Page 40 of Baby Take Me Home

“Fuck me,” he muttered.

It was the last thing I heard him say before I clicked off the channel.

Through the comms, I heard Kessler speaking to Ashlee. “Your phone is going to ring any minute. It will be TJ, telling you he’s early, and is only a block away from where you’re meeting him, wondering if you can meet sooner.”

That would be my way in. Kovac would be curious, and would want to meet the new man in Ashlee’s life. He would most likely expand the invitation to include me. And if he didn’t, Kessler would talk Ashlee through getting him to do it.

In my ear, I heard Ashlee following Kessler’s lead to perfection. At the moment, she was telling Kovac about this afternoon’s date. An ad-lib on her part that made her sound like a smitten woman in the early stages of a relationship. A small part of me—okay, not small, in fact, probably the largest part of me—wanted to believe that came from a place of truth.

“We’re going to a few special spots,” she was telling Kovac. “The kind the locals know about that tourists tend to miss.”

I wondered if she had anything specific in mind and what her dream date might be, then felt a pang because we might not have enough time together left for me to find out. But if she liked special, non-touristy spots, I had a few ideas I was happy to share with her.

And then I heard what we’d been expecting, the insistence that Ashlee should bring her new love interest with her.

“That’s all we need,” I told Kessler. “I’m going to call Ashlee now to get her away from him.”

“TJ,” Penn said over the team channel, “Boss, at least have Ashlee tell Kovac maybe, not an outright yes. Give us time to plan the op and run disaster scenarios before you agree to put yourself at his mercy.”

“Jensen,” I said. “Take my comms down so I can only hear Ashlee and Kessler.”

“Christ on toast, TJ, you’re playing with fire,” Samantha said. It was as close she would come to telling me I was out of my fucking mind in front of the team.

I didn’t doubt I’d hear a hell of a lot more from her and Penn later.

“I need to focus,” I said.

Every one of us knew that was a lie. We were all experts at getting the job done with team chatter, commands, and a metric shit-ton of expletives in our ears. The truth was, I didn’t want to listen to the pushback. One of the best things about our cohesive team was bringing together our expertise so the whole was greater than the sum of our parts. But sometimes, that led to the impression that we were all on equal footing.

We were not. I was the boss. And while their concerns about the potential fallout of a high-level HEAT operative entering the house of a foreign diplomat were valid, it would be more dangerous and potentially more devastating to the agency to ask a civilian to do our dirty work for us. If my decision had the side effect of protecting Ashlee, that was just a bonus.

And in a few hours, when I had to face the wrath of X, I would frame it to her that way and would hope she didn’t fire me on the spot.

CHAPTER 16

Ashlee

Every line Cynthiafed me seemed to have the right effect on Luka. In less than ten minutes since I’d mentioned TJ, Luka had put me in a car to take me the half mile to my meeting spot with “my new boyfriend.” I hopped out of the car onto the curb and waved the driver away.

TJ was waiting beside his car, which was parked at a meter. I sidled up to him and he pulled me into his arms. He kissed me in greeting, the way I always wanted to be kissed by him. It was deep and warm and slow, and made my toes curl inside my shoes. I understood we were making such a public display of it for Luka or his spies’ sake, but I savored every minute of it, and of knowing we would spend more days together now that HEAT needed me to get inside Luka’s house.

“I did it,” I whispered in TJ’s ear. “I got my new boyfriend invited as my plus one on Friday night.”

He grinned down at me. “You’ll get a special reward for that.”

“Can I have it right now?”

“Only if you want us both to get arrested.”

The idea of stripping naked and having him in public made my pulse race. Not here, in the middle of the busy sidewalk. But maybe down some side street or alley. Up against a scratchy brick wall. Barely hidden and in danger of getting caught at any second.

“Ash.” TJ gripped my hand. He was staring down at me with a look of bemusement, and I wondered if he’d guessed my thoughts. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”

Yep, he’d guessed. “Right. Time to head back to HQ for a debrief.”

“Later. Right now, we have a date to keep.”

“A date?”