Then he jumped back from Reese like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Or up a woman’s skirt.
Turning around, he squeezed Reese’s hand and prepared to drag her off, avoiding meeting the eyes of whoever was waiting in front of them.
“Knight.”
Shit. Derek broke his plan not to look and snapped his head up, staring in horror at his boss.
“Good to see you’re hard at work,” Nordstrom said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
His hard-on shriveled up and died. Nordstrom was the most effective birth control around. Nobody could possibly think about sex with him in the room.
“It’s my lunch hour, sir.”
Derek pulled Reese off the elevator and stood aside to let Nordstrom on. The older man just gazed at him without blinking. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your girlfriend?”
And let Reese open her mouth? Hell, no.
Too late.
She already was.
Reese said, “Oh, I’m not his girlfriend. We’ve just been having sex.”
Derek had a heart attack. Or at least that’s what it felt like when his chest spasmed in pained shock.
There was an eternal moment of frozen silence, then Nordstrom laughed, a dry, rusty, hacking laugh that sounded like a lawn mower starting up. Derek stared at his boss in amazement. No one had ever heard Nordstrom laugh. The other agents had all decided that since he was a robot, he was incapable of feeling human emotion.
A laugh was downright amazing.
And Reese had caused it. It figured.
“That’s funny.” Nordstrom shook his head, still chuckling as Reese smiled widely back at him.
Derek winced as Nordstrom clapped him on the shoulder. “Hang on to this one, Knight. Not every woman can make you laugh.”
With those words of wisdom Nordstrom got on the elevator and the door swung shut. Reese was looking around curiously. Derek was standing still, his ulcer sending forth a slew of angry stomach acids.
“Where’s your office?” she asked, taking the bag of food back from him. “You’re going to spill this. You can’t hold it crooked like that.”
“Down the hall. Fifth cubicle on the left.” Derek started walking, intent on getting Reese fed and out of the building so his ulcer could settle down.
“Is it private?” She winked at him. “We could finish what we started in the elevator.”
He was too horrified from the close encounter with Nordstrom to feel even remotely turned on. “No, it’s not private.”
Reese licked her lips, her hips swinging seductively as she walked in her high heels. “Even better.”
Okay, he was turned on again.
But as they walked into his cubicle, he knew he had to establish a few facts first before he indulged further in Reese’s body. Reese started pulling out little plastic bowls and setting them on his desk, glancing around his three stark white walls.
“Don’t you have any pictures or anything to hang up? This place is depressing.”
If he had a wife and kids, he would put their pictures on his desk, but since he didn’t, the desk was empty. What was he going to put a picture of there? His mother? Him and his buddies hanging out at a tailgate? A random mountain landscape?
“Reese. Tell me why you didn’t go back to New York.” He leaned against the wall and pinned her with his best investigative stare. The I-know-you-know-something stare.
She sighed as she pried the lid off a bowl and stuck a plastic spoon in the soup. “Sit down and eat your soup and I’ll tell you everything. I’ll bare my soul and talk about my dreams and aspirations.”