Mikey didn’t move. Just let the rubber vagina slam into his chest and tumble down to his lap, his face a closed mask.
“Fake beav is about your speed, eh, hijueputa?” Gamboa’s eyes were dark like espresso beans, and very angry. “Because no way a guy like you gets the real thing.”
Eric exhaled a heavy breath. Not good that shit was already falling apart on their team, but, uh, sort of selfishly good to discover he wasn’t the only one off his cork.
Gamboa stalked over to Mikey, grabbed two fistfuls of his T-shirt, and jacked him off the camp chair, the rubber vadge rolling to the ground. She gave him a hard shove backward.
“That’s enough,” Eric barked.
“I don’t want this asshat on my team,” Gamboa said through the grate of her teeth. “A pervert like him will purposely delay blowing the generator so you and I will have to push our sex show too far. ¿Me comprendes? I don’t trust him.”
Eric looked at Kyle. “Mikey,” he said. “Why don’t you go to the gift shop and get more water to restock the cooler?” Voiced as a question, meant as an order.
“Sure,” Mikey drawled and sauntered off, leaving Eric alone with Gamboa.
Eric walked over to the cooler and dug out two water bottles, waiting until Mikey was out of earshot before saying, “One thing about deploying off the coast of South America instead of in the Med, we get regular text messages.” He strode back over to Gamboa and handed her one of the water bottles. “Mikey has been receiving quite a few lately, and when he reads them, he gets an expression of enraged pain on his face he reserves only for his ex-girlfriend.” He cracked open the lid of his water bottle. “He’s just really anti-woman right now, Gamboa, but I’m telling you, there isn’t any other pilot I’d want watching my six during an operation than Mikey. He won’t let us down.”
“No,” she stated flatly, setting aside her unopened water bottle. “I don’t want that man on the team.”
Eric’s temper flared at her brusque reply. He tapped it down. “It’s not your call to make.”
Gamboa’s eyes narrowed. “This is a DEA operation.”
“And it’s my thirty million dollar helicopter that’ll go into the shitter if this mission fails,” he shot back. “I’m the HAC.19 I give the orders.”
A darker shade of rage bloomed in her eyes. “This is my life on the line, too, O’Dwyer. I should have a say about putting it in the hands of Mutt and Jeff.” She shook her head. “Two complete juveniles who think this is a big joke.”
He thunked his water bottle down on the table. Her aggressive attitude was really starting to get on his nerves. “There’s nothing at all,” he said in slow, succinct syllables, “about this mission I find humorous.”
“No? What if I’d bought off on the idea of practicing our act, hombre? I mean, there’s no reason for a couple of whores to get comfortable with each other, but, hey, it’d give you another chance to get your hands on some Latina ass. You’d be laughing, then, wouldn’t—”
“Wait just a damned minute.” It felt like a tankload of JP5 fuel had been poured into his chest, he was getting so pissed at this woman. “I’m far from hard up for getting my hands on a woman, Gamboa, so why don’t you try dialing down the accusations? And, sidebar, if you were a man, I’d coldcock your ass for even suggesting I would use this situation to take advantage of you.”
“Don’t do my wilting flower femininity any favors.” She stepped forward and rammed the heels of her palms into his chest.
He stumbled back a couple of paces, shocked again at her strength. Christ, the woman knew how to deliver a hit of focused power.
She followed him step for step. “I’d be more than happy to show you what I can do in a fight, madrazo.”
Asshole…she’d just called him an asshole. He held up a single, rigid finger to stop her, not trusting his voice at the moment.
Gamboa sneered. “Tell me something, flyboy. Why did you agree to take on this assignment? Because in my mind, I hear your CO telling you that you have to play a male whore and pretend to have sex with a female DEA agent, and I can’t figure there’s any kind of honorable, patriotic reason for agreeing to do that.”
He inhaled two hard breaths through his nostrils. “Not that you deserve an answer, seeing as you’re being such a pain in the ass about it, but I agreed to do this op for the high pucker factor. It’s dangerous. Twenty things could go wrong and nineteen of those could get us killed, and like any good Navy pilot, I’m an adrenaline junkie.” Well, sort of. Mainly, he was a career-minded officer who hadn’t wanted to look like a pussy in front of a superior officer by turning down a mission. Always reach to be the best, Eric. Although the moment he met Gamboa, he’d been tempted to back out, save himself a shitload of high psychiatric bills in the future. But that thought had lasted all of a millisecond before the next thought had arrived: if he didn’t do this op, some other man would, and that pumped up his veins with…what emotion, he wasn’t sure. But it wasn’t good.
Not that he was jealous. He…didn’t…think so, at least. The situation was just lighting off the side of him that wanted to protect those who needed it. Gamboa would probably try to knock his block off for the sentiment, but like it or not, she was a woman, and that made their Big Show a lot worse for her than for him. Truth was, the only guy he did trust not to use the situation to take advantage of her was him.
Stepping up to the table, he shoved the sex toy bag aside. “But now here I am on this mission, neck deep in it, and I’m completely out of my element. Because here’s the thing, I’m not an actor. I don’t know how to be anything else on this op but me, and who I am is a healthy, twenty-nine-year-old male in his prime. When you and I put on our so-called act, I’m going to get hard. I don’t see any way to avoid some hello, niceta meetcha happening. And that’s the Himalayas of all reasons why this mission isn’t even remotely a joke to me. Because you’re going to look at me like that…” he pointed at her face, “…with those I told you so lines between your brows when it does.”
“Hey,” Ryan said as he entered the canopy area. “I’ve got chunchullo for everyone.” He set four plastic bags on the table.
Gamboa turned stiffly to Ryan. “Chunchullo is cow intestines, Aagaard.”
“What? No, it’s sausage. They said…” He stopped talking and glanced between Eric and Gamboa. “What’s up with you two?”
Mutely, Gamboa tugged the front of her dress up to cover more of her breasts. ’Course that didn’t help the situation down below any.
Still glaring, Eric planted his palms on the card table. “This op is a disaster, that’s what’s up. Did anybody bother to wonder how it’s going to seem when a couple of whores show up at Carrera’s hacienda covered in sweat from running down a mountain in one hundred degree heat? Her lingerie,” he gestured flippantly at Gamboa, “is too high-class for a Colombian hooker.” He straightened. “And this”—he grabbed the prosthetic monstrosity and held it up, the rubber fist making a wubble-wubble noise as it bobbled back and forth—“is fucking terrifying.”
Chapter Six
Bogotá Beer Company, Los Rosales, Bogotá, Colombia
“You’re not in your apartment.”
Nicole didn’t turn around on her barstool. She knew who it was, and, great, it was the exact man she’d been trying to avoid. “Very good, Aagaard,” she drawled. “No wonder you’re on the fast track to becoming a DEA muckety-muck.”
“You never come in here,” Ryan commented.
“Sure I do.” She flicked a piece of dust off her beer foam. “All the time. It’s an embassy hangout, isn’t it?”
This particular Bogotá Beer Company was located on Carrera 5 in the upscale Zona Rosa district. On the outside it looked like a middle class residence, peaked roof, paned windows, neatly trimmed hedgerow, and planters filled with bright red flowers, while on the inside it resembled an English Pub. The flooring and wainscoting were of dark red wood, as was the bar itself, along with black leather seats on matching dark red
wood bar stools. Another wall was built of red brick.
“I’ve never seen you in here with other embassy people.” Ryan’s droll tone said he knew she was lying.
She shrugged. What could she say? A life spent flying under the radar had created hard-to-break loner habits.
Her partner set his hand on the bar next to her beer mug. “You’re drinking.”
She finally looked at him. “Damn, Ryan, you’re on fire tonight.”
Ryan’s lips seamed. “You never drink before a mission.”
She turned away from him again. “I’m drinking before this one.”
Ryan went silent for a long moment. “What are you having?”
“A Zipaquirá Abadía beer.” One of the restaurant’s house brews, it was based on a Belgium beer recipe, so its alcohol percentage ran higher than average. “With a shot of aguardiente on the side.”
Ryan caught the bartender’s attention and pointed at Nicole’s setup. “Uno de esos.”
When the bartender set the drinks in front of Ryan, the beer was in a fancy stein. Off white in color with a pewter top and the BBC logo on the side, the stein was engraved with Ryan’s name. All the regulars had these steins; they were kept behind the bar.
Nicole didn’t have one. Which was kind of a dead giveaway about her lie.
Ryan paid and picked up his two drinks. “Let’s grab a table.”
She sighed. One of Aagaard’s senior agent lectures was on the way. She’d suspected Ryan was gearing up to dazzle her with all the ways she should be living her life better from the instant he’d witnessed the massive tension between her and O’Dwyer on Monserrate Mountain earlier. Such a thing was too irresistible for a man like Aagaard, who loved to show others how much more he knew about the world than they did. “Kind of looking for some alone time, Aagaard.”
“You can have it later.”
She rolled her eyes and stood. Argument was futile when her partner used that tone. Might as well get it over.
They sought out a private table in a corner and sat.
Ryan studied her. “You still look pissed off.”
She sipped her beer. At who? At Kyle “Mikey” Hammond? Damned right, freaking misogynist. At herself for letting such a patent douchebag rile her to act childishly? Without question: first and last time she’d ever throw a vagina at someone, that was for sure. At O’Dwyer for standing around without his shirt on today with that body of his? And…and, yes, more anger at herself for getting so distracted by that.
In a flight suit, O’Dwyer’s physique had been slightly easier to ignore. Move along everyone, nothing to see here but a mass of indiscriminate brawn. Out of a flight suit, he was a sculpture of definition and chiseled power, his pecs underscored with carved arcs, his abdominals roped with muscle, and the area where biceps met triceps clearly delineated. A light dusting of dark hair covered his pectorals and tapered down his body, becoming a silky cable that arrowed into the waistband of his pants, as if to advertise bigger and better things here! It rankled that she’d caught herself wondering, how much bigger and what level of better?
She’d had her suspicions about the lieutenant’s high level of fitness, when she, record-holder of the DEA’s obstacle course, “Yellow Brick Road,” had given herself a side ache and a small charley horse trying to shake the jerk all day on Monserrate Mountain…and never had. Speed, agility, power—O’Dwyer had the kind of well-coordinated body that would excel at anything he put it through: any number of sports, the challenging mechanics of flying a helicopter, a bar brawl, even ballroom dancing.
Sex…
The three letter word was unfortunately—unavoidably, considering this assignment—at the forefront of her mind. Dirty thoughts weren’t generally her style, but Lieutenant Eric O’Dwyer was more than the owner of a hot, dexterous body. He was one of those rare men who didn’t have to act masculine, prove it, or megaphone it out to the world. He just was. And that so happened to be better’n chocolate when it came to her favorite things.
She also believed he was genuinely reluctant to do this mission with her. Yes, after careful consideration, she’d decided he wasn’t out for a quick grope, and if she was going to grudgingly give him some points for that, she’d have to admit it was touching. All of that amounted to her mind being in the gutter and her belly doing a weird squish-thing that was unacceptable for the job at hand. If lines weren’t drawn and maintained, their pretend-to-have-sex act could spin out of control.
Stay focused on this as a mission needed to be her adage, although…she was nervous about this one, beyond the obvious weirdness of having to touch a strange man in a sexual way. It wasn’t like she hadn’t gone undercover before. She had, many times, playing a bedraggled street junkie, a smarmy wannabe drug dealer, and once a nurse to infiltrate the office of a doctor writing illegal scrips. She’d also been in plenty of danger, raiding cocaine labs and meth houses with gun drawn, employing her martial arts skills against criminals not too enthusiastic about being arrested. But playing a hooker…? She’d never done that before. Truth was, she wasn’t even sure how to act sexy.
She supposed it sounded ludicrous for a woman with her looks, but for so many years now, she’d made a habit of underplaying her feminine attributes, taking pains to represent herself, with body language and mode of speech, as just one of the boys. She didn’t ugly down or anything. She wore light makeup, kept her hair long, and dressed well, even if her clothes leaned toward “operationally comfortable.” But she couldn’t remember the last time she’d flirted or purposely tried to be sexy.
But admitting to Aagaard that she had a case of nerves would be about as pleasant as an all-natural root canal. If her partner wanted to think this was only about her being pissed, let him. She took another sip of her beer. “If you have a point, Ryan, maybe you could go about making it expeditiously.”
Ryan exhaled broadly. “I’m considering scrubbing the mission.”
“Well, I want to be in the room when you tell O’Dwyer that, seeing as the poor guy already shaved his head.” An act of grooming which had done surprising things to the Navy lieutenant’s face. Without his lush, dark hair as a distraction, focus was drawn to the masculine lift of his cheekbones and his strong brow, although the real attention-grabbers were his eyes. Turned out, he had doe eyes, with the kind of thick, dark, and long lashes that most women would knock little children into the mud to possess.
Ryan circled his beer mug on the table. “I’ve never been crazy about this operation, Nicole. The idea of sending you in to have sex, fake or not, when we have no idea how far you’ll have to push it, just doesn’t sit well with me. Especially when the DEA can’t provide backup for you on the island. If something goes haywire, there’s no way to extract you—short of a serious firefight that could just as easily get you and O’Dwyer killed.”
She shrugged. “We’ll handle it, Ryan. We’ve got the distraction planned, although…” She twisted her mouth into a grimace. “I’m not crazy about Hammond’s role on the team. From what I can tell so far, that man is only capable of conversing directly with my breasts.”
Ryan blew out a breath, projecting all kinds of exasperation with her.
She stiffened her spine. “Do you have a problem?” she asked tightly.
“What did you expect today, Nicole? You were half-naked. Any man with red blood in his veins is going to look at a sight like that. It’s damned unfair of you to expect otherwise.”
Heat rose, the familiar boil of anger. Yes, O’Dwyer had checked her out, too, and shame on her for allowing a small part of herself to hope that maybe a man who fought for freedom and democracy wouldn’t be like all the rest. Knocking back her aguardiente, she gave her partner a glib stare. “I wouldn’t have thought it was so damned unrealistic to expect it from my partner, although apparently it is.”
A muscle leapt in Ryan’s cheek.
“You know what, I’m sick of this.” She threw out her hands. “Would you please explain to me what this magical powe
r is I have over men? Because I really want to do something about it.”
His jaw working, Ryan turned his head to stare across the room. He was silent for so long Nicole thought he wasn’t going to answer. Fine by her. The question had been rhetorical, anyway…but then he did answer. And it was horrifying.
“It’s because you’re like a chocolate candy,” Ryan said in a soft, tense voice. “A hard coating on the outside with soft nougat on the inside. A man takes one look at you and wants to get under your shell. It’s like a compulsion, because he knows that once he gets down to the soft part, he’ll have one helluva woman on his hands.”
Blood flooded her face, painfully stinging her cheeks. “Oh, that’s rich. All right, from now on, I’ll plaster a sign on my brow, letting everyone know that ‘what you see is what you get.’ I’m no mystery woman, Ryan.” At least she hoped she wasn’t. She slugged a mouthful of her beer with a quick jerk of her wrist. “And, thank you, by the way, for saying I’m not one helluva woman as I am now.”
“You’re too defended as you are now,” Ryan returned unapologetically. “You chew through men. I’ve seen it. Hell, I’ve experienced it.”
“You’ve experienced dick, you pussy.” She slammed her drink down. “I never slept with you, Ryan, so you didn’t officially get chewed up.”
Ryan’s expression blackened. Leave it to Aagaard to process every emotion into rage. “You were never even willing to give me a chance.”
She ground her teeth. “It’s called professional boundaries. Try it sometime.”
“Yes, I got a bird’s eye view of your professional boundaries today when I showed up at Monserrate with lunch and saw O’Dwyer on the verge of spitting nails. You did it again, didn’t you? You alienated another partner.” Grooves dug into the sides of Ryan’s mouth. “He dared to glance at your boobs, which kicked off all of your woe-is-me bullshit. Boo hoo, my partner wants to date me and my coworkers sometimes check out my nice chest.”
Wings of Gold Series Page 4
