FANTASY ISLAND LOOKED GOOD. Or maybe that was Ashley’s unwilling company.
Ashley had pointedly ignored him on their flight from Virginia to Belize. They’d hitched a ride on a military carrier, so it hadn’t been the kind of flight with peanuts and mile-high sex, which was too bad. She looked even better than the island, although he wasn’t stupid enough to say that out loud with any degree of sincerity. She still wanted his head on a platter for the we’re-married-for-real revelation he’d laid on her in Quantico. And, yeah, she was also sore about his making her come down to Belize. Too bad for her, because he liked pushing her buttons. She was cute as hell when she got mad.
She’d braided her hair back in a no-nonsense twist. The severe do, combined with her white T-shirt and khaki flight suit, shouldn’t have been sexy. Unfortunately for him, he appeared to find everything about her attractive. She was like fire and he couldn’t not touch.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this kind of curiosity about anything, but he felt it in spades around Ashley and never mind that dragging her out here topped the list of stupid things he’d done in his lifetime. Sure, he probably could have handled all this himself via a couple of quick phone calls—even if the registry department was waterlogged and sans roof—but what fun would have that been? So, instead, he’d blackmailed her onto the military transport and then called in a few favors for a helicopter to make the hop from Belize City to Fantasy Island. He must have left his brain in his last foxhole or stood too close to a mortar round. That was the only explanation.
As soon as the bird hit the landing pad and the rotors stopped, Ashley was out and striding down the path. She hadn’t even bothered grabbing her bag. He knew she didn’t want to be here, but he hadn’t realized she’d literally be running to check out their marriage ceremony. She was breaking all known speed records for tracking down a divorce and he didn’t think it was because she only had a week’s vacation time to spend on the island.
“You left your stuff,” he hollered after her, ignoring the resort staff already moving in to grab their duffels. Problem solved, although he usually preferred to handle his own gear, and not just because he usually packed ammo instead of swim trunks.
She tossed him a saucy look over her shoulder. “Make yourself useful, Brandon.”
“You want me to be your porter?” Like that was happening.
Screw it. He grabbed his own bag and hoofed it after her. He’d keep his stuff where he could see it, especially since he had a Glock and a few other toys cozied up with his skivvies. Fantasy Island should be safe as Fort Knox, but he hadn’t survived this long by taking chances. He owed Ashley that much, at least. The helicopter started back up. Guess their pilot wasn’t planning on sticking around.
She was already halfway down the path, speed walking as if she was competing for gold. Or maybe she just wanted to beat him to the front desk. Didn’t matter. She could win all the minor skirmishes she wanted, but he’d won their war. She was here. He fell in beside her.
“You’re a bad penny,” she announced, not taking her gaze off the path in front of her. It was getting close to sunset, and the sunlight was filtering through the palm trees. Monkeys chattered away overhead, and the birds yelled back. Kind of like him and Dixon really. Plenty of noise but no real conversation.
He shot her a grin. “I do keep turning up, don’t I?”
“What?” She gave him a hard look and he figured she was seconds away from elbowing him.
“Just thinking aloud,” he said, because that was the truth. “So you think they got the bloodstains out of the gravel yet?”
They both looked at the road where they’d taken down Marcos. Everything seemed normal.
Ashley didn’t stop her mad dash for freedom. “You’d better hope they don’t remember your pretty face or connect it with the disappearance of the Marcos bridal party.”
He honestly didn’t expect it to be an issue. The staff had been rotated out since their last covert visit and people tended to see what they wanted to see anyhow.
When they made it to reception, naturally Ashley wasn’t done fighting him. Since he’d booked the reservation, he ponied up his credit card—and she promptly whipped out hers. While they argued over who got the privilege of paying the bill, the stuffy guy at the front desk shoved wet towels and champagne drinks with ridiculous red cherries in their direction, as if cotton and alcohol could fix their relationship problems.
Not a chance in hell.
And honestly? It kind of bothered him that Ashley wouldn’t let him take care of her. Fantasy Island’s room rates were sky-high, and he didn’t know if she had that kind of cash. He’d planned on blackmailing her—not bleeding her dry.
“You embarrassed the check-in guy,” he pointed out when they were finally being whisked away to their villa in a golf cart. Stuffy Guy had eventually stepped in and solved the argument by taking both their credit cards.
She gave him the look he’d decided to christen Code Yellow. If it worked for Homeland Security, it worked for him. She wasn’t ready to shove him out of the moving vehicle (Code Orange) or shoot him with his own weapon (Code Red), but neither was she volunteering to strip naked and fulfill all his sexual fantasies (Code Green). “We’re going to have one of those modern marriages, where everybody pulls his or her own weight. Got it?”
Somehow, he didn’t think that was really a question. “I made you come down here. I pay.”
“It’s not that simple, Brandon.”
“Maybe you should call me Mr. Brandon. We could take the nineteenth century approach to our marital union.” He kind of liked the sound of that but she huffed in response and drilled holes into the back of their driver’s head.
“Actually, I’m gonna call you Blackmailing Bastard,” she announced. The driver clearly didn’t care for their hostilities, because the golf cart hurtled along the path as though it was shooting for liftoff. Guess the guy wanted to dump them ASAP and Levi could hardly blame him.
When they reached the villa, Ashley bounded ahead while Levi grabbed the bags and discreetly tipped their driver. He had no idea how come his charming bride hadn’t cut that sexist gesture off at the pass, but he’d take it. As soon as he stepped inside, he spotted the enormous gift basket parked in the middle of a rose-covered bed. A single, really large bed.
Damn it. He hadn’t had the best of connections when he’d called the resort to book a last-minute room. Apparently, the words married and recently had gotten mistranslated along the way into I want hot sex in the honeymoon suite.
Ordinarily, he’d have been fine with the misunderstanding—he had no problem with a little opportunistic sex—but this was Dixon. Having actual intercourse with her was as likely as peace in the Middle East or the zombie apocalypse. They’d have to compromise, however, and hopefully she wasn’t a bed hog, because given what this place was costing him, he was not sleeping on the daybed, the floor or anyplace else that didn’t offer a million-dollar mattress.
“Someone thinks we’re on our honeymoon.” She poked the basket and he had no idea how to interpret the strange look on her face. Ashley being Ashley, though, he figured she’d tell him exactly what she was thinking and then follow it up with multistep directions on how to do exactly what she wanted.
“Technically not wrong,” he pointed out. “What did we score?”
She smiled. Slowly. Yeah, he might be newly married but he already knew he was in trouble here—and that was before she started pulling stuff out of the gift basket as if she was unloading cans of Campbell’s from a grocery bag.
“We’ve got edible panties. Edible boxers.” She arched an eyebrow. “Which probably offers more calories than your average woman consumes in a day, so you’ll excuse me if I’m not feeling hungry.”
She might not be, but he