Samurai Game (Ghostwalkers, #10)(53)

I am not ashamed of being with you, Sam.

Sam found himself smiling like an idiot as Ian pushed open the door. The Irishman stopped abruptly when he saw Sam standing, his jeans carelessly buttoned, shirt off, exposing his wounded abdomen and bare chest. Sam knew instantly that Ian was aware of Azami by the way he inhaled and frowned, confusion in his eyes.

“You can’t be in here.” Ian stated it as a fact.

Sam sank back onto the bed. He was definitely growing stronger, but standing could be troublesome on shaky legs. The pain of his wound had definitely receded. “Why not?” he asked a little belligerently.

“She can’t; it’s impossible. I was standing guard at her door.” Ian’s gaze met Azami’s. “To protect you of course.”

“Of course, because there are so many enemies creeping around your halls,” Azami said, her voice soft and pleasant, a musical quality lending innocence and sweetness.

Ian’s frown deepened as if he was puzzled. She certainly couldn’t have meant that the way it came out, anyone listening would be certain of it. “Just what are you two doing in here anyway?” he asked, suspicion lending his tone a dark melodrama. He even wiggled his eyebrows like a villain.

Sam kept a straight face with difficulty. Ian was a large man with red hair and freckles. He didn’t look in the least bit mean or threatening, even when he tried.

“Azami was just telling me how when she left her room to inquire after my health, there was a giant man with carroty hair snoring in the hallway beside her door.”

“There was no way to get past me,” Ian insisted.

Sam grinned at him. “Are you saying you did fall asleep on the job, then?”

“Hell no.” Ian scowled at him. “I was wide awake and she didn’t slip past me.”

“You say,” Sam pointed out, his tone mocking as he folded his arms across his chest and leaned back casually, pleased he could tease his friend. “Still, she’s here and that proves you were looking the other way or sleeping, just like that time in Indonesia when we parachuted in and you fell asleep on the way down. I believe that time you got tangled in a very large tree right in the center of the enemies’ camp.”

Azami’s lashes fluttered, drawing Sam’s attention. He almost reached out to her, wanting to hold her hand, but she’d mentioned a couple of times she didn’t show affection in public.

“You fell asleep while parachuting?” she asked, clearly uncertain whether or not they were joking.

Ian shook his head. “I did not. A gust of heavy wind came along and pushed me right into that tree. Gator told everyone I was snoring when he shoved me out of the plane. The entire episode is all vicious fabrication. On the other hand, Sam here, actually did fall asleep while he was driving as we were escaping a very angry drug lord in Brazil.”

Azami raised her eyebrow as she turned to Sam for an explanation. Her eyes laughed at him and again he had a wild urge to pull her to him and hold her tight. Primitive urges had never been a part of his makeup until she’d come along; now he figured he was becoming a caveman. Her gaze slid to his face as if she knew what he was thinking—which was probably the case. He flashed a grin at her.

“It is true. I did fall asleep at the wheel. We nearly went right off a cliff down into a gorge. But there were extenuating circumstances.”

Ian snickered. “Are you going to pull out the cry-baby card? He had a little bitty wound he forgot to tell us about, that’s how small it was. Ever since he fell asleep he’s been trying to make us believe that contributed.”

“It wasn’t little. I have a scar. A knife fight.” Sam was righteous about it.

“He barely nicked you,” Ian sneered. “A tiny little slice that looked like a paper cut.”

Sam extended his arm to Azami so she could see the evidence of the two-inch line of white marring his darker skin. “I bled profusely. I was weak and we hadn’t slept in days.”

“Profusely?” Ian echoed. “Ha! Two drops of blood is not profuse bleeding, Knight. We hadn’t slept in days, that much is true, but the rest . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head and rolling his eyes at Azami.

Azami examined the barely there scar. The knife hadn’t inflicted much damage, and Sam knew she’d seen evidence of much worse wounds. “Had you been drinking?” she asked, her eyes wide with innocence. Those long lashes fanned her cheeks as she gazed at him until his heart tripped all over itself.

Sam groaned. “Don’t listen to him. I wasn’t drinking, but once we were pretty much in the middle of a hurricane in the South Pacific on a rescue mission and Ian here decides he has to go into this bar . . .”

“Oh, no.” Ian burst out laughing. “You’re not telling her that story.”

“You did, man. He made us all go in there, with the dirtbag we’d rescued, by the way,” Sam told Azami. “We had to climb out the windows and get on the roof at one point when the place flooded. I swear there was a crocodile as big as a house coming right at us. We were running for our lives, laughing and trying to keep that idiot Frenchman alive.”

“You said to throw him to the crocs,” Ian reminded.

“What was in the bar that you had to go in?” Azami asked, clearly puzzled.

“Crocodiles,” Sam and Ian said simultaneously. They both burst out laughing.