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they didn’t get paired up together. She had no intention of pulling her punches.
    Daria let her gaze wander through the room before it landed on Russi, who was sitting back in his chair, muscled forearms taut as they were folded over his chest. A spark of need blossomed in her lower belly and she blinked slowly to quell it. The absolute last thing she needed was a terrible rebound one-night-stand with her partner. So far the whole screwing your fellow agent thing hadn’t exactly worked out well for her.
    Still… she met his eyes with hers and saw a hint of intrigue, interest, and heat there. He shifted in his seat, leaning forward just a bit and then stood. She got to her feet a second later, and he was around the dinner table in a heartbeat, his hands coming out to wrap around her shoulders and pull her into him.
    This is such a bad idea … she thought as she went up on her tip-toes, he was taller than Nico and broader. His mouth found hers, searingly hot over her lips as he kissed her hard. Need fluttered up her stomach and she reached for his shirt, fisting her fingers in the back of it while his hands slipped down over her spine to rest in the curve just above her ass.
    Russi made a noise and she felt wanted by him, maybe feeling needed for the first time in days because Nico sure as hell hadn’t been showing her anywhere near this kind of attention especially limited as he was by technology and distance. Russi slid his hands down over her ass, over her leggings, his broad palms hot through the thin jersey. Her breath skipped and stuttered in her lungs as his tongue teased between her parted lips. Such a bad idea…
    He pulled away with a dirty sounding sigh, letting her go and leaving her wanting. He wouldn’t even meet her eyes, and she felt a sort of hysterical anger coursing through her blood.
    “Seriously? You’re just going to kiss me and then… stop?” She looked at him, incredulity at the situation, he’d been the one to kiss her, dammit, and now he was looking anywhere but her.
    “I shouldn’t have done that,” he simply said, and then stepped away.
    “Oh like you weren’t waiting this whole damn time, playing nice guy, trying to get me to talk about my boyfriend and my guy problems,” she snapped, not able to rein her rebellious emotions in any longer. Nicolai wasn’t there for her to rail against, but Russi certainly was. She opened her mouth to start shouting at him when he looked at her, brown eyes so cold they went right through her and her mouth snapped shut.
    “Don’t mistake me for any kind of nice guy,” his voice was a deep growl and he moved around her to sit at the monitoring station. “Go to sleep. I’ll wake you for your shift.”
    Her stomach flip-flopped around in her gut like a fish out of water and she took a moment to gather the ragged ends of her pride before she stalked towards the ladder.
    It had barely felt like her head had hit the pillow, a dreamless unhappy sleep stealing over her, when a sound woke her. Daria rolled over, shifting through the fog of exhaustion, when she heard it again, the noise that had dragged her into wakefulness.
    “Daria,” Russi’s voice was a low hiss from just underneath the wood bar that crossed the loft and kept her from rolling out into empty air. She popped upright and almost banged her head before she stopped herself at that last moment. Reaching out to find her cellphone and cast a bit of light, she froze when a red beam passed through one of the windows below, the dot from a laser sight tracing along the wall.
    What the fuck , was all she could think, her pulse beating fast in her chest. She reached for the gun she kept stashed under her pillow and clicked the safety off.
    “Where do you want me?” She kept her voice soft, just loud enough to carry down to him. He tapped on the ladder twice, indicating she should hold her position and cover his back. Her sleep clothes scraped on the plywood flooring of the loft as she squirmed