They both stopped abruptly, and a heartbeat later Maya smiled nervously. “I swear I wasn’t avoiding you. Sometimes when I’m focused on something, I just get so in my head that the building could be on fire and I wouldn’t notice. I’ve had entire conversations with Nina without realizing it.”
He couldn’t tell if it was the truth or if she was trying to make him feel better. “I’m not like Rafe,” he told her haltingly. “Hell, I’m not even like Knox. I make people uncomfortable.”
She seemed to absorb the words as she set the next book in place and hit the button to start the scanner. Then she turned on her stool to face him fully. “You don’t make me uncomfortable,” she said seriously. “You never have. You’re…” She hesitated. Licked her lips. “Conall is fun, but he can be exhausting. The energy around him. Rafe can be just as bad, and sometimes Knox is so intense he gives me a headache. But you’re … careful. Peaceful. You’re safe.”
He didn’t feel very peaceful, but careful and safe? He’d take it. “Is that why we had that … moment today?”
Her nervous energy returned abruptly as her gaze skittered from his. “I don’t know,” she said with forced lightness, twisting to pick up another book. “I mean I was having a moment because you and your sexy T-shirt and your muscles you swear you don’t weaponize were leaning over me.”
He took the book from her hand and set it aside. “I don’t know how to flirt. I only know how I feel.”
Her throat worked as she swallowed. “How do you feel?”
He’d pressed her against that wall and covered her body with his out of instinct, a drive to shield and protect. But once he was there … “I liked being close to you. I want to do it again.” He couldn’t help smiling a little. “Maybe with fewer bullets involved.”
Her gaze snapped back to his. Her breathing seemed a little unsteady, but her nerves seemed less like anxiety and more like anticipation. “Fewer bullets is good,” she agreed.
“Good.” He passed her another book and watched as she placed it on the scanner.
It was slow, steady work, the mindless kind where you could let your mind wander. At first, Gray thought Maya would need to talk to fill the silence, but she seemed content to just enjoy his company.
A tension lingered in the air between them, but it wasn’t a bad sort of feeling. It was more like an awareness, one that prickled over Gray’s skin and spiked when his fingers touched Maya’s to pass books back and forth.
She blushed, and Gray stifled a sigh. It felt good just being near her. Even better when he saw how her eyes lit up and her mouth tilted up at the corners in a persistent smile.
In that moment, he resolved to make that happen more. As much as possible.
TECHCORPS PROPRIETARY DATA, L1 SECURITY CLEARANCE
66–221: Heard you finally got slapped down for riding my ass.
Skovgaard: I’m simply concerned about your well-being, Sergeant Walker.
66–221: And I think you’re a nagging bitch who gets to live a soft life because I’m out there bleeding for you.
Skovgaard: Do you resent the work you do?
66–221: Fuck off, lady.
Recruit Analysis Session Log, July 2064
SEVEN
Even after his quasi-confession in the warehouse, Maya had been confident she could deal with Gray.
Her confidence took a drastic nosedive when she saw the blindfold. “I don’t know what sort of kinky shit you’re into, but if you wanna put that on me, you’re gonna have to buy me dinner first.”
His head fell back on a groan she could hear all the way across the mostly empty expanse of the Devils’ warehouse. “Will you please be serious?”
Irritating him was good. Irritating him would hopefully distract him from the fact that he’d said he liked touching her and she was forgetting all the reasons she definitely couldn’t let him. Bravado was her only escape, and she embraced it. “Uh, have you met me? I mock evil clones to their faces and stab bad guys with forks. I don’t do serious.”
“How could I forget?” He motioned to the low stool near her. “Have a seat.”
Maya scanned the room again as she moved to obey. It didn’t look like a training course. It was mostly just taped marks on the floor, evenly spaced in concentric circles surrounding the stool, and a bunch of freestanding targets off to one side.
Confused and still a little unnerved, she sank onto the stool. “So what exactly is this serious training going to involve?”
“Like I said yesterday—listening.” Gray approached only to kneel in front of her. “That’s it. Maybe, if you feel up to it, some target shooting later. But first, I want to talk about the blindfold.”
“Okay,” she told him, holding herself very still. He was close enough that her leg might brush him if she swung it. “Tell me about the blindfold.”
“This kind of training can be a real trip,” he rasped. “If the blindfold starts to fuck with your head, you tap out. There’s no shame in it, you hear me?”
His voice was fucking with her head. That was how all of this bullshit had started. Maya had always had a comfortable understanding with her subdued libido. She appreciated pretty people, but she appreciated them from a distance, without the messy complications of trust and touch or having strangers invade her personal space and the inevitable sensory meltdown that followed.
Gray wasn’t even the prettiest of the Devils. Rafe was gorgeous, unmistakably one of the most objectively attractive people who existed in Atlanta or potentially the world. Having a crush on him would have made sense.
But no. Gray had opened his mouth, and his voice had stroked its way under her skin. Her libido had roared to uncontrollable life. And now she was sitting in an empty warehouse with him, about to let him blindfold her and whisper things in her ear that would echo there tonight like a taunting fantasy.
And he liked touching her.
This was a fucking fabulous idea.
“I’ll be okay,” she told him, forcing a grin. At least this was likely to be a useless exercise. Gray would grow bored and go torture someone else with his sin-inducing voice. “Let’s do this.”
He rose with a nod, then slid the blindfold into his jacket pocket.
Maya opened her mouth to protest, but he was already moving to one of the taped marks on the floor. He had a tiny device in one hand, and when he pressed a button on the top, it emitted a melodious beep.
Without a word, he moved to the next mark and repeated the process.
“Uhm…” Maya twisted to watch him. “Is this the training part?”
“Let me guess.” The corner of his mouth quirked up. “You expected something from an action movie.”
“I mean, at least some lasers or something.” She watched him traverse two more of the taped markers, the beep at each one short and cheerful. “Should I be doing something besides watching you?”
“Yeah. Listening.” He shook his head with a laugh. “Don’t worry, the lasers come later.”
“Oh boy.”
Fifteen minutes later, Maya thought the lasers couldn’t come fast enough. She’d heard beeps in front of her. To each side. Behind her. Backward and forward and everything but upside down. Upside down might at least be interesting. The blood rushing to her head would have livened things up.