I looked back at him and his eyes were moving along the screens and I got the impression he didn’t miss a trick.
He briefly glanced at me then back to the screens. He was being professional but I also got the feeling he was ticked about something and trying not to let it show in front of the guys.
“Currently, we do mostly investigations, mainly corporate, embezzlement, fraud, theft. We pick up some domestic investigation, only high-income, usually gathering evidence to substantiate adultery or other incontrovertible grounds to get large alimony and settlements.”
“Usually poking the nanny,” Monty put in. “That’s fun to watch.”
“Depending on the nanny,” Vance spoke for the first time, his voice deep and rich, his eyes off the screens and on my legs, saying he wouldn’t mind watching me get poked if I was the nanny. I was also hoping he wasn’t communicating he didn’t mind just watching me get laid by Lee.
Yikes.
Though, you had to admit, he had balls checking me out in front of Lee.
Lee kept talking. “Staff does rotation in here, depending on what assignment they’re on. That way they don’t have to sit in a windowless room very often and can keep sharp doing field work.”
Lee started to move me to the door and I called, “Later, guys.”
Both looked at me, Monty gave a small wave, Vance grinned. I wondered if I would see the guys later, like, say, Lee had a company picnic.
“Do you have cameras in your office?” I asked Lee when he closed the door.
“Nope.”
Thank God.
“Tell me about Monty,” I went on.
“Monty’s an ex-SEAL, knee injury took him out, the only guy who takes five shifts in surveillance a week. He manages the room. He comes in if we have any field operations, most of which he plans because he’s good at it. He’s been married twenty years, has five kids and may look mellow but even with a bum knee, he’s a serious guy you do not want to mess with.”
Yikes.
“Field operations?”
“Sometimes, end work on a corporate investigation. Mostly when we work with the PD or Feds.”
“What do you do with the police and the government?”
Lee didn’t answer.
I didn’t push.
“And Vance?” I asked.
“Vance is the master of multi-tasking. He’s off the rez, a recovering alcoholic, ex-con, grand theft auto. He has quick hands, quiet feet, can make himself invisible, is an excellent tracker and can do anything with cameras and electronics. He usually traces skips but he also does a lot of our wire work. He wired Fortnum’s. I would have given him the new skip but he just bought himself a week in the surveillance room. As for you, if you look at him like that again, I’ll cuff you to the bed and only let you go for bathroom breaks.”
“Jeez, now who’s jealous?”
I said it out loud, but I meant to think it and might I add that this was a habit that was becoming alarming.
My comment was a big mistake.
Without warning, Lee’s hand closed on my upper arm, he opened the locker room door and pulled me inside. He slammed the door shut behind us, shoved me against the lockers and came up on me so there wasn’t room to move.
I looked up at him, about to say something but thought better of it because his face was Badass Angry.
“Something to learn about me, since you haven’t already taken it in,” he said in his scary, calm voice, “I recognize I’ll have to put up with you receiving attention, I’ve no problem with that. I’ve had a lot of practice. What I don’t like is that you flirt as easily as you lie, it’s second nature. You’re gonna have to make an effort to stop because I don’t like it. I especially don’t like it when you do it with my men, they have to keep focused and we’ve already established you’re distracting. It’s okay for me to think of f**kin’ you on my couch. I don’t want it shoved in my face that Vance’ll be thinkin’ of f**kin’ you in the surveillance room or on his Harley which he no doubt saw you starin’ at like you’d do anything to be astride it.”
“So that’s Vance’s Harley,” I said. Yep. Aloud. Again.
Lee came even closer and his body pressed me back into the lockers.
“Lee, move back,” I warned, beginning to get pissed off.
He didn’t move.
So, I went into being full-fledged pissed off, wedged my hands between us and shoved.
He still didn’t move.
“It’s harmless,” I told him.
“Does it feel harmless to think of me workin’ late nights with Dawn?”
I blinked at him, confused. After the mind-bogglingly good time we had on the couch, I was way over any upset about Dawn.
“Well, yeah,” I said.
He stared at me, his face stony.
“For goodness sake, she’s not your type. Vance is cute, for certain, but he isn’t my type.”
“From a decade of keepin’ close watch, I wouldn’t say you had a type.”
It was my turn to stare at him, because that was just plain insulting.
Men were so stupid and Lee was at the top of the list.
I mean, didn’t he just admit this morning to reading my diary?
Didn’t he realize I only had one type and that type was him?
Wasn’t he the one who told me I was in love with him and I’d eventually admit it?
We were together. Finally. Liam and India together, even moving in for goodness sakes.
This was something I was going to have to get used to when I had time to wrap my mind around it. Truthfully, unlike nearly everything else in my life, it was coming naturally and it was one of those few things I didn’t have to process at length with Ally, Andrea or Tod and Stevie.
Did he honestly think I was going to screw it up by engaging in some by-play with one of his men?
“You’re an idiot,” I told him.
His eyes narrowed and that scary muscle jumped in his cheek.
“What did you just say?”
“You… are… an… idiot,” I repeated. “Think about it and when you’re ready to apologize, I’ll listen. But I’ll accept an apology now for the insult you just dished out.”
“How about you explain,” he suggested in a way that was clear it wasn’t a suggestion.
“No explanation, but I’ll give you a hint. In all my vast experience of men through what you consider was India’s Decade of Slutdom, I’ve never, not once, even so much as had a toothbrush at another man’s house.”