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Cal continued trying to get air moving between his body and shirt, and I laughed, knowing it wouldn’t help.
“Tell me we won’t be here for long,” he begged.
“I can’t. That’s up to Reuben.”
“Fine. Hopefully, he’ll send us off in two different directions. I work better alone.”
Cal’s words hit my heart with the force of a sledgehammer breaking through Sheetrock, and I schooled my features, trying not to show him how much I’d actually hate that. “Me too. Much better alone.”
“Yeah. And we can cover more ground if he really thinks looking into more of the names in that FBI file is worthwhile.”
I swallowed hard. “Right. Assuming you can handle refined surveillance work.”
He scowled. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Playing up my nonchalance again, I met his eyes. “You’re more of a blunt instrument than a precision tool.”
“You don’t think I can do spy work?”
I laughed. “You forget I was in Budapest. Your cover would have been blown in an hour had I not shown up.”
“Oh, you mean when you stole my op. Again.”
“Not my fault you couldn’t get it done.”
Cal growled in frustration, the low rumble going straight to my dick. “I would have been just fine.”
“Maybe.”
“Fuck you, Jack. Reuben better split us up because I might forget my goal on this mission isn’t to kill you.”
“You really shouldn’t lie to yourself like that, Cal.”
Angry red crept up his neck and stained his cheeks, his next words coming out between clenched teeth. “What are you talking about? How am I lying to myself?”
“You could never get the drop on me. So you’re lying to yourself if you think you’d ever be able to take me out.”
“You want to put money on that?”
Reuben’s massive, low, ranch-style mansion appeared on the horizon, and ignoring Cal’s question, I nodded toward it. “We’re here.”
When I’d visited Reuben before taking the job to deliver Amanda to the compound, I’d been surprised by the modern, low, brick-red stucco and glass building. It almost blended into the landscape. When I’d met Reuben, the cognitive dissonance between the man and his house was startling. It wasn’t until I got to know him better and realized how deeply his paranoia ran that his sprawling single-story mansion in the middle of one of the most desolate places in the world started to make sense.
Cal didn’t say anything as he climbed out of the Jeep. Fine red dust clung to his dark, windswept hair, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen him look hotter.
Okay, that was a lie.
Cal naked and zip-tied to the bed in Colombia, his olive skin a stark contrast to the pure white sheets tangled around his legs, while he yelled at me to untie him was the hottest thing I’d ever seen. It was the image of him cursing my name as I walked out the door to finish his op that I jerked off to on my loneliestnights. And maybe that said more about me than it did about him.
“Jack!” Reuben’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts, and I turned my attention to where he was standing near the wide front door.
I’d scoured the internet trying to find photos of Reuben before I’d agreed to take the job finding Amanda, but in every one, his face was turned away or hidden, so I had no clue what to expect when I’d first shown up on his doorstep.
Given the location of his home, I half expected a Crocodile Dundee look-alike crossed with the creepy poacher guy with the pet lizard from that animated movie with the mice, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Reuben waved us closer, the long arms of his sheer floral caftan billowing. His chest was bare, and he was wearing a vintage-inspired swimsuit that left little to the imagination and leather slides. Silver and turquoise rings sparkled on his fingers. His salt-and-pepper hair was also reminiscent of a bygone era, and his entire vibe reminded me of old Hollywood.
He held a hand out to Cal, who shuffled his duffel bag higher on his shoulder and took it.
