Page 44 of Rhys

Lifting her hand, Parker brought it to his mouth. With a quick peck, he told her, “It was my pleasure.”

“Don’t push your luck, Collins,” Rhys warned.

With a wink and a smirk, the other man gave the members of Charlie Team a nod before getting in his car and driving away.

“What happens now?” Vanessa stood next to Rhys as they watched Parker drive away.

“Now…” Rhys brought his dark eyes back to hers. “We wait.”

10

“Any word?”

Rhys looked up to see Vanessa standing in the doorway between her room and the suite’s open living area.

Face free of makeup, she was dressed in a pair of baggy jeans, a white, long-sleeve t-shirt, and a pair of white tennis shoes. She’d left her hair down, so it fell loosely around her shoulders, and thanks to a box of color she’d had delivered to the hotel, she was back to being a redhead.

Just the way I like her.

It had been three days since the banquet…and their almost-nothing kisses. Since then, he’d spent his days helping Greyson go through the mounds of files on Austin’s computer while also monitoring the asshole’s activity, and his nights doing everything he could to avoid jumping Vanessa’s bones.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want her. Nothing could be further from the truth. But there was the whole stopping-a-madman-from-selling-a-nuke-to-North-Korea deal, and her shoulder was still healing.

So Rhys did what he always did and focused on the job.

From what Greyson had said when he called earlier this morning, he’d discovered a handful of files hidden deep inside Austin’s server, but he was optimistic about being able to gain access into them by the end of the day.

When Rhys asked what was taking so long, his teammate reminded him that Kenneth Austin was also a literal genius, and his files were more heavily locked down than the CIA’s. The guy even pulled Parker back in to help go through Austin’s saved data.

Specifically, Parker was looking for anything that might throw up a red flag so Greyson could spend his time focusing on breaking the code and getting into the ones that had been well-hidden.

Because if Austin was dumb enough to keep the missing blueprint for his nuke on his personal laptop, they were willing to bet it was in one of those files.

“Not yet,” he answered Vanessa’s question. “But Grey and Collins are on it.”

“Good.” She walked farther into the room, a sadness he so badly wanted to erase filling her green eyes. “I just hope they find what we’re looking for. If they don’t then everything…the banquet…Rose…it will have all been for nothing.”

“Hey.” Rhys pushed himself to his feet and crossed the room to where she stood. “We’re going to find it. And when we do, that bastard Austin is going down.”

“I hope you’re right.” She crossed her arms at her midsection as if to hug herself.

The move gave him pause. “Your shoulder feeling better?”

“Huh?” Vanessa glanced down at her arm. “Oh. Yeah, I guess so. I hadn’t really thought about it much today, so I guess that means it’s healing up okay.”

“Mind if I take a look?” Rhys stepped closer. “Just to make sure there aren’t any signs of infection or anything.”

“Knock yourself out.”

Reaching up slowly, he gently moved the collar of her shirt to the side and carefully pulled away the white bandage still covering the wound site. Much to his delight, the it was healing quite nicely.

“Looks good.” He stepped around to check the one on her back. Performing the same quick, visual examination, he brushed her thick hair to the side, noting that the entry wound appeared even better than the exit. “They both look like they’re healing really well.”

Before he could stop himself, Rhys let his hand linger a bit longer. With his thumb caressing the healthy skin around the bandage, he leaned down and kissed the base of her neck.

Vanessa inhaled sharply from the sensual contact. But then…

“Wait.” She pulled away and turned to face him. “I’m sorry.”

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