Hell or High Water (Deep Six #1)(14)
What did faze her was the fact that if propriety and professionalism hadn’t stopped her from giving in to the urge to reach for Leo, his acidic stare would have. Holy hell, even partially concealed behind his aviator sunglasses, that stare still threatened to melt the flesh from her bones. Okay, so she hadn’t exactly been expecting party hats and a welcome banner but—
“I have a question.” Leo’s deep voice sounded rough, like boulders crunching beneath the tracks of a tank.
A question? Well, all right, a question was good. Better than him yelling at her to get the hell off his front porch. “What’s that?”
“Do the other three Horsemen of the Apocalypse know you’ve arrived safely on earth?”
“Ha-ha.” She blew out a breath, frowning up at him. Way up. Has he always been this tall? “Very funny. But I’m serious, Leo.”
“So am I, Olivia. Christ, what will you think to do next? Provide Pakistani warlords with long-range missiles tipped with nuclear warheads?” The way he thrust out his chin highlighted the scar there, the one that marred the perfection of his short-cropped beard. He had others, she knew. Scars. Like those on his knuckles and that big, puckered one on his arm.
Is that one new? She didn’t remember him having that back in Syria. And, yeah, maybe she was being whimsical, or maybe she was totally in over her head where he was concerned, but all those scars, all those reminders of a life lived on the edge, seemed to enhance rather than diminish his blatantly male appeal.
Sheesh, Mortier. You’re here for his help, not to ogle his abs.
Although, with him dressed in nothing more than low-slung swim trunks that emphasized the leanness of his waist and a tight, V-neck T-shirt that unapologetically delineated the bulging muscles of his chest and shoulders, ogling was pretty much a given. Still, she straightened her spine and did her best to push off her hormonal-woman hat so she could make room for her CIA-agent cap—which seemed to slip straight off her head anytime Leo was in the same room with her, the fickle, exasperating thing.
“Well,” she said, lips twisting, “let’s just say I won’t equip them with missiles and nuclear warheads unless I have a really, really good reason to.”
He glared at her, his jaw grinding so hard she fancied she could hear his teeth creak. “I half hope you’re kiddin’,” he growled in that delicious Southern accent of his. And, oh goody. There was nothing sexier than Leo going all big and badass… Whoops. There went her CIA-agent cap again. Damnit! “Scratch that.” He shook his head. “It’s a whole hope, because if you’re not, then I—”
“Cool your jets, sailor,” she assured him. “Neither I nor The Company have any plans to start selling hardware to Pakistani warlords. Hopefully, we learned our lesson about that back in Afghanistan in the eighties.”
“But givin’ chemical weapons to the folks who brought down the Twin Towers is okay?” He made a rude sound of disbelief that, had she not been looking at him to see his lips vibrate, would have made her wonder which end of him it had come from.
Okey dokey. So this was not going at all as planned. She knew she needed to take a step back and start over. Perhaps change tactics from brash and demanding to demure and pleading. Unfortunately, stepping back wasn’t something she did well. And demure and pleading? Sh’yeaaah. As if. Especially since the look on his face—the one that clearly telegraphed his belief that somehow this was all her idea and all her fault—lit a match under the kindling of her temper. Okay, so asking for his help had been her idea, but that’s as much as she was taking credit for.
“Yes, it’s okay,” she declared righteously, mirroring his stance and placing her hands on her hips. Bran dropped his arm from around her shoulders, backing away like perhaps she was one of the deadly chemical weapons they were discussing. “Especially considering we did it to catch a much bigger and, so far, largely elusive fish that has been threatening our national security for months or, more likely, years. And taking into account that if we didn’t do something fast, then—”
“Whoa, whoa,” Bran cut in, patting the air in the universal signal for her to slow her roll. “Let’s all take a T.O. here. We can go inside, maybe take a load off, and—”
Ignoring the man, she continued to face off against Leo. “For the love of all that’s holy, Leo, you know as well as anyone that when it comes to espionage, sometimes the wrong methods elicit the right results. So why don’t you stop busting my balls and let me explain what happened and how you can help me?”
One corner of his mouth twitched before he reached up to pull his sunglasses down his nose. He slid a slow, considering look up the length of her body. “Balls, huh?” he murmured, all deep and throaty and, holy hell…chill-inducing. Her antagonism leached out of her like radioactive waste from a dirty bomb. “And here you had me convinced that all you were packin’ in your pants was a firearm.”
She disregarded the heat that skittered through her veins when his hazel eyes skimmed over her skin. “I was trying to make a point,” she said. “And since I’m working on a short clock here, I’d like to get to it.”
“You mean you’ve got more information with which to blow our mindholes?” Wolf Roanhorse, who’d moved to stand beside Leo, lifted one dark eyebrow. Leo and all the SEALs of Alpha Platoon were warriors. But Wolf really looked like one, like something out of an old spaghetti Western. Of course, he didn’t dress like one—he was wearing shorts and a frayed T-shirt—and he certainly didn’t sound like one when he continued, “Good God Almighty, woman, I don’t think I want to hear it.”