Diamonds Are Truly Forever: An Agent Ex Novel 2 by Gina Robinson Page A

Staci got hold of his shorts and pulled them to his knees.
    “There it is! I see it!” She reached between his legs and flicked at the creepy-crawly thing as he waddled around with his flagpole at attention.
    The spider flew across the room, heading toward the baseboards, and disappeared into a crack beneath them.
    Drew kicked his shorts off. “Jump on!”
    He hiked Staci onto his back and ran for the door, slamming it behind them when they were safely in the hall. Staci leaped off, shrugged off her robe, took a long look at his towering Roman pillar of manhood, and tossed him the robe.
    “Here, cover yourself. I’ll be right back.” She dashed into his bedroom.
    Chivalry is not dead, he thought as he put on the one-size-fits-all pink monstrosity.
    He turned to follow her in just as she reappeared with a blanket. She knelt and stuffed the blanket up against the door. “That should hold him.”
    As Drew tied the belt of the robe around his waist, he thought that brief touch couldn’t hold him at all. Flushed with excitement, exercise, and adrenaline, even wearing modest men’s-style pajamas, she made him hot.
    “I can’t stay there.” She pointed to the guest room door.
    “No, absolutely not.” He stuffed his gun into the robe pocket. “We’ll get that arachnid in the morning. And all his little friends, too.
    “I’ll call the exterminator and ask him to gas that guy with the full power of his strongest spider spray.” Drew cleared his throat. “You can stay with me. We’ll share the bed. Just promise to stay on your side.”
    “Deal.” She looked at Drew and started to laugh.
    “What?”
    “You look so fluffy in that thing. Like pink cotton candy.”
    “Shut up.”
    She cocked her head, and her lips twitched as if she was trying not to laugh. “Drew, baby, I didn’t know you were afraid of spiders. You screamed like a girl in there.”
    “I was trying to keep the spider calm. Shrill screaming seemed to frighten him into submission.”
    “Liar.” But when she looked at him, her eyes were shining with admiration, not derision. “You should have seen yourself. The way you were dancing around.” She laughed.
    Her laugh was contagious. In retrospect, it was funny. Before he knew it, he was laughing so hard he couldn’t stop.
    They both laughed until their sides hurt. Finally, Staci wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand and went suddenly serious. “Attacked by mad snipers hired by who knows whom and lecherous spiders. It’s been some day, hasn’t it?”
    He nodded.
    “Drew?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Thanks for coming to my rescue. Twice.”
    He nodded. “No problem.” He paused. “Stace?”
    She looked at him.
    “Emmett told me about the spiders in Paraguay. Everything considered, you were brave in there, going after that spider with the toilet brush and reaching into my shorts after it.”
    She continued wiping her eyes. “Yeah, it takes a brave woman to reach into her estranged husband’s shorts.”
    He grinned. “All the same, thanks for coming to my rescue.”
    “No problem.”
    He led her into his bedroom, regretting, not for the first time, that his new bedroom hadn’t been big enough to accommodate a king-size bed. A guy could lose his wife in a king-size. His queen-size was a little too close for comfort. It was going to be hell sleeping next to her without touching her after all they’d been through together in the last fourteen hours. And the way she’d touched him looking for that spider.
    She climbed into bed on her usual side. Drew walked around to his and tossed off the fluffy pink robe.
    “You’re not planning to come to bed without taking a shower, are you?” She looked aghast.
    “What?”
    “I can’t sleep with a man who’s been on intimate terms with a spider.” She shivered. “And besides, you have shampoo on your feet. The least you could do is condition them, too.” She smiled and ducked under the covers before he could hit her with a