“Copy.” He heard the hesitation in his own voice.
Cannon heard it too. “Do you have something else to say?”
“Remember when I said I could do anything?”
Silence followed. Then Cannon sighed.
“I already don’t like where this is going.”
“I was wrong. I can’t do this.”
A bark of laughter filled his ear, but Rome was certain this wasn’t funny.
“I’m serious.”
“You’re the guy who swam two miles through freezing water to rescue a hostage.”
“One point eight miles. And the water wasn’t freezing.”
“Rivers said differently when he treated you for hypothermia.”
Rome rolled his eyes. “Rivers is dramatic.”
“You finished an extraction with a fractured leg because you didn’t think it was broken.”
“Also different.”
“You’ve been shot.”
He pushed out air through his nose, fighting for patience with his CO. “Give me any other op. But I can’t do field work.”
Cannon chuckled. “You getting soft on me, Romey? Actually, maybe the whole team’s getting soft. We might be living at a resort, but we can’t act like we’re on vacation.”
“Having a base under a ski resort isn’t exactly a picnic. None of the other Blackout teams deal with Youtubers who come to make videos about nostalgic locations, or people who show up to explore mine tunnels.” He grabbed the towel from the quick shower he took last night and scrubbed it over the back of his neck.
Through his cracked door, he heard Stina’s open. She pushed open his door without knocking, looking totally disheveled in a sexy, just-crawled-out-of-his-bed way. Shestopped at the sight of him, her gold and green gaze dropping to his chest and the towel slung around his neck for one beat longer than his libido could handle.
Fuck.
He held the phone away from his ear. “Can I help you with something?”
She pushed her weight to one leg, giving him an eyeful of long, tanned limbs and the reason he’d spent the morning doing push-ups instead of thinking.
“Do you have my panties?” she asked.
Cannon barked,“Hell no.”
Snapping the phone back to his ear, Rome closed his eyes. “It’s not like that. Nothing happened.”
Stina folded her arms, which bunched her T-shirt and made it ride higher up her thighs.
He held up a finger to her, indicating he needed to finish his call. Then he handed her his go-bag and shooed her back out.
Cannon’s growl filled his ear. “I’m choosing to ignore everything I just heard.”
Rome wasn’t touching that one. “Good choice.” The line went dead in his ear, and he pocketed his phone, tossed the towel into the corner and grabbed his T-shirt. After dragging it over his head and shoving his feet into his boots, he headed for the kitchen and the coffeemaker.
No damn way was he surviving another minute with Stina without caffeine.
