Page 138 of Dangerous Mission

A fog of silence slides into the room. All cave dives are dangerous, but when divers come from around the world for the challenge—that’s serious.

“Are we sure it’s worth the risk?” I ask to get inside Beast’s head on this decision.

“We don’t have any other leads and until we can rule out her being in the caves, and given her research specialty…”

“What is her specialty?” Rory asks.

I reply, “Geoarcheology with a specific interest in metals.”

I get a few raised eyebrows.

“English, please.” Aria bumps me with her elbow. “What do you think she’s looking for?”

Beast rubs a hand along Camile’s back as his expression turns to frustration. “If we knew, we could probably find her more quickly.”

“So the cave has to be explored. Who’s diving?” Aria asks with a tone of caution in her voice.

Griff lifts a hand, “Me.”

“And me,” Justice adds as Aria gives her brother a biting glare.

Beast whistles. “Down girl. You’re brother’s not diving.”

Griff flips Beast off. “And when did you become the boss of me?”

“When I hired your ass.” Beast teasingly presses his palm over his girl’s mouth and I know what’s coming. “I’ll be diving.”

Camile’s eyes flare over the edge of Beast’s big hand. He’s going to be in some serious hot water for not clueing her in on that little announcement.

I throw my own hat in the ring. “I could go. Just so you know. I’ll be good to go after a night’s sleep.”

“Just don’t give him any Twinkies,” Justice says with a snicker.

“Great. I’ll never live that down will I?”

Aria grins beside me. “It’s a pretty great story.”

“Yeah, it is.” Voice husky, I admit that I’m completely besotted. “Truth is I’d gladly do it again.”

A collective groan fills the room. “Back to business, Twinkie King,” Rory tosses out with his own smirk, but there’s something like understanding in his gaze.

Beast, taking control of the conversation again says, “No additional information on MZ has been found, except Camile ran down all the financial leads. She went underground right about the time her father hired us.”

Camile, still frowning about Beast’s announcement, twists her water bottle in her hands. “That means one of two things to me—either she’s being held against her will or she knew her father was hunting her.”

As the team bounces ideas, I fill up a plate with a criminal amount of food. No Twinkies or Oreos in sight, but Idid hide the slice of chocolate three-layer cake for just me and my girl.

My eyes land on Aria. She’s smiling across the room at me, ignoring everything else going on and it makes me feel like a single ray of sunshine has burst from the sky and pinned me in the spotlight.

All else fades to black and that insane rightness inside my chest gets even bigger.

Except for seeing Justice in that damned bed even if he’s just talking. I’m going to let him know if he ever gets in bed with my fiancée again he’s going to find out just how short my temper is and how long my reach is.

I can hardly form a coherent thought beyond—she’smine. Those long, dark locks have dried in long ringlets around her shoulders and she looks good enough to eat.

Which I plan on doing for a long damned time when we get rid of these fucking yahoos.

My stomach makes a loud rumble, snapping me out of my imagination. This week stressed about forty-thousand calories right out of me. And I need my stamina for later… for after the nap…

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