She stared back at him balefully before turning her head and looking around the parking lot.
“Where’s your backup?”
A grin tilted his lips. She was quick as hell, and he liked that about her.
“We have two Secret Service agents following us.” He didn’t mention Ian. The Secret Service was good, but Kell didn’t trust anyone outside his group worth squat.
“Dad always said you should check things for yourself,” she stated.
“I didn’t see you lying on the ground and checking the undercarriage.”
Her shoulders lifted dismissively. “I’ve had a bit of trouble figuring out exactly how to recognize a problem. But I’m working on it.”
His eyes narrowed as he glanced over at her. “You’re trying to figure out how to tell if a vehicle has been wired?”
“Seemed like a good hobby.” She crossed her arms over her breasts. “I’m all about learning things. Research, you know.”
Lust slammed into his gut. Research. He would never hear that word again without remembering her sinuous little body straddling his lap and the sight of her panties dampening in need.
“Yeah, research.” He could feel the sweat popping out on his brow now. “We need to do something about that hobby of yours, Emily.”
She breathed out deeply. “So I keep hearing, Kell. So I keep hearing.”
THE GROCERIES WERE PUT AWAY, and there wasn’t a spare inch of space left in her refrigerator or her cabinets by time they finished.
So much for her diet. The extra pounds she had been fighting with since she was a teenager were just doomed to stay in place.
They had stopped for lunch, a nice little Italian place with loads of calories, sinfully rich desserts, and a wine so smooth and delicious she had to force herself not to buy a bottle.
She was going to have a hard enough time paying for the groceries.
Maybe she should let go of her pride in this instance and tell her father to reimburse her for the eating machine she now had living in her house. The good senator owed her that much at least. The problem was, she hated asking him for money. Hated it.
For a while, he had deposited money in her account to take care of the eating needs of his goons, but the last argument they’d had over the amount he was depositing had resulted in him depositing nothing at all. And she had been too stubborn to do anything about it.
Now, she was stuck with the object of every sexual fantasy she had ever known, and she would be damned if she knew what to do with him. She knew what she wanted to do, she wanted to lick every inch of his body. She wanted to drape herself over him and become a part of his damned skin.
And that was just so wrong. Because no man should be that damned sexy, so rough and ready that she was creaming her panties just looking at him.
AFTER THE LAST OF THE groceries were in place Emily moved around the house, staring at the closed curtains, the locked windows, and tried to fight the arousal building inside her.
Hell, she had already come in his face. It wasn’t like pretending he was a favorite treat that needed to be licked was going to hurt her good “virgin” standing.
“I can take care of cooking if you don’t like to cook.”
She turned around quickly, staring across the room at him as he moved from the pantry and the small chest freezer stored back there.
His jeans rode low on his hips, a wide leather belt cinching it. Long muscular legs encased in denim drew her eyes, and the bulge between them made her mouth water before she jerked her gaze up to his amused green eyes.
“I don’t mind cooking.” She pushed her hands into the pockets of her Capris as she watched him move through the kitchen.
Muscles rippled in his arms and chest, emphasized by the snug fit of the T-shirt and the jeans that had seen one washing too many. They cupped his butt and his crotch like loving hands. The way she wanted to cup them.
She whirled away and stalked toward the patio doors only to turn back when she realized they were locked. She was in danger. She couldn’t just stalk outside because she was in a snit.
She closed her eyes as something whispered through her mind. A shadow of a memory, perhaps? A voice she knew she should remember from that time Fuentes had held her in captivity.
“Do you think you can catch him?” she asked. “Fuentes, that is?”