Barefoot with a Stranger (Barefoot Bay Undercover #2)(26)

Drummand must have been laughing his ass off at him.

But who’d tipped the son of a bitch off? Someone at the airport? On that hotel shuttle? At the registration desk? All three? He should have been on his game and watching everyone, not just the woman he wanted naked and in the sack. He had a brain and should have used it to realize she was genuine sooner than he had, and then he should have realized someone else was on his tail.

But the only tail he’d been interested in was Chessie’s—Gabe’s baby sister. He didn’t even do a standard check of the hotel room for bugs, which would have tipped him off that someone had followed him to Atlanta.

His only slim hope was that they didn’t manage to track him here after all that maneuvering he did to lose them—which was probably how Chessie beat him here in the first place. And hopefully, they didn’t know who she was.

Which was ridiculous. Drummand had plenty of background on the former consultant, which likely included a dossier on every person in his family.

“Hey.” Chessie stepped outside into the sunlight, dressed in faded jeans with holes in the knees and the boots he distinctly remembered dropping to the floor in the hotel room last night.

The memory fried his brain like he’d licked a finger and stuck it into the nearest socket.

“Yeah, this is a good idea,” he mumbled as she closed the door behind her and slipped a bag over a bare shoulder. A loose, sleeveless top, practically see-through and cropped two inches above her jeans. The whole outfit showed way too much smooth, feminine skin that he knew tasted like sugar and sex. More fingers in sockets.

“You’re staring,” she said, an echo of the accusation she’d made a few moments after they’d first met.

You’re gorgeous, he’d replied then. And she still was, but everything was different now. “You’re…exposed.”

She straightened her black-rimmed glasses, but that didn’t hide her eye roll. “You’ve seen it all before.”

That was the problem. That one time wasn’t going to be enough.

“And what the hell do you mean ‘this is a good idea’? Do you have even the slightest clue how my brother is going to react?”

“I’m afraid I do.” He rubbed his jaw, anticipating the first blow as they headed toward the golf cart parked in the drive.

She paused and looked around, the Florida sunshine, still strong in early December, bathing everything—including her—in a warm glow. Taking a deep breath, she tipped her face to the sun and closed her eyes.

“What’s frustrating is now I’m ready to go,” she told him. “We have a plan, more or less, and a cause. A good cause. I think Gabe would be stupid to go all big-brother crazy and decide we need to be separated like a couple of teenagers who are too young to have sex.”

He started to respond, then stopped. “You know we’re combustible.”

He could have sworn she shivered in the seventy-degree sunshine. “Combustible,” she repeated on a whisper.

“We’d never make it through Cuba.” Hell, they might not make it through this afternoon.

“Without a liaise?” she asked, the hint of a smile threatening, but he couldn’t tell if it was for their dumb euphemism or just the idea of it.

“Look, I’ve been in prison for four years and—”

She held up a hand with a dry, sarcastic laugh. “I’m going to stop you right there. Because if you say that’s why you hit on me—”

“Of course it’s not why. I’m just explaining that I’m…that you’re…”

She slipped her lower lip under her front teeth, regarding him from behind those glasses, which were somehow as sexy as if she stood in front of him buck naked. “Continue,” she urged. “’Cause this really ought to be good.”

How could he tell her that for the first half of their encounter he’d thought she was a spy and he was playing and testing and generally being a dick? And then, when he’d realized she wasn’t, then he was just…


“Human,” he muttered. “I’m only human.”

“Oooh, human. Well, that’s…a lovely compliment.” She strode past him, a whiff of something spicy in her wake, and climbed into the passenger side of the golf cart. “Can’t wait to hear you tell Gabe. ‘Well, buddy, sorry I banged your sister, but extreme humanism made me do it.’”

Irritation clanged every nerve as he got behind the wheel. “Extreme attraction, Chessie.” He got right in her face. “Which I’m pretty damn sure went both ways.”

She paled enough to confirm that it did, but recovered in a second, giving his shoulder a shove. “Move it, human. I’m sure he won’t mess up your attractive face too much.”

Chessie stayed pensive for a few moments as they drove, checking out the natural beauty as if she were drinking it in, but something told him she wasn’t.

“You going to tell me why you think someone is following you?” she asked.

“No.”

She gave a caustic laugh. “You sure you’re not a spy, Mal? ’Cause you sure act like one.”

He stayed silent, pulling the cart in front of McBain Security. “All that matters, Chessie, is that Gabe doesn’t lose his shit so much over this bug and how you found it in my room—”