“So then, what’s the plan?” Crutch asked. “How do we get our hands on Miss Tate?”
The thrill of the hunt filled Venom. It’d been a long time since he’d been involved in bringing down human quarry. He leaned forward, a smile stretching his lips. “I think I have an idea.”
*
Emily watched Ozzie slap more lasagna onto Samantha’s plate even though Samantha was laughing, shaking her head, and making a half dozen excuses for why she couldn’t eat another bite.
“That last reason was so lame it needs crutches,” Ozzie scoffed, forking a bite between his teeth and grinning the whole time.
“Are you still flapping your lips?” Samantha came right back at him. When Ozzie opened his mouth, she lifted a hand. “Shhh. Let me enjoy the visual image of duct tape over your mouth for just a little while longer.”
“Bondage?” Ozzie waggled his eyebrows. “Now we’re talking.”
“Are we?” Samantha cupped her chin in her hand and batted her eyelashes at him. “Are you sure you want to go there?”
“I’m a guy, sweetheart.” Ozzie spread his arms wide. “I pretty much live there.”
“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s head to one of those outbuildings”—Samantha hooked a thumb over her shoulder to the small rectangular structures BKI used for parts storage, weapons bunkers, and a home gym—“and get it on like Donkey Kong.”
“Fine by me.” Ozzie acted like he was about to stand from the table.
Samantha stopped him with, “Oh, sorry. Did you think I was talking about you? I meant Becky.”
Becky choked on her lasagna and reached for her glass of wine.
“If you’re serious about the Becky thing”—Ozzie leered at Samantha—“I could just sit in the corner and watch.”
Samantha’s cheeks flushed bright red. “Okay, you big jerk. You win that round.”
“I swear I’d be so quiet.” Ozzie’s eyes positively gleamed in the dimming light. The sun was sinking low in the sky, bathing everyone seated around the picnic table in a warm glow. “I wouldn’t say a thing.”
“Stop it!” Samantha laughed, raising her hands to cool her cheeks. “I already said you won!”
“Everyone heard that, right?” Ozzie pointed his fork around the table. “I won against the indomitable Samantha Tate. Record it for posterity.”
The wind blew in from the river and across the huge brick wall that surrounded the back of the compound. It smelled of fish, wet vegetation, and a city that was winding down for the day.
“What did you win, Ozzie?” Franklin, Michelle and Jake’s five-year-old son, asked from his seat beside his mother. Michelle had JJ, Franklin’s eighteen-month-old brother, on her lap. She was trying to feed the baby lasagna without getting most of it on his face, hands, and bib. Emily would say Michelle was only marginally successful.
“Bragging rights, squirt.” Ozzie winked at the little boy. “Which is just about the best thing ever.”
Franklin grinned, shoving a huge bite of garlic bread into his mouth, his little legs swinging happily. Excluding Emily, only two of the BKI women who were currently in town were gathered in the courtyard. Those who weren’t on-site would find a quiet spot to conference call in when the time arrived for their men to phone from the field. The two who were on-site? Well, they were trying with all their might not to let their nerves show.
Luckily, Samantha and Ozzie had been doing a good job of distracting everyone with their lively banter. Intentionally, no doubt, on Ozzie’s part. Quite innocently on Samantha’s.
Emily took a sip of wine, pretending she wasn’t insanely aware of Christian, who was seated across from her. That was difficult, considering he was looking all suave and handsome and so un-muss-able that all she want to do was muss him. Ruffle his hair. Wrinkle his shirt. Hide his razor.
It was becoming an obsession. He was becoming an obsession. To distract herself, she studied Ozzie and Samantha.
She hadn’t known Ozzie before coming to work for Black Knights Inc. But from what little she’d heard, the edgy, slightly withdrawn man she’d come to know over the past few months was not the real Ozzie. She thought back on something Becky told her one night after they’d shared a bottle of wine. “The man you see today isn’t the same one we’ve all come to know and love. I mean, he still tries to joke around, still tries to smile and laugh, but everything seems contrived.”
Emily hadn’t had anything to compare Ozzie’s behavior to, so she’d had to take Becky’s word for the difference. Now, however, she could see what Becky was talking about. She could see the change in Ozzie. With Samantha by his side, he seemed more like the man the others had described. Easygoing. Funny. Quick to laugh and even quicker to flash that devilishly handsome smile.
The reporter is good for him, she thought.
Of course, there was a problem. A big, honking one that started and ended with the opposite sides of the coin their respective jobs put them on.
Her mind was ripped from the problem when Franklin—who was in the middle of sneaking a ranch dressing–coated piece of lettuce from his salad and shoving it beneath the picnic table to a happily waiting Fido—asked, “What’s bondage?”
Everyone choked and sputtered and tried not to laugh. Everyone except for Michelle. She did her best to glare Ozzie into the ground. “Oh, for goodness’ sake. Thank you very much for introducing that word into my son’s vocabulary, wonder boy.”
Realizing he’d been given something off-limits, Franklin grinned until the adorable dimples he’d inherited from his father winked in his cheeks. “Bondage! Bondage! Bondage!” he singsonged, his feet swinging faster.
“Yessiree, Bob. You are so dead,” Michelle swore to Ozzie just as the alarm on her iPhone chimed. She and Becky drew in so much air that Emily was surprised there was any oxygen left for the rest of the group to breathe.
It was time. Time for the ladies to find out if their men were safe and sound or…not.
“What?” Samantha glanced around. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing,” Michelle assured her, handing a lasagna-covered JJ over to Christian. “That’s just the alarm letting me know the dessert is ready.”
Samantha blinked. “That must be some tiramisu.”
“It frickin’ is,” Becky assured her, gathering up dirty dishes. Her hands shook, but she was quick to disguise the tremor by wrapping her fingers tightly around used cutlery. “I’ll help you cut it and plate it, Michelle.”
“I’ll help too.” Samantha pushed to a stand.
“No!” a chorus of voices rang out, and Samantha instantly retook her seat, eyes wide.
“You’re our guest!” Emily chirped, kicking Christian’s foot beneath the table.