He looked at Nicola, then at the dead man with a subcompact machine gun in hand.

Holy hell, she’d saved his life.

He’d saved hers.

“Nic, baby.” He was on her in a flash, scooping her to his chest, not giving a fuck who heard. “Sweet girl. My sweet girl.”

Jared grumbled in his ear. “Cut the mushy bullsh—”

Cash pulled his earpiece out. He might not be able to cut the audio transmission, but he sure as shit wouldn’t have Jared as the voice of God in his head.

Nicola didn’t cry. She didn’t whimper or scream, just caught her breath after doing her job and watching his ass.

“There’s a second bomb. At my parents’.” Her words came out heavy as she recovered from her brawl with a man a hundred pounds heavier than her.

“We knew already. Roman’s with them. Brock and Rocco have the device. Everything’s cool.”

“Oh.” A huge sigh of relief washed over her face. He let go, watching her process the news. At least she didn’t fight him off when he’d power-grabbed her. “How’d you know?”

“We have Gianori. We knew before you did.”

Her eye went goose egg wide. “What?”

“We’ll debrief. There’s a lot to catch up on. You did great.”

“Thanks. You too.” Her breaths slowed down. Cash heard nothing over-stimulated or hypersensitive in her tone. Just another day on the job for her.

He smiled. That was… cool.

“Did you hear all that, earlier?” she asked.

And she wanted to review the play-by-play, just like he’d want to rehash after an op. “That was some shit, right?”

“Damn.” She laughed. “Never saw it coming.”

“I didn’t mean to step in—”

“No, I needed backup. That was good. We were good.” She nodded, turned, and went looking for something.

A purse. She held it up, looking pleased. Well, all right then. The big brown purse made her happy. Good to know.

“You were seriously good, Nic.”

“Told ya.” She winked at him, moving stuff around in the bag.

Were all her bags that big? How much stuff did she have, anyway? She shouldn’t stay with that asshole Jackson. She should stay with him. “Let’s get out of here.”

“I’m going to tell the CIA I want to work with you on projects sometimes. That was awesome. That whole you-twist-I-throw thing was out of this world.”

Well, he’d never mention that he wasn’t one hundred percent sure what she was doing. Nor would he mention he didn’t hear the other man come in.

Everything in Cash’s head buzzed. Loudly. His fingertips tingled and the thump, thump in his chest overwhelmed him. She was perfect—impressive—and he’d handled her in the field semi-okay. Always room for improvement, but this moment, he wanted nothing to change. That adrenaline rush pinking her cheeks was something he wanted to see every day.

“Look, Nicola. Now’s the wrong time, I get that. But goddamn, woman, I’m the luckiest bastard alive. Getting to fall in love with you twice.” He couldn’t have stopped speaking if he tried. “Hell, I’ve never not loved you.”