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But while I loved and respected them as colleagues and the old ladies of my brothers, they just weren't what I wanted. I liked cups of tea. They were shots of whiskey.
Then there was Mina.
And Mina worked at Hailstorm.
And Mina was hard.
You didn't notice it at first. It was a sneaky kind of hard. She wasn't in your face aggressive and her niche skills weren't of the bomb-making or ass-kicking variety. She wasn't physically hard. She was emotionally hard.
Maybe that was what made the difference for me. See, when people had guards, when they obsessively kept their life in order, when they made actual effort to come off cool and detached, it usually went to follow that all of that was a mask. Underneath, there was chaos, not order. Underneath, they were warm and cared too much, not cold and withholding.
It could have been as simple as me being obsessive, being a bit too into seeing how the goddamn clock ticked, so I liked pulling it apart and seeing the insides. I could have just been interested in seeing her warm and gushy, in seeing why she was so afraid to let that show.
But there was a part of me, as the weeks passed, that thought maybe it was a bit more than that.
I was also impressed by her insane amount of self-discipline. See, I wasn't overly cocky, but I knew I was goddamn charming when I wanted to be. And I pulled my A-game on her. Constantly. And she kept shooting it down. I wasn't exactly a glutton for punishment, but I couldn't help it with her. I wasn't willing to give up.
It was something the guys found hilarious when they weren't stressing out about threats.
So that was why I was pushing off the wall and snatching the keys out of the air as Reign tossed them to me.
"I'm driving," Mina said, walking toward me, tucking her phone into one of the bulky leg pockets of her sage-colored utility pants. They shouldn't have been sexy. They were meant for practicality, not sexuality. But regardless of the designer's intentions, they looked hot as shit on her shapely, long legs. The black wifebeater she had on wasn't exactly hiding her somewhat small, but perfect tits either.
"Angel face, whatever blows up your skirt," I said, jiggling the keyring on my finger. Her eyes flashed, knowing I was fucking with her because I knew she knew that I knew she didn't like being touched. Or, maybe more accurately, she didn't like me touching her. And no matter how carefully she pulled that keyring off, she would have to touch me a little.
"Don't call me angel face," she said, her tone empty, as it always was when she told someone not to call her an endearment. It was knee-jerk. She told men to not do it all the time. Why, I wasn't sure. But it was just one of the many things I wanted to figure out about her.
She surprised me by reaching out, ripping the keyring off, and turning away. It happened so fast that I barely felt her touching me. Apparently she was a 'rip the bandaid off' kind of woman.
I liked that.
"Are you coming?" she asked, not looking over at me as she rounded toward the door to the new garage where we kept the bullet-resistant SUV parked, so we wouldn't have to walk out into the open and risk getting shot before we got inside the safe car.
"Sweets, I would follow you into an apiary slathered in honey," I agreed, falling into step behind her. "I know, I know," I said when she was silent as she walked toward the driver's side, "you're struck silent by the mental image of me shirtless and covered in sweet, sticky..."
"Renny," she cut me off, turning to face me in the passenger seat.
"Yeah?" I asked when she didn't say anything.
She paused for a second like she'd lost her train of thought. And I knew she either must have or didn't want to admit whatever she was thinking because she clumsily tripped out, "Don't call me sweets," before clicking her buckle, turning over the car, and hitting the button for the garage door.
"I can do that," I admitted. I was running out of names for her. Every time she shot one down, I agreed to not call her it. And I didn't again. She liked her boundaries. And if I was going to get to know her in a more carnal way, I had to respect them. Even if my end game was to finally get to know her well enough to rip out the boundary markers and throw them away. "So," I said as we drove through town in complete and utter silence, "what kind of music do you like?"
"Just give up, Renny," she said, tone almost a little sad.
