A matter of time.
Gunner would get the payback that he had coming.
Chapter Seven
“I need clothes.” Sydney curled her toes into the thick carpet in Gunner’s living room. “As fun as it is to keep wearing your T-shirt...” Her hands lifted the hem of his navy T-shirt. “I need to go out in public with more than just this on.”
But she looked so sexy in his shirt. With her long legs stretching forever. Gunner cleared his throat. “That’s, um, being covered—”
His doorbell rang. Right. That should be her clothing. Logan had told him that he’d be sending over some articles for Sydney. Gunner hurried to the door. Glanced through the peephole. Swore. Then he looked over his shoulder. “Why don’t you...uh...wait in the bedroom? I’ll bring the clothes to you.” Because he didn’t want the man on the other side of that door seeing Sydney when she looked so...
Tempting.
Sydney shook her head, threw her hands into the air and stomped off toward the bedroom.
Schooling his features, Gunner opened the door. Cale stood there, shopping bags in his hands and a pained expression on his face. “Send me out to rescue a hostage in the jungles of the Amazon,” he drawled, the Texas slipping into his voice as he stepped over the threshold, “but please don’t send me shopping for women’s clothes ever again.”
Gunner almost smiled. He almost smiled, would have, if he hadn’t heard the returning tread of footsteps.
“Gunner,” Sydney called out, “I’m going to need some shoes, too—Cale?”
Cale gave a low whistle. Then he choked because Gunner stepped into his path. “I, um, brought you some clothes, Sydney.”
Gunner snatched the clothes from him. “Keep those eyes up,” he ordered.
Cale’s lips twitched. Gunner’s own eyes narrowed. Cale was about to get on his—
“Relax, Gunner. I’m sure that Cale has seen a woman’s
legs before, plenty of times,” Sydney said, a thread of humor in her voice.
But she wasn’t just any woman. She was—
Mine.
Wasn’t that the way he’d always thought about her?
Gunner forced himself to take a deep breath. “Eyes. Up.” He gave the order once more; then he turned briskly and marched toward Sydney.
Her eyes were...twinkling. “If I didn’t know better,” she whispered, “I’d say you were almost jealous.”
Almost? Not even close. Cale was one of those annoying pretty boys you saw in magazines. The guys who could easily wear tuxes and blend in anyplace.
Gunner knew what he looked like. A walking bad dream most days. With all the scars on him and a face that was too rough and hard, he was hardly the man women wanted to take home to meet the family.
He never had been.
“There’s no need to be jealous.” She took the bags from him. “Maybe you should learn to trust me.” Her steps were quiet as she headed back into the bedroom to change.
He stilled. He did trust Sydney. In the field, he always knew that she had his back. If you couldn’t trust your team members on a mission, you couldn’t trust anyone.
Logan, Sydney and Jasper Adams—the man whom Cale had only recently replaced in the Shadow Agents—they were like his family.
They were his family.
“I don’t blame you for watching her walk away. That woman is a looker.”
Gunner spun around.