Dominic broke the kiss and stepped away.
Sammy stared at him, disoriented, flushed and so turned on he couldn’t think. Why had Nick stopped?
“He’s gone,” Dominic said, raking his fingers through his dark hair.
“Who.”
Dominic looked at him. “Brylsko was approaching us. He nearly overheard us. You should be more careful, Sammy.”
Of-fucking-course.
Sam turned away and crossed his arms over his chest, his throat thick with tears of humiliation.
Behind him, Dominic sighed. “I’m sorry for overreacting,” he said stiffly. “You did a good job.”
Somehow, the praise that he’d wanted felt meaningless and empty.
“Now we just have to figure out how to get that chain off him,” Dominic said, his voice all business, matter-of-fact.
Sam blinked the stupid tears away and took a deep, calming breath.
When he spoke again, he managed to sound far more cool-headed and professional than he felt. “There’s no risk-free way to get it off him without him noticing. It’s too sturdy and weighty, especially with a flash drive attached to it. But…” He thought for a moment, picturing the flash drive in his mind. “There’s a short, thinner chain linking the flash drive to the main chain. It looked hollow, easily breakable. If it’s dark enough, I could get close and clip the thinner chain without him noticing straight away.”
“But if we don’t switch the flash drives, he will notice eventually that his flash drive is missing.”
Sam shook his head, watching the ship cut through the water. “He’s unlikely to suspect anything if he finds the flash drive at his feet. Chains break. It’s not uncommon. He’ll think himself lucky that he didn’t lose the flash drive, and that he found it before anyone else could take it. But I need the room to be reasonably dark—and we must make sure that security cameras don’t have night vision.”
He could feel Dominic’s scrutinizing gaze on him. “It could work,” he said. “Brysko is fond of shibari demonstrations that happen every evening. The room is usually very dark, the spotlight only on the performers.”
“Perfect,” Sam said with forced enthusiasm. “Can you find out about the cameras? If you can tell me where security cameras have blind spots, it would be even easier.”
“Sure.” There was a pause. “Is everything all right?”
Sam put on a smile and turned around. “Of course,” he said, looking Dominic in the eye. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
Dominic stared at him for a moment before nodding.
Sam didn’t delude himself into thinking that he’d fooled Dominic. After all, he was just a novice at pretending to feel something he didn’t.
It was impossible to fool a master.
Chapter 12
Sam tried to stay angry at Dominic, but he wasn’t really one to hold grudges. Now he just felt a little down and a lot stupid. Agent 11 had just been doing his job when he’d kissed him. It wasn’t Dominic’s intention to lead him on. Sam had no reason to be angry or upset. It wasn’t Dominic’s fault that Sam had a giant crush on him—on a straight, older man who was way out of his league anyway. He was being stupid and unreasonable. He should just focus his efforts on getting the job done and finishing the mission. When the mission was over, he probably wouldn’t see much of Dominic anyway. Special agents normally had little to do with rookies.
Instead of reassuring him, the thought made a ball of anxiety settle in the pit of his stomach.
Sam hoped he was successful at hiding how down he felt, but of course Dominic noticed.
“You’re upset,” he said when he joined him in the shower that afternoon.
Sam kept his eyes off Dominic’s body. He didn’t feel like being humiliated again by getting an inappropriate boner. “A little bit,” he admitted with a rueful smile, rinsing his hair and looking anywhere but at the other man. “It doesn’t matter.”
Dominic took his chin and tipped his face up. “What’s wrong, Sammy?”
Sam had never really liked to be called anything but Sam. But he liked the way Dominic said Sammy—warm, affectionate, and soft. It sounded like an endearment.
“Talk to me,” Dominic said, looking at him intently. “You can tell me anything. We’re a team, remember?”
Sam looked at him and didn’t know what to say. All he wanted at the moment was to hide his face against Dominic’s neck and let Dominic hold him and pet his hair. Christ, this was fucked up. His thing for Dominic was the oddest mix of wanton, base want and a childish need for comfort.
“It’s nothing,” Sam said, dropping his gaze and hating himself for being such a kid about it.
“Is this about the kiss?”
Startled, Sam looked back at him and flushed under Dominic’s understanding gaze.
Dominic murmured, “You shouldn’t let something as superficial as a crush get you down when you’re doing so well.”
Sam scrunched his nose up and chuckled. “You could have had the decency to pretend you didn’t notice anything, you know. This is getting mortifying.”