He took a swift sip of his own coffee to disguise his discomfort.
“Celebratin’ life and seizin’ the day and all that jazz,” Wolf told her.
“Ah.” Alex nodded in understanding. “So just a regular day in Key West.”
A small smile played on her face. The woman had one of those damn Kewpie doll mouths, where her top lip formed a near-perfect heart shape. Mason had to look away or risk doing something stupendously dumb. You know, like rubbing his thumb over that lip to see if it was as smooth and cushiony as it looked.
As soon as he turned back to face the liquor bottles lined up behind the bar, however, the short hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He knew the feeling all too well, because all too often he’d found himself in the middle of some asshole’s crosshairs.
Forgetting Alex and her proximity to him…
Okay, so not forgetting. There was no way to forget when every cell in his body strained toward her like she was a magnet and he was metal. But now he had something to focus on besides repeating the Don’t get a boner mantra that was on a loop inside his head anytime she got near.
Letting his gaze take a casual journey around the room, he stopped on a man with a black stare who quickly looked away when their eyes met.
For a few seconds, Mason made no bones about glaring at the guy, his SEAL brain cataloging the man’s age—twenty-one, maybe twenty-two. His bone structure—angular and pronounced. The clothes he wore—nice without being ostentatious. And his body language…
Jittery. Like a kid caught with his hand in the candy jar.
Mason cocked his head, wondering, waiting, watching to see what his observer would do next. But as time ticked by, he convinced himself the man probably hadn’t been watching him at all. Had likely been watching Alex because, despite her baggy shorts and T-shirt that read Well-behaved women don’t make history, she was unmistakably pretty. Like a fairy princess had popped out from under a toadstool and flittered into their world.
Maybe I should get my head examined. I’m seeing threats where none exist.
Not normal… His ex-wife’s voice seemed to drift on the wind, and his heart clenched into a hard fist.
Chapter 2
7:26 a.m.
Alexandra Merriweather had just had an epiphany.
She loved it when that happened.
But before she told the guys about it, first she glanced back and forth between Mason and Wolf. “What were you two talking about earlier?” She was fairly certain she’d caught them glancing her way.
“If it’s about my offer to let Mason smash my front door in,” she continued, “forget it. Changed my mind. Not wasting my good boob-and-butt years waiting for some guy”—she hooked a thumb toward Mason who was choking on his coffee—“to pull the stick out of his ass and realize he’s making a mountain out of a molehill.”
“Smash your front door in?” Wolf’s dark eyes sparkled with humor.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes,” he nodded, biting the inside of his cheek. “Just never heard it referred to quite so…uh…eloquently.”
Mason wheezed and blinked at her with tears in his eyes, so she added for his benefit, “Packed up any nonplatonic thoughts I had about you into a box I labeled Do Not Open. Covered that sucker in crime-scene tape. Then I chucked it into the farthest reaches of my mind.” She stuffed her current read—a fairly dry account of modern marine-salvage practices—under her arm so she could dust off her hands. “So there.”
“I–I don’t—” Mason managed, still choking.
She considered letting him drown in his coffee. But her softer sensibilities won out. She whacked him on the back with perhaps a bit more force than was necessary.
After a couple of good hits, he caught her wrist. The look on his face said You looking to punch a hole through my back or what?
She refrained from telling him It’d serve you right, you big butthead. But just barely.
Truth was, she was embarrassed the men of Deep Six Salvage—the group who’d hired her for her expertise at reading old Spanish scripts and then let her stay on because she was using the hunt for the Santa Cristina as the subject of her doctoral dissertation—knew of her humiliation.
Never mind that they knew because she’d told them.
Why’d I do that again? She snapped imaginary fingers. Oh yeah. Because I thought maybe they’d talk some sense into Mason.
Mason… Yes, this was all his fault.
A pox on his penis, she thought uncharitably. May he grow boils, sprout hair from his ears, and get fat and flabby.
As soon as she finished the curse, she immediately took it back. It would be a crime to wish ill on someone as good-looking at Mason.
Not good-looking in the tall, low body fat, supermodel sense. But good-looking in the big, burly, looks-like-he-could-chop-down-a-redwood-with-a-hatchet sense. Good-looking in the black-haired, blue-eyed, chip-off-the-old-Roman-god sense.
You know, if you went for that sort of thing.
Which apparently she did.
From the first moment she saw him, she’d wanted to lock him in a room for a week, during which time she imagined she’d spend the majority of the hours on her back. Or on her side. Or on her front. And maybe up against a wall.
But it was not to be. He had soundly rejected the offer of her virginity. Harrumph!
“So?” She turned to Wolf expectantly, dragging her wrist from Mason’s grasp, because wowza! The touch of his callused fingers made every single cell in her body focus with a capital F. “What were you two whispering about?”
“Guy stuff,” Wolf said succinctly.
She cocked her head. “Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, beer, and testicles?”
Wolf’s grin grew until it split his handsome face. “Pretty much.”
“I do love the smell of testosterone in the morning.” To prove her point, she breathed deeply and then immediately wished she hadn’t because…there it was.
Underneath the scent of sea and suntan lotion was that delicious aroma that was all Mason. It was warm and woodsy. Something she immediately recognized anytime he was near, and then couldn’t quite conjure up in her imagination when he wasn’t.
Lust unfolded in her belly like the pages of an old history book. It filled her up, from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes.
Thankfully, she was distracted by Romeo calling out, “Morning, Chrissy! Didn’t think it was possible you could look hotter than in a skintight wet suit, but I was wrong. Those shorts, eh?” Romeo made a face and bit his bottom lip. “Damn, woman.”