“I can drive.” It was his rental SUV, after all. “My head isn’t that bad.”
“You admitted someone got the drop on you tonight, and you lost your balance. You really think I want you behind the wheel in the dead of night?” She opened her safe inside her master bedroom walk-in closet and knelt to retrieve her pump-action Remington 870, 9mm, and K-bar knife. She handed him the weapons, then went for ammo.
His heart nearly exploded. “A woman after my own heart.” Wow. “Every closet should come equipped with a Remington.”
“And by the way, if I can handle firearms like these, I think I can handle driving your SUV.”
“Really, I—”
“You want me going with you, then let me drive.” She was also persistent, he’d give her that.
He zipped his lips. This was a woman not to be reckoned with. A Southern woman at heart, perhaps. “I’m gonna ask one more time, but are you sure you want to run?”
“It’s not running. I need to be at a location outside of Atlanta in”—she checked her Apple watch—“about ninety-four hours. And let me remind you that I’m perfectly capable of going by myself. I don’t need a babysitter.” Pivoting one knee to better face him, she threw a finger in the direction of the weapons bag. “I can probably shoot better than you.”
“Ha!” He crouched, the weapons separating the two of them, because why wouldn’t a shotgun be what was between him and the woman he wanted to kiss? And he did want to kiss her. Her eyes lowered to his mouth as if she were reading his inappropriate thoughts right now. That little twitch of her lips said it all. She was wondering how his mouth would feel on hers, too. “You do know what I do for a living, right?”
She rolled her tongue over her lower lip before drawing her eyes to his—ohhhh, she was screwing with him. It only turned him on more. “I thought you were retired. Since when do security contractors go around shooting on U.S. soil?” She braced herself with one hand on the floor next to the weapons bag, and they both leaned forward as if they were about to share a strand of spaghetti like the two dogs in that Disney movie his niece loved. “No, that’s right, they don’t. So, either you’re full of bullshit thinking you can actually outshoot me, or you never retired.”
He fell back onto his ass, losing his balance, and she chuckled. “It’s the bump on the head. No, sorry, two bumps!” He tossed two fingers in the air before she turned back to her safe and locked up.
Well, shit. The woman was damn good at reading people, and he’d have to remember that. She’d easily picked up on the fact he’d never really retired. “Retired or not, I’m betting I can take you.”
“Yeah, well, I was at the top of my class at Quantico. And I shoot every weekend to let off steam.” She stretched her arm beneath the rack of clothes next to the safe and retrieved a second bag.
“What’s that one for? Your long gun?” he quipped.
“Clothes. I wasn’t planning on going on the run naked.”
“Aha, you just admitted you are running. All this naked talk has me wanting to go on the run with you now more than ever.” He pushed to his feet and tugged at the material of his shirt. It was already too hot in there for her to be using the word naked in a sentence.
She turned around once she was on her feet and let go of the bag. Her skin was a bit flushed. The heat? Naked talk? Him?
“And before you try and take back what you said,” he began while stepping over the guns to get to her, “I’d say it’s running when you leave without informing your superiors.”
Porter had gone missing outside of Atlanta, but beyond that, A.J. had no idea what to expect once they made it to Georgia since she wasn’t being all that forthcoming. The fact she didn’t want the government to know she was leaving was giving him a mild heart attack, but what could he do?
If for some reason his gut was wrong about her, it was better he was with her and tracking her movements. Let her lead him to whoever she was working with to betray the country.
God, even the infinitesimal possibility of that gave him a serious case of heartburn. And heaven help him when the team found out what he was doing.
Wyatt and Harper would lose their shit. But Wyatt would have walked through fire, separated the seas, done whatever he had to do for Natasha, so . . .
Shit, maybe my head is off?
“I have no choice but to go.” She lifted her chin to look up at him since they were so close, and she was fairly petite.
He could easily scoop her into his arms, mold her body perfectly to his, and take her against the wall. On the bed. Every surface in her townhouse.
“Are you sure you want to come with me? Do you really understand what it is you’re getting into?” She crossed her arms to add some kind of wedge between them, and her elbows bumped him in the process.
“Kind of hard to understand”—he lowered his face—“when you’re being vague as shit, don’t ya think?”
“Ugh, I just can’t with you.” A flustered breath later, she brought her hands to his chest as if planning on shoving him away, but they just stayed there. Two palms on his pecs. She’d surely feel his heart beating frantically beneath her palms. “We’re like oil and vinegar, aren’t we?”
“Nah, I’d say more like gin and tonic.”
Ana closed her eyes, but the quiver of her lip suggested she was working damn hard not to smile. Shaking her head slightly, as if she were all kinds of confused, she took too big of a step back and bumped into the clothes hanging behind her, knocking a few shirts to the ground.
She quickly spun around and snatched up the shirts, her bottom bumping into him this time instead of her elbows, which he preferred much more. “Some space, please?” She cleared her throat.
“You’ve had a hell of an evening, and you’re about to cut out of D.C. and raise some major question marks at the Bureau, but you’re worried about those shirts on the floor?” He carefully stepped around the weapons bag, not looking to fall again, and eyed her as she hung her shirts. “Panic-clean,” he said with a snap of the fingers. “Right.”
She faced him a moment later, eyes dipping to her empty travel bag that she needed to fill so she wasn’t “naked” on the trip. “Are you sure we have a safe place to go if I still agree to let you risk your life by going with me?”
“Why yes, my lady,” he teased. “My buddy lives in Alabama just over ninety minutes give or take from Atlanta. He’s on an assignment overseas, and his place is empty. Very secluded, too.” And ten minutes from my parents’ house. Ana didn’t need to know that, though. “But we can only go there if you promise not to take advantage of me. You know, no panic-sex. And also, there is no if I am going.”
“Fine,” Ana responded. She may have been working awfully hard to sound businesslike, but her eyes sparkled with humor. She shooed him with her hand, nearly flicking him. “Let me hurry and pack. You’re slowing me down.”
“Whatever you say,” he answered, catching a smile she’d been too slow to hide with the back of her hand.
A.J. turned to leave but then slapped a palm to the interior frame of the closet door. “By the way, my buddy has an arsenal at our disposal and a helo if we need one while we’re there. He’s in the Air Force.” He wasn’t quite sure what kind of trip this would turn out to be, but just in case . . .