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Tahnee knew that he’d heard every word, but was grateful that he would at least pretend that she hadn’t fucked up.

Still. She’d need to be more careful. Robb was still – by certain definitions – the enemy. He was bound by rules and regulations, and she had done plenty of rule-breaking in her time. She didn’t want to put him in a position where she let slip something she shouldn’t, and he felt like he had to act.

Not to mention the position she’d be in if he did.

Tahnee let out a breezy laugh that was only slightly forced. “Oh, just that it’s pretty weird that everything here clearly came from IKEA. Is this how you punish agents who keep acting up – make them assemble furniture?”

She could definitely see some of Robb’s team being in need of disciplinary action… but then again, she had a feeling that the ones who needed discipline were also the least likely to succeed in actually putting together a chair with four legs. If Trent had been stuck on furniture duty with Rhys, she was pretty sure that there would be holes in the walls and a giant stack of what had previously been furniture parts, but which now basically amounted to little more than a nice house for a blue-tongue lizard.

Robb stared her straight in the eye. “It’s more of a team building exercise,” he said tonelessly, his face inscrutable. “Each team gets assigned an apartment to renovate. Then upper management score them out of ten, and whichever team wins gets to sell their apartment and keep the profits.”

Tahnee’s eyebrows went up. “Was that an attempt at humor? Did the brooding, stoic and mysterious Robb Lockwood actually make a joke?”

It wasn’t an entirely rhetorical question. On the one hand, she knew that the Agency weren’t running a home renovation reality show… but on the other hand, he’d said it so seriously that she was starting to doubt herself.

At Robb’s own slightly raised eyebrow, she added, “Of course I know your last name. What kind of adversary would I be if I didn’t?”

“Touché,” Robb muttered, popping a dried chickpea into his mouth and then absently licking the salt off his fingers in an unnecessarily arousing fashion. Tahnee swallowed, and decided to distract herself by pushing the last scrap of toast around her plate to make sure she captured every last bit of cold, congealed spaghetti sauce.

Bed him already, the brolga hissed.

What do you think I’m trying to do?! she hissed back.

Try harder, it snapped. Your efforts are abysmal.

Tahnee honestly hadn’t been planning on touching his leg at that point – she’d been keeping that card up her sleeve for later. But as she shifted slightly in her seat, her foot brushed his calf, and he practically jumped out of his chair.

When was the last time you let a woman touch you? she wanted to ask… if that wouldn’t have completely tanked any chance that Robb would let her touch him, which was really the only thing she cared about right now.

And the idea that perhaps he had let a woman touch him more recently than his jumpy response to her accidental leg-brush seemed to indicate sent a sudden, furious flush of jealousy straight through her – as if that wasn’t too absurd for words, the idea that either Robb would have been completely celibate for a quarter of a century, or that she should have expected that from him.

Hell, I’ve hardly been a nun all that time myself, Tahnee thought wistfully – but even if Robb hadn’t always been in the forefront of her mind, she’d always known, somehow, that every relationship she’d had was doomed to fail from the start.

Her own restless, independent nature aside, how could they not, when she knew her mate was out there, and she’d chosen to throw that bond away?

And was she brave enough now to not make the same mistake again, just because she didn’t know how to take the next steps, because she’d spent years pushing her feelings to the side, because she only knew how to guard her heart, not open it?

“You haven’t eaten your fruit yet,” Robb said, and Tahnee jumped in her seat, startled out of her gloomy ruminations. Was he just filling an awkward silence, or was he really that intent on making sure she wasn’t going to die of scurvy? Clearly she was going to have to get better at reading him.

Still, she seized upon the distraction gratefully. Reaching across the table, she grabbed the plastic jar and twisted off the lid, before stabbing a piece of mango with her fork and popping it into her mouth. While it wasn’t anywhere near as nice as fresh fruit, she did have to admit that it was a nice palate cleanser after the saltiness of the spaghetti.

“Okay,” she said after she swallowed. “That wasn’t too bad, I guess.”

She pulled out several more slices, the syrup they were bobbing around in running down the fork and onto her fingers – sticky and sweet, and glistening on her skin in the low light. Without thinking about it too much, Tahnee lifted her hand and licked her fingers, making a low mmmm sound as the sweetness of what was essentially sugar water hit her tongue.

Okay, maybe all these additives are okay after all, she thought, as she flickered her tongue between her fingers, lapping at her own skin, chasing down every last drop of honey-sweet syrup. She wasn’t exactly making herself any cleaner, but hell if she cared about that right now.

She was still licking away at the runny syrup when she heard a very soft, but just slightly strangled sound emanating from across the other side of the table.

Looking up, she saw Robb looking at her intensely, a glimmer of fire in his eyes.

Oh, she thought hazily. That wasn’t really my intention, but… if it works, it works.

And if it got her out of having an awkward conversation while she tried to gauge just how much Robb wanted her – wanted whatever this thing was between them – then so much the better.

She’d always been better with actions rather than words, anyway.

Spearing a piece of peach, she lifted it to her mouth. It was sweet and juicy, but she barely noticed, distracted as she was by the way that her eyes were locked with Robb’s. There was a hunger in his gaze that almost burned in its intensity, and she shivered.