Page 13 of Straight Shooter

She slid her tongue over her bottom lip and her muddled brain worked through a pile of words as scrambled as a haystack. This close, his heat warmed her skin, and the fire in her loins made the delicate, neglected flesh between her legs throb. She kept her stare on her knuckles, reveling in how small her hand appeared against his pec.

“Peyton,” he said, his voice hard and impatient, as if her touch pained him.

Slowly, she lifted her gaze to his eyes. Their charcoal depths vacuumed the air from her lips. “Thank you,” she managed to say. She swallowed and tried again. “Thank you for what you did upstairs. For stopping them. I don’t care if you’re crooked, I don’t care if you’re only helping me because you know Milo and Serena . . . Thank you.”

His eyes softened. He brought his hand to her cheek and brushed her hair away from her face with his pinky. The touch was intimate, yet barely there. “You don’t need to thank me. Just get the hell out of here alive and promise me something.”

Her heart lurched. Of course, he wanted something. The question was what would her freedom cost her? Nervousness ate through her abdomen. “W-What?”

“Never come back. Stay the fuck away from Moretti and whoever hired you to do this. Deal?”

She worked her jaw and his eyebrows bounced impatiently. He might be as honest as they came, but she wasn’t. Only this time, for some reason, the lie that was forming burned her tongue and her lips almost refused to speak it.

“Deal.”

He nodded. “Good. Let’s get you out of here.”

“Wait,” she said, grabbing his dress shirt in his hand. “I need you to get a couple of things for me first.”

The line in his brow deepened, and for a second she almost smiled at his displeasure.

“What?”

“My wetsuit and purse, please.”

Chapter

Six

“I’d like to know how you managed to get this on board, but I’m afraid to ask,” he said, his voice trembling despite the fact that she was on the other side of the bathroom door. He’d retrieved her wetsuit and snorkeling gear from behind the furnace and had found her purse where Beanie had left it—in the living area on the main deck. Thank goodness the guys were all drinking on the top deck and no one had spotted him.

The bathroom door opened and she shrugged. “I have my ways.” The black wetsuit fit her slim figure like a glove, though extra material bunched at her ankles. Her breasts pushed out the chest of the suit, and he could see the outlines of her small, hard nipples. Christ. He’d never been so turned on by a woman whose every inch was covered.

He grunted and took a step toward her, closing the gap between them. “If I ever see you on the streets, you owe me,” he said, as he flicked the zipper at her throat.

“What do you mean?”

It shouldn’t be so difficult keeping his distance, but something about her drew him into her orbit. Maybe it was still the sympathy thing. When she’d thanked him for saving her from Beanie, protectiveness had swept through him. He’d never gotten close to a victim, and sure as hell not one that was a known criminal, but that hadn’t stopped him from wanting to wrap his arms around her and comfort her.

His gaze skimmed over her face, now filled with hesitancy. She’d placed a bandage on the cut above her eye, but her opposite cheekbone sported a purpling bruise—undoubtedly from Beanie. Redness bordered her eyelids and her hair had shrunk into frayed springs while she’d slept—if she’d actually slept.

“You could be my informant,” he said with a shrug. His gut told him that at some point their paths would cross again, and if she ever wanted out of this life, he could offer her the same deal he’d struck with Milo.

She threw back her head on a laugh, showing off her pearly white teeth. “Ha, you wish. I’ll never rat out my friends. Can we go now?”

Maybe not. “Yeah.” He turned to the door, but his second phone, the one he used to call his team, vibrated in his pocket, stopping him. He pulled it out and checked the screen. “It’s my team. I’ve got to get this.”

Peyton nodded.

He swiped to answer. “Eric, what’s up?”

“You called earlier and hung up when I answered. You’re on speaker and Mandy’s here. Everything okay?”

“Sorry about that. I was interrupted. We’ve got a . . .” He glanced at Peyton, who was watching him, and turned his back. “Situation on board. A civilian is in trouble with Moretti and he wants her dead by morning. I’m getting her off the ship in a lifeboat and need you to arrange for her to be picked up by the coast guard.”

A stream of curses left Eric’s mouth. He was a good agent, but he wasn’t good at rolling with the punches when something threw a case sideways. “You realize how risky it is for us to get close? Christ, all it’d take is for one of Moretti’s crew members to see the coast guard tailing them and your cover would be blown.”

Irritation sizzled between his ears. As much as he liked Eric, it irked him that the younger agent questioned his judgment. “We don’t have much choice. I don’t think the lieutenant would be very happy if we stood back and let a civilian get killed, and I’m not willing to throw the case out the window either. So if you’ve got a better plan, let’s hear it.”