“Poor is a bit of a strong word.”
“Really? Because I know how to pick ’em wrong, you’re telling me you’re good at it?”
“Well—”
“Seriously?” Xander asked, and I was amused to see his annoyance.
“What can I say?” I shrugged. “I’m bad at picking men. Not so much for the bedroom; I’m usually pretty good there.”
“Are you?” Mika asked, and I bit back a laugh at the horror on Reno’s face. “Because I haven’t had much luck in that department, they tend to be?—”
“No!” Reno cried, waving his hands frantically in front of his face. “No, no, no! Absolutely not! Go away! Talk about your sex life somewhere the fuck else! Absolutely not!”
I saw a moment of surprise on Xander’s face as he shot me a shrewd look. “Go, spare us your bullshit.”
“C’mon,” I told Mika. “I’ll give you a few pointers.”
“I hope this isn’t a bad pickup line,” Mika said, and I felt his eyes move over me. “You are, well, no.”
“Don’t worry,” I told him with a laugh. “I’m not hitting on you. I’m still holding out to turn your brother, so I don’t want to spoil the surprise of seeing one of you naked before the other.”
“Agh!” Reno cried, shaking his head. “Boss!”
“Out!” Xander barked, and I left with a laugh, dragging Mika behind me.
“You are slightly evil,” Mika commented, but his tone was almost admiring.
“You havenoidea,” I said, thinking of what I’d dropped in Xander’s lap, leaving the ball completely in his court.
Now to see if he would serve the ball back or leave the game unfinished.
XANDER
“Jesus, is that a clipboard?”
“A what?”
“Oh, c’mon, I know you’re a baby, Carter, but you can at least parse contextual clues, can’t you?”
“Context…what?”
“Jake, please.”
I glared at Mika. “Shut it.”
Mika shut it.
I looked around the dining area at the faces peering back at me with varying degrees of boredom, impatience, acceptance, and amusement. That last on Colin’s face as he leaned back in his seat listening to his team be…well, our goddamn stupid ass team. I didn’t know if his amusement was for their sake or mine, though, and I wasn’t sure I liked that feeling. It would be one thing if he was amused because he could see me getting fed up with their bullshit; that at least would be understandable, if not tolerable.
No, my worry was that he was amused because he could sense my attention was distracted whenever he was around. It had been since the moment I’d met him, but it was worse since last week when my attention was locked onto him afterour second shared orgasm. Even more so with his willingness to leave everything that could happen between us in my hands, leaving me to deal with what came next.
I wasnotgoing to imagine him jerking off in the shower. Or the sounds he’d made when I’d…fucked my dick against his. I most definitely wasn’t going to think about the sight of his mouth wrapped around my cock while he not only let me, but enjoyed me using his mouth to get myself off. And there was no way in hell I was going to think about what it would feel like to sink my dick deep into that bouncing ass and listen to the noises he’d make when I was balls deep and?—
“Listen,” I said, clearing my throat roughly. I hadn’t decided what to do with the ball in my court. I mean, I should say no and I was keeping up the idea that I could say no by putting it off…but I was still thinking about what would happen if I took him up on his offer. If I were to call him to my cabin and what would happen. “It’s that time when we have to talk about optics.” There were groans, and I rolled my eyes. “Suck it up, fuckers, this is part of the job, and has been for a while, and you know that.”
“Uh, optics?” Carter asked, and I had to admit it wasn’t a stupid question; he had joined us a couple of weeks after the last time the conversation had come up.
“It’s not enough that we’re out here busting our asses and saving lives; we have to pick some of us to go out and smile in front of people and say nice things,” Cait said with a sigh. “That is, some ofyoudo, not me.”