Page 6 of Fixed Asset

When Pete released my hand, the man next to him lifted his in offering.

“Mason Hughes,” he introduced.

This man smiled and his grip wasn’t quite as firm. I’d bet he charmed the panties off many a woman with those green eyes and that mop of sandy-blond hair. But it was the devilish grin that stated plain he was up for a good time, however that good time came to be.

“Good to meet you.”

“Fallon Harris,” the last man greeted.

He was shorter than the others, but what he lacked in height—not that he wasn’t tall, just not as tall as the giants in the room—he made up for in width. The guy’s biceps looked larger than my waist, and his shoulders were so broad I wondered if he had to turn sideways to walk through a doorframe.

“Now that that’s out of the way,” Jack interjected, “let’s talk about why you’re here.”

I ignored Jack.

“Please excuse Mr. Supremely Bossy Pants. He seems to have forgotten his manners,” I told Fallon. “It’s good to meet you too.”

Fallon’s extremely large shoulders started shaking. “I think we have a winner.” He chuckled. “Mr. Bossy Pants just rolls right off the tongue.”

Jack made a rude sound, clearly not liking the nickname.

Oh well. That’s what he gets for snatching me off the street.

“Why. Are. You. Here?” Jack enunciated each word.

With a sigh, I turned to face him. Unfortunately, I forgot to brace for the wallop his good looks packed. Jack had the whole Henry Cavill thing going on—minus the cleft in the chin—with Ryan Gosling’s smile and the body of Mark Wahlberg circa his underwear modeling days. It was a mash-up that had a powerful effect on my lady parts.

“Why are you here?” I returned.

A dark brow lifted, and not even his clenched jaw could stop the muscle in his cheek from jumping.

I was trying his patience. It wasn’t the first time, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Jack found me exasperating. I found it fun to poke the beast.

When he didn’t answer, I matched his brow lift and added a hand to my hip.

“Why don’t we head back to the office? We can sit and talk this out,” Pete suggested.

“Or, we can stay here and see if they challenge each other to a duel at dawn. My money’s on Miss Catarina Keys. Something tells me she’s got some tricks up her sleeve,” Mason added as an alternative scenario.

“The only thing she has up her sleeve is my knife,” Jack huffed.

“Oh, ye of little faith. I see you still don’t trust that I know what I’m doing.”

“No, I think you know exactly what you’re doing. It’s your judgment I question.”

Ouch.

“Ah, right, now I remember.” I stopped to make a show of snapping my fingers. “It’s Jack’s way of thinking or it’s the wrong way of thinking.”

“My way of thinking doesn’t land you on some asshole’s lap, with his hand up your dress and his eyes on your tits,” Jack ground out. “Neither does it put you in a position of being forced to endure that fucker’s hands on you in the name of mission success.”

My body locked tight. Not at the familiar refrain but the vehemence behind it.

When I’d met Jack in Las Vegas, he worked for an outfit called Takeback. His team was being used as a force multiplier to take down a high-profile sex trafficker. After an eighteen-month joint investigation with the SOIB and FBI, we’d finally gotten a lock on Martin Jackson. For some reason, a man who’d managed to keep his name clean by using front men and women decided to come out of the shadows and throw a weekend-long, sick-as-fuck sexathon preview party in his hotel suite before he’d personally hosted an auction.

A weekend I had spent at his side while working undercover.

The part I’d never understood was that, at first, Jack didn’t make a peep about me going in with the sole purpose of catching Martin’s attention. Only after Martin took notice did he have a change of heart and start questioning the precautions I was taking and insisting on more safety protocols.