“And the papers aren’t all that incriminating, quite honestly. Sketchy for sure, but nothing that would hold up in court—or even in the court of public opinion. Silva is made of rubber or something because everything bounces off him.”
Wolf turned onto a side street. “Yeah, but even guys like that make mistakes. Just takes time to find what they are.”
“I keep looking for one. Haven’t found it yet.”
“It’ll happen,” he said. “But it might not be you who discovers it.”
She didn’t like that thought. She wanted to be the one who brought Silva and his drug empire down. For Nicole. But she didn’t say that.
A few moments later, Wolf pulled into a driveway. The house was small, a brick rancher, probably mid-century when that style was popular. The bushes in front had been cut rather severely so that they didn’t obscure the windows. The yard was neat, but unremarkable.
Wolf cut the engine and turned to her. “Home sweet home.”
“It’s cute,” she said. “Though not what I expected.” She’d thought he’d be in an apartment somewhere. A studio, perhaps.
“What did you expect?”
“A bachelor pad in a highrise.”
He laughed. “My dad is a farmer. I grew up in the country. High-rises are not for me. At least not to live in.”
“You have other experiences with high-rises?”
“I’ve stormed a few. You haven’t lived until you’ve plunged forty floors on top of an elevator in the dark. Good times.”
Haylee couldn’t help but gape at him. “You aren’t serious.” Forty floors in the dark? Wow. She’d pee herself, and yet he acted like it was totally normal.
“Dead serious, babe.” He pushed his door open. “Now come on. Let’s get you inside so you can eat.”
Chapter Fifteen
Wolf hadn’t expected to have Haylee here in his house. If he had, he might have cleaned up a little better. He went into the living room and picked up empty cans and bags of chips. He wasn’t exactly a slob, but he wasn’t overly concerned with housekeeping either. He had a giant television on one wall, a recliner, a couch, and little else in the room. Haylee’s brows lifted.
“You need to fire your interior decorator, Dean.”
He snorted. She was cute. “I don’t have one, smartass.”
“No kidding.”
He dropped the trash in the can, then went over to the table to clear it of mail, plastic bags, coupons, and receipts. “Sorry. You can sit here and eat. Need anything?”
“Do you have a bottle of water, maybe?”
“Water, beer, soda. You name it.”
“Just water, thanks.”
He went and got her a bottle while she perched delicately in one of the chairs and pulled food out of her bag. She glanced up as he approached. So pretty, this girl. Long wavy hair, creamy golden skin, and dark eyes that sparkled. She had delicate features—fine eyebrows, a small nose, a pointed chin—and he thought she was just about the hottest woman he’d ever met.
“Bring a fork if you want some,” she said as she opened the container of chicken tikka masala. “Do you have any paper plates?”
“Yeah, right here.” He grabbed a stack off the bar that formed the opening between the kitchen and the dining room and handed it to her. She took them with a soft thanks and then proceeded to dip out food with the utensils that had been in the bag. “Sure you don’t want any?”
It smelled delicious. He didn’t eat Indian food often, but when he did, chicken tikka masala was a favorite. Typical American. “Sure, I’ll try it,” he said, reaching for a fork from the bar.
“Knew it,” she said with a smile.
“Only because you keep offering.”
She dished some out onto a plate for him, gave him a piece of her bread, and started eating. He forked up a bite. The fire was immediate. “Holy shit,” he murmured as she laughed. He grabbed her water and took a swig.
“Sorry. I like it spicy.”
He swallowed the water, though his mouth was still on fire. “Yeah, you do.” He took another bite anyway, more prepared this time. It still set his mouth on fire, but it was good and flavorful.
“How have you been, Dean?” she asked after they’d eaten a few mouthfuls.
He didn’t get addressed by his name much, unless it was his parents calling him to talk, but he liked it when she said it. The thrill of hearing his name on her lips hadn’t faded from Guatemala to here. “Good. You?”
“Good.” She didn’t look up from her food as she said, “I was disappointed when you didn’t come see me.”
Real regret lanced through him. “I wanted to.”
“So why didn’t you?”
He sighed as he chewed a piece of bread. “I told you last night… I was busy.”
She frowned. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“No, I have a demanding job—or didn’t you notice when I parachuted into Guatemala to rescue you?”
“I noticed. Thanks for that. Again,” she said.
“You’re welcome. But that’s not why I brought it up. So you’d have to thank me, I mean.”
“I know.” She smiled. “But when I said that’s bullshit, what I meant was that if you’d really wanted to see me, you would have done so. But I get it, Dean. I really do. We slept together and you’re a one-night stand kind of guy. You got your rocks off. There was no need to pursue it after that.”
“That’s not why,” he grumbled. It sounded so clinical when she said it like that. He thought of that night with her. The way she tasted. The sound of her moans and sighs. The way she shuddered beneath him while he thrust inside her body. The way his toes curled as he came hard, pouring himself out deep inside her body. It was the same way with every girl he’d ever slept with—and yet it was entirely different with Haylee too. It was more. More than he’d expected. He wanted it again. Wanted to know if it was as good as he remembered, or if he’d built it all up in his head into something impossible.
“I wanted to see you.” Jesus, why had he admitted that? It only made things worse. He’d wanted to see her, but he hadn’t called her. He’d ignored her.
She tilted her head to the side, fork hanging limply in her right hand. “Then why didn’t you?”
“Cheryl,” he finally said.
“Your sister?”
The fact Haylee remembered his sister’s name when he’d only mentioned her once made his throat tighten. “Yeah. All my combat pay goes home to my parents so I can help them get custody of Jack and Taylor. I don’t have the, uh, money to take somebody out to dinners and movies and clubs.”
It was embarrassing, but there it was. His choice to send it all home, but what else could he do? Family was family. They meant everything.
Her jaw dropped slightly. Then she reached out and wrapped her fingers around his hand. “Oh, Wolf, that’s so cute—and totally misguided.”
He frowned at her even though his attention was utterly focused on his hand. On where they touched. “What does that mean?”
“It means this is the twenty-first century. You don’t have to buy a girl dinner or movies. You have streaming, right?”
“I have one service, not all of them.”
“Okay, so movies at your fingertips.” She jerked her head toward the television. “You have a big screen there, so I’m sure movies are fine on it. And a couch. Take-out isn’t expensive—look at us now—and sex is always free. Or should be between people like us, I mean.”
He couldn’t help but gape at her. “You wouldn’t think I was cheaping out if I invited you over for take-out and a movie on streaming? And then wanted sex?”
She shook that glorious hair of hers. “Wolf, honestly—sometimes men are so clueless. So long as you put your tongue between my legs the way you did back in El Salvador, I’d eat McDonald’s for a month and watch reruns of Family Guy—which I hate, by the way—just to be with you.”
His dick was throbbing. He was still reeling from the thou
ght of putting his tongue between her legs, as she so plainly put it. He thought of it more like devouring her sweet pussy, but whatever. “You hate Family Guy?”
Hell, he’d hate it too if that’s what it took to get her naked, but he was trying to be silly. Not that he watched a lot of it, but it was funny when he did.
“God, yes. So stupid. Stewie is the only character whose name I can recall, but I’ve never liked it.”
“Jeez, Haylee. That shit is fucking hilarious.”
“To you.”
Focus, asshole. “Okay, so you hate Peter Griffin. I can deal with that. I guess.”
She laughed. “So we’d watch Family Guy and something appropriately sappy, like Love, Actually, and then we’d have wild monkey sex. Doesn’t sound like a bad thing to me.”
He was picturing the monkey sex. Him. Her. Naked, fucking like bunnies, sweat rolling down their bodies as they rose and fell together, her legs wide and wrapped around him, his hips pistoning into hers. He’d fuck her missionary. Then he’d fuck her from behind, palming her tits, before flipping over and letting her ride him to completion. Oh, yeah, this monkey sex sounded good to him.
“No,” he croaked. “It doesn’t.”
She laughed again. “Jeez, Wolf, you look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”
“Not a ghost. Just imagining wild monkey sex.”
She looked smug as she took another bite of her food. “Yes, but you didn’t call me. So that’s not happening, is it?”
“You’re here now.”
“Not for a date.” She wagged a finger at him. “No more sex for you just for breathing, mister. If you want all this”—she waved a hand—“you gotta work for it.”
God, she was cute. “Tease.”
She laughed. He loved the sound. “Right. You had your chance. Now you gotta start again. Talk me into it. Romance me off my feet.”
“I don’t recall romancing you off your feet the last time. It was animal attraction. And those kisses you won playing pool.”
“Beating your ass at pool, you mean.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Well, we’re here now and things have changed. If you’d come and found me when you promised, I’m sure we’d have fallen into bed right away. In fact, I’d have dragged you inside and fucked your brains out if you’d shown up within a week. But you gave me too much time to think. To wonder if you were the best decision after all.”
His heart throbbed and his dick leapt. Had he ever been anybody’s best decision?
He shook himself out of his stupor. Yeah, stupor. Because he was hanging on her every word, imagining them in bed again, and he wasn’t thinking as sharply as he should. He loved pussy as much as the next man, but he’d never been stupid over it. He was feeling stupid right now—over one woman’s pussy, not pussy in general. He thought that even if ten Dallas Cowboys’ cheerleaders stripped in front of him and wanted to bang him as a team, he’d still prefer Haylee. And that was some fucked up shit right there.
Wolf frowned. Hard. He had to get over this sickness, whatever it was. Not only that, but she’d had a date last night at the fundraiser. A man she’d left with. For all he knew, she’d had sex with him too. “Did you text me those files yet, Haylee?”
She looked as if she’d run full tilt into a brick wall. Took her a moment to reorient herself. But then she shut down, just as cool as you please. Part of him cried out at the shuttering of all that warmth. “No.”
“Then do it, please. I want to share the information with my team.”
She took out her phone, her skin flushing as she dropped her gaze to the screen. The only indication she was affected. “Fine. Sending now.”
His phone pinged. “Thanks.”
“I worked hard to figure out the connections,” she said, all business now. “But all I found was that Donnie Setter is Senator Watson’s cousin—and he’s been to the camp where I was held. But that’s not a crime. Or at least not one you can pin on Senator Watson—or Oscar Silva.”
Wolf stiffened as a chill of anger slid through him, chasing all the heat and confusion away. “Seriously? You can tie one of the senator’s relatives to that camp?”
“Yes. Setter has an import/export business. He gets a lot of stuff from Mexico, and he travels there quite a bit.”
Wolf opened his messages and began to type out a missive to Saint. Watson had never aroused suspicion of any kind, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be a party to shady things—even if it was just turning a blind eye to his cousin’s business dealings. Because the fact that Setter had been to the Guatemalan camp was huge. Traveling and doing business was one thing. But the camp? Yeah, that was fucked up.
“Just because the cousin is involved in some shady shit doesn’t mean the senator is,” Haylee said. “Watson is notoriously hard on drugs. Nobody can say he’s not. He’s constantly trying to make it harder for people to cross the border.”
“Yeah, but most of the drugs come through legal ports of entry, so trying to tighten the border wouldn’t affect that. I mean it affects other stuff like marijuana, but not the hard drugs coming through. Might even be a clever stance to take for somebody involved in the drug trade.”
Haylee shook her head. “That’s much too cunning.”
Wolf shrugged. “Money will do a lot to change someone’s mind. But you’re right, just because Setter is involved somehow doesn’t mean Watson is. That’s what we gotta find out.”
He sent the message, with attachments, and then speared a piece of chicken with his fork. “Now we wait.”
Haylee stared at him. “Don’t think I didn’t notice that you changed the subject, by the way.”
“What subject?”
“Us. You and me and dating. But that’s okay. I can take a hint.”
His chest tightened. “I wasn’t hinting.”
“Regardless, if you want more, you have to romance me. We aren’t in the jungle this time, and you don’t win by default.”
He hadn’t intended to pursue this at all, and yet he was insulted. “Wait a minute—are you saying you slept with me because I rescued you? Not because you wanted to?”
She shook her head. “Not what I said at all. What I said was that you didn’t have to work very hard before. I want more than just the expectation it’s happening this time. Assuming you plan to pursue it, that is.”
Did he? He wanted to. More than he expected. But he also knew his limits. And then there was the guy she’d been with last night. She still hadn’t mentioned him.
“I’m not romantic, Haylee,” he told her truthfully. “I’ll treat you right, worship your body, and make you come so hard you see stars. But I won’t play games with you.”
Chapter Sixteen
Haylee’s body tingled involuntarily from the way he said he’d make her come so hard she saw stars. He could. She knew he could. He already had. More than once, actually.
“I didn’t say anything about playing games, Wolf. But a girl likes to know she has some value. Now if you don’t want to work for it, that’s fine. At least I’ll know where I stand with you.”
She could see him thinking about his answer. He sighed. “Where you stand is that I want you a lot more than I should. Beyond that, I don’t know what to say. I think you’re the sexiest woman I know. I want to strip you naked and make you come, but I’m not gonna buy flowers or spout poetry or surprise you with a cake I baked myself.”
Haylee couldn’t help but giggle at that image. “Really? No cakes you bake yourself?”
He shifted in his chair. Was he reddening? She wasn’t sure.
“Fuck no. I don’t bake. Besides, it was a metaphor.”
“For what?”
“Romance, Haylee. I’m not a romantic.”
“Fine. But you can’t say you won’t spout poetry. You quoted Robert Frost to me the first night I met you.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, guess I did. Doesn’t mean I’m memorizing Shakespeare for you.”
“You already have
some memorized. You’re an English teacher’s kid.”
“Fine, yeah, I do. Doesn’t mean it’s appropriate. Unless you want to hear about brief candles and blood that won’t wash out.”
She laughed. “MacBeth, of course.”
“I can tell you to get to a nunnery.”
“Hamlet.”
“Or maybe you’d like to think about a muse of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention?”
“Henry V. Oh, Wolf, you keep talking like that and my panties might just fly off.”
He grinned. “Well if that’s your idea of working at it, I can do it. I know all kinds of random Shakespeare.”
“It’s called poetry.”
“Fine, poetry. I can spout it sometimes. If it gets me in your panties quicker.”
She ought to be offended. Instead, she was amused. “It might. Don’t know until you try.”
“You’re one of a kind, Haylee.” He looked like he might say something else, but it never came.
She thought he was probably trying to figure out how to let her down easily. She didn’t want to hear it. She’d already been bolder than she liked. She’d shown him her cards, namely the ones where she was still thinking about him and the night they’d shared. Before he could speak, she pushed her plate away and offered him the containers. “Want some more?”
“No thanks, I’m good.”
Haylee closed up the containers and gathered the paper plates and plastic utensils. But when she stood, he gestured to her to sit back down. “I got it.”
He reached for the trash and took it into the kitchen, dumping it into a can beneath the sink. She watched the muscles in his arms flex as he did so. She didn’t ordinarily go for big guys with big muscles, but this one had her jumping inside like oil on a hot griddle. He closed the can, washed his hands in the sink, and swaggered back to where she sat at the table.
She rested her chin on her palm and smiled up at him. She was happily full now, and her lack of sleep was beginning to catch up with her. Maybe that’s why she wasn’t too guarded in what she was willing to say. And even though she knew she was saying things she probably shouldn’t, she took it one step farther. “So does that mean you might want to date me?”
HOT Justice: A Hostile Operations Team - Book 14 Page 14