Chapter Four
“Are we going to discuss what happened down there or are we going to pretend the air conditioning wasn’t broken in Calista’s room.” Fallon stopped and snapped his fingers. “Wait, it wasn’t the AC, it was you and Calista and fire sizzling—”
“Do you hear yourself? Fire sizzling. Did you lose your balls somewhere? Grow a vagina? Hit your head?”
I was actually impressed Fallon waited until we’d taken the elevator up to the top floor and made it into our room before he started giving me shit.
If heckling and shit talk was an Olympic sport, he’d be a gold medalist. But fire sizzling, that wasn’t his style.
Normally he went straight for crude and obscene.
“Since you asked, my balls are in fine working order and have been used in the last decade, unlike some tight-assed . . . what’d she call you? Oh, right—dick.”
“I didn’t ask, and I don’t want to know what you’ve been using them for.”
I glanced over at Pete, who was already sitting down at the dining room table that was bigger than the one in my condo back in Imperial Beach.
The eight white leather high-back chairs alone probably cost more than the cheap full set I’d bought from Ron’s Discount Furniture.
The table looked suspiciously like African blackwood.
Which meant the table cost more than my couch, big round chair—which the salesperson called a cuddler—my bed, and my dresser combined.
“Which one of you is taking first shift guarding Calista’s door?” Pete asked, not looking up from his laptop.
Thankfully, Pete had opted for work rather than participating in Fallon’s fuckery. If Fallon was a gold-medalist shit talker, Pete was a master at stirring the pot.
“Right. Got it. We’re pretending there wasn’t enough sexual tension between Mase and the hot chick with the gorgeous legs and sexy shoes to make a monk reconsider his vows.”
That hit way too close to home.
A dangerous growl slipped out of my throat before I could swallow it down.
My mistake was all Fallon needed to push his luck. “Bet that dress would look a fuckuva lot sexier on the floor next to my—”
“You’re done,” I ground out, uncaring what that gave away.
The damage was done. Fallon smelled blood, and like the shark he was, he was already circling his chum. With a smile I wanted to punch off his face, he declared, “I’ll take first shift.”
That worked for me. There was no doubt Calista was going to bolt and bail on breakfast. But she wouldn’t run until she was positive the coast was clear. Which meant she wouldn’t do it in the next three hours Fallon was posted on her floor, in front of the only bank of elevators and stairs.
“Before you go, Tom sent a full mission brief.”
Christ, what a douche.
Mission specifics were good for us, but it was a betrayal of Calista’s trust. It would seem the woman didn’t have anyone in her corner who was loyal.
“That shit’s whacked,” Fallon rightly noted. “First her assistant went behind her back, and now Tom’s throwing her under the bus.”
“I’m sending it to your phone,” Pete told him without injecting his personal opinion. Though I knew my friend, so he didn’t have to. Pete valued loyalty just as much as I did. “Something to keep you busy while you’re guarding the exits we all know she’s not going to use until dawn breaks.”
“Why do you think I want first shift,” Fallon said as he headed to the door. “Mase is the one who pissed her off. He can deal with the angry hot chick when she finds him at the elevator during her escape.”
With a flick of his hand over his shoulder, the door closed behind him.
Pete looked up from his laptop. “What’s in your head?”
Without thinking, I asked, “Come again?”
“Calista.”
Fuck.
This was the double-edged sword of brotherhood. One side loyalty and trust. The other, history and knowledge. I should’ve known Pete would call me out. That’s what brothers did. They didn’t let shit slide—not when it was important.
“Pete—”
“Oh hell no.” His declaration was like the strike of a hammer. “You don’t lose your mind with women. You don’t care enough to get pissed and bang on doors or get in the face of a woman—”
“I get in Mia’s face all the time,” I reminded him.
My defense was lame—Mia wasn’t just a woman. She was Pete’s little sister. She was the third in our trio. I’d known her since she was a scrawny teenager with pimples. There were only two people in this world I trusted with every part of me—Pete and Mia.
There were only two people I loved, down to my soul—Pete and Mia.
Their other sister, Camila, had a piece of my heart, I’d do anything for her, but being two years younger than Mia, six years younger than me and Pete, she hadn’t tagged along like Mia had when we were younger.
Not to mention, where Mia was ballsy and a tomboy, Cami was shy and quiet and girly—extremely so.
“Mia doesn’t count.”
I shrugged, not wanting to have this conversation, but also not wanting to lie to my best friend. I had no defense for my behavior, no ready explanation for my anger, no excuse for why I reacted to Calista the way I did. There was just something that pissed me off about the woman.
Not that I was the kind of man who would give the feeling time and consideration—I’d long ago learned my lesson when it came to women; feelings and emotions were pointless.
I’d never again give a woman my trust. The exception was Mia . . . and possibly Jack’s woman, Catarina. Cat had proven she was skilled, and she made Jack happy—really happy—and seeing as Jack was far from dumb, he wouldn’t’ve fought so hard for the woman if she wasn’t trustworthy.
But, there was a difference between trusting someone with my life and trusting them with my emotions. I trust Cat with my life and keep my secrets to myself.
It was always better that way.
No weaknesses.
No vulnerabilities.
No lies.
“You’re right,” I conceded. “I lost my cool because I thought she gave us the runaround. If her story checks out, I won’t be pissed anymore.”
“Distrusting prick,” he mumbled under his breath.
Sleep. I needed to sleep off this shit mood, and when I woke up, I’d be in a better frame of mind to deal with the sexy Calista Ventura.
“You look ridiculous.”
My observation was met with Fallon’s middle finger. He unfolded out of the chair that was far too small for his large frame, rolled his neck, and groused, “I’m too old for this shit.”
“Too old to pull watch in a luxury hotel?” I chuckled.
“Too old to pull all-nighters,” Fallon corrected. “This shit was a lot easier when I was twenty.”
He wasn’t wrong. Not that I’d admit I had a kink in my neck and a knot in my back from lying on the couch to catch a nap. Hell, when I was twenty, I wouldn’t’ve needed the nap.
“Pussy.”
He ignored my jab and hit the call button on the elevator. The doors slid open, and with another salute with his middle finger, he disappeared into the lift.
I didn’t bother with the chair. When Calista opened her door, she’d find me standing there.
Okay, so, the two hours of sleep I’d managed hadn’t gotten rid of my shit mood. There was just something about the woman that made me want to push her buttons, rile her up, and piss her off. And there was something, again, I wasn’t willing to process.
My shoulder had just hit the wall opposite Calista’s room when the door swung open and a pair of blue eyes collided with mine.
Furious blue eyes.
Good.
“Going somewhere?”
“Seriously?” she seethed.
“Seriously,” I taunted, and pushed off the wall.
She’d changed out of her dress, washed her face clean of the makeup she’d had on earlier, and instead of the complicated updo, her hair was in a ponytail.
The jeans, tee, and sneakers did nothing to detract from her beauty.
If I was being honest, her natural beauty was far more appealing than the made-up version.
What hadn’t changed in the hours since I last saw her was her frown and sparking-with-fury eyes. If anything, those eyes burned brighter.
I stepped closer, and last night’s perfume still clung to her skin. A tactical error on my part, but it was too late to back down now. Too late to brace against the impact of her beauty. Too late to rethink not taking the first shift so Fallon or Pete could deal with her sneaky, lying fine ass.
“Where are we going?” I asked calmly, when I was anything but.
“We’re not going anywhere.”
I waited for the lie—her attempt to bullshit me with some excuse of a hankering for a middle-of-the-night snack or her needing to switch rooms because of some fictitious reason.
No such lie came.
“I’m going downstairs to catch the taxi I called.” She pushed forward, but her suitcase remained wedged in the door. “Step back.”
“I’ll save you the trouble of going to the lobby. Your taxi’s been canceled.”
Not giving away a single emotion, she lifted one shoulder. “I’ll walk.”
“Correct, you will. Right back into your room.”
“All right, hotshot, I’m really trying to keep my cool and not make a scene in the hall of a fancy hotel in the middle of the night. But I’m done with this shit. Get out of my way. And by that, I mean go home and butt the fuck out of my business.”
That wasn’t going to happen.
“You’ve got two choices. Turn around and move back to your room on your own, or I’ll put you back in your room.”
Like a temptress luring me to my death, she curled her lips into a seductive smile.
“You forgot one, Mason. Choice three. That’s where I knee you in the balls and you spend the next few weeks recovering from testicular retrieval surgery.
That is if they can find them after I shove them up your ass. Now, get out of my way.”
Without warning I dipped forward, my shoulder connected with her stomach, and I heard the whoosh of oxygen leaving her lungs.
As I kicked her suitcase back into the room, her fist connected with my lower back. I welcomed the pain. I welcomed her anger. I welcomed anything that made the something I was feeling go numb.
Pissed off, I could deal with. The attraction, I could put aside.
But the way my insides heated when I was close to her, I couldn’t.
The way my body reacted to her scent was foreign.
The way I felt when those siren eyes locked with mine, and my first thought was that I wanted to drown in them, was so out of character, I was beginning to wonder if I had a brain tumor.
I was three feet into her room when I felt her hand curl around my belt. “Are you going to give me a wedgy?”
Before she could answer—or worse, tug my cargos up my ass—I set her on her feet.
“You’re un-fucking-believable,” she growled.
It had been a long time since a woman had said that to me. Still, I replied, “So I’ve been told.”
“That’s what all men say. Then they get down to the deed and it’s nothing but disappointment and fumbling.”
“Sounds to me like you’ve picked the wrong men to take to your bed.”
A pretty pink crept up her neck, and damn but I liked that I could make her blush.
What the fuck was wrong with me? I was playing with fire, but I couldn’t stop stoking the embers.
“Are you always such a dick?”
“Is there a reason you’re always bringing up my dick?”
She rolled her eyes and amended, “Are you always such an asshole?”
“Nope.”
“Unbelieve—” She cut herself off with a shake of her head and started again. “Are you saying it’s me that brings out the dic—asshole in you?”
I had no answer to her question, but she absolutely caused my unruly dick to jump to attention by reminding me that despite not being used in a very long time, he was still functioning and fully on board with pinning Calista to the bed and fucking her breathless.
“What I’m saying is, you’re not leaving. We’re going to go over your assignment and make some adjustments.”
“Adjustments?” Her tone was cool and composed, but her eyes gave away her rage.
“Overall, the mission is sound. With a few exceptions.”
She slowly closed her eyes, tipped her head back, and I watched her mouth move.
“I see you took my advice and tried the counting thing.”
“Six, seven, eight,” she said out loud, but finished with, “I could kill you and be done with your annoying ass.”
“I’ve been told it’s a nice ass.”
Her eyes popped open. “I’m being serious.”
“You’re wasting time,” I argued. “We’ve got three days before your mission starts.”
“How do you know that?” she fumed.
I didn’t bother answering. She knew exactly how I knew.
Calista turned her back on me while mumbling, “That motherfucker.”
I didn’t hate the view of her ass in her tight jeans, but I preferred looking into her eyes when she spoke. They didn’t lie.
“Why?” she asked.
And maybe it was better I had her back, better I didn’t have to look her in the face while I struggled to come up with a suitable answer.
“Why what?” I feigned ignorance to buy myself more time.
“Why are you doing this? I explained I didn’t send the text. I apologized for the inconvenience. I told you I’d cover expenses. You and your team are off the hook. Actually, you were never on the hook. You can go on your merry way and forget this ever happened.”
I wished it was that easy.
“You need backup.”
That wasn’t a lie, but that wasn’t the reason I couldn’t do the smart thing and get the hell away from her.
“I don’t. And you guys being here is going to screw everything up.”
A familiar sensation started at the base of my spine and licked its way up. An awareness that had saved my ass many times. The intuition in my gut that shit was about to get real.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Calista turned, leveled me with a hateful stare, and shoulder-checked me as she passed.
“Everything,” she snarled as she stomped her way to the bathroom. “Be gone by the time I’m out.”
The door slammed behind her.
I went to the bed, arranged all the pillows in a pile on one side against the headboard and plopped my tired ass down.
If I was going to wait out this latest drama, I might as well be comfortable.
I was nothing if not patient.