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“Fair enough, little one.” He brush his thumb down her cheek then opened up the bags of food.

“What the hell is that?” Carrie stared at the container he set in front of her.

“I’m pretty sure we call it a salad.”

“This is not brain food.”

“Sure it is. Just eat it.”

Pushing the food aside, she reached for the half-empty can of Red Bull instead. He took her by surprise and plucked it out of her hand, setting it on the ground by his chair. Then he produced a bottle of water and pushed the salad back in front of her.

“Humor me and eat the salad. I’ll give you your caffeine overdose back when you’re done telling me what you’ve got.”

She eyed him suspiciously. The bossy thing was as hot as it was annoying. “Is this some kind of submissive test?” she asked, stabbing at a piece of lettuce with her plastic fork.

“I wouldn’t call it a test. You might say I’m exploring your boundaries to see where we stand.”

“And what happens if I throw a fit and don’t eat the salad?”

His dark blue gaze bored into her. “I think it depends on what you mean by throwing a fit. If you dump the salad on my head and stomp your foot, I think it just means you’re not the submissive for me, since I’m not big on brats. However, if you simply refuse to eat the thing I’ve asked you to eat, we’ll have a different conversation. Lastly, if you tell me I can’t tell you what to eat, as in you make it a hard limit, I’ll apologize and stop pushing that boundary no matter how badly I want to see you eat a little healthier.”

She hummed as she mulled his answer over. It was a thorough response to a question she had been mostly kidding about. But Peter always took her questions and concerns about their journey into power exchange seriously.

There were still a lot of questions about how it was supposed to work, and they hadn’t really agreed on anything, but talking to him about it didn’t make her want to run screaming from the room.

“I’ll eat the damn salad,” she said with a mock scowl as she jabbed at another pile of leafy greens. Then she cracked the water and looked him directly in the eye as she downed half the bottle. He gave her a cocky grin and murmured his approval before digging into his own food.

When her bowl was empty, he reached for a second bag she hadn’t noticed. From it, he pulled out a large burger and set it in front of her.

“I had a backup plan in case you dumped salad on my head,” he said with a wink.

“Oh, dear God, you are so getting laid tonight. I don’t think I could have made it on just a salad.” She unwrapped the burger and took a huge bite.

Peter sat back in his chair and laughed a gut shaking laugh. “You’re delightful, little one.”

“Stop calling me that. I’m a grown ass woman.” But she really didn’t want him to stop. She just didn’t want to admit how much she liked it.

“A grown ass woman who speaks with her mouth full of burger. Hurry and finish so we can get to work,” he said, tousling her hair.

She batted his hand away and turned to face her monitors as she wiped crumbs from her mouth. Then she launched into a more detailed account of her day.

When she told him about finding the picture of Lola on Tom’s computer, he raised an eyebrow.

“That’s pretty crazy, baby. Do you think Tom knew you would find the connection, or was that just a coincidence?”

Carrie ran a hand through her hair. “Honestly, I’m not sure. I think maybe Tom is being threatened like I was. If Lola is his daughter or stepdaughter, it could be personal. He’s not normally scared of chasing a story like this.”

Peter nodded. “I can make some calls to some old intelligence buddies. If this thing goes as high up as we think it does, people in the government could be the ones making the threats. You mess with their secret budgets and you’re going to piss some powerful people off. Fortunately, government types are notoriously easy to track unless they specialize in clandestine operations.”

“Is that what you specialized in when you were in the CIA?”

“Can’t answer that.”

Carrie knew the CIA was secretive, but he clammed up in a way that worried her. What had his days in the Agency been like? Did something happen that pushed him out and into the Secret Service? She made a mental note to do a little more digging, but for now, she needed to outline what she had lined up regarding the budgets. As she walked Peter through it, she got the adrenaline rush she enjoyed when pursuing a hot story. That paired with the caffeine and she was ready to pull an all-nighter.

“Do you have anyone in the service who could look at this? Somebody you trust. I know you had to spend time in the investigations unit of the Secret Service, and they trace money a lot.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face, clearly not nearly as energized as she felt. “I might know some people. I’ll look into it tomorrow. It’s late. Let’s go home.” Carrie glanced at the clock on her screen. It was after midnight.

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