“Yet, here you are,” she spoke quietly.
“Here I am.”
Jake’s eyes locked onto hers. His lips, along with other parts of his anatomy, tingled. He thought about how she tasted. The way her tongue had danced with his. He was thinking about giving her a repeat performance when she broke the silence.
“How many people are on your team?”
Jake exhaled slowly, trying ignoring his most recent train of thought. “Six, including me. Trevor’s my SIC, or Second In Command. D’s our techie. Hill’s our bomb guy, and Mac and Coop are our two snipers. I’ve also been thinking of putting together a second team. Business is good, and there’s definitely a need, so...” He let his voice trail off.
Olivia blinked with surprise. “Wow! So, you’re like the boss.”
Jake laughed, admittedly enjoying the fact that she sounded impressed. “That’s what they say, anyway.” Then, because he was a red-blooded American male—and let’s face it, what guy doesn’t get a kick out of showing off for his girl—he shamelessly added, “I have the final say on all of the jobs we take and what our plan of action will be before going into any situation.”
Olivia shook her head in awe, but then her lips slowly straightened. “Trevor and the others...do you think they made it out okay?”
Jake’s heart rate picked up. He sure as hell hoped so. They’d definitely been through worse, but he still hated not being able to contact them.
“They’re the best at what they do. I’m sure they’re fine. Hell, they’re probably living it up at the hotel right now, waiting for us to show.”
Then, because he had to be sure, he asked, “So, you’re really not mad at me? You know, for lying to you about my job?”
She scowled at him. “I should be. You’re my best friend, Jake. Friends aren’t supposed to lie to each other.” She nudged him with her shoulder and sighed. “But, no. I’m not mad. Mainly because I already knew.”
Jake chose to ignore the part about friends lying to each other. If he didn’t, he was bound to spill it all. He’d already confessed enough for one night.
Olivia was handling the stuff about his job ten times better than he’d ever thought she would. The other, though...that shit would rip open all sorts of old wounds. Not to mention her heart.
“I still don’t get how you knew. I was pretty damn careful not to let anything slip.”
A smug expression crossed over her face. “You think you’re so sneaky. I’ll admit I didn’t know exactly what you did, but I do know you.”
“Oh, you think so?” he teased back.
She rolled her eyes. “Please. There’s no way you’d be happy just being a consultant for anyone, let alone the government. And no, I wasn’t sure on the details, but I’ve known for a long time that whatever your job actually was, it sure as hell wasn’t what you wanted me to believe.”
Jake managed some sort of choked off, half-laugh as he ran a hand across his rough jaw. “All this time, I thought I was doing such a good job at hiding it.”
Olivia snickered. “Well, for your sake, I hope you’re a lot better at hiding stuff from the bad guys than you are from me.”
His smile slipped a little, and his eyes found hers again. “I hated lying to you.”
“So, why did you?” There was no heat in the question, just bewilderment.
“To protect you.” There was no hesitation in his answer, because it was the God’s honest truth.
“Of course. Always the protector.”
She rolled those beautiful eyes again, and Jake was hit with a sudden, explosive urge to spank her for it. The image of Olivia lying face down on across his lap, her bare ass pink from the strike of his palm, flashed before him.
The surge of arousal was so intense, he damn near shot to his feet. Just imagining the erotic scene almost made him forget where they were, and that there were things about his job she still needed to hear.
Clearing his throat—something he seemed to do a lot around her—Jake said, “I’m serious, Liv. There are people out there, guys we’ve put away, who wouldn’t hesitate to hurt you if they knew about you and how important you are to me. I thought the less you knew about that part of my life, the safer you’d be. It’s why I’ve tried to keep my distance all these years.” And because he figured it was pointless to try to hide it now, he took a deep breath and added, “It’s also one of the biggest reasons I haven’t pushed to become more than just friends. I needed to keep you safe.”
Olivia didn’t respond. She just sat there, staring back at him. Jake hated that he couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
He watched as her chest rose, her lungs slowly filling with air. She looked as though she wanted to say something meaningful, but instead, she laughed it off nervously.
“Yeah, well, how’d that work out for ya?”
Damn. She’d been on the cusp of revealing something big. Jake was certain of it. Whatever it was, Olivia wasn’t quite ready to share.
Going along with her flippant attitude, he joked back, “Not very well, apparently. Of course, you never could stay out of trouble for very long.”
She gave him an adorable smile and looked down at her lap. It reminded him of when they hung out back home, and he’d tease her about something. Speaking of home—
“We should get some more rest. I want to move out of here in a few hours.”
“Okay.” She started to lean back and close her eyes, but then spun her head around and grabbed his forearm. “Wait! I can’t believe I haven’t asked before now. Where are we? Exactly, I mean. I know we have to be pretty far from Toamasina because
