“Oh, screw you. You’re the last person in the world I want to see.” At least the fire in her eyes was better than the devastation of their last meeting in her office. With a final glare, she turned and offered him her bound wrists. “Unlock the damn cuffs.”

He stepped behind her and turned the cuffs to access the keyhole. “If I remember correctly, you like being bound—”

“I swear I will kick you in the balls if you keep talking.”

He deserved it, which was probably why he’d baited her. If they weren’t in a time crunch, he’d let her tear him to shreds. But the training he’d sacrificed her for was about to start, and it was paramount.

Still, he felt a strange joy at seeing her. He got a whiff of shampoo and rain and had a flash of memory. Her hair had been freshly washed—still damp—when he’d kissed her for the first time. Audrey was probably the only person on the planet who could distract him in this way, on today of all days.

He unlocked the cuffs and tucked them away in one of his tactical vest’s pockets. He’d been lucky he carried them. He wasn’t fully tricked out for combat—he was just an observer, after all—and only had the basics he’d need for monitoring the training. He wore the helmet with attached night vision goggles—he’d need the NVGs once darkness fell, which was rapidly approaching—but had skipped the heavy body armor and didn’t have his HK416 assault rifle or breaching charges, or even extra Simunition magazines for his Glock.

He’d grabbed the cuffs just in case one of the locals tried to mess with the training. He’d never once considered he might use them on Audrey Kendrick. She wasn’t the enemy, even if he wanted her to be.

She faced him, rubbing her wrists. “I can’t believe you pulled a gun on me.”

“Not a real gun. It only fires Simunition—as you demanded in your response to the Environmental Assessment you refused to sign.”

She pursed her lips. Oh damn. Those lips. He remembered their feel on his skin. “I’m well aware Simunition is standard practice for these trainings. What I found strange was that you didn’t propose it in the first round.”

“That wasn’t my call. My guess is the brass wanted to hold it back for negotiation purposes.”

“A crappy tactic if they expected me to sign off quickly.”

He shrugged. “I don’t get to tell a captain in the Navy what to do. I could only make recommendations.”

“So now you’re going to claim a captain made you lie about me?”

“No. The blame for that is all on me.” He took a deep breath. “But we don’t have time to discuss that now. You wanted to check the basement?”