Cut and Run 7 - Touch and Geaux

teeth. It’d just gotten warm enough to start riding the Valkyrie again, so of course he had.
    “Oh, that’s too bad.”
    The other woman, dressed in a dark blue pantsuit, just laughed. “Oh, come on, it’ll be fun!”
    Zane nodded, unconvinced.
    “I’d rather chew on a lightbulb,” Ty said under his breath.
    “That motorcycle was my favorite idea,” the short woman said from the backseat of the van as soon as they’d all piled in.
    “Oh Violet, forget the bike. We want the men, after all,” the lady in blue said. “I’m Cynthia, by the way.” She reached over the seat and shook Zane’s hand, then Ty’s.
    “I’m Susan,” the blonde added, her voice low and pleasant. “I’m sorry, we should have introduced ourselves before. We’re just so excited you agreed to do this!”
    “Susan’s the one who saw you both on the news,” Cynthia said.
    Zane smirked. “Is that so?”
    “I remember watching that newscast and getting shivers,” she confided, smiling at Zane and then turning her long lashes on Ty again. “The presence you both had in front of the camera? I just knew I had to have you.”
    Zane could see Ty tensing, growing more uncomfortable with the situation. Flirting was like Ty’s natural mode of communication, but recently he had grown less likely to engage in it.
    “That newscast wasn’t representative of us at work,” Ty finally said.
    “Oh, but it was! You were at work!” Violet leaned over the backseat. “And it’s exactly what everyone thinks. That’s what we want on the calendar. Something dashing.”
    “Daring,” Susan drawled.
    “Dangerous,” Cynthia added with relish.
    “I . . .” Ty shifted closer to Zane, nodding and clearing his throat.
    “Since we did the BPD officers in the jail cell, maybe we could use the cuffs in this one?” Cynthia suggested.
    Zane glanced at her, wondering if he should be scandalized.
    “Okay, we have that CIA analyst in the suit already, sort of spy style,” Violet said, pulling out a notebook. “The bare-chested firemen. The two uniformed police officers in lockup. The EMT in the back of the ambulance. We need something different.”
    “So maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to go with a roughed-up, ‘not afraid to get a suit dirty in the line of duty’ look. With the guns, of course, since we’ve not used any actual weapons in a picture yet.”
    Ty looked down at his suit, his favorite Tom Ford suit, and visibly balked at the mention of getting it dirty. “Maybe you could put us in civvies and have us undercover,” he suggested as he smoothed a protective hand over his lapel.
    Susan gasped and grabbed his arm. “Under covers!”
    “No. What? No!” Ty blurted.
    “That’s brilliant!” Cynthia exclaimed.
    Zane felt a real flash of panic. “I really don’t think—”
    “Oh, I like this even more than the motorcycle!”
    “He’ll do the motorcycle,” Ty tried, but they weren’t hearing him.
    “Oh, this is perfect. I’ll call ahead and have them set up a bed.” Susan pulled out a cell phone as the ladies in the backseat chattered and jotted down notes.
    Zane leaned in and hissed at Ty. “What have you done?”
    Ty shrugged helplessly. “I . . . I’m . . . this is not my fault!”

    Ty didn’t blame Zane for the glares he received as they rode to the penthouse suite together. He gave himself the same glares in the mirror as two makeup artists scruffed his hair. He had a napkin tucked into his collar to keep the hair product from touching the white V-neck T-shirt he was wearing. They weren’t putting makeup on him, thank God. Something about natural close-ups. Ty was trying to block it all out.
    He stood when the man told him he was done, and the woman yanked the napkin out of his collar and nodded. Ty turned and headed for the other room in the suite where they’d set up all the cameras and flashing things and umbrellas and what the hell ever they were. In that room was also an artfully tousled bed dressed with charcoal-colored sheets, representing the gray world of undercover work.
    Ty looked down at himself. It was close to what he would normally wear: tattered stonewashed jeans, thin T-shirt that stuck close to his frame, bare feet. They’d even left his accessories on him, deeming them stylish enough. A black rubber bracelet and brown leather string on one wrist, his black-banded silver dive watch on the other, his Marine Corps signet ring, and the compass rose on its leather cord. He still felt wildly