Page 4 of Fixed Asset

She could get a handful, but to make her point, her fingertips grazed my crotch.

I dropped my chin until my mouth brushed the burlap still over her head and whispered, “Careful, Catarina, you break ’em, you buy ’em.”

Harder this time, her fingertips made another pass.

“With the stunt you pulled, you’ve already earned yourself a red ass,” I warned. “Maybe you should stop while you’re ahead.”

“What stunt?”

Her question came out as a breathy whoosh, and I wondered if it was the lack of oxygen or something else.

Then stronger this time with, “You can’t blame me for hitting you. Surely you didn’t expect me not to put up a fight.”

“The café,” I reminded her. “No, rewind—you being in Tegucigalpa, wandering the streets.”

“Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, you wanna share with the class what you two are talking about?” Pete asked.

Cat took that as an opportunity to grind her ass harder into my crotch.

“Warning, baby. No one in this room will stop me from dragging you out of here.”

“Clearly. Seeing as they’re all accomplices in my abduction.”

“I didn’t accomplice anything,” Fallon Harris joined in. “Or is it assist? Either way, I was sitting here minding my own business when Jack tore out of here on his K-and-R mission.”

“Good luck with the R part of that,” Cat said from under me. “No one cares about me enough to pay a ransom.”

I frowned at her response.

“There was no R,” Mase interjected. “Just the K.”

“You wanna roll off me, big guy? It’s getting hard to breathe with this hood on.”

No, I didn’t want to roll off her. If I did, I’d lose my excuse for touching her. Not that I wanted to be horizontal with her in front of my team. But once the hood came off and I saw her fathomless blue eyes, it would be harder to remind myself Catarina Keys was off limits.

One could say I had a type—feisty, smart-mouthed, witty women did it for me. Hair color, eyes, height, body shape . . . didn’t matter to me as long as the woman was top-tier funny and smart. Catarina had the feisty down. Her wit was razor sharp. She was intelligent as fuck. Gorgeous face, prettiest eyes I’d ever seen, a body that made my mouth water, and hair that made me fantasize about wrapping it around my fist while my tongue was in her mouth.

But she was careless.

Careless with her personal safety—totally unconcerned. She took dangerous risks without a thought, which contradicted her intelligence.

With that as a good reminder, I rolled off Cat, got to my feet, hauled her up, and tossed her over my shoulder.

It was a short walk to the makeshift lounge we’d set up. When I bent to set her on the ratty-ass couch, her hands went to my belt.

“I’m not going to drop you,” I told her.

“I can’t see,” she hissed.

Right. The hood.

“Let go so I can set you down.”

She let go. I got her settled on the couch and pulled the burlap bag off her head.

Brown hair tumbled around her shoulders. Irrational irritation flared.

The dye job was professional, the brown locks were shiny, healthy, and she’d taken a few inches off since I’d last seen her. The dark hair made the blue of her eyes stand out, the contrast stunning. However, she was a natural blonde. That was how I’d met her, and that was how she came to me in my dreams—thick, glossy, sun-kissed golden hair.