Taser shrugged. “Blame her. She’s the one who came up with it.”
“What kind of collaboration?” Nicki asked suspiciously. As Sean’s heat and need seeped into her, she grew stronger. It was odd, she thought, how his presence both controlled and empowered her at the same time.
At Taser’s suggestion they moved inside to continue the conversation. Nicki made a move to take a seat next to Taser, but Sean tugged her down next to him. He refused to let go of her hand, even for a moment.
“Think of it as a transfer of sorts,” Taser said a while later, after he had outlined things. “Technically, you still belong to me - ” Sean growled audibly at this “- but your assignment is to assist the Ghost Team. Sean will be responsible for you during this time.”
“Don’t I get a say in this?”
“No.” Both men answered emphatically at once.
Nicki frowned. “For how long?”
“Indefinitely,” answered Taser, though it was Sean’s whispered answer she heard more clearly: “Forever.”
Nicki was quiet as her mind whirred along at the speed of light, trying to process everything she’d learned in the past hour. Talk about a mind-fuck. In her wildest dreams she wouldn’t have envisioned the direction this day would have taken. Hell, she hadn’t even expected to see another day. But something didn’t make sense.
“You’re outsourcing me. What do you get out of it?” Chameleons never worked with others outside of their own. It was one of their most basic rules of operation. They were spooks, and no one ever saw them in action.
“Besides getting you out of my hair? Lowering my blood pressure? Reducing my risk of stroke?”
“Yes,” she said through clenched teeth. “Besides that.”
Taser exchanged a look with Sean. “I get the cooperation and assistance of the Ghost Team when I need it.”
Nicki’s jaw dropped. As anal and exclusive as the Chameleons were, the Ghost Team was even more so. To be a member of that team was a blood right, outsiders definitely not welcome. A collaboration between the two? Unheard of. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Not kidding.”
She looked at Sean. “Why would you do this?”
His eyes blazed for a moment before they softened. His thumb made little circles over the back of her hand. “Don’t you know?”
Nicki suddenly felt paralyzing fear. He couldn’t be saying what she thought he was saying, could he? “But the team – it’s all your brothers, too. Why would they...?” She left the question hang, blinking against the sudden moisture that seemed to be filling her eyes.
“Because,” he said, reaching into his pocket as he slid to bended knee. “Once you accept this, you become part of the family.” Nicki blinked furiously, certain that she was hallucinating. That couldn’t possibly be a diamond ring - the most perfect, clearest, most radiant diamond she’d ever seen, flanked by stunning blue sapphires on either side and set in antique white gold intricately carved with Celtic symbols.
She brought both hands up to her mouth and they quickly became soaked as her tears poured freely over them. Her body shook involuntarily as she struggled for breath.
“Nicolette Milligan, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
It was too much. Way, way too much. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She tried to expand her lungs, and nothing happened. And then, for the first time in her life, Nicki Milligan fainted.
Chapter Twenty
“If I’d known that would shut her up, I would have tried it years ago.” Taser’s voice cut through the fog. She was lying on something soft; a bed, she realized. Her body listed to the side a bit, as if something heavy weighted that side of the bed. A human something if the heat it radiated was any indication. Something cool was draped over her forehead and eyes. She was grateful for that. It gave her a reason not to open her eyes and face them just yet.
“I don’t know, Wings. When a woman blacks out and pitches forward like that in response to a proposal, is it a good thing or a bad thing?” Taser laughed. From the sound of it, he was not the one sitting on the bed. “Maybe it was a swoon. Or maybe she found the idea of marrying you so horrifying her body locked down in self-defense.”
“Go ahead. Yuck it up, T-man. And I’ll do my best not to remind you of that pretty little senorita who had you by the short hairs in Honduras.”
Taser stopped laughing immediately. “You wouldn’t.”
“Don’t push me. I’ve got the scars, and Shane still has nightmares.”
Wait. Wings? T-man? They knew each other?
“Hey, I think she’s coming around,” Taser said. “I’m outta here, dude. Good luck. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Try not to level my cabin in the meantime, will you?”
Nicki didn’t hear him leave – Taser was the original spook – but she sensed that he had gone.