Page 34 of How Much For a Life of Lies?

“We had a script!”

“We had to take out Viper to get me in to replace him.”

“I fucking know that,” I snapped.

“It’s your fault,” Kai said.

“The fuck?”

“I clearly laid out that you were supposed to start a fight with them, get their backs up so Viper got taken out, not break their fragile egos with your gay,” Kai deadpanned.

I snapped. Closing my hand around his throat, I walked him backward to the door. “I never once mentioned to them I was gay.”

He grinned, as if being pinned by the throat was a good thing. “Yet somehow they picked up on it,” he smirked. “So much for being an undercover expert.”

Anger bit as I recalled Bulldog holding me, and Viper with his gun. I could have gotten out of it easily, but to endure that shit even for a moment was messed up. “One of them wanted what they couldn’t have,” I snapped, and then released my hand from Kai’s throat, watching the redness fade. I thought I glimpsed surprise in Kai’s expression, maybe a hint of him being territorial, but it soon passed.

I was reading my own confused feelings into his expressions, and that sucked balls.

He brushed himself off.

“They were looking for trouble, anyway. And fuck, whatever they thought and did, how does your kissing me help our cover, for God’s sake?” I asked, not shouting, but keeping my tone even. The original mission hung by a thread if Kozlov’s second, Indigo, didn’t go for it, and Kai’s impulsive actions threatened to unravel everything we’d worked for.

“It worked, didn’t it?” His defensiveness grated on me, his reluctance to trust anyone but himself a constant obstacle to our partnership. It was as if he saw the world through a narrow lens, unwilling to let anyone in, afraid of what might happen if he allowed himself to be vulnerable and run ideas by me. I mean, what the fuck had he been thinking? I could handle myself, and I didn’t need a knight on a white horse riding in to save me.

With a freaking kiss.

I knew there was more to Kai than met the eye. Underneath all the bravado and self-assurance, he was as vulnerable as the next guy after what had happened when he was a kid. He’d didn’t let anyone see it. Least of all his teammates.

Words failed me. My jaw clenched, teeth grinding with frustration. Kai’s gaze met mine, a flicker of defiance in his eyes, as if daring me to challenge him, and then he yanked at my hand and placed it around his throat again, pressed himself into my hold, daring me to squeeze, daring me to hurt him for whatever twisted scenario he’d just dragged me into.

“Wanna choke me for real? Kiss me?” he whispered, and I shook him off.

He rubbed at his throat and then pouted as if I’d actually hurt him.

“Screw you,” I snapped. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of rising to his shit. Not now. We had a job to do, and emotions couldn’t get in the way. But the sting of his kiss, going off-plan, dragging me by the hair, lingered, and it left a bitter taste in the back of my throat.

I swallowed hard and pushed down the anger. I’d focus on the mission, but Kai’s actions wouldn’t be forgotten, and there would be hell to pay once this was over.

“They wouldn’t have let you go,” he said. “They’d blame you for the fight, for Viper being injured, so as KD, I had to step in and claim you. It was for your protection and an operational decision.”

“‘An operational decision’?” I tried to stay calm, but my jaw clenched, as did my hands. I swear I was going to punch the decision right out of his mouth. “We never once talked about this option.”

“Like I said, Bulldog would have beaten you, and hell, Indigo would have put a bullet in your brain for messing with Viper because she lost a pilot.”

“And why didn’t you mention that when planning this?”

“Even if I thought this would happen, a kiss-and-claim would never be on your dance card,” he said.

I balled my hands in fists. “I’m running this op, and you… fucker…” I didn’t have the words. My shoulder ached like a bitch where I’d been pushed back on the bar, and it just reminded me that yeah, if everything had kicked off, then maybe I would have been at a disadvantage.

“It was just a kiss. Calm down,” Kai muttered.

“I am freaking calm.”

Kai shoved at me, twisting and then pushing me back to the wall, his arm across my throat. “This is not you being calm,” he said. “I need you to breathe.”

I struggled to get away, but not enough to dislodge the one thing I wanted—Kai touching me.

---