Page 49 of S.O.S. Mizzay

“Let it,” Cobble growled, still battling himself. “I need you.”

She tapped his chest. “And you’ll have me. All night, and for the next week. So…”

She unlocked her ankles and slid her legs down over his hips. Provocatively.

Cobble snorted. “Tease.”

“Yup. You know I like to build the sexual tension.”

She ran her hands up his chest and tweaked his hard nipples. Then she danced away from his questing hands to pick up the bag of Chinese and sashay her tight ass into his kitchen.

Cobble laughed, then sobered.

His somersaulting stomach wasn’t going to allow him to eat.

And little did Andy know that she was about to be so mad that she’d be forgetting all about not only food, but perhaps her libido as well.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Cobble hesitated before he followed Andy into the kitchen.

A memory from almost ten years ago hit him. It was the day they’d arrived at her parents’ compound. He’d had a great time getting to know Andy’s family, and he’d finally felt like maybe he’d found a place where he could hide and be happy. But before that night had ended, Andy had revealed that she’d be going overseas to find the CIA leak; that she’d risk her life following El-Umar around in hopes of finally moving the case along.

Cobble had tried like hell to dissuade her, as had her parents, but they hadn’t made a dent in her armor. Stubborn woman. She’d spent a long time getting approval and setting things up, but she’d eventually left for the African continent. The next bunch of years had been the hardest times of Cobble’s life, with her being close to danger, and only coming back to visit, sporadically. But he recalled what she’d said as she’d told him goodbye that first time.

In order to make change in the world, one has to follow one’s convictions.

True then, and true now.

Cobble would remind Andy of that in a few minutes.

He wanted… No, heneededto change the world;hisworld. And if by doing so, he brought a handful of dishonest agents and a foreign war-lord to justice, life would be worth living again.

Either way, Cobble was not staying in hiding any longer, and Andy would just have to roll with it.

Cobble squared his shoulders and took a few steps toward where Andy was humming off-key in the kitchen, before he stopped again.

Shit.Another memory hit him.

Something Cobblehadn’trecalled until this moment—or he’d blocked it from his brain because it had been so painful. It was howbadlyhe and Andy had fought the day before she left for South Sudan the first time. They’d had a terrible altercation where they’d hurled hurtful words at each other they didn’t mean.Hisbitter rejoinders had come from a place of fear;hersfrom thinking Cobble didn’t trust her to get her job done.

In retrospect—when they’d finally taken their heads out of their asses and begun their…trysts—they’d agreed that the overlying angst that day had been because they’d had yet to admit their attraction to each other.

But at least for that one, horrendous day, they’d parted company, acrimoniously.

They’d recovered andmended fences when she’d returned for the first time, but it had probably set the trajectory of their true relationship back a bit.

A small grin touched Cobble’s lips.Yeah.Theirinitial reconciliationhadbeen the beginning of them dancing around their attraction to each other. But looking back, he wouldn’t change things. Their shy reticence had made for a very titillating, slow build where they flirted and teased, skirted around her family’s speculations, and hinted at what might happen between them, before things came to an eventual, effervescent boil.

The wait had been sooo worth it.

But now?

Would he and Andy have a second, huge fight? And if they did, would they be able to recover from this one?

He was about to find out.

Cobble mentally got his arguments in order.