. She really was going to have to have a conversation with the organ later. Right now she was too preoccupied with the idea that Dan had actually talked about her.

Did that mean there was hope? Was it possible there was a chance for—

Now, don’t get ahead of yourself, Penni!

Right. Good advice.

“Oh, he has, has he?” she asked. Again with the nonchalance. Damn, I’m good!

“That’s affirmative.” The new arrival nodded, an odd sparkle in his eye. “He talks about you every night in his s—”

Dan elbowed Gray Eyes in the ribs hard enough to have the wind rushing from his lungs. He doubled over, and when he stood up, the expression he pinned on Dan was incredulous. “Uh…ow!” he said, rubbing his side.

“You think that hurt?” Dan made a face. “Then the five-fingered sandwich I’ll put in your crotch basket if you don’t zip it is gonna be a bona fide killer.”

“Oh yeah?” Gray Eyes stepped forward. “Try it. It’s been a while since you and me have taken a trip to Fist City.”

Penni rolled her eyes so hard it was a wonder they didn’t get stuck backward. Apparently, it was her lot in life to be surrounded by men suffering from bad cases of too-much-testosterone-itis.

“If memory serves,” Dan said, “you came out of the last tussle a little worse for wear while I didn’t have as much as a scratch on—” He stopped so suddenly that Penni frowned. Her frown deepened when a brief look of horror skated across his features. And then, before she knew it, Gray Eyes was apologizing.

“Sorry, man,” he said. “I didn’t mean to bring up that day and—”

“No.” Dan shook his head, causing a lock of blond hair to curl over his eyebrow. It was quite delightful, really. That lock of hair. Grrrr. Stupid hormones! And speaking of too-much-testosterone-itis, since the first moment she and Dan had locked gazes, she’d been afflicted with a chronic case of too-much-estrogen-itis. “That was my fault,” Dan finished.

All right already. She was obviously missing something here. She glanced back and forth between the two men, trying to determine the truth in their faces. But each of their expressions were…well…expressionless. She frowned some more, taking a lick of her ice-cream cone.

“Let’s change the subject, shall we?” Gray Eyes finally said, extending his hand in Penni’s direction. “Hi, I’m Dagan Zoelner.”

“Shit. Sorry.” Dan shook his head as if physically jostling away whatever had momentarily overshadowed him. “Dagan Zoelner, meet Agent Penni DePaul.”

“Hiya.” Penni shook Zoelner’s hand. “And it’s just plain Penni DePaul now,” she corrected for what seemed like the bazillionth time in the last twenty-four hours.

“Huh?” Dan scowled at her. That seemed to be his favorite word today.

“It’s just plain Penni DePaul now. There’s no more ‘Agent’ in front of my name.”

“What do you mean?” he demanded.

“I think she’s trying to say she’s no longer with the Secret Service,” Zoelner supplied helpfully.

Thank goodness someone’s synapses were firing. Three months ago, she would have said Dan was one of the most intelligent guys she’d ever had the pleasure of working with. Now? Well, for some reason he was intent on doing his best impression of the dullest knife in the drawer.

“Is that true?” Dan asked, placing a hand on her arm, concern knitting his brow. She did not notice the way the heat from his broad palm seeped through the fabric of her parka, or the way his touch reminded her of how it’d felt when he pushed her shirt aside so he could kiss the top of her shoulder.

Okay. Forget about it. Of course she noticed. Of course she remembered!

“Yep.” She nodded, mesmerized by the gold flecks rimming the green around Dan’s pupils, reminded that he smelled like the air after a thunderstorm…rich and clean and electric. “Civilian Penni DePaul.” She snapped him a saucy salute with her ice-cream cone. “At your service.”

And then he didn’t just smell like a thunderstorm, he looked like one too. His expression turned so violent, she would not have been surprised if lightning bolts shot from his eyes. His jaw ground so hard she fancied she could hear the enamel on his teeth cracking like thunder. “If those f*ck-sticks fired you ’cause you”—Fuck-sticks? That was a new one—“broke protocol that night and stayed out past that ridiculous curfew,” he ground out, “then I—”