Chapter Two
“Jesus, brother, you planning on breakin’ down the door with your knuckles?” my teammate Fallon Harris quipped from beside me, as I continued to bang on the unanswered hotel door.
Unanswered seemed to be a theme with Calista Ventura.
I stopped banging on the door, exhaled through my teeth, and tried to pull up my nonexistent patience.
“Seriously,” Pete, my other teammate, grumbled from his position on the opposite side of me. “Give her a minute.”
I’d already given her five fucking days to answer. Waiting another minute might shove me right over the edge.
Logically, I knew I had no right to be pissed. I had no claim over the woman. I’d only spent a couple of hours in her presence, and during that time, conversation was scarce. Beyond that we’d shared eight texts, and I’d left one unreturned voicemail.
So maybe I did have a logical reason to be pissed. She’d requested backup, then didn’t pick up her phone when I called—like I said I would—then taking that a step further, she’d disconnected her number.
So, yeah, fuck yeah, I was pissed. Not only because she’d ghosted me, but in an effort to track her ass down, I had to call CIA Officer Tom Washington.
A man who’d proven to be shady and underhanded.
Not that there were many spooks who weren’t shady and underhanded.
It was just that Tom Washington was more so.
I didn’t trust the man, which meant I had to play telephone tag with Shepherd Drexel, our hacker, to confirm Tom’s intel. Something else that pissed me off.
Shep was the best at what he did, but when he felt like being a pain in the ass, he gave you the runaround before he answered a call.
By the time we had confirmation, I was worried something had happened to Calista. Which necessitated another unpleasant call to Tom, who told me not to worry about the disconnected number, that this was normal operating procedure with Calista, and she’d check in when she had time.
For a man who, a few weeks ago, went all out to get my team to Mexico to rescue her from a cartel before she was trafficked, his lack of concern for her in the present told me not only was he shady and underhanded, he was also a motherfucker.
I lifted my hand to resume pounding when the door flew open.
And there she was. Or at least, there was a woman who closely resembled the Calista I remembered, only this version of the woman was not in dirty jeans and a T-shirt.
She was in a clingy little black dress that hit mid-thigh and showed a goodly amount of cleavage.
But it wasn’t her perfect tits that had my attention, or her long-ass legs that gave a man unhealthy ideas.
It was her glossy blonde hair that was swept up, exposing an elegant neck I had the sudden urge to taste.
“About fucking time,” I snarled, and pushed inside.
Calista wobbled back a few steps, and that was when I noticed that on top of the sexy-as-fuck dress, she was in a pair of strappy heels that weren’t fuck-me shoes, they were something else altogether.
It didn’t help that her toes were painted a soft, feminine pink, which was an in-your-face contrast to the devil red painted on her lips.
I was studiously ignoring that mouth of hers. There was only so much a man could take before he snapped.
“Mason,” she whispered. I couldn’t decipher if that whisper was shock or fear or a little of both. If I was a betting man, I’d say shock. I doubted there was much Calista feared.
Fuck me.
Her. That dress. Those shoes. The hair. Those lips. The sexy column of her throat. All of it together, plus the way she whispered my name, had me rethinking my abstinence.
“Disconnected your phone, babe,” I unnecessarily told her, as I kept pushing my way in farther.
Calista stopped her retreat and asked, “What?”
I didn’t stop my advance until I was close.
So close I was in her space, and the smell of her perfume wrapped around my senses.
It wasn’t flowery and sweet like a woman would wear.
It was spicy and alluring, like something a siren would wear.
It was meant to entice. You had to be close to smell it, but once you did, it held you captive.
It was the kind of perfume a man wanted to have linger on his sheets.
And it pissed me right the fuck off.
“Told you I was going to call,” I reminded her. “Told you to pick up when I did. You didn’t, you disconnected the number.”
“Disconnected—”
I was too deep in my anger to process the question in her tone. “Disconnected,” I growled. “What the fuck, Calista?”
“Step back.”
That wasn’t a whisper, it was a sharp demand.
I ignored it and pressed on. “You called for backup, then ghosted me. Again, what the fuck?”
“I didn’t call for—”
Seriously? The woman wanted to play word games?
“Honest to God,” I snapped. “Called. Texted. Same shit.”
Calista’s eyes lit up, the blue deepening, then through gritted teeth, she bit out, “Step. The. Fuck. Back.” When she was done punctuating every word, I stood my ground, earning me a scowl and squinty eyes.
“Maybe we should start over,” Pete suggested, reminding me we weren’t alone.
I’d taken one look at the woman, lost my head, and hadn’t even heard the door close. Actually, I’d forgotten Pete and Fallon were with me.
I took a step back, lost her smell, but the full effect of the dress and shoes took its place. I wasn’t sure which was worse. What I was sure of—this woman was trouble. Trouble and sin. She’d lead me astray if I wasn’t careful.
Belatedly, I took in the room.
It was a hotel room—nothing special. Walls, carpet, furniture, bedclothes, padded headboard, all cream.
No color except for the angry woman in black standing in the middle of the room.
The view was of the parking lot. I could understand that strategically—her wanting to see who was coming and going—but still, the view totally sucked.
“Pete’s right,” Fallon said. “You already know him and Mase. I’m Fallon. Nice to meet you.”
I didn’t miss the humor lacing my friend’s introduction.
“Fallon,” Calista returned, then transferred her stare to Pete. “It seems there’s been a mix-up. I’m sorry you’ve wasted a trip. I’ll see to it that you’re reimbursed for your travel expenses.”
Mix-up?
What the fuck?
“Woman, I can read—”
“I’d hope so,” Calista interrupted. “Unless Pete’s now hiring illiterate baboons on top of assholes.”
My jaw clenched, and I fought to find a retort that sounded less the asshole she accused me of being and more professional. This woman meant nothing to me. Literally nothing. My reaction to her was on me. It wasn’t her fault seeing her in that dress had awoken something in me I’d long ago killed.
There were plenty of attractive women in the world.
Hell, I couldn’t escape a shift behind the bar of the Dirty Plank without women hitting on me.
Never had it crossed my mind to pull one of those women into the office, yank up her skirt, bend her over my desk, and fuck the bad attitude right out of her.
Or in Calista’s case, tear that fucking dress off, toss her on the bed, and spend the rest of the night exploring all those sexy curves before I fucked her to within an inch of her life.
My reaction to her had to be because I’d been worried she was in trouble.
I’d spent my adult life protecting people.
First in the Navy, then in recent years rescuing women and children from abuse.
That had to be it. It had nothing to do with Calista being gorgeous, nothing to do with those lips, those beautiful eyes, hips, legs, and girly pink toenails.
It took longer than I was proud to admit to pull up my self-control and will my body’s reaction to her to recede.
Much calmer, I told her, “Your text said you needed backup.”
“Right. About that.” She blew out a breath. “I didn’t send that text. Atlanta did. And I doubt my phone is disconnected, though I don’t use my personal cell when I’m on a job, so I can’t verify.”
“Who’s Atlanta?” Pete asked before I could.
Calista glanced around the small room. “Would you like to sit down?” She motioned to two chairs in the corner.
I’d do jumping jacks if it meant she hurried this along and answered Pete. Instead of a smart-assed comment, I stepped aside, allowing my teammates to maneuver to the chairs. I kept my feet . . . and my distance from Calista.
Both men sat. Calista leaned her hip against the dresser and crossed her arms over her chest, shoving her already impressive cleavage to new heights. I bit back a groan and the string of obscenities that were begging to break free and tore my gaze away from the woman next to me.
Before I could prompt Calista, Pete repeated, “Who’s Atlanta?”
“My . . . assistant.”
Calista’s pause gave me, well . . . pause.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Sure, I’m sure,” she snapped, drawing my attention back to her.
“Well, you don’t sound sure,” I pointed out.
“So your assistant has your personal phone and texted Mase?” Fallon inquired skeptically.
Her eyes darted to the phone on the dresser, then back to Fallon. For a woman who had dubious ties to the CIA, and those included undercover work, she sure did suck at thinking on her feet—and not giving herself away.
“Seriously?” I grumbled.
“Seriously, what?”
My gaze shot to the phone before returning to Calista. “Christ, woman, you don’t look at the phone in question when you’re trying to convince someone it’s not in your possession. Or did you skip that chapter in Spies for Dummies?”
Her beautiful blue eyes narrowed. No, they narrowed dangerously.
“This is good,” she mumbled.
“What’s good?”
“You being a dick. It knocks you down a few notches on the hotness chart.”
“Only a few?” I quipped.
Calista smiled sweetly before her eyes swept down my body. “Actually, you barging in here acting like an asshole knocked you down a few rungs. You being a dick just makes you flat-out unattractive.”
Ouch.
I heard Fallon snort. Calista went on like she didn’t hear him. “No, Atlanta doesn’t have my phone, but that doesn’t mean she can’t send texts from my number since obviously she did. And it’s not disconnected, she just made it so when Mason called, it’s disengaged.”
“And Pete and Fallon and Aiden and Ryan and Jack and Catarina?” I asked, naming all of my teammates.
With a shrug, Calista answered, “She’s thorough.”
“Your assistant’s a hacker,” I surmised.
“Among other things,” she vaguely confirmed.
“I only found out about the texts a few minutes before you knocked.” With a tilt of her head toward the phone, she continued, “I got my phone out of the safe to read the messages.” Calista’s lips pulled up into another deceptively sweet smile.
Her eyes roamed my face right before she went in for the kill.
“You must’ve skipped more than a few chapters in Seduction for Dummies if that’s your idea of flirting. ”
I covered my laughter with a grunt because damn, the woman was quick with a comeback. Which posed a new problem. If there was one thing I found more attractive than a pretty face with great tits and ass, it was a pretty woman with a good sense of humor.
Calista Ventura had it all—great legs, tits, ass, pouty, full lips, slender, delicate neck, gorgeous eyes, beautiful face, and wit.
An octet threat.
Fuck my life.
“Okay,” Pete started, and I didn’t miss the humor wrapped around that one word. “So the real question is, why would she send that text asking for backup?”
Gone was the fake smile, and in its place was a carefully crafted mask of indifference.
“Tom and I had a disagreement about how this job should go. Atlanta sided with Tom and went behind my back to do his bidding.”
Now we were getting somewhere.