He gave her a small, crooked smile that made her melt in all the best places. Then he typed in a number and handed her phone back to her. “Call me.”
What was wrong with right now?
“I have to go to work,” he continued, as if he’d read her mind.
Which was scary. Her head thought up things she had positively no intention of sharing with anyone, even if the “anyone” in question was six feet plus of masculine hotness. Of course, if she wanted to share any of those fantasies with him, she was going to have to call him after all, because he hotfooted it out her door as if his mighty fine ass was on fire.
* * *
USUALLY MASON LOVED his job, but the slow pace of this particular mission made him itch. Fast rope in, M4 at the ready, clear the site, secure the target and extract. That was his favorite mode. Instead, he was stuck on an island holding daily meetings as if he’d taken up residence in the corner office of a skyscraper.
It took almost twenty minutes to reach the camp. For a small private island, the place had a surprising amount of jungle. He eased a vine out of his way and moved past palm trees, palm trees and more palm trees. Fantasy Island also had a large selection of tropical plants, too many bugs and howler monkeys that chattered more than his sisters. Good times. When he finally stepped into the clearing, he found Levi leaned back against a palm tree, disassembling a M4—with the business end of a second gun trained on Mason’s heart. The man wasn’t their weapons expert for nothing. Sam, the team medic, crouched beside him. It was always good to have someone to pass out the Band-Aids.
“You might want to ring the doorbell and let a guy know you’re coming,” Levi drawled.
If Levi wanted a fight, Mason was more than happy to give him one. After all, he hadn’t been trying to chat up a perfectly nice woman so he could rummage through her stuff. He slapped the magazine article against the other man’s chest. “Being the perfect boyfriend was a spectacularly bad idea.”
He didn’t do boyfriend. Which, apparently, was just fine with Maddie. Maybe it was all the women in his life already, but when a guy had as many sisters and female cousins as he did, it was hard to not imagine how he’d feel if that was his sister and some guy was coming on to her under false pretenses. Maddie was cute and funny, and he’d run out of her villa before he gave in to temptation. Taking advantage of what she was offering was wrong. Really, really wrong and ten flavors of tempting. Damn it.
Levi flipped him the bird. “Implementation issues?”
“I implemented just fine.” Including the part where he’d passed off a burner phone as his personal phone number. That was definitely a new low there.
“Uh-huh.” Levi slotted the magazine into the stock and sighted down the barrel. “Then, why are you bitching?”
“She’s off-limits.”
“Morals. Nice. I’ll see you with this—she’s a nosy photographer who does not have a cache of incriminating photographs parked on her hardware, although she may be the only person on the island who can identify the brother of a notorious drug dealer.” Levi didn’t look up from his weapon. “Our objective was to confirm the existence or nonexistence of said cache and take appropriate follow-up action, while simultaneously preventing Santiago from taking her out. We’re halfway to our goal, FYI.”
Nicely put. “Her laptop was clean?”
Levi shrugged. “Except for copies of the time-lapse photos we already know about. Ashley installed a program to reroute all her outbound internet through the CIA. She’ll think she has crappy vacation internet, we’ll look at her stuff before she posts and everyone lives happily ever after unless it turns out that Santiago is on the island.”
“I’ll stick to her like white on rice. If I’m not with her, one of you has eyes on her. Do we have an update on Santiago’s whereabouts?” Comfort-wise, sitting here beat the hell out of waiting in a foxhole, swimming in sand or shit, but it was boring. The most fun he’d had was his fake date with Maddie yesterday, but he wasn’t the guy she thought he was, and he knew she wouldn’t understand the reasons for his deception. His next date needed to be with a jumpmaster and the open door of a helo—not with a gorgeous redhead.
“You want to fast rope out of here in the middle of the night?” Levi laughed, amused. “Subtle.”
Ashley pointed to the satellite radio. “If we’re done with the social chitchat, I’ve got Gray. He’s still stateside, but he’s got an update for us on Remy and new intel on Santiago.”