Thief: A Bad Boy Romance (28 page)

“It’s a risk.”

“It’s your job to mitigate that.”

He glares at me, but there’s a little bit of a smirk in the corners of his lips. “I’ll bring it up with the director.”

“Pushover,” I say with a grin.

P
ushover
.

It’s like her own little barb right back; her own little dig right back at me after I teased her.

And I
like
that. I
like
that she throws it right back; that she takes my shit and dishes it right back.

Still, there’s abso-fucking-lutely nothing “pushover” about me.

Of course that said, a few days later, we’re in a damn motorcade, on our way to the damn Smithsonian, after I damn well called ahead and arranged for the exhibit wing that hasn’t opened yet to be sealed off.

Goddamnit, I
am
a pushover. For her at least. I frown and decide not to think too hard about what that means.

“Thanks,” she mumbles from her side of the backseat of the Escalade, as if reading my thoughts. “You didn’t
have
to do this.”

I snort. “Right, like you wouldn’t have made a big stink about it until I did.”

She grins. “You have no idea, but still, thank you.”

“You know, after the announcement, I won’t be able to pull shit like this off. Then you’ll just be fucked.” She rolls her eyes. “Well, only if you ask nicely, that is,” I say with a wink. “Like last time.”

Her face goes bright red and she quickly darts a glance towards the divider separating us from the driver.

“Relax, he can’t hear us.”

Her face sours into a sharp glare. “
First
,” she hisses out. “That’s never happening again,
ever
. And secondly, I’d never
ask you nicely for it
, you dick.”

“Sorry, you’re right.”

She rolls her eyes and makes a face at me as she starts to turn back towards the window.

“You’d ask
dirty
.”

She whirls back to me, her eyes wide and her mouth open in this shocked look. “That is
never
going to-” She stops, pursing her lips and sneering at me. “Having fun?”

I grin. “With?”

“With trying to get a rise out of me.”

I laugh. “Well that depends, is it working?”

“Nope.”

“Clearly.” She sticks her tongue out at me and I raise a brow, “That an invitation?”

“Dream on.”

“Way ahead of you.”

Her cheeks flush pink as she tries to hide the grin on her face by turning back towards the city flashing by the tinted windows of the Escalade.

“But honestly, once I’m off the Service, I probably won’t be able to arrange field trips like this, so enjoy it.”

“Well thanks,” she says, rolling her eyes at me. “And for being
so
humble and gentlemanly about it.”

“Any time, doll.”

We sit in silence for another block before I find myself opening up my damn mouth again. “You know, your mom is going to be good for my dad, as — uh —
complicated
it might make things.”

She’s blushing again, but she nods. “Yeah, Dexter was telling me a little bit about your mom.”

I raise my brow again. “He was?” Dexter
never
talks about mom, not even when I try to wheedle it out of him.

“Yeah.” She sighs. “Okay, honestly, your dad is gonna be great for my mom too.” Her lips curl in the hint of a smile. “Complications aside.”

Part of me — the normal, familiar part of me —  wants to hit myself in the side of the head. I mean what the
fuck
am I doing? Why the hell am I talking about our Goddamn parents with this girl? Let’s be fucking real, ‘Hey, let’s  talk about how we’re going to be legally step-siblings soon’ isn’t exactly the smoothest route into her panties again.

Of course, that said, I know damn well I
shouldn’t
be trying to get into her fucking panties. The
correct
thing to do here is to back the hell away from this girl, for all the reasons you could possibly think of. When the whole wedding announcement goes down and I get taken off the force, we can figure out our fucked up brother-sister with a dash of reckless sexual attraction relationship then. For now though, I should just do my
fucking
job and just concentrate on watching and protecting the person I’m
paid
to protect.

And yet here I am
calculating
what I’m saying to her; like I’m trying to say the right things as if getting into her panties is an option here.

Which is why I sit there in silence for the rest of the car ride, clenching my jaw and trying to ignore the way her scoop-neck t-shirt drapes across the tops of her breasts, or the way her hair falls in soft waves around her face, or the way her lashes frame the wild green of her eyes.

Yeah, see what I’m fucking up against?

Somehow, we manage to get the last four blocks to the Smithsonian and pull around back by the service entrance without my cock bursting out of my suit or me just outright tearing her clothes off. They need to award service medals for shit like this.

* * *

“
Y
ou know
, I’m still having a hard time believing you were in the Army.”

We’re alone as we walk through the empty hallways of the closed wing. Okay, we’re not
alone-
alone, what with the security detail at the end of the hallway, the other teams guarding every exit and entrance and the back-up team waiting out back for the
slightest
hint of a threat. But for the moment, in the softly-lit hallway full of stone tables from who knows what ancient culture, it’s just her and me.

“Marines, actually.”

“Okay, even more-so then. Why? I didn’t think big-deal politician’s kids
went
to war.”

“They don’t, which is why I did.”

“What, just to act out?”

I shrug. “Honestly, a little.” She looks at me in surprise and I grin. “I mean, I’d be lying if that wasn’t at least part of it. I was eighteen fucking years old and had a chip on my shoulder after the way things shook out with my mom dying and my dad working so much, and just said fuck it. There was a war on T.V. all the time, and I was tired of going to the same old parties with the same old douchebags talking about ‘what should be done.’ So I went out decided to be part of the solution and not just bitch about it.”

“You think fighting is the solution?” she says, turning to raise a brow at me.

“I know sitting around jerking off about it and not doing anything
isn’t
.”

We turn into one of the side rooms, full of more stone carving and totems and parts of ancient walls that are important enough to be in the Smithsonian, even if I don’t get it.  I’m out of my damn element here, but Maddie’s not, and watching her is making me grin as she takes this stuff in with this awed expression on her face. Element or not, and even though she’s moving
so
slowly from piece to piece, and reading
every
single on one of those damned cards next to each one, I’m not in the slightest bit bored watching her.

Of course, “watching her” also entails sneaking peeks at that perfect ass of hers in those tight, formal black pants. Let’s be real, the stuff on the wall isn’t the only work of art in here.

Maddie moves on into the next room, and I follow, still trying to keep a handle on the roaring of my own damn libido.  This room is much darker and much more sparse on the pieces of stone since this
is
the wing still under construction.

We’re both peering in the dim, almost darkness of the room as we move through on to the next better lit room on the other side, when Maddie suddenly gasps as her foot catches on something. She goes tumbling forward, and I jump on pure instinct, jerking towards her in the darkness and catching her in my arms.

And it’s like time just fucking
freezes
in that moment.

Everything else in the world drops away, and I’m just frozen like that, holding her in my arms. I can feel her hands tightly gripping the lapels of my jacket, her face inches from mine, and the sound of her gasp filling my ears.

Fuck
, that does it.

It’s the sound, really. Beyond the feel of her body against mine, or her hands clutching me, it’s that fucking
gasp
that does it. And I don’t even realize until I hear it that it’s a sound I’ve been
dying
to hear again. It’s not even anything sexual this time, but it’s like getting a fix I’ve been fiending for. That little gasp of hot air teasing again my ear as I catch her brings back everything from that night. That slightly innocent but anything
but
look in her eyes through the mask, the catch of her breath through those pouty lips.

And just like that, I’m rock hard, with her body pressed right against me.

She gasps again, but this time it's a low, halting sound. I can see her eyes flash up into mine in the dim light filtering in from the next room; can see her soft bottom lip suck between her teeth in that way she does that makes me want to bury my cock in her right here and now.

“What are we doing?” she whispers.

“I thought we were looking at art,” I growl, my voice tight.

“There’s no art in here.”

“No other agents either,” I say softly, unable to tear my eyes away from that lip.

My hands slide down to her hip, and her eyes dart across mine. “Hunter, what are you-”

“I
told
you, just showing you what you wanted to see.” My eyes adjust enough in the darkness to see the large stone sculpture half draped in a drop sheet behind her; the one in the middle of the floor that she managed to catch the edge of when she tripped. And then suddenly I’m pushing her back, making her gasp again as her back comes up against the ancient stone behind her.

Walk away; walk the fuck away right now
.

Except I already know I’m not going to. I already know I’m not walking away from this girl until I get the fix that I crave. I want to hear her fucking
moan
for me again, just like she did before.

I want to watch her face when she comes.

“Hunter, we shouldn’t wander off like this,” she says softly, her chest rising and falling with her hands still on my chest.

“Oh, suddenly worried about the rules?” I move against her, hearing the whimper in her throat as I move my lips against her ear. “Still worried about what we should and shouldn’t do?” I can hear her breath catch, and her hands are clutching the front of my suit as she pulls me against her.

“Besides, I think we both know we’re already well onto the list of things we shouldn’t be doing, doll,” I growl into her ear. “
Sex clubs
for instance?”

She pushes me back from her neck, her eyes locking with mine. “I already fucking told you, that was a one time thing.”

“Oh, sure it was.”

“What, like you?” Her eyes dart over mine. “I bet you’re there every weekend.”

I grin at her. “Maybe it was my first time there too, ever think of that?”

“I doubt that.”

“Oh, and why’s that?”

“Because you clearly knew what you were doing.” Her face blushes furiously the second she says it.

She stammers. “That’s not—  look, forget it.”

But I’m already sliding my hands over her hip and letting them move down over her ass, pulling her to me. “So,” I growl, my eyes burning right into hers. “You’re saying I knew what I was doing when I made you come all those times that night.”