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“Means One isn’t in the Americas,” he said. “One won’t take calls between midnight and eight in the morning, wherever he is in the world. If he was local or on the east coast, even in Brazil, the time wouldn’t match up.”
“Which means what?” she asked, reaching for him without really thinking about laying her hands on him again.
“Could mean a lot of things. Could be he’s running for his life, or he’s found himself a place that feels safe… or it could mean he’s putting together his own team elsewhere…”
“Which would mean…”
Daire’s concentration waned as his focus slipped to hers. “You know we shouldn’t be talking about this.”
“I’m not an agent. It can’t be against Olympus rules to talk.”
“It’s very against Olympus rules to talk to a civilian at all.”
Coiling her arms around his torso, she held herself against him. “I’m not a civilian… I’m your something.”
“Yeah,” he said, laying his hands on the back of her shoulders as he bowed to kiss her head. “I didn’t forget. But sex for secrets is the oldest trick in the book.”
Without loosening her embrace, Tess leaned back, full of innocence, to look up at him. “Who said anything about secrets?”
It didn’t take long for her innocent blink to become a saucy smile.
“No sex for anything,” he said, taking her arms to separate their bodies. With his grip sure, he pushed her back a few feet and held her there, giving her arms a squeeze before letting go to straighten up. “I have less than an hour and I have work to do.”
So they couldn’t have sex because he was busy, not because he didn’t want to… Not being together wasn’t so bad if it meant they could still talk and get busy with each other.
“I can be quick,” she said, containing a laugh behind her taut lips that begged to open.
That was a Danny line and Daire didn’t miss it. He arched a brow. “Temptress.”
Both accusation and warning, the word sent a shiver through her.
“Okay,” Tess said on a teasing exhale, retreating until the recliner came up against the back of her legs. She dropped down into it, even though it was the one nearest the door that he preferred. “I’ll just sit here.”
“Okay,” Daire said, going back to his previous place at the dinette. Opening out the plans, he retrieved a notepad from beneath to jot things down. “You don’t have plans?”
“Not until later,” she said, twisting around to stretch her legs across the seats. “And it’s easier for you to keep me safe if I’m in your eyeline.”
“Harder for me to concentrate,” he muttered.
“Do you know the replacements for Two and Five?”
“I knowofthem.”
“Harry talked about it?”
Daire smacked his pen down and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Babe, you’ve gotta work with me here.”
“I’m here for whatever you need,” she said, undoing a couple of buttons of the loose shirt she wore over her bikini.
“It’s bad enough that you’re sexy all over the place all the time. I spend a lot of time thinking about how I’d love to compromise your honor.” It shouldn’t, but the notion tickled her excitement. “But now I gotta deal with you offering intelligence? That means I gotta think about compromising your safety too.”
She frowned. “What do you mean? I’ll tell you whatever I know.”
“Yeah, baby,” he said, linking his fingers over the plans. “But if you tell me something that leads to me taking action, then what? Do you know what would happen to you if One or Six thought you were a danger to them?”
“Nothing, because you’ll always keep me safe,” Tess said, though he didn’t seem eager to play. “I’m no danger and Three has never told me to keep anything quiet.”
“Three isn’t an operative. He’s never been an operative. He talks because it’s what men like him do. Flash is their specialty. Maybe he’s trying to impress you. More likely he doesn’t understand how what he says can be interpreted by people like me.”
