“Yeah,” Silas answered immediately. “He has some work with broader appeal.”
“Perfect,” I said, planting the word in Roland’s mind.
Roland nodded in thought. His hand touched his suit coat pocket, as if confirming the card he’d tucked there was still inside. “Okay, good. Thanks, maybe I’ll come by and check it out.”
The men said their goodbyes, we watched Roland go, and Silas’s gaze swung my direction. “So now you’re going to the show?”
I floundered for a response. Inside, I was a little thrilled that I’d be forced to see Silas again. “What can I say? Your cock persuaded me.”
Again, Andre gave a choked laugh.
Chapter
NINE
Shane sat across from me at the conference room table, his expression blank. He always had that look whenever I debriefed him about something of a ‘delicate’ nature. Delicate. That was the term my last handler used when discussing sex. It was a gray area between me and a female handler, even worse with a male one. But I appreciated Shane’s stoic attitude.
I’d given him the rundown of the encounter with Roland and my plan to entice him to the club. I’d also casually mentioned I’d fooled around with the tattoo artist, leaving Silas’s name out of it, and thankfully Shane glossed over the finer details.
“There’s a hiccup,” I said, “that needs to be mentioned.”
“Don’t tell me Roland’s gay.”
I put my train of thought on pause. Shit, was he? He’d worn a wedding ring, but that didn’t mean anything. It seemed unlikely, though, that he’d be into men. His breathing had picked up when I’d mentioned sex and his gaze had lingered on me, too long to be anything other than interest.
“You know Chief Deputy Caroline Getty, with the Marshals?”
Shane’s expression morphed into one that said he was putting two and two together. “What’s the connection between them?”
“The tattoo artist is her brother.”
Shane’s gaze dropped to the tabletop as he considered my next move. “Gotta tread carefully there. I hear she’s a fucking ball buster.”
I glanced out the glass door of the conference room to the rest of the office, which appeared like any other. Outdated computers sat on government-funded furniture and looked as exciting as the non-existent view out the window.
If we’d been doing this at a bar, Shane would have been more relaxed and spoken freely. He might have told me gossip about how exactly Caroline was a ball buster, because in our tightly knit department the men gossiped just as much as the women did. Especially when it had to do with women.
He was right, though. I wasn’t interested in tangling with the cowboy Marshals on any level. “I realize that. I plan to steer clear.”
He delivered a stern look. “Maybe refrain from putting his dick in your mouth again.”
I went rigid, bristling at the comment. It wasn’t like Shane to judge me. “What the hell?”
“Shit, forget I said that.” He put his elbows on the table and scrubbed his face with his hands. “I feel like we’ve been on this case forever, and I’m . . . concerned.”
“About what?”
Based off his expression, I already knew the answer, and now I wished I hadn’t asked. He stared at me, his long face serious. “Concerned about you. You just ended things with Matt.”
Annoyance enveloped me so thickly I could hardly breathe. “What are you, my dad? Why do you give a fuck about whose dick I stick in my mouth?”
Crap. Things went from bad to worse when a wounded look splashed on his face.
“I give a fuck because I don’t want you to get hurt. It’s because you’re a friend, and also, it’s my fucking job.”
We lapsed into tension-filled silence. Shane was a more than just my handler, he was a friend. In fact, outside of the blindfold club, he was my only friend. I hadn’t meant to be a bitch, but I didn’t know how to deal with the awkwardness. I refused to meet his gaze even as I could feel him staring back at me. After an eternity he let out a sigh.
“Your personal life and your undercover life, the lines are blurry, but your work isn’t. There are a half-dozen cases headed for a grand jury because of you.”