“Do I get to question McLean first, or is it kill on sight?”
Curtis answered quickly. “We want him alive. We want to know who the new players are.”
I could admit to myself that I was a little disappointed. “What about Prochenko? He came after me, Curtis.”
“I know. And once we have the information we need, we’ll figure out what we’re going to do with him. But until then, bring him in breathing and talking too. Do you hear me?”
I sighed and glared at the clock. I wouldn’t be sleeping now. Between my dream of Lyra and the situation with Prochenko, I might as well wake up. I sighed. “Yup, I’m on it.”
“I’m serious, Marcus. We’re not messing around, okay?”
“Yes, I hear you. I am a good little soldier. I can follow directions.”
He sighed. “Don’t be a twat.”
I laughed. “Look at you, fucking nailing Briticisms.”
“Fuck you.”
Curtis said, “You’ll be happy to know I have another little project to keep you busy tonight while you’re cooling your jets for the meeting between Prochenko and McLean. Stellan Tusk has a piece of decryption technology that we need to recover before he sells it on the black market. You need to take a team and crash a little party he’s having tonight, and I’ve sent all the details to your tablet. Call me back if you have any questions.”
He hung up, and I dragged my sheets off. I could feel it. The adrenaline flood. It made me too edgy, too jumpy. I needed to calm my mind down and focus on the things I could control. Prochenko would be mine in a matter of days.
First, I’d calm down my mind, and then I’d calm down my body with some exercise. And the number one thing guaranteed to zone me out mentally, to get me in that peaceful headspace, was cleaning my weapons.
You have strange hobbies.
I tried to ignore my internal peanut gallery. Then I went to the bookcase, opened up my concealed gun safe, and pulled out the weapons I’d need for that night.
In systematic fashion, I dismantled them, pulled out my cleaning tools and gun oil, and applied them on my guns like every absolutely normal government contractor.
But none of this is normal.
Once all my guns were clean and my go bag was out and ready to pack, there was a knock at the door. I figured it was probably Mrs. Washington with my newspaper. She liked to drop it off on my doorstep as she was always up early. She never came inside, so I didn’t feel the need to hide everything away before I opened the door.
But when I yanked it open, I stopped short, surprised to find Lyra on my doorstep. And instead of letting the door swing wide, I held it only slightly ajar. “Are you okay? Is something wrong?” My primary alarms hadn’t gone off.
“No, I’m fine.” She held a bag of what smelled like sugary, fried deliciousness.
“What’s all this?”
“This is me returning a favor. You got me breakfast, used your body as a human shield, and brought me dinner when I really needed it.”
I checked her face. Her bruise was far less visible that morning. But just because I couldn’t see it didn’t mean I’d forgotten it was there.
“Your face looks better.”
She shrugged. “Well, it’s just good makeup.”
“You don’t look like you need it.”
Her smile was tentative at first, but then her face broke into a larger grin. “You are good with flattery, Marcus Black.”
She held up the doughnut bag and the coffee. “I assumed you would like it black.”
I nodded slowly, reaching out through the door and using my foot to keep it from opening any farther. “Thank you.”
She frowned slightly. “Um, are you busy coding or something?”
I nodded. “Yeah, uh, now is not a great time.”
Her eyes went wide. “Okay, sorry. I guess I’ll go finish getting ready for work. I just wanted to say thank you again for, you know, last night, and yesterday morning, and the other night, I guess.”
For a woman who usually was so self-assured, she looked confused. Like I’d cut her off about something. “Well, you make the best wake up call.”
She licked her lips, and I saw a dusting of sugar on one of the corners of her mouth. Just like last time, I reached out and wiped it off with my thumb. “You’ve got some sugar there.”
Her breath caught, and my thumb hesitated. Christ. I wanted to kiss her. I really, really wanted to fucking kiss her. The pull was getting harder to ignore. Especially when her tongue reached out to lick the spot I’d brushed, and the tip flicked my thumb.
I thought I’d caught the sound of my moan before it could escape, before it could give me away. But I knew it had been audible, because her pupils dilated and she swayed a little. All I wanted to do was step back and let her in and then put the powdery, dusty doughnuts all over her tits and lick them. And I would have. Fuck, I would have just given in. But I had my guns all over the coffee table, and there was absolutely no reason Marcus Black the video game designer should have guns on his table. So I kept the door just slightly ajar and pulled my thumb back like I’d been scorched. “Well, thank you for breakfast.”
Her brow furrowed slightly. “I, uh… Maybe one of these days we should do this properly at my place.”
Oh fuck, she was trying to kill me. That’s what this was. She was trying to kill me slowly with priapism. Wasn’t that the thing where if your dick was hard for more than four hours, you were supposed to go to the
