Into the Mist (Falcon Mercenary Group #1)(41)

Gabe held up his hands. “Yeah, yeah, I get the message. Get off, for God’s sake. I have a policy about hitting girls.”

Tyana kneed him in the groin even as she stood to her full height. Gabe rolled up in a ball, grunting in pain.

Eli chuckled and Gabe glared up at him. Then Eli grew more serious and fixed Gabe with a scowl. “How long have you been here?”

“Long enough.”

Tyana speared them both with furious eyes. “So what’s his gift?”

“Invisibility,” Gabe said as he finally got himself to an upright position. “Damn convenient, wouldn’t you say?”

“Or damn inconvenient if it gets you killed,” she said sharply.

Gabe folded his arms over his chest. “Damiano. You said he was alive.”

She nodded. “No thanks to you and your team.”

“That’s low and you know it,” Eli said.

She lifted a brow. “Do I? It seems to me that you and Gabe here have a good deal. Maybe Ian and Braden were just collateral damage along with Damiano.”

Eli bolted around the table and got up into her face quick. He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and yanked her up close. “If you’re insinuating that we somehow signed on for this gig, you better think again. We took a job to recover hostages. We hired Falcon to get us there. There were no hostages. It was set up from the start. How the f**k do we know that Falcon didn’t lead us right into Esteban’s hands?”

She gazed unflinchingly at him. “I guess neither of us has reason to trust the other.”

“And yet here you are with the proverbial olive branch,” he murmured.

“Maybe I just think our energies are better spent as a team rather than at odds.”

“And I couldn’t agree more.” He bent and licked gently at the cut at the corner of her lip.

She jerked away, her eyes blazing with fury. She cast a sidelong glance at Gabe and frowned even harder. Eli laughed.

“He heard our entire conversation, sugar. Don’t go getting all shy on me now.”

It was probably the wrong thing to do, remind her that Gabe had been privy to her bloodletting. And he had a feeling that any time Tyana got in touch with her innermost thoughts it was the equivalent of shedding blood.

She turned and stalked out of the kitchen, and Eli turned on Gabe. “Stay the f**k away from her.”

Gabe gave him a bored look. “You seem to forget she was sent here to kill at least some of us. Quit thinking with your dick, Eli. Get rid of her and fast.”

Eli sighed. “To quote a saying that has become increasingly more common around here lately, if she had wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.”

“That’s it?”

“What do you want, Gabe? Want me to go slit her throat? How does that help us? She has information we need. We now have the name of the jerk-off who gassed us to begin with. He wants us out of the picture. I think we ought to be a little more concerned with taking this ass**le out than pissing off the entire Falcon Mercenary Group by killing their little sister.”

Gabe shrugged. “I’m with you, man. You know that. I just don’t agree with her being here. And I’d hate to think your judgment was clouded because of your desire to get into her pants.”

“I believe you’ve made yourself abundantly clear.”

Gabe turned and went the opposite direction toward the stairs, and Eli went in search of Tyana.

He found her in his study, pacing.

It was interesting, the myriad of reactions she elicited in him. Yeah, he wanted to f**k her. But when he looked at her, all hard edges with just a hint of vulnerability that he got the barest glimpses of, he had the strange desire to shelter her. To protect her, though God knew she could take care of herself.

And it was that urge that had him crossing the room.

He slid his hand over her shoulder, cautiously, not wanting to spook her. When she didn’t react, he added his other hand, cupping her arms and pulling her back against his chest.

She trembled in his arms, and he slowly turned her around.

“So what do we do with this thing between us, Tyana? Do we ignore it? Make it all business, keep trying to kick each other’s asses and forge an uneasy alliance? Or do we stop fighting the inevitable, give in, spend the night in each other’s arms and figure out what the f**k we’re going to do tomorrow?”

Chapter Sixteen

Tyana didn’t try to pull out of Eli’s arms, though the feeling of being this close to someone was alien. It felt…right, and that should scare her to death.

She crooked her mouth up into a half-hearted attempt at a smile. “I’m too tired to f**k.”

He leaned in close, his mouth hovering precariously close to hers. Their noses did a subtle dance as they moved to allow their mouths access.

“I’m more than willing to do all the work,” he murmured. “All you have to do is lie back and enjoy the ride, sugar. Let me love you, touch you, kiss you, stroke that beautiful body of yours.”

She shivered uncontrollably. A low throb, warm and steady, settled into her stomach and spread through her groin until her pu**y strained and ached. How could such simple words do such a number on her?

He touched his lips to hers. Soft. It was an offering, not a taking. There was a gentleness to his movements she wasn’t used to. Fear fluttered, distant, in her chest, but she pushed it aside. She wanted this. She wanted him.