Page 34 of Robb

Robb couldn’t blame her – despite having trained to go without food for long periods of time in emergency situations, the, ah, exertions of the previous night had left him ravenous.

And the scent of salty chips, sizzling steaks, and melting cheese had basically been driving him crazy for the last few minutes – sure, there were times when he wouldn’t have survived without his dingo’s acute senses, but now, all they’d done was serve to make the wait for food all the more intolerable.

The two of them devoured the food indiscriminately, hands flying in all directions as they grabbed a taste of everything.

After a couple of minutes, Robb slowed down enough to actually enjoy the food, biting into the steak sandwich and just barely managing to hold back a small groan of contentment.

The sandwich was old school, none of this fancy newfangled stuff – just lightly toasted low-quality white bread, a slice of melty cheese, caramelized onions, juicy beetroot, over-grilled pineapple, tomato, lettuce… and, of course, an absolute ton of thinly sliced steak, slathered in tomato sauce.

It was an abomination that was practically bursting at the seams, oozing meaty juices and sauce all over his fingers and down his chin – and, he had to admit, it was exactly what he felt like eating.

And if the blissful sounds coming from Tahnee’s direction were any indication, she was feeling the same way.

The two of them finally started to hit their limits as they neared the end, Tahnee eyeing the small mountain of potato scallops with the expression of someone who knew they were facing a challenge that was probably beyond them, but who was determined to do it anyway.

“You know a good fish’n’chip shop by how many extra potato fritters they give you,” she said. “We ordered two, and I think they gave us at least six.”

“I think that’s just the two fritters, two scallops, and two cakes,” Robb replied. “You should check in case they charged you extra.”

Tahnee shook her head in wonderment. “Wow. Was that another joke? You have hidden depths.”

Robb carefully hid the smile that he could feel threatening to break free across his face… or at least to tug slightly at the corner of his mouth. It was nice, being able to make someone smile. When was the last time he’d let himself do that?

Sure, he let himself play the humorless straight man at work sometimes for what were, admittedly, slightly warped team bonding purposes. But this was just purely just to make Tahnee laugh – even though, he had to admit, it wasn’t even a good joke. Luckily for him, it seemed like Tahnee liked bad jokes.

It was all he could do to keep himself from holding out one of the scallops for Tahnee to bite. Despite everything, he did still have some sense of decorum, and he knew that if he let himself get lost in thoughts of what she might do with that mouth, he’d be at way too much risk of completely losing control of himself.

Maybe Tahnee could read his thoughts on his face, because her smile grew devious, and she plucked the scallop from his unresisting fingers, taking a long, slow, bite out of it that was way too erotic for the local fish’n’chip shop.

“Mm. Mm. That is good,” she said, licking her salt-shiny lips.

Robb tried not to stare, but didn’t really succeed.

“That was my scallop,” he said lamely.

Tahnee shrugged. “You snooze, you lose, Robbo. Maybe next time you’ll keep up.”

Robbo.

For the first time ever, Robb didn’t hate it. He thought that maybe he might even like it.

Part of him – a very large, insistent part – wanted nothing more than to take her hand and run back to the safehouse with her and pick up where they left off. But he knew that a bit of self-discipline would do him good. He couldn’t actually spend the rest of his life in bed with Tahnee, as much as he wanted to… and the sudden remembrance that any agent could just waltz in through the safehouse door at any moment was enough to put at least a slight damper on his arousal.

Though Tahnee would probably be into that kind of thing…

Grabbing another scallop, he bit into it before it could suffer the same fate as the previous one, crunching his way through the crispy batter and trying not to burn his tongue on the still-hot insides. It was pretty good, and despite the massive amount of food they’d already eaten, he and Tahnee made short work of the rest of them.

“Ugh, I couldn’t eat another bite,” Tahnee said, stretching her arms above her head for a moment before slumping down into her seat.

“That’s a shame,” Robb said mildly. “I was checking online earlier, and there’s at least four cake shops just down the street from here. Oh, well.”

“Cake?” Tahnee sat bolt upright. “Cake doesn’t count.”

“No, no.” Robb shook his head. “I would hate for you to feel sick.”

“Robb.” Tahnee leaned forward, eyes blazing, and her hand reached out to fist in his shirt, the slight brush of her fingers against his skin setting the mate bond ablaze with warmth. “Take me to the cake. I command you.”

“Well…” Robb pretended to contemplate, before he sighed. “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”