“He’s bi.” Lana sighed. “And I told you, he’s Jackie’s.” And then because she couldn’t help teasing him… “Although…he’s always said he would be willing to lend a hand, if you know what I mean.”
“Jesus Christ.” James ran his hand through his hair. “What kind of office are you running here?”
“A happy one. At least it was until you violated my privacy and made an illegal copy of my key.”
“I need to know you’re fully accessible.”
Lana huffed a breath. “I’m not a bus, James.”
But he wasn’t listening. Instead, he paced around the room, pulling books from the bookshelves, studying her scenic mountain prints, tugging on the drawers of her filing cabinets and peering out her windows. He rifled through the papers on her desk, the files on her credenza, and peered into the closet full of emergency clothing and disguises. At least she’d picked the one office without glass walls. She could just imagine Jackie’s laughter if she caught sight of James rummaging through her cupboards.
Lana couldn’t decide whether or not she liked this territorial sniffing around her office. He seemed determined to touch and study every single thing in her room. She sat at her desk and tried to focus on her paperwork, but his constant shifting of objects, shuffling of papers and peering into corners both unnerved and irritated her. She wasn’t possessive about her stuff, but she did like it untouched.
She finally snapped, “What the hell are you doing? Why don’t you just piss in the corner and get it over with. Derek used that one…” she pointed to the left, “…but the one behind my desk is free.”
Seemingly unconcerned by her uncharacteristically crude outburst, James thumbed through an investigative-techniques textbook. “Just getting to know you, babe.”
“The usual way of getting to know someone is to take them on a date and talk, like over dinner and drinks, or hiking up a mountain, going for a walk, sitting on the beach or even white-water rafting. You don’t break into the person’s office while they are working and start rifling through their stuff.”
“You want to go on a date?” He came around her desk and stood beside her, legs spread, arms folded. Her chair was low enough to position her mouth right at the bulge in his jeans. An image of James in the same position in the field popped into her head. Except she had been naked, on her knees, her lips wrapped around his…
Lana turned bright red. “Ah…no. I wasn’t asking… I mean…we seem to have moved past the dating stage.”
His intense gaze bore into her. Hunger gleamed in his eyes. “We had dates before,” he said softly.
Lana cleared her throat and shifted in her seat. “That was…um…in the past. What we had then was different.”
But was it? They’d had a few dates at the beginning of their relationship, but work pressures meant they rarely saw each other until late evening and inevitably they would wind up in bed. She’d learned more about James in the last few weeks than she had in their six months together. Now they laughed more, joked more and spent more time together. She was falling faster, deeper for him than she had before. She hoped it didn’t mean she would crash harder too.
A muscle ticked under his eye and she wondered if she’d hit a nerve. “What do we have now?” There was an edge to his voice—sharp, hungry.
She lifted one of her shoulders in a shrug. “Well, we do seem to talk and hang out more, but mostly, I guess, it’s just…sex. No strings. No attachments. No one gets hurt.” She managed to work past the sudden lump in her throat.
James’s gaze sharpened. “Just sex?”
She drew in a ragged breath. Damn her runaway tongue. “Sure. I’m okay with that. At first I thought I couldn’t handle it. But I didn’t have any emotional breakdowns. And, I thought, you know, if you didn’t want more than that, once I was done with Angel, I wouldn’t be hanging around Hades, so that would be it.”
“You’re done with Angel as of today. That mean you’re done with me?”
She slammed her pen on her desk, frustrated at her inability to articulate her thoughts and irritated as hell he still thought she would drop the case. “As you saw, I am not done with Angel.”
“You’re done, babe. I should have shut you down long ago. Angel and Rex are an accident waiting to happen and I don’t want you in the middle. Move on.”
Teeth clenched, Lana pushed herself out of her chair and stood toe to toe with James. If she didn’t take a stand, he would walk all over her. But if she did, he might walk away. She didn’t want to lose him, but she didn’t want to lose her self-respect. If they were going to work, they had to find a middle ground.