Page 3 of Direct Action

Ryan held up his hand, halting Poppy’s explanation, and looked at me. “This guy giving you trouble, Chloe?”

Why did I suddenly wish Ryan had replaced the ‘Chloe’ with ‘mama’?

Lord, I need to get a grip.

Yeah, on his dick.

Holy smokes, where had that come from? Sure, Ryan was hot, and his boy-next-door hotness mixed with I’m-dangerous-and-I-know-it made him the ultimate hot guy with an edge. And sure, again, he’d fueled more than a dozen hot-for-boss fantasies, but I managed to keep those thoughts limited to the bedroom, when Mr. Boss Man Ryan and I had our private playtime. As an aside, Mr. Boss Man Ryan was what I’d named all my toys—you know, the battery-operated kind that were stored in one’s nightstand. The name wasn’t original, but boy did they sure get the job done—in a big way.

“Chloe?” Ryan interrupted my thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“I asked if the guy was bothering you.”

Right.

Shit.

“No.” I waved off his concern and went back to refilling drinks.

“You know you don’t take shit from customers, right?”

Yes, all the servers at the Dirty Plank were constantly reminded by Ryan, Mason, Pete, Aiden, Gavin, and Fallon we were to report harassment immediately. That included unappreciated comments. The men who owned the bar were sticklers about respect and safety.

“I know,” I confirmed. “He wasn’t giving me shit, just trying to be . . .” What was pseudosurfer trying to be . . . “Funny.” I ended on a shrug, and my declaration sounded more like a question, but after my inappropriate musings my mind was frazzled.

“More like trying to pick you up,” Poppy put in.

I watched in morbid fascination as Ryan’s eyes flashed something that looked like disapproval. It was there, then gone, and if I hadn’t been staring directly at him, I would’ve missed it.

“As long as you’re good with it,” Ryan said through a tight smile.

No sooner did he turn his back to leave than Poppy gave me big eyes. Of course she didn’t miss easygoing Ryan’s terse comeback.

Only in my dreams would Ryan Strong care if a man in his bar was trying to pick me up.

And only my wildest dreams would I never have to watch him walk out at the end of the night with his arm around a gorgeous barfly.

Sigh.

Such was the life of a woman who had a major crush on her boss.

Chapter Two

“Yo!” Pete called and waved me over to a table in the corner he’d commandeered before the early evening rush started.

I took the chair opposite his. “What’s up?”

“Shep called. He needs us to look into something for him.”

The team had been home from Dubai for a month. It wasn’t unheard of for us to go out for back-to-back missions; neither was it abnormal for us to be home for a few months. So I didn’t understand the look on my friend’s face.

“Where we going? I’m up on rotation. Mase sitting this one out?”

We rotated who stayed stateside to manage the bar. Since Mason now had Calli and they were newish, it made sense he’d be the one to stay behind.

“The Vault,” he said, weirdly.