It had nothing to do with the fact that she could feel his hands on her body.
“Not at all.” Drake was roughly six foot four, with a muscular build that hadn’t completely filled out yet. “I prefer to work with experienced agents, and there’s no better experience than failure. At least that’s what everyone tells me. I think a woman who’s been burned before likely will play a relationship cover with care. She won’t get caught up in a handsome face and miss the clues.”
“Clues?”
“JT Malone was in Houston, too,” Drake pointed out. “JT Malone is the only one I know of with the mechanical expertise to have done the job on the engineer’s car. It was quite a professional job. I doubt the admin would know how to do more than hook up her smart phone.”
“Why would JT do something like this? It’s his company.”
“And he feels trapped. He blames his brother for leaving him behind. I’ve made a study of the man,” Drake stated. “I believe this could be some revenge on his part. This would be the ultimate betrayal of his brother’s beliefs.”
“Do you have any family?” Despite the fact that he was an operative and obviously brilliant, he was still only twenty-three. She had to treat him like the young adult he was, and that meant educating him when he needed it.
“No. I’m an only child.”
“Then you can read all you like about JT Malone, but you can’t understand him in this. I can. I have a younger sister. She’s horrible. I mean she’s the worst human being on the face of the planet. And if someone tried to hurt her, I would stand in their way. Because I am her older sister. Because it’s what we do. She’s awful to me in social situations and yet when everything went down with Interpol, she was there for me. She’s the one who found Damon Knight and pushed me to interview. What you witnessed here today was irritation. Nothing more.”
“I’m going to ask you to keep an open mind and open eyes,” Drake said.
“Always.” But she didn’t believe for a second that JT had anything to do with the theft and espionage. The kid might know how to figure out a mystery, but he couldn’t read people yet.
“And it’s obvious Mr. Malone is trying to charm you. I suggest you keep a cautious distance.” Drake’s eyes came up. “If you find yourself needing company, give me a call.”
She stared at him for a moment. “Are you seriously telling me to call you if I get horny, little boy?”
The right side of his mouth kicked up in a grin that made her think one day the kid might have some game. “Spying is a stressful business, Nina.”
She turned and walked away. It was going to be a long op.
* * * *
JT ignored the buzzing of his cell. He knew exactly who it was, and he did not want to talk to his brother right now.
He was going to have a hard enough time talking to Nina, since he was almost completely certain she was going to try to pull away.
He wasn’t going to let her. He was going to have one good damn thing come out of all of this, and it would be getting a chance with that British honey.
Oh, and she had tasted sweet. He should have had most of the morning to get his mouth on her again, but no. Someone had to be an asshole.
Someone had to be a traitor.
There was a knock on the window and there she was. He unlocked the door and she slid in beside him.
“We should talk.”
“Of course.” He pulled out onto Pearl Street. He’d known she was going to want to talk about how everything had gone sideways, but that wasn’t where he was going to lead the conversation. He liked to keep things positive. After all, that was how he dealt with almost everything. “First off, you’re going to need at least three bikinis. I think you’ll look gorgeous in blue. It will totally distract the bad guys.”
“I didn’t mean we should talk about what I’m going to wear, JT. I mean we need to talk about the fact that we didn’t know we were going to work together when we slept together.”
He wasn’t going to argue with her about that. “Well, now we know we’re totally compatible. It probably would have been awkward if we’d been thrown together and told ‘hey, now you’re engaged.’”
She sent him an adorably irritated frown. “Well, for one thing we wouldn’t have to pretend to be engaged if your employees hadn’t caught me in your bedroom. And why did you go straight for engaged?”
“I thought it was easier than saying we’d actually gotten married.” He snapped his fingers as he remembered something. “We should stop by Tiffany and get you a ring. At least three carats.”
Her eyes went gorgeously wide. “Three carats? As in diamond?”
“Of course,” he replied. “Unless you’d rather have a sapphire. It’s up to you. Anything you want. But I’m serious about the blue bikini. Also, you’ll need at least three cocktail dresses. It’s not too formal, but the women do tend to dress up.”
She shook her head as though forcing herself to focus. “I don’t need an engagement ring.”
“You do. Look, I’m fully willing to leave all the spy stuff to you, and you leave all the fancy stuff to me. I know I look like I rode in off the range, but I have excellent taste. I get that from my mother. She’s British, too. Why she married my ornery old dad I have no idea. My momma is a lady of the highest order, and she taught me to appreciate the finer things in life.” He needed her unfocused, or rather focused on him. “See, we can start a new tradition.
