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Keeley’s grin was sheepish. “Yeah. But still, that guy won’t let it go.”
“Come at me, bro,” Sig said, knuckling his chest and getting in the DART guy’s grill.
Eva leaped to her feet. “Sig! Carlos!”
“Knock it off!” Draven’s roar shut everything down.
All eyes turned to him as he slammed a lunch tray onto a nearby cart. He moved through the cafeteria like a shark, weaving around tables and scattering onlookers.
“Not here, assholes.” He shoved his way between the warring parties and pointed at two empty tables. “Sit your butts down. All of you.” He jabbed his finger at each of The Aegis’s people, one by one, ending with Eva. “You should all be getting afternoon assignments momentarily. Until then, behave.”
A cacophony of chirps from Eva’s and her colleagues’ comms went off as if on cue. Thank God. The distraction cut through any remaining tension, no doubt aided by Draven standing there like a drill sergeant, ready to pummel anyone dumb enough to start shit up again.
“Oh, cool,” Keeley said. “I have a meeting with DART’s personnel management team.” She gathered her things and stood. “What about you, Eva?”
“It should be a meeting with DART’s media team…” Eva frowned down at her device. “Wait, no. Holy shit. I have one-on-one combat training.”
“With who?”
Her pulse fluttered with excitement and more than a little anxiety. “With Logan.”
“Ooh, lucky you.”
“Yeah,” she murmured. “Lucky me.” Feeling like a teen being called to the principal’s office, she threw her bag over her shoulder. “I have to go. I’m supposed to be there in fifteen minutes, and I need to change.”
“Have fun.” Keeley gave her a teasing wink, which Eva pretended not to see.
It only took her a few minutes in the locker room adjacent to the gym to put her hair up into a ponytail and change into a pair of khaki green sweatpants, a white Aegis T-shirt, and sneakers. When she was done, she hurried to the main facility, where Logan was waiting on the mat, his muscular upper body bare, his black sweats hanging loosely around his slim waist. His back was to her as he pounded on a practice dummy, his tan skin stretched taut over sculpted muscles that flexed and rolled with every graceful move.
“So,” she called out. “How many strings did you have to pull to get me here?”
“None.” Logan swung smoothly away from the dummy, and she drew in a sharp breath as his eyes zeroed in on her like an eagle. “I just asked. You need the training.”
Man, everyone was full of insults today. “I told you, I’ve had plenty of training.”
He strode toward her, his bare feet not making a sound on the floor mat. “You had the bare minimum.”
“That’s because I’m not out in the sewers fighting demons like most Guardians.”
“You should still be prepared. Everyone in The Aegis has a target on their back, and you’re a public figure. I can’t believe you haven’t had a dozen attempts on your life already.”
She wasn’t going to tell him that she had, indeed, had a couple. But that was back in her journalism days, and it certainly wasn’t a dozen.
“Why do you care?”
He looked perplexed, his brow furrowed, his head canted just a teeny bit to the side, which was adorable because she doubted that he got flummoxed often. “Itwasyou I was kissing last night, right?”
Sure. Before he weirded out and disappeared with another woman following a physical altercation. “So kissing equals caring?”
“You think I kiss a lot of females I don’t care about? I might not know you very well, but I wouldn’t have stayed as long as I did if I didn’t like being with you.”
His words made her stomach flutter, and she suddenly felt like she was back in high school talking to Tim McKinney, the star basketball player and total studmuffin.
Then an image of Logan in the hall with the skank she assumed was his ex popped into her head, and the flutters turned sour. Squaring her stance, she crossed her arms over her chest.
“What happened with that woman in the hall?”
The pale flecks in Logan’s eyes glittered with stark warning.
