“I love a student who enjoys her homework,” Danny told her with a wink. “Stirling, we’re going to assume Josh is on coms and direction. What will you be doing?”
Stirling blinked slowly. In another person, Hunter might have assumed a slow mind, or someone who wasn’t accustomed to the think-on-your-feet rhythm that the rest of the crew had, but Hunter had seen Stirling in action. He was organizing so he didn’t blurt out all the things at once.
“Besides information, sudden hotel rooms, and all things electronic, I’ll be helping to look at the—” He bit his lip and looked at Felix shyly. “—ripples. Whatever ripples these people have left in their wake beforehand, and the ripples they’re probably going to throw afterwards.”
Danny nodded. “Precisely. And if you like, I can put you in touch with Torrance Grayson to help. He’s a top-notch journalist, and he might have contacts you don’t. Now, if it’s at all possible—and the ripples are far reaching or could hurt a lot of people—we may want to stop that rock from splashing down. But we won’t know if we don’t get our homework done. Stirling can’t be the only one doing the research here. Hunter, you have contacts. Chuck, you too. Josh, you’re good with research, and you’re excellent at bothering people to get what you want. You all have got to be working in the background. Grace, I know you’re brilliant, boyo, but I want this item out, photographed, analyzed, and back before anybody knows it’s missing. You need to study the layout of all the places you’re going to be so you know the sixty-dozen ways you can steal and replace it, do you understand? Start quizzing Tabitha as soon as she’s awake and get her to make her grandfather write out a schedule.”
Everybody nodded, and Danny scowled at Felix.
“I can’t believe we’re not going to Vancouver,” he told Felix. “It’s one of the few cities I’m not familiar with, and I would love to explore.” He smiled prettily. “Can we do a short reconnaissance trip this weekend?”
Felix grimaced. “I have to work—”
Danny grinned. “I don’t! Julia, you want to come with me to set up shop?”
“Yes!” she crowed, and now it was Felix’s turn to pout.
“That’s not fair!”
She gave him an arch look. “Well, neither is promising you’d work less and leaving us hanging in the breeze.” She turned to Molly without compunction. “Come along, dearest. We need to plan before we drive to the city. Let’s take Tabitha while we’re at it. I have the feeling she’ll need something to distract her when she wakes up from her nap.”
And with that, Julia led Molly away, and the rest began to disperse.
Hunter waited until the room had cleared of everybody but Josh, Danny, and Felix, whom, he assumed, had business to talk about since Josh was running point, before following Grace up the stairs. Grace was about halfway up when he turned around and gave Hunter an evil little smile.
“You know,” he said, “I wouldn’t mind if you watched my ass, as long as you thought it was a good ass.”
“It’s a great ass,” Hunter told him, not responding to his smile. “But I’m not going to watch it if it’s not mine.”
Grace’s eyes widened, and he stopped, practically stumbling into Hunter’s arms. Hunter caught him smoothly and set him on his feet, trying to keep his breathing in check at their touch.
It was hard. Dylan Li was one of the most beautiful men he’d ever seen, and right now there wasn’t a touch of playfulness on his full mouth and no glint of humor in his amber eyes.
“My ass is my own,” Dylan said, as though this had just occurred to him.
“To do with as you wish,” Hunter told him gallantly, but inside, his hammering heart started to ache, which was unheard of.
“Then why would you say something like that?” Grace asked, and for a moment, Hunter could almost believe he was hurt.
“Because I don’t want to joke about it,” Hunter said gruffly. “I’m not staring at your ass during a job, and I’m not flirting with you before a job. I only do that with people who want to be mine.”
Grace’s mouth opened and closed for a moment, and he looked truly out of his element. Hunter steeled himself, though. He was pretty sure it wouldn’t last long, and he wanted to be ready for whatever retort Grace had ready.
It came out weak at best.
“Caveman,” Grace huffed, pulling out of Hunter’s grasp.
And that was it. With a little shudder, Grace went running up the stairs, not even looking behind him.
Hunter breathed deeply, the cedarwood and vetiver smell that always reminded him of Grace lingering in the air as he ascended a little more slowly.
He watched Grace’s ass the entire way up, his own word echoing in his head in spite of the foolishness of even thinking it.
Mine.
Tension
“SEE?” GRACE hissed at Josh. “He’s staring at me!”
Josh took off his earbuds and looked away from the tablet in his lap, casting Hunter a surreptitious look across the aisle of the plane. Hunter—his dark hair pulled back in a half tail, gray eyes hidden behind sunglasses—was reclined in his seat, hands folded on his abdomen, the picture of refined repose.
“Not unless he’s doing it from his pores,” Josh muttered, yawning. He’d been really tired lately; Grace wasn’t sure why. Maybe he should eat more. Josh was always trying to slim down to get theater parts, but he was almost too thin for theater now.
Grace glared at him. “I thought you were my friend.”
“He is your friend,” Stirling said from Grace’s other side, eyes and fingers never leaving his laptop. “Anybody else would have smothered you in your sleep.”
“If he was my friend, he’d admit Hunter doesn’t like me,” Grace grumbled, put out. Couldn’t they see? Yes, the ex-military man was taciturn and stoic mostly, but he smiled at Josh, was kind to Stirling, even flirted with Molly on occasion, which was easy to do because Molly was irrepressible, but still. He only ever looked at Grace when they were speaking about the op, and he stayed as far across the room as possible.
Twice this past week, during dinner at the Salingers’, Grace had set the table, coming to sit down last with the express purpose of sitting next to Hunter. Both times Hunter managed to come up with an excuse to sit next to someone else. Grace had fidgeted unhappily during both meals. He’d wanted to sit next to Hunter. The man’s presence grounded him somehow. The eternal flitting, fluttering sensation that had driven Grace from lover to lover, from new and shiny to new and shiny, abruptly stilled, calmed next to Hunter’s muscular, immovable presence. And since that moment on the stairs, when Hunter had glared at him, half-mad, half-hungry, he hadn’t so much as looked in Grace’s direction without prompting.
How was the man supposed to watch Grace’s ass during an op when he couldn’t even meet Grace’s eyes at the dinner table?
Dammit!
Josh turned and gave Grace a level look. “I am your friend, and I’m a good enough friend not to call you an oblivious dumbass for not figuring out what’s going on.”