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He didn
't have time for someone else's bullshit.
"Are we done here?" he asked, keeping his stance loose and his gaze steady, ready for whatever was coming next.
"Yeah." Taz pivoted, giving Isaac a clear path to the door. "Good talk."
Isaac didn't look back, didn't hesitate—he walked out the door and into the now deserted hallway. Tamara's office door was open.
She stood next to her window and ran her fingers across the shelf where the black and white photo of her sister Amelia holding her newborn had been the day before. It, along with anything else that marked the office as Tamara's, had disappeared. She faced away from him, but he didn't need to look in those big blue eyes of hers to see the tension stringing her shoulders tight and the anxiousness in the shake of her fingers.
She hadn't left, but she was already gone. He had tonight to convince her that running wasn't the best option. No one knew that better than he did.
Shaking off the last of vestiges of his confrontation with Taz, he dialed up the charm. "Ready for dinner, darlin'?"
Chapter 7
Bianca
It was Bianca's office, but Taz sat in her chair, glowering from behind her desk. His green eyes were narrowed, his jaw—complete with regrown scruff—was tense, and the sinewy muscles traveling from his shoulders to his thick forearms were taut. All of it came together to create the look of a dangerous, determined man willing to do anything to get his way. The door clicked shut behind her and he glanced up, giving her the perfect view of his sinful lips clamped together in a grim line. She knew that look. Hell, she'd put it on his face a time or twenty. It might intimidate the others, but she knew it meant he was worried, not pissed off—and she knew exactly why.
"Did you really have to go all caveman on him?" she asked as she strolled over to her desk, rounded it and stopped beside the chair which he occupied and leaned a hip against the desk.
The vein in his temple pulsed. "Camacho's a big boy, he can take it."
There was no doubt about that. Isaac could take it as well as he dished it out, but that wasn't the issue. It was Tamara. Ever since she'd fessed up to the reason behind her extortion attempt, she'd used that devious brain of hers for good instead of evil. With Tamara working the B-Squad’s organizational strings, they'd tripled their client list and run butter smooth—not an easy task for a still new security and investigation team with ten agents, plus freelancers when needed. Bianca may have had every reason to hate Tamara, but she knew too well the importance of second chances. Taz's ex-wife may not have meant to become part of the B-Squad team, but she had, and they protected their own.
"You were proving a point with your little man-to-man pissing contest, huh?" She crossed her arms, making sure to push up her cleavage. If a chat didn't work, there were other ways to help her fiancé relax.
His gaze snapped to her breasts, but he kept his hands to himself. Shit. This was serious.
"Tamara is far from sugar and spice and everything nice, but that doesn't mean she deserves to be another name on Camacho's long list of ‘tapped that’," Taz said, grounding out the words as if he couldn't believe he was breaking the unspoken man code on his ex-wife's behalf.
The laugh escaped before Bianca even knew it was coming. "You say that like a man who didn't have a pretty fucking long list of his own. What is that?" She leaned down and took a dramatic sniff of the air around Taz. "Oh yes, that is the sharp tang of hypocrisy in the air."
Just like she knew he would, Taz took advantage of their positions to run a teasing finger across the top of her exposed cleavage. "You are such a pain in my ass."
The move sent a delicious shiver of anticipation up her spine. "And you love every ache and pang."
This was how it always began for them. A little banter. A little teasing. A lot of banging on the nearest flat surface. But not yet. They had things to discuss—more specifically two people, who, despite what they may think, were B-Squad in every way but name and therefore were subject to all the family meddling that entailed. There was no way their efforts would be successful, though, if Taz insisted on pissing a circle around Tamara because of some misbegotten sense of chivalry.
Bianca stood up so his touch couldn't distract her. "I think they'd make for a cute couple."
"Oh God," he groaned. "Don't tell me the coven has been plotting."
She ignored the male B-Squad's teasing term of endearment for the female members and shrugged her shoulders. "To hook Tamara up with someone who'd be good for her? Oh hell yes we have. The first thought had been Kelvin, but I think Isaac is much more her speed."
"Why's that?"
The discussion about Tamara's love life had happened a few bottles of merlot in so it was a bit fuzzy but the nut of reason remained. "For the same reason we're perfect—the broken pieces fit together. So you need to let this thing play out without pulling that cock-blocking routine again."
"That's it. I'm putting my foot down. No more girl's wine nights out."
Bianca snorted. "As if you have the power to ever tell me what to do."
A confident smirk curled his lips. "Sure I do."
Anticipation sizzled between them, turning the air electric. Just giving in wasn't an option though, even if she wanted it as much as he did. Taz liked to work for it, liked that extra teasing delay, so she didn't make a move except to arch one eyebrow—even as her breasts grew heavy with want and her folds went slick with desire.
