OperationFuck With A Date. No way was a nice guy like Lee getting under Quincy’s sundress and into her panties.
They were mine, dammit. She just didn’t know it yet.
CHAPTERFIVE
QUINCY
“You sure you’re not a ringer?”Lee asked as I got another bullseye.
We were at the K-Sparks, the local music venue and bar in the back playing darts. I’d driven into town with Indi, who’d been at the compound checking out the latest work on the house she and Ford were building by the creek. She, along with Megan and Holly, was at a four-top table by the bar. I’d had one drink with them before Lee showed up and invited me to play darts.
They’d all but shoved me in his direction.
This wasn’t a real date because I drove myself, he met me here, and I was leaving in the morning. Alpha Mountain’s latest job included me. We were headed to Mexico to rescue an American couple who’d been kidnapped in the capital for ransom. The intel Kennedy and Taft collected suggested they were being held at a house in the mountains an hour outside of the city. I would be flying the team in and out to a designated point nearby to get them.
So tonight, I flirted with Lee, set the foundation for a date–and maybe more–for after I returned.
With that in mind, I’d worn the white sundress like Mrs. L suggested but paired it with a jean jacket and cute cowgirl boots. While I was attracted to Lee and was open to what might happen between us, Kennedy’s words about me flipping my dress up for Lee had me playing conservative.
He was handsome and interested. He’d be down for sex if I gave him the signal. But even if he was on the rebound, I wanted more than a quick fuck in a bar’s bathroom stall.
I smiled. “Not much to do during downtime on deployments.”
His easy grin slipped a little as he took me in from head to toe with a glint of male appreciation. “I forget you were in the service. Weren’t you scared?”
I arched a brow and tried to hide most of my frustration at the gender-specific question. “You ever ask Ford if he was scared?” I doubted anyoneeverasked my dad or my brothers that.
“Nope. I’ve also never thought he was cute either.”
I didn’t reply because I couldn’t be all that angry. He was a regular guy, not military or ex-military. He thought of me as a woman, not a soldier. Since I was wearing a flirty dress, I fed into his male-caveman thinking.
I walked to the board and pulled out our darts.
“I never really had time to be scared. It’s more… exhilarating. I love to fly.”
“You like to skydive?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“So you’re a thrill seeker.”
“I don’t shy away from adventure,” I admitted.
“Why the Navy?” he asked.
“Family business.”
He arched a brow, and so I explained how I’d followed my father and older brothers into the service.
“Now you’re here working for Ford. You guys must be close.”
I shrugged as I handed him his three darts. “Have to be since our work is still sometimes dangerous.” I didn’t tell him about the mercenary jobs that came up from time to time. The ones that weren’t on the books, that had me literally flying under the radar. Like the imminent rescue job in Mexico. “But we don’t always get along. I–”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the bane of my existence walk in.
“What the hell?”
I didn’t realize I said that aloud until Lee turned around to see what I was starting at.