Flashpoint by Suzanne Brockmann

pretend, and I’ll beat you until you bleed.”
    Nash looked at him.
    “Yes,” Decker said. “I
am
serious.”
    “Well, I’m not,” Nash said. “I was just kidding. I’m not going to take advantage of her. I mean, not that she’d let me.” He looked over at Tess. “Although, holy Mother of God, I forgot just how hot she was.”
    Decker shook his head. Hot. Tess Bailey was beautiful and brilliant. She was funny, and enthusiastic, and brave. She was so much more than merely hot.
    And Nash had walked—no, run—away from her.
    “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Decker asked.
    Nash met his gaze only briefly. It was hard to tell if that was because he was uncomfortable with the direction their conversation was going—they didn’t talk like this, not about things that mattered—or if it was because he couldn’t keep his eyes off Tess. “That was a rhetorical question, right? I mean, you don’t want me to make a list or anything. . . .”
    “I thought you didn’t mess with women who worked support.” Decker knew this was senseless. Talking about it wouldn’t change what had happened.
    “I didn’t,” Nash said. “I mean, I never did before. It was just . . . It was that one crazy night.”
    Wait a minute. “One night?”
    “Yeah.”
    Decker could feel his blood pressure rising. “You had a one-night stand. With Tess Bailey.”
Fuck.
He’d thought Nash’s fling with Tess had been going on for a while. “That night at the Den.”
    “Yeah,” Nash said. “I mean, well . . . You saw her.”
    “Yes,” Decker said. “Yes, I did.”
    “How could I say no?”
    Jesus, Nash was practically drooling as he watched Tess.
    Decker got right up in his face, but he kept his voice low. “I meant what I said before, douche bag. You so much as
touch
her again, and I
will
beat the living shit out of you.”
    Nash was amused. “Shit, Deck, you sound like I slept with your girlfriend.” He stopped laughing and actually looked shocked. He did a double take, looking from Deck to Tess and back in disbelief. “Did I sleep with your girlfriend?”
    Okay, now they’d managed to dive headfirst into territory Decker didn’t want explored. “No. Forget it, all right?”
    He turned away, and Nash let him go. But then he followed. “I swear to God, I didn’t know.”
    Decker gave up. “Look, she wasn’t my girlfriend. She’s not my girlfriend. She’s never going to be my girlfriend.”
    “She could be.”
    “No,” Deck said. “Even if . . .” He laughed his disgust. “I’m her team leader now.”
    “To hell with that.”
    Decker just shook his head.
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Life goes on,” Decker said.
    Nash was back to watching Tess. He sighed. “Shit.”
    “Tom Paoletti gave me an additional job to do while we’re in Kazabek,” Decker told him. “He asked me not to mention the details to anyone else—including you.” That got Nash’s full attention.
    “That figures,” he said. “I could tell he didn’t really like me.”
    “Give him time,” Decker said. “He’s naturally got some questions about you.”
    “So that’s what the closed door was about. This secondary assignment, and him asking you questions—like are you sure you can trust me?” Nash’s laughter sounded remarkably real. If Decker didn’t know him so well, he would have been certain that Nash didn’t give a damn.
    But Deck knew that it bothered him. Nash pretended that he found it all amusing, but he was particularly sensitive to some of the nastier rumors that circulated about him.
    “Yeah,” Decker said. “I told him that as long as we paid you enough, you wouldn’t flip to the other side.”
    “Screw you!” This time Nash’s laughter was real.
    Decker smiled. In truth, Tom hadn’t asked the trust question that everyone usually always asked about Nash. He hadn’t had to—he was a smart man who knew he’d gotten enough of an answer when Deck had told him he didn’t keep secrets from Nash, that anything Tom