Barefoot with a Stranger (Barefoot Bay Undercover #2)(34)

She stopped after about twenty feet, letting the gulf water swirl around her ankles. She seemed not only oblivious to the rain, but kind of enjoying it. As if the outdoor shower were washing away crappy thoughts, ones he put there because of his broken ability to trust anyone.

He approached her soundlessly from behind, trying to think of an opening line that would make her laugh or take down her guard. Maybe something that would—

“I know you’re back there.”

He stopped, fighting a smile.

“Do you really think you can sneak up on me?” she asked, still not turning around. “I was raised in a family of bodyguards, cops, FBI agents, and investigators.”

“And one particularly cagey spook.”

“Definitely made for interesting dinner conversation with a table full of tough talkers, that’s for sure.”

“I bet you talked some of the toughest.”

She snorted softly. “I was the overprotected baby, as you surely figured out during our lovely exchange with my brother.”

He came closer, but stayed behind her. “And how do you feel about that?”

“The exchange with Gabe or life at the bottom of the Rossi food chain?”

He’d meant their conversation, but both topics interested him. Hell, everything about her interested him. “Let’s start with how you feel about your unfortunate birth order in your family of overachieving world-savers?”

“Funny.” She gave a soft laugh, toeing the sand and water. “I was just asking myself the same question.”

When she didn’t elaborate, he waited, staring at her back and the lines of neat muscles curving down to her ass, all revealed through the wet shirt.

Yeah. Gonna be a tough few days in Cuba together.

“So,” he prompted when her silence lasted too long. “What’s your answer?”

She sighed. “Being the youngest of five siblings, plus two just-as-protective older cousins who were raised with us, is my lot in life, I guess. I will be forever viewed and treated by them as the baby. That pisses me off. Gabe pissed me off.”

“Hey, he’s your brother and he cares about you. Anyway, let’s talk about who you’re really pissed at right now.”

She slid a glance over her shoulder, just enough that he could see a bemused expression under that hat rim. “There are no words.”

As he suspected.

“Did you come to apologize?” she asked, finally turning to face him.

“Define apologize,” he replied, slipping into one of his favorite ways to deflect a conversation he didn’t really want to have.

“Usually it starts with ‘I’m sorry’ and ends with ‘I owe you one.’”

He took a step closer, tempted to lift the hat so he could see her face without shadows. “Well, I’m not sorry,” he finally said.

Her mouth opened so far it was almost comical.

“Let me rephrase. I’m not sorry that you had the ‘best sex of your life.’”

She dropped her head back with a disgusted grunt. “I knew my little rally cry for independence was going to bite me in the ass.”

“For the record—”

She held up a hand to stop him. “If you say that was the best sex of your life, I swear to God, I’ll hit you.”

“Why?”

“Because you had an agenda, Mal Harris,” she ground out. “How good could it have been when it wasn’t anything but…but…a job to you? An exploratory mission? Or, worse, a little vendetta?” Each word exploded in his gut.

“It wasn’t any of those things,” he insisted, earning a sharp bark of disbelief. “I swear, Chessie, once I knew for sure—”

“You never really knew,” she said, marching away to walk along the water. “Not until I told you my name.”

“I knew before that,” he insisted, following her. “When we were in the hotel lobby, there was something in your eyes. Something real. Innocent, even.”


She snorted. “Please. There was nothing innocent about that encounter. We were eyeing condoms like little kids in a candy store.”

“Okay, innocent is the wrong word,” he allowed. “But, when we were in that store, I knew. I knew that I had let my inability to trust anyone get in the way, and I knew right then that you were exactly who you said you were, and I…” He reached for her, turning her around to face him. “I wanted to be with you more than…more than…” He swallowed the admission, only because he didn’t want to sound desperate. “Anything.”

She rolled her eyes. “Nice speech. Did they teach you that at Langley?”

He bit back a curse, shaking his head. He deserved this. “If you hadn’t come to my room, I’d have probably knocked on every damn door in the Marriott till I found you.”

“And then our room wouldn’t have been bugged,” she said wryly.

“And you might not hate me.”

“I don’t…” She stopped herself, her gaze dropping over his bare chest, then she shifted her attention to the water. “Jeez,” she muttered.

“Jeez, what?”

“It’s just my luck to have my very first field job with the same person I had my very first hookup with.”