She murmured an apology in French even as she opened the connection between them. He smiled back at her, and a moment later, she was on her way to the restroom down the hallway near their table. The tingles settled into her skin before she even reached the ladies’ room. Once inside, she counted to twenty, then left to go back to the dining room.
Caleb was already on his feet and heading her way, meeting her on the dance floor with a forced smile on his face. Brielle wondered if he was more upset at her unexplained actions or the fact that he had to dance with her.
For a big man, Caleb moved much more gracefully on the floor than she had expected. Though that was probably thanks to his inner werewolf. Regardless, the two older couples on the floor smiled at them broadly in that way elderly people did when the “kids” did something old-fashioned and romantic. If they only knew that Caleb could sprout fangs and claws at a moment’s notice—not to mention rip their heads off if he was having a bad day—they probably wouldn’t be smiling nearly as much.
Still, Brielle definitely wasn’t complaining as Caleb led her through a dance step that suggested someone had actually taught him to dance at some point. She would have asked, but unfortunately, there were other priorities at the moment.
“What was that all about?” Caleb growled softly as they moved closer to Lestari’s table.
Damn, she had to admit that growl thing he did was kind of sexy.
“Shh,” she whispered. “I’m trying to listen to what Lestari is saying.”
Caleb looked confused as hell but didn’t say anything else as they kept dancing.
It was hard to hear Lestari and the other men over the music, even though it wasn’t much more than background noise. Even so, she could only pick up every third or fourth word. It took a few moments for her to make sense of what she was listening to. It was always like that right after she first made contact with her target.
“They’re talking about making a deal for the weapons right now,” she whispered, her gaze focused on Caleb but her ears tuned in to the conversation at the table a few feet away. “The two buyers have already wired partial payment to Lestari and will transfer the rest of the money after they see the weapons.”
“Wait a minute,” Caleb said, his eyes narrowing. “You understand what they’re saying? Since when?”
“I told you I speak several languages,” she said, not wanting to get into details at the moment.
What she’d just done was too complicated to explain quickly, and they didn’t have time. Unfortunately, Caleb didn’t appear to be buying her excuse. He opened his mouth to say something, but thankfully, Misty interrupted.
“What language are they speaking?”
“I think it’s called Nuaulu,” Brielle said hesitantly. She’d only picked up a vague concept of what the language was when she’d touched the man’s hand.
“Wait. A. Minute,” Misty said, pausing in between each word. “You’re telling us you speak a language only spoken by a couple million people that live around the island of Seram in the middle-of-nowhere Indonesia?”
Brielle honestly had no way to answer that question simply. It didn’t help that Caleb was staring at her like he knew she was lying about something. Fortunately, Lestari and the men with him chose that moment to stand and head for the exit of the restaurant.
“We can talk about this later,” she said, tugging Caleb with her as she moved to follow. “Because they’re heading to make the exchange right now. And the handoff is happening somewhere close to here.”
Over the radio, Jake cursed, then ordered Harley and Sawyer to track Lestari and the others once the men were outside, while the rest of the team got ready for a raid.
“Be careful,” Jake added. “We have no idea what we’re walking into.”
That concern didn’t stop Caleb from looking at Brielle sideways after he paid the bill and they headed out the door. “I know something strange happened back there. As soon as we get those nukes back, we’re going to talk about it.”
Chapter 4
“They’re in two vehicles heading south toward the train tracks,” Harley announced over the radio as Caleb and Brielle reached the way-too-small rental car they’d driven to dinner. “On the main road, two blocks west of the restaurant.”
“We need to hurry if we’re going to catch up to them,” Brielle said as he cranked the engine. When he made no move to put the car in gear, she added, “We are going after them, right?”
Caleb wanted to say no. He wanted to sit there outside the restaurant and demand that Brielle tell him what had happened in there and how she’d been able to understand what those men had been saying when he was damn sure she hadn’t been able to speak their language before she tripped and almost fell into that guy’s lap. It wasn’t the fact that she had secrets that bothered him. Everyone had secrets. He had so many he needed to rent storage space to keep them all. But for some stupid reason, it stung like a hell that she was keeping these secrets from him. It felt…wrong.
But then Misty was on the radio, interrupting his thoughts, saying she’d identified the two men who’d met with Lestari as obscure revolutionaries out of Sri Lanka. Exactly the kind of people who might want to possess one or more of their missing nukes. That knowledge was enough to once again convince him that this conversation would have to wait until later.
“We’re going after them,” he said to Brielle, putting the car in gear. “But we stay in the background until the last moment. We can’t risk tipping them off if they remember us from the restaurant.”
That seemed to satisfy her.
They followed Harley’s directions toward the railroad tracks. He remembered seeing them on the way to the restaurant, a little surprised to see an industrial-sized rail yard located so close to the upscale part of the city.
“They made a left on Koturaška,” Harley said over the radio. “It’s a small access road just over the tracks. We’re falling back so they don’t get suspicious. Forrest, you and Misty come up and take point.”
Caleb tried to listen to the muted conversation between his teammates as he drove, but most of his attention was focused on the mesmerizing woman sitting in the seat beside him. In the tiny compact car, with the heat turned up, her scent was even more enticing than it had been in the restaurant. He kept telling himself it had to be her perfume, even though he’d never smelled a honeysuckle scent from a bottle that was so sweet and intoxicating.
During dinner, it had taken all his strength to maintain a semi-intelligent conversation with Brielle. It had gotten ten times worse on the dance floor, when she’d been in his arms. The urge to bury his nose in her long, silky hair and breathe in that delectable scent had been nearly overwhelming. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little shaken by the effect she had on him. He refused to allow himself to think too much about why his inner wolf was reacting so strangely, though. No way in hell was he letting his mind go in that direction.