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“Me, too. Still hungry?” He nodded at her plate.
“Not really. What about you? You’ve only eaten two bites.”
“Fuck food. I’d rather be with you.”
She gulped back the last of her half-melted margarita and left her barely touched plate. “Me, too.”
As they rose, Cage caught Miguel staring. He narrowed his eyes at the smooth waiter when his prying glance followed Karis retreating.
The guy approached him, adjusting the jacket of his starched uniform. “Would you like your food to go? I will be happy to find you a box so you can have your meal later.”
He didn’t like Cage any more than Cage liked the waiter, so the sudden desire to be helpful only made him wonder if Miguel had tainted or poisoned his food. The guy was definitely up to something. “No. But here’s what you can do for me: back away from Karis. She’s not available. I’m pretty sure you know something about the theft of her passport, and I’m telling you now that I’m here for—and with—her. She doesn’t need your ‘help’ and she never will. Fucking get lost.”
Miguel pressed his lips together, seeming to hold in his temper. Cage almost heard the gnashing of his teeth, but the guy collected himself, as if suddenly remembering that he was supposed to deny the accusation. “I stole nothing. I would never do such a thing. I was not aware that attempting to be helpful and friendly would be misconstrued as flirting. Of course I respect our guests’ lives and privacy.”
Every word Miguel said sounded like a preplanned speech, and Cage wanted to call bullshit. But Karis was waiting at the sliding double doors heading back into the lobby. As much as he’d like to have it out with the waiter until the guy understood that he needed to fuck off, he would ten times rather be with Karis, kissing her, peeling off her clothes, whispering in her ear, making her feel good. Convincing her that he cared about her more than he probably should after one night—and he didn’t see that changing anytime soon.
“Great,” he growled. “Stay away.”
Cage didn’t wait around for Miguel’s reaction. He also wouldn’t underestimate the guy. He’d be willing to bet Karis wasn’t the first guest to have her passport and other goodies stolen from her room. He’d also bet the majority of those guests had ended up warming Miguel’s bed for a few days.
Racing over to Karis, he hustled her inside the air-conditioned common area, away from the watchful waiter’s prying eyes, and took her hand in his. “Can you wait for me by that fountain for two minutes, cupcake?”
She turned to look behind her at the big stone water feature in the middle of the lobby. As evening descended, the place wasn’t bursting with people, but enough straggled in with suitcases or hung out with drinks that Cage didn’t worry Miguel or some other potential cohort of his could take their anger out on Karis.
“Sure.” She looked a little confused but hung back like he’d asked.
He couldn’t let her go that simply. Cage gave a gentle tug on her wrist and pulled her against him. After a little sway, her chest collided with his. Her head automatically fell back and she delved into his eyes. Jesus, what was it about her? She was a bit zany, not terribly practical. According to Cutter, she had a free spirit and a gypsy heart. She was his polar opposite.
Maybe that was the attraction. Maybe that was the reason every moment he’d spent with her over New Year’s, he’d felt more balanced and more certain that she belonged to him.
Cage didn’t dare kiss her now. They might not make it upstairs before his need to feel her again overwhelmed him. Instead, he nuzzled her cheek and pressed his mouth to her ear. “Want to know why I call you cupcake?”
“I’ve always wondered,” she breathed.
“Because from the moment we met, the first thing I thought was how adorable and sweet you were. And just like a cupcake, I could hardly wait to eat you.”
He smiled as he left her standing there, looking somewhere between stunned and excited, as he fished his phone from his back pocket and strode across the lobby. Glad he’d picked up an international calling plan before he’d left home, he made his way to the hotel’s offices and hit one of the names on his speed dial.
Forest, better known as Trees, was the quietest member of the operative team at EM Security Management, his brother’s employer. In fact, Trees was downright scary. All those guys who worked for Hunter and Logan Edgington and Joaquin Muñoz were. All former special operatives, they lived on the edge and craved adrenaline as their drug of choice.
The private security route was all well and good, he supposed. Cutter made good money, and Cage wouldn’t sneeze at it, but all he’d ever known was being a cop. It worked for him. These dudes, like Trees, possessed specialized skills that would come in really fucking handy about now.
“Cage?” He sounded surprised.
They didn’t talk much and they weren’t pals exactly. But they also weren’t enemies, so he was hoping the shaved-headed fucker would do him a favor.
“Yeah, look… My girlfriend is down in Mexico…” He filled the guy in on the crap Karis had gone through and whom he suspected was the culprit. “Would you do me a favor and hack into the hotel’s employment records, tell me if any of the previous female guests have filed complaints against this guy?”
“On it. Has this Miguel cat threatened her? Do you need backup? Mexico sounds nice. It’s really damn cold here, and I can’t stand the kind of sniveling asswipe who threatens a woman.”
He’d probably offered his assistance more for the vacation than anything, but it was nice all the same.
“I’ve got it so far, but I’ll holler if that changes.”
“Roger that.”
In the background, Cage heard the guy tapping on a computer at what sounded like lightning speed. He didn’t ask how Trees had learned his hacking skills, he just knew from hearing his brother talk that they were mad. He was also both surveillance and navigation on the team. Cutter was in charge of engineering and demolitions, which seemed like an oxymoron to him, so he teased his brother about building something only to blow it up. Josiah and Zyron he didn’t know much about. And One-Mile…whatever his current situation with Brea, the guy had still taken advantage of her. In Cage’s book, he always be a prick and a half.
