Nauti Temptress (Nauti 8)

“I would highly suggest doing just that,” his boss ordered. “She hasn’t been cleared for this operation, and her brother and cousins sure as hell haven’t been cleared for it. ” He swiped his fingers through his hair as he glared at Brogan now. “I’m ordering you not to inform her of your true purpose for being here. You will stick to the parameters of your cover and tell her nothing more. ”

Brogan almost laughed. Doogan liked to think he had some measure of control over his agents, but they’d all learned how to deal with his manipulations.

“Go to hell, Doogan. Tell me something I want to hear or get the hell out of here,” he warned, hostile.

Brogan might not know what he was up to yet, but he’d figure it out. When he did . . . well, it wouldn’t be the first time the two of them had fought.

“There are a few details we need to go over,” Doogan began.

“Like the one where someone slipped into Eve’s room last night,” Elijah spoke up. “We saw it on the cameras when we returned to the inn. The same intruders tried to get into your room, but the new dead bolt you put on it kept them out long enough that they were forced to leave when Timothy made his rounds. That’s why Dawg’s trying to find you two. Timothy found her door unlocked, stepped inside to see the suite wrecked, and called her brother. ”

Brogan slid his gaze to Doogan slowly.

The other man stared back at him coolly before turning to Elijah and Jed. “I could have taken care of that. ”

“I was trying to help you out, boss. ” Elijah shrugged with a tight grin.

Doogan snorted in disbelief as he turned to Brogan. “You inspire insubordination,” he accused irritably.

“You’re welcome. ” Brogan inclined his head in a gesture of gracious accomplishment before turning back to Jed and Elijah. “Did they take anything from her room?”

Elijah shook his head in the negative. “They searched the hell out of it, though. She won’t be happy. ”

She wasn’t going to be happy to begin with.

“Why search her room?” he asked thoughtfully. “I can understand searching mine, but why hers?”

“Maybe to be certain you hadn’t hidden anything there,” Doogan pointed out. “You would expect your room to be searched, but not that of a woman you hadn’t even made your lover yet. ”

Brogan frowned, turning to Eli. “Did anyone leave the trip yesterday after I did?”

Eli grimaced. “Poppa Bear called it off after you left. He said he wasn’t going searching for scenic destinations or those caves the group was heading to see without the leader of the pack. ” He chuckled.

Doogan snickered at the comment.

“This happened before we arrived back at the inn,” Elijah told him. “We were almost there when Donny asked exactly where the caves were, and Sambo commented that it would have been nice to have you there to make sure they were at the right place. That’s when Poppa Bear called us all to pull into

the parking lot of a grocery store and suggested coming back. ”

Sambo was a bear of a man and often pretended he didn’t know his own ass from a hole in the mountain, let alone how to find some of the most popular caves in Kentucky.

“Did anyone know why I left?”

Jed and Elijah shook their heads. “I don’t know if Donny and Sandi called anyone later or not, but they played real dumb after you left. ”

“You know, Brogan, that boy’s acting damned strange anyway after the two of them went ape shit thinking one of them might die. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they might love each other. A lot. ” Jed shook his head at the thought.

“That little strike was unsanctioned as hell,” Doogan reminded them all before glaring at Brogan. “You don’t use agency resources to get vengeance over a perceived slight to a potential girlfriend, Agent Campbell. ”

Brogan found it strange that Doogan knew about it to begin with. And he’d had to have said something to Jed or Eli about it first for either of them to have discussed it with him.

Brogan turned to the other two men. “Is that everything Doogan needed to tell me?”

Eli grinned as the director shot a silencing look at him and then at Jed. Brogan knew that if there was more, one of them would call or text the moment they had the chance.

“Anything else I need to know before you leave?”

“Don’t tell her what you’re doing here, Brogan,” Doogan warned him again. “She’ll tell her brother, her brother will tell his cousins, and then I’ll have to start arresting Mackays. ”