Effortlessly, he rerouted the kitten. Too bad it wasn’t as easy for the two-legged folks in the room to do the same.
He curled his fingers around her kitten, stroking. The sensual jolt that went through her had to be coincidence. “So, Sam here doesn’t interest you?”
She really, really wished he didn’t, but too late. Tag had made it clear this was her kitten, and that she was keeping it. God, she hoped not. She had enough males in her life, thank you very much.
“I said I’d changed my mind.”
“Cat. Job. Next thing you know, you’ll be setting a date.” He shook his head in mock dismay.
“Are you going to hire me or not?” She gritted the words out. Why did he have to make this so hard?
His finger traced a wicked return path back up her thigh, the fabric of her borrowed sundress rucking up beneath his touch. It was just a finger. She shouldn’t be thinking about jumping his bones right here in his command center. Or how easy it would be for him to nudge her skirt out of the way.
“Is it a conflict of interest if I hire my own fiancée?”
“Better than someone else’s. Plus, I’m good. You wanted an office manager.”
“I wanted a temp to help with the paperwork.”
She leaned in. “I’m better than a temp. We both know it.”
“You’re so certain?”
Yes, yes she was.
“You’re bossy. You’re take-charge.” He ticked her attributes off on his fingers.
“I’m good at what I do.” She carefully set the kitten back on the desk. “Do you want me to beg? Because I can probably manage it. I’m going to have to draw the line at groveling, though.”
A grin split his handsome face. “Hell, yeah. Begging works for me. But I’ll settle for you saying: ‘Tag, I need your help.’”
“You don’t want a pretty please with sugar on top to go with it?”
“Mia...” He made a give it up gesture. “You have to say it. Give me that much.”
Fine. She could do this. Think of the house. “I need your help. Please.”
The words ran together, and the last word wasn’t as audible as the first but...she’d done it. And he rewarded her with a quick, hard kiss.
“My pleasure.”
No. It was her pleasure.
* * *
MIA CLUTCHED SAM, looking slightly dazed. Good, because that made two of them. He didn’t know what he was doing here, either, although he definitely recognized the feeling flooding through him. Satisfaction. Maybe his prickly ex-sergeant needed him for something more than sex.
“Why the sudden interest in the job now?”
“I want the house I saw.” A fiercely possessive tone shot through her voice and made him wonder: What would it take to make her talk about him the same way? She was still talking, though, so he forced his attention back to the here and now. “The mortgage broker wants me to have gainful employment before the bank commits to funding me. Hire me.” She paused a moment, then added, “Please.”
Yanking open a desk drawer, he rifled through an explosion of paper and produced a W2. “Fill this out and we’ll get you on the payroll. Your desk is over there.”
She followed his gaze and sucked in a breath. “I don’t think you’re paying me enough.”
“You don’t know how much I’m paying you.”
“It can’t possibly be enough.” She shook her head as if she’d never seen a mountain of papers hiding a desk before. True, the entire surface was covered, but they needed help. He’d made his position perfectly clear.
“Give me the job description.”
She held out a hand, as if he’d actually bothered to write a bullet-point list when he was drowning in paper.
“Dream on,” he said, fighting the urge to grab her hand and pull. One good tug and he could have her laid out on top of the paper she’d stink-eyed. He might even consider clearing her desk for her with one good shove and then following her down for some illicit one-on-one. There were plenty of wicked things he could do to her. With her.
“Earth to Tag.” She tapped his shoulder. “Unless you’re paying me to stand around while you daydream. In which case, lucky me. This is going to be a sinecure.”
Right. Job duties. “Bottom line is whatever Deep Dive needs. Right now, that’s someone to coordinate our rescue-training ops and the first-responder team. There’s also going to be a mountain of paperwork.” He grinned at her. “Literally. We also book adventure dives, and we’re doing a Train Like Spec Ops program with Fiesta cruise lines.”