Summer with a Ranger: The Love Beach Collection: A Texan Devils Undercover Summer Fling Romance

CHAPTER SEVEN

I slithered into the dark blue dress after my shower in the main bathroom while Hudson muttered away darkly to himself in the ensuite. The room at Garden House—the entire hotel—was amazing. Everything was colour coded. Everything was neat, tidy and looked brand spanking new. The honeymoon suite was more like a presidential suite and I didn’t want to know how much the unit shelled out for this little project. Mind, I also didn’t know the budget and expectations Archer set, and any new piece of tech could cost more than a week’s stay in a place like this.

The bedroom was filled with lace and gold and pinks, with a real fake pink bear rug on the floor, like some sixties or seventies flick regurgitated brand new décor. The effect was fun and flirty, and the amount of details did my head in.

Not that Hudson said much as he towed me inside the room, making sure to kiss me thoroughly on the threshold before pushing me inside with a hard hand that promised naughty things later on.

Naughty things I might or might not crave even if indulging him was a really bad idea.

It seemed smart to get out of his reach until he cooled a little after our chance encounter with our target for the week. Not that I thought getting the required information would take half as much time as Archer expected. My hand brushed the screen of my phone while I contemplated asking for extra duties.

Marco might be a leech, but he was a simple one though dirty in more than the sexual sense, though I knew that was true of him also. Closing up our assignment part B meant heading back to Texas post haste, and maybe going our separate ways. I agreed to partnering with Hudson to get into the unit. Surely it wouldn’t be that hard to also extract myself from him.

Hudson showed himself to be possessive, which meant little freedom, more judginess from Mister McSook, not only too passionate in his...work, but also impractical. Partnering with a constantly green eyed monster was along the lines of my worst nightmare. At the least it meant constantly dealing with possessiveness and the lack of independence which I fought so freaking hard for.

Shaking my hair out, I curled it and left it hanging half down my back, fixing sapphire and diamond earrings to my ears. The dress, one from a different life that Archer suggested might be the sort of attire I’d need on this assignment as though he knew and was still testing us like an overbearing father figure, fit as well as it did the last time I wore it.

I just hoped tonight worked out a whole lot better than last time.

“Skye? I hope you’re ready. We need to be there in a bit if we want to scope the place out before we—holy shit.” Hudson, as eloquent as ever, halted in the doorway to the main bathroom, his bowtie hanging around his neck and fingers grasping either side like he wasn’t sure what to do with it.

I finished with my lipstick and straightened, running my hands along my sides, knowing he’d like it. What? A girl has to get her rocks off somehow and it wouldn’t be either of the men who wanted in—or out—of the dress tonight who made me smile next.

“Glad you scrub up well,” I murmured, smiling slightly and trying not to drool.

It wasn’t only the bowtie that was still undone—I was back to beach bodyguard Hudson, all tan, muscles and tequila nights. So far I’d only seen him in board shorts, or jeans and a tee. Anything else seemed out of uniform for the bulky man. But it wasn’t a lie – he did scrub up good. Black pants showed off hard earned thigh muscle, and an expanse of golden skin above the belt line, which was where I fixed my gaze.

On the skin. Above the belt.

Shit, shit, shit.

I glanced up and by the smirk that decorated his drooly face as he surveyed me in kind I knew I’d been busted. His hair was pushed back off his face like a blonde James Bond, all suave and shit.

“Where’d my partner go?” I said without thinking,

“Yeah.” He swallowed, his eyes still fixed on me. “Same, honey.”

I shook my head, though I wasn”t sure if it was at him or me. “If you want the tie done up, then you need to do the shirt up.” I clicked my tongue and batted his hands away when he obediently started to button from the bottom up. “No. Never bottom. Start at the top.”

“What are you, a reclusive socialite turned Texas Ranger?” he gaped at me as I deftly did his shirt up, avoiding his skin as best I could and made a not so mess of his bow tie.

“There.”

“You are a goddess, you know that?” One hand rose to brush over a curl I painstakingly twisted and sprayed until it stayed that way. “And I get to have you.”

“Not tonight, sunshine.” I batted that hand away too and stepped back, the spell holding us in a sort of charged stasis breaking.

“You wound me,” he said softly, not stepping away like I expected, or huffing at me. “He’s gonna be trouble tonight. You know that.”

I swallowed back the urge to snap but the wounded look on Hudson’s face shattered something fragile inside me. Guilt swamped me and I softened my tone. “He’s not the only one who’ll be trouble.” I stepped into him a little. “It’s a job, Hudson. Let this thing go.”

His brow furrowed. “Why? Because we’re partners? If it’s because you don’t trust me, then seek another Ranger to fuck and dump.” The line of his jaw remained hard. He stared at me, his anger turning inward as his body stiffened.

“Maybe it’s best.” I let out a breath. That was easier than I expected.

Then why did I feel so damn shitty about it?

“It’s time.” Hudson checked his watch, offering no reprieve. “If you get stuck tonight I’ll be there, Skye.” His voice lowered. “I promise.”

I shook my head and gave him an empty smile. “You can’t promise me anything at all.”

Yep, tonight was going to be just like last time.

I padded across the floor to the door and slipped on my heels that almost brought me to Hudson’s height, but not quite. Marco didn’t like tall women, and I wondered if I should dumb it down a little more. He seemed to like the bimbo act after all.

“Beautiful,” Hudson murmured, right at my elbow. His fingers curled through my arm. “Let’s get this show on the road so we can pack the hell up and go home.”

We’d only been in the town for a handful of hours and I was more than ready to agree.

If only on that one thing.

****

The Serenade sat moored beside other multimillion dollar yachts on the waterfront. Marco’s personal party wasn’t the only one in progress. Further along the bay, another boat thumped with music and laughter that carried across the water. Marco’s was a small gathering in comparison, but the guest list was that much more exclusive. Without my accidental meeting with the smuggler—whose boat was easily the largest and most expensive in the bay, though I doubted he needed the tax write-off like the software developer’s boat we passed earlier, we would never have been able to get on board.

Thank Archer for suggesting we both pack cocktail and black tie attire. It was like he’d known how this assignment would go. Setting aside my instinctive dislike for the man abandoning his unit for a moment, I wondered what else he might expect, and if we would live up to the pedestal he set out for us.

“Behave tonight, and I promise I’ll make it worth your while later,” Hudson murmured in my ear. His hand slunk around my waist, pulling me back into him. “And I’ll let you choose the activity.”

“What if I don’t pick your favourite thing?” I asked absently, falling back into our usual, snarky banter.

“But you’re my favourite thing.” He licked the shell of my ear. “If you fuck him, I’ll turn this ass red with one hand and then start with the other.”

A shiver rippled over me at the thought, both terrifyingly satisfying and abhorrent in equal measure. “You and your dirty promises.”

“Will you take me up on one?” His fingers drifted lower, grazing the front of my dress that didn’t feel half the shield that it had been when I first dressed in it. The walk into the cove was wonderful in the way that it cleared my head, but walking next to Hudson when he was brooding.... hurt. In all sorts of ways.

He’s not for me.

And yet...he was. Hudson was nothing like the sort of man I usually dated, and I hadn’t gone on a date for a long time. Not to say I didn’t have one night stands and too many that I was able to forget the first shoddy attempts that got worse by the pick-up. But he offered something I hadn’t had—ever.

Security.

I should jump at the opportunity to have someone dote on me but that sort of closeness, the intimacy he needed—that was the terrifying part.

Not his hand on my ass, or me sleeping with someone else. It was the thought that the security he offered might be there one day, and...gone the next.

Cliché, but true.

I’d been there, had it happen, and had to walk away for my own sanity. I sure as hell couldn’t do it again.

That was my game. Cement the future of my career. Little to no risk in my personal life, no matter what it took.

But to do that I’d have to break a Ranger’s heart.

“Skye, we should have talked—” Hudson started,

“My newest toy.” Marco’s voice echoed around the boat and the water, gesturing us onto the one hundred million dollar yacht that by rights belonged to someone else, and registered under another man’s name, or perhaps another name of Marco’s. He had a few, like a collection.

His hands swept out as he said those words, but his gaze remained firmly on me.

Hudon’s touch fell away from me, and cold air brushed my back where he stood a moment before, leaving me alone with Marco.

“Don’t worry. He’s already off doing something he’ll find...fun.” The corner of Marco’s mouth turned up in a dark promise that either meant he expected my new husband to earn himself a night’s worth of lap dances from an expensive hooker, or flat his way across the bay come dawn.

It was going to be one of those nights, and I understood this game well.

From the look in Marco’s eyes, he expected at least a little better behaviour from me than Hudson, and I was more than willing to oblige. For now.

“I’m all yours.” I took the hand he extended, my fingers brushing the dark purple silk weave he wore than on a white man might have looked ostentatious but with Marco’s Spanish heritage, actually looked quite classy. The open, crisp white shirt beneath spoke of an extra sort of expectation.

“Oh, I know.” He leaned down to brush his lips across my ear, erasing Hudson’s touch I hated at the time and missed now.

I steeled myself, tipping my chin up and smiling as vapidly as I could. “What game are we playing tonight?” I’d bet my new salary that Marco had something in mind. He always did.

“My favourite game, Miss Skye.” He held out his other hand, gesturing me downstairs.

The door shut and the lock flicked before I really heard his words...and the fact I didn’t pick him up on it.

Pivoting slowly on my heel I turned to correct his mistake and found myself forehead to barrel with a matte black gun, close enough to read the serial number—if the damn thing hadn’t already been filled off.

Double shit.