Chapter 2
TWO
Ash stood at the outdoor kitchen, forearms braced on the stone counter, watching heat ripple off the brick dome. Their two resident pizza experts, Sinner and Izzy, ran an assembly line. Dough slapped down. Sauce spread. Cheese tossed on top.
He didn’t know why they’d asked him to help—they had it covered.
He felt awkward when the team forced him to participate. He didn’t fit in.
At first, he’d told himself it was because he was the newest. Months later, he knew better. It wasn’t about rank or time served. He just wasn’t willing to participate in all the group activities—and he’d stopped pretending he was able to fit in. He had his team’s six. That was enough. It had to be.
Sinner had Ash tending the fire of the oven, and it was hot work. He cracked a bottled water and brought it to his lips.
Izzy reached across him and plucked a couple of olives from the prep bowl. She popped them in her mouth, eyes dancing when she looked at Ash.
“Your hair’s getting long enough to curl.”
Damn. He forced himself not to rub a hand over his skull. He kept his head shaved because if it was growing, it was curling. Growing up, he’d been teased relentlessly and by the time he was in his teens, he started shearing it off.
Thinking about his hair made him think of his mom. She passed while he was in boot camp, leaving him alone in the world and making him the perfect candidate for Blackout. They were all dead men walking, issued death certificates on the day they signed their papers.
Sinner glanced over, bare forearms dusted with flour. “Dude. You got curls?”
Ash gave them both a flat look. “No.”
“It’s okay, Ash. Lots of guys have curly hair.” Izzy’s smile widened.
At that moment, Steele drifted outside. Lucky for Ash, whenever Steele was around, Izzy was glued to him. Which thankfully shifted the topic away from his curls.
Steele moved toward Izzy like she was the sun and he needed her for warmth. He settled his hands on her hips and pressed his lips to hers. “Kennedy is looking for you.”
When she looked at him, love lit up her entire face. She dusted off her hands. “Ash, take my place.” She stole another olive on the way, then Steele slipped his arm behind her back and led her inside.
Laughter spilled from the open door between the patio and the kitchen, punctuated by the wooden scrape of the pizza peel and the hiss of fire.
He took over for Izzy, placing toppings on the pizzas Sinner slid across the counter. For a while, they worked in companionable but not awkward silence.
Then Opal walked out with Ellory beside her.
Ash’s hand hovered over the bowl of sliced green peppers, his body locking before his mind caught up.
Ellory had changed out of her sexy office attire and into a borrowed sweater and a pair of slim-fitting jeans. She’d pulled her thick oak-brown hair back in a knot that showed the line of her throat. And her glasses were perched on her head instead of her pert little nose.
He was trained to be observant, but he shouldn’t notice details like how the soft material of the sweater clung to her breasts. Or how its deep blue color made her eyes even bluer.
Her gaze drifted from Sinner to the pizzas they were making…and landed on Ash.
Her gaze snagged on his for a single beat, long enough for him to see some question flicker through.
Opal crossed the patio to Sinner’s side, and he paused mid-toss of a crust to lean in and brush a kiss on her temple.
Opal issued a laugh. “This is Caius Sinclair. Known to all as Sinner. Sinner, you saw Ellory in the briefing.”
He gave her a nod. “Good to meet you.”
“A pleasure.” Her voice, quiet and yet oddly intense, put Ash instantly on alert and sharpened his attention to a point.
“And you already know Ash. We’ll let them make the pizzas and you can talk to them more at dinner.” Opal was already swinging away with Ellory on her heels. Ash watched her go for a beat, taking note that her hips swayed as much in jeans as that tormenting skirt.
Sinner slid another pizza onto a peel. “You got something against an accountant?” he threw out casually.
Ash didn’t look up as he took the peel and pushed it into the flames. “Nothing in particular.”
Sinner cocked a brow.
Ash had learned long ago to give people at least a portion of himself in order to satisfy their curiosity, or else they’d keep asking questions he didn’t want to answer.
“She’s secretive.”
Sinner let out a snort. “We’re Blackout, Ash. No one here is without secrets.”
He gave a noncommittal grunt in response.
Picking up the ladle, Sinner placed sauce in the middle of another crust. “Since we’re talking, why are you so distant from everyone?”
Ash stared at him.
“Just because you’re the last man on the team doesn’t mean you get to play lone wolf forever. You can let down your walls.”
He scattered a blend of cheese over the sauce Sinner had spread in perfect concentric circles. “There aren’t any walls.”
Sinner eyed him. “You don’t join us in the home theater. Or the hot tub. You’re never around on casino nights. Not once have I seen you in a cutthroat game of pool volleyball.”
He said nothing. Because the truth wasn’t something he could say aloud.
He knew how this went. You let people in, you gave them the power to hollow you out. He’d been hollowed out enough.
He thought being dead on paper would take care of that. Then he got here and realized the men didn’t only act like teammates—they acted like blood brothers. And the women…they’d bound themselves together into something dangerously close to family.
Sinner pulled a pizza out of the oven. “Just sayin’. We work hard. We play hard. You only work.”
His attention drifted to the French doors. Through the glass he could see everyone gathered around the kitchen, eating, drinking, laughing. Everyone except Ellory.
She wasn’t with them.
His jaw tightened. “I have something to do.”
He started away.
“Ash,” Sinner called out.
He twisted his head to acknowledge his brother-in-arms. “Catch you later.”
He walked through the halls of the mansion that Charlie used as a base, his steps quiet on the marble floors. A glow at the end of the corridor drew his attention.
The computer lab lights were on, but he’d seen Dante and Elin in the kitchen.
Ash slowed, but his heart took on an extra beat. Did Ellory have high enough clearance to connect to their system? He had doubts.
He stepped into the room without announcing himself.
Ellory sat at one of the stations, turned sideways in the chair, glasses stem between her lips as she focused on the screen. When she sensed him, she slowly pivoted.
Let the stem rest between her teeth as she crossed her legs.
Cute. Sexy as hell, actually.
His body jolted like he’d taken a hit. His hands fisted at his sides.
She was acting like that on purpose, trying to distract him from what she was doing in a high-level ghost ops system.
“What are you doing?” His tone was flat.
She didn’t answer right away. She only studied him through her lashes, her lips curved tantalizingly around the stem. Then she turned the monitor toward him.
Ash stepped closer, prepared to alert his commanding officer.
Daniel Sheen’s tax records filled the screen.
He drew a deep breath—and realized his mistake of breathing when Ellory’s light, feminine scent flooded his nose.
He cast around for anything normal. Around here, that was food.
“Come have some pizza.”
She lowered the glasses from her lips.
And then she smiled, and he forgot what normal was.
* * * * *
Ash performed an about-face and stalked out of the room, taking his big manly man energy with him.
Ellory sat there for a moment, stunned that he expected her to follow him. Pushing away from the desk, she closed the tax documents she’d been analyzing and pushed to her feet.
The shoes that Opal lent her were too small, which meant she’d had to slip on her own kitten heels. They clicked lightly on the floor, and Ash’s head turned almost imperceptibly, as if he wanted to glance back at her but refused to let himself.
He continued down the hallway, shoulders stiff and the muscles in his back working under the tight cloth of his military-green T-shirt.
She let her gaze drift from what was probably a magnificent back to a pair of steely buns clad in black cargo pants.
Cute ass. Too bad it’s attached to such a moody jerk.
She’d known plenty of women who preferred the type. But Ellory once had a moody boyfriend and learned that he only sucked the life out of her.
Despite Ash’s same disposition, she was having a hard time peeling her stare off that ass. Grabbable. Annoyingly perfect.
Probably hairy.
Pleased with her conclusion, she tailed him to the kitchen. What sounded like a party greeted them, along with the mouthwatering scent of oven-fired pizzas that Sinner and Ash had been making when Opal gave her a brief tour.
Opal spotted her and pointed to the seat she’d been saving beside her. Ellory nodded and turned to the giant island set up like a pizza smorgasbord. There were so many toppings that her greedy stomach grumbled for a bite of every variety.
“Plates are here.” That voice—deep and rich and not for her—directed her attention from a margarita pizza with fresh ingredients to Ash, standing like a club bouncer with a gigantic stick up his ass.
Probably hairy!
“Thanks.” She grabbed a dish, and he had the manners enough to allow her to fill her plate first.
Once she had two small slices, she settled next to Opal and Sinner. They greeted her and they chatted for a moment. As Ellory lifted a slice of roasted red pepper and sausage pizza to her lips, she let her gaze roam around the table.
The guys were just as muscled and larger than life as she recalled from their briefing in the war room. But the serious expressions and lines of concern on their faces had been replaced by smiles. Jokes and teasing volleyed around the room, with all of them joining in.
All except for Angelo Ash. The resident stick-in-the-mud.
He wasn’t talking to the others. Wasn’t smiling as he bit off a bite of boring pepperoni and chewed it like it tasted like shredded corporate documents instead of wood-fired heaven.
What he lacked in personality, he made up for in looks. When her stare roamed to his chest, she swallowed wrong and almost choked.
Quickly, she jerked her gaze away. It landed on his arm, and she almost did the nose trick.
His arm was flexed, which meant his biceps bulged in bodybuilder perfection.
Those things are about to rip through his shirt.
But he probably has BO!
She tore her stare away from him and focused on the couple seated beside him.
The tech guru of the team, Dante, was leaning close to a stunning blonde, speaking in quiet tones.
Suddenly, the blonde looked up into Dante’s eyes and a ray of happiness lit her whole face in a private moment of such intimacy that Ellory looked away.
She stole a peek at Ash’s face…only to find those dark eyes on her.
She turned to Opal again. “If I stay on this base very long, you’re not going to fit me through the door. The pizza is so good.”
Sinner threw her a crooked smile that was, odds were, how he got his nickname. “Plenty more where that came from.”
She spoke to them both for a moment, aware of just how happy Opal was compared to when Ellory first met her on a different op.
Sinner suddenly cleared his throat loud enough to silence the room. “Maybe we should all remember our manners and introduce ourselves to Ellory.”
All eyes snapped to her. She wiped the grease off her fingers and gave them all her attention as one by one, they went around the table introducing themselves. She memorized each by connecting their name with their face.
Opposite her sat a ruggedly handsome guy named Henner—nickname Chickie. And the woman with a beautiful sheet of silky black hair next to him was May.
When they reached the last person—of course it was Ash—he only gave her a silent nod.
Ellory cradled her second slice of pizza. “I’m glad you made use of the pizza oven on this property.” She took a bite and chewed. “I don’t suppose you’ve found the casino.”
Not a single eye blinked. Nobody moved.
Finally, Sophie set her napkin on the table. “How do you know about the casino, Ellory?”
She pushed her glasses up her nose. “I helped acquire this mansion. It was a tax seizure from a big drug lord…and well, I am The Accountant.”
Con shook his head. “The longer I’m in Blackout, the more I see how small the world is.” He looked at Opal and Sinner. Obviously there was a story there and Ellory couldn’t wait to hear it.
She felt that prickle skittering across her skin and caught Ash staring at her again. She needed to break the connection or she’d forget all about his hairy ass and body odor.
“Then have you found the sex dungeon in the attic yet?”
Exclamations erupted around the table.
“What?”
“No way.”
“I know someone who could use a good paddling!”
Ellory scooted to the edge of her seat and crossed her legs, amused by the team’s reactions. Bulging biceps flashed past her vision as Ash pushed away from the table.
She tried not to track how his body rolled when he strode to the trash can and dropped his paper plate in.
She let out a low chuckle. “Just kidding about the sex dungeon. It doesn’t exist.”
She forced her gaze away from the man before she started running numbers that didn’t belong in any equations she knew.
Some outliers were better left unexamined.