Marko
Pretty boy was nervous. Scratch that. Camacho was antsy. As his mother always said, poison ivy was the only thing that got a man more twitchy and itchy than a woman. The female who got Camacho all twitchy stood next to Isaac at the front of the B-Squad briefing room giving the rest of the team a rundown on Jarrod Fane, the Crest Society, and her niece Essie as if every single person in the room didn't already know it the whole story backwards and forwards.
Sure Tamara had given them the bare bones on the flight to the Indulgence Resort before they'd rescued Gidget from that crazy-ass drug-dealing bitch Yasmin Romanow, but he'd done some digging into Tamara’s story after they'd returned. He wasn't the only one.
She might be brass tacks when it came to organization and logistics, but she didn't know jack about how hard it was to keep secrets in a place like the Devil's Dip Gym building.
The B-Squad worked together, they played together, they fought together, and they lived together on the second and third floors of the building like a hippie commune. Well, if that commune had access to enough firepower and know-how to take over a small country, anyway. But she'd been dead set on acting as if nothing was wrong and they'd let her. Looking back, that probably hadn't been the best plan.
Almost out of nowhere, a pair of pointy-toed black stilettos with a metal snake winding around the narrow, shiny four-inch heels landed on his thigh, jerking his attention away from the front of the room. His gaze traveled up from the wearer's feet to her long leather-encased legs to the jade green filmy tank top to Elisa Sharp's face as she sat in the chair next to him. She'd plopped down on the seat next to him right before the Isaac and Tamara show had started. Up until now she'd let him be. He'd known it wouldn't last. It never did.
The woman did love to toy with him as if he was an idiot boy fresh off the farm instead of the kind of highly sought-after scarred up and colorfully tattooed muscle with explosive expertise that mercenary companies from across the globe wanted. He'd been courted by the best and yet here he was in Fort Worth, being tormented by a pocket-sized badass who twisted the truth for a living.
His whole body itched and twitched and almost shuddered. Also, his dick got harder than the heels on her fuck-me shoes—not an unusual occurrence around the B-Squad's resident chameleon and con artist.
She raised one dark eyebrow and blew him a kiss.
It was a tease.They both knew it. He wasn't her type. She was small and beautiful and devious right to the core. He was big, lumbering and a mama's boy—okay, not really, but he and his mom did talk once a week. Family meant something to him. It always had. He'd started watching out for his mother and little sister the day his father went to prison for life and had never stopped. That wasn't going to change just because Duke, Lash, Keir, and Taz liked to bust his balls about it.
Unlike him, Elisa had lost her entire family when her dad died years ago. He'd asked her about it once and she'd told him family didn't matter. That was the instant he'd known that for as much as she turned him on, for as much as he wanted to fuck her silly, that was all it would ever be. Family meant everything to him. Always had. Always would.
Marko encircled Elisa's narrow ankles with one hand and lifted upward before she had the chance to rub against his cock, which was trying to go all Hulk on his jeans. He offered a silent apology to his dick and swung her legs away from him. Once she was clear, he released his hold, but not before he saw a knowing look cross her looks-like-an-angel face.
"Please don’t say you’re scared by little ol’ me.," she whispered, leaning close enough into him that her tits pressed against his bicep.
He gulped past the rush of lust. "Right down to my bones."
"There's only one of those I'm interested in." She danced her fingertips up his thigh, stopping before things got interesting. "And it sure is interested in me."
He should remove her hand. Having her fingers that close to his cock while her tits were against his arm was detrimental to his higher functions. He knew it. She knew it. He kept his hands where they were.
"You're imagining that."
"Just like I imagine you're always watching me? That it's not by accident that we always end up sitting next to each other?"
"You sat down beside me," he responded.
"This time." She squeezed his thigh with her quick fingers before letting him go and nodding her chin at Isaac and Tamara. "Think they've fucked already?"
"I don't think about where Camacho's dick has been." Too many places to count was the answer to that.
"What about your dick?" Her hand was back, this time hovering over his thigh, the proximity almost as bad—in the best way possible—as her touch. "Where has it been lately?"
Not a question he'd be answering here. They were set off from the rest of the group, closest to the back wall and the door per usual and were whispering, but he'd be a fool to believe everyone in the room didn't have at least half an ear tuned into their discussion. Gossipy assholes.
"You're going to miss the briefing."
She snorted. "We both know the score. And what's going to have to happen next."
"Exfil and take down." The question was how they'd do it and how hard Tamara would fight it. She was smart, but she didn't trust anyone. Without that, you couldn't work in a team environment. Camacho had lone wolf disease so any mission involving him was already going to be a cluster fuck without adding in Tamara's stubborn streak.
"It's what we do—but not all we could be doing," she said, the look in her eyes as innocent as her meaning was downright dirty.
That's the way it was with her. You never knew what you were getting, what was a lie and what was true. He'd figured
ignoring how she affected him was the way to go. Maybe it was time to change tactics and go on offense.
He turned in his seat, giving her the perfect view of a face that had seen too many fists to be called anything but ravaged. It wasn't enough, so he let his eyes go cold. Serious. Mercenary.