Page 35 of Run

The team debriefed over pizza and soft drinks. Megan had wanted beer, but Callum pointed out that they were on alert and might still need to shoot somebody, and as he’d much rather it wasn’t him, he’d vetoed the beer. Although, he’d said it in a more technical and whole lot less tactful way than Elle would have done.

With food filling their bellies and the adrenaline working its way out of their systems, tiredness soon set in. Slowly, everyone drifted off to bed, leaving Elle with the mountain of cell phones they’d confiscated during their raids. She could have left them until the morning, gotten some sleep before she started breaking into them, but her nature wouldn’t let her. Which meant a long night working with her crappy laptop. The machine was the computer equivalent of a drunken snail, zigzagging slowly across the garden and likely to die from overconsumption at any minute.

As Elle wiped down the phones with antibacterial spray—because: dirty gangbangers—silence descended on the house. The world outside didn’t slow any, though. This was London, and they were right beside one of the busiest airports in the world; there was no division between day and night at Heathrow. In truth, Elle found the hum of activity soothing. It meant she didn’t feel alone.

“You need help with that?” David asked, making her startle.

“I’m going to put a bell around your neck,” she threatened. “Out of all the men, you’re the quietest, and that’s saying something.” Even with two prosthetic legs, Callum could be pretty damn silent if he wanted. “I thought you’d gone off on some secret spy mission. You know, to avoid me.”

“The secret spy mission was for intel; avoiding you was just a side benefit.” He grinned at her.

“And yet, here you are, back with me.” She tried to cock an eyebrow at him, but they both went up. How did people do that? “Ever get the feeling you’re fighting the inevitable?”

“Do you want help or not?” he grumbled.

“Well, I was going to make the best of some alone time, but you can stay. I can be alone with you in the room.”

“Not sure how to take that.” David sat on the arm of the sofa beside her. “You should be sleeping.”

“So should you.” She bit her lip to stop herself from asking about his bruises. They seemed worse than ever. But he’d made it clear they were none of her business… Of course, she’d never been much good at minding her own business. It was how she’d gotten into trouble with her family in the first place.

“Are you in pain?” she asked.

“No more than I can handle.”

Even though his tone was light, Elle caught a worrying undertone to his words. One that suggested he was well versed in pain and had been for a very long time. Well, either that or she was seriously overtired and hearing things.

“How much can you handle?” she said.

His dark eyes captured hers. “You shouldn’t ask me questions like that.”

“David.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ve been asking you nothing but questions like that since we first met.”

He rubbed his chin, seemingly perplexed. “I shouldn’t have allowed it.”

That made her laugh. “Like you could have stopped me. Anyway, you like answering; you just don’t think you should.” A little flex of his jaw was his only reaction. It was enough. “Now you don’t like that I know that about you.”

“I swear you’re part witch,” he muttered.

“And don’t you forget it.” She pointed at the phones sitting in the disconnected microwave she’d had brought in to store them. “Do you know how to crack these?”

How one raised eyebrow could come across that sardonic, she didn’t know. David leaned over and opened the microwave door to grab a phone. Giving Elle a first-rate view of his backside. Of course, she looked. It was right there. It would have been rude not to.

“I forgot, you’re a superspy. A superCIAspy. The question is, are you more or less super than Harvard? I mean, he’s bigger for a start, and he can speak like a gazillion languages. How can you top that?”

“Quand tu me regardes ainsi, ça me donne envie d’être un homme meilleur.” His French accent was perfect, and the look in his eyes…

Holy Hotness, Batman.

“I think I just got pregnant,” Elle whispered.

“Walan 'urid 'ann 'uqbilaka.”

“I have to warn you.” Her gaze flitted between his dark, sensuous eyes and his oh-so-kissable lips. “I think we’ve stumbled on a fetish I didn’t know I had. It’s possible that if you keep speaking in languages I don’t understand, Iwillbe forced to jump you.”

“Vy vvoditye cheloveka v grekh.” His dark gaze held hers for what felt like an eternity before he cleared his throat and moved to the armchair beside her. “Then I’d better stick to English.”

“What happened to all thosethreatsyou made in Scotland and in that alley in Chinatown? Weren’t you going to show me pleasure beyond my wildest dreams? Or were you just talking yourself up?”