Heated Pursuit (Alpha Security #1)(25)
The tightness in Rafe’s chest loosened a fraction. “Then what the hell was the bit about making amends and shit?”
“I meant that I’ve been a raging jerk to Penny through the years. I took my entire family for f*cking granted. It’s done. I can’t rewind back through the years and start over, but the very least I can do is start looking out for her. That begins by making sure she doesn’t get put into a bad f*cking situation. You hear what I’m saying?”
“Are you talking about Fuentes now, or me?” Rafe’s voice chilled significantly.
Trey lifted his hands in mock surrender. “Look, I don’t blame you for being interested. She’s f*cking amazing. All I’m saying is that the two of us are men of the same combat cloth. We constantly put ourselves in these shit storms, disappear for months at a time. Long-term for us is thinking toward the weekend, or hell, the next few hours. I don’t care if she’s with Bail Enforcement, Central Intelligence, the Federal Bureau, or any combo of the government alphabet. She doesn’t fit in this ass-backward life. She deserves better. She deserves more than the half-assed attention that Admiral Kline gave her. And that’s all I’m going to say on the subject.”
About to leave, Trey turned. “Oh, and one more thing. If you hurt her, or if she comes out of this op with so much as a split end, you’re going to be pissing in a bag through your belly button. You feeling me?”
“The only way anything would happen to her is if I was already dead.” And it was the damn truth. He’d jump in front of a bullet or scale a building using nothing but his teeth to keep her safe.
Trey slapped him on the shoulder, the tension instantly forgotten. “Yeah, well, let’s not aim for that either. Be safe, brother. Watch your ass.”
“I’ll watch Penny’s, too,” Rafe joked, straight-faced until Trey shook his head on a laugh.
“Don’t push your luck, man—or you’re going to be investing in a hell of a lot of plastic bags.” Trey chuckled before closing the door.
Now alone with only his thoughts and the sound of Penny’s running shower for company, Rafe paced the length of the room. When he started making himself dizzy, he sat down in front of one of the Honduran maps, and then got up again a few seconds later. Each lap around the room intensified the ache in his clenched jaw.
His ability to keep Penny safe from harm wasn’t bothering him. It wasn’t fear that they’d fail this op. Hell, it wasn’t even Trey’s blatant threat to his manhood. The closer Rafe got to the answer, the more his control inched from his grasp. And then it hit him.
That sumo-sized weight sitting on his chest was gone. It disappeared. Now that he knew where Trey’s head—and heart—was at, each breath didn’t feel like it was being squeezed out of his lungs.
What the hell was that about?
Nothing had changed. He didn’t do relationships. He couldn’t do them. Getting jerked from one f*cked-up foster home to another, he’d never learned much about love and devotion, or reliability. That was what a woman like Penny deserved.
Knowing he and Penny could never work didn’t make ignoring the stir in his pants easier, especially when the water shut off. Mental images of her warm, damp body had him planting his ass in the chair. He curled his fingers around the arms and worked on convincing his body to stay seated instead of heading to the room where she was probably standing wet and naked.
Five minutes later, her voice brushed over his skin like a soft touch. “More maps? I thought we’d gone over everything.”
“I’m taking another look for my own peace of mind.”
Before he glanced over his shoulder, she was taking a seat next to him, her compact body covered head to toe in a terry-cloth robe. The bulky layers of fabric didn’t deter his cock’s awakening. He went from half-hard to full-scale flagpole in less than a few seconds, his massive erection practically pleading with him to take action.
“It was either the hotel robe or…well, you don’t want to know,” Penny chuckled, mistaking his drooling attention for curiosity. “Let’s just say that between the dress tonight and the clothing Maria so graciously packed for me, you’d think I’d raided a naughty nighties boutique with a limitless credit card.”
“Are naughty boutiques something you visit with regularity?” He loved the pink hue that stained her cheeks when he teased.
“A girl needs a few of the basics,” she tossed back.
The growing tightness in his pants was a not-so-gentle reminder to put his focus back on the maps and not the mental image of a just-ravished Penny in a dark emerald-green scrap of lace—or better yet, nothing at all.
With a subtle shift in his chair, he yanked the conversation back to her initial question. “A man like Fuentes likes privacy. He’s worked too long and hard to take a chance on blowing it to high hell. Not only is he not going to point out the landmarks as we fly over them, but there’s a pretty good chance he’s going to require us to be blindfolded.”
“So how’s memorizing maps going to do any good?”
“Because I’m hoping you can hone your inner actress and make a stink about being blindfolded. If we play it right, they’ll leave yours off and then you can become our eyes. Don’t look so panicked,” he added when his meaning registered. “I don’t expect you to memorize the maps. I’ve got that covered. Your job is to point out or remember things that might make it easier for me to pin down our location.”