The Midnight Hour - Brenda Jackson [17]
He swallowed deeply. His jaw tensed. His eyes narrowed! Now was not the time to get horny. Maybe he should have made it a point to get laid after he'd recovered but the on opportunity had never presented itself while he had been id Texas. Surrounded by Ashton and his family, as well as Trevor's and his, not to mention all those Madarises, there hadn't been time to slip away and do much of anything. All of them had decided what he needed was rest and plenty of rest was what he'd gotten. Thanks to them he felt fit as an ox, well-adjusted and alert. Too alert. He couldn't dismiss the woman sitting across the boat from his mind.
After Tori had left Casey's office, he had hung back to talk to the man, trying to get him to understand his need to go solo on missions. But Casey refused to budge on this particular assignment. He and Casey had ended up having a lot of words, some that were still burning his ears, but in the end he had walked out of Casey's office with the same orders intact. He and Tori Green would work together on this mission and would leave out at midnight.
After leaving Casey's office and checking into his room! he had racked his brain trying to discover what there was about Tori Green that held his attraction and for the life of him he still didn't have a clue other than she was a good-looking woman. He'd come up against good-looking women before and after a good night spent in their bed or his, he had dismissed them from his mind without blinking. But through the rest of the afternoon, including the short nap he'd taken, this one particular woman had invaded his thoughts.
He had a feeling that Tori Green wouldn't easily get dismissed from his mind or any man's. For the second time he wondered why their paths had never crossed if she had been with the Agency for as long as Casey claimed. When he posed that question to Casey, the man only shrugged and said he assumed for no particular reason they never had, and moved on to something else like that was the end of it. But as far as Drake was concerned, that was not the end of it. The both of them had worked for Hawk so it would have made sense that at some point, he would have run into her. She'd been a surprise and he didn't like surprises.
Trying to take his mind off her, he glanced around the boat. From the moon's light he could see that this particular yacht was a beauty, from the gleaming floors to the sparkling walls, not to mention the leather benches. The government intended to give the impression this boat was owned by some wealthy person while docked next to the Diamond Bay Resort, and it did. Drake loved boats. In fact he owned one and couldn't remember the last time he had taken it out to do some fishing. While in Texas, he, Ashton, Trevor, the Madaris brothers, along with Trevor's brother-in-law Mitch, had spent some time in a cabin on the Madaris brothers' uncle Jake Madaris's ranch. For four days they had fished to their hearts' content and for him those days had provided some very relaxing and soothing moments.
So much for taking his mind off Tori Green, he thought when his gaze wandered back to her. A bevy of small flutters began moving around in his stomach and he decided this wouldn't do. He was determined to find out what there was about her that attracted him. Without making a sound "e eased over toward her.
She must have been in deep thought about something because she hadn't heard his approach and when he slipped into the seat beside her, Tori quickly turned, her round eyes °°ked startled, just moments before she caught him off-guard, and in a martial arts maneuver that was faster than anything he'd ever seen, she flipped him off the bench. He lay on his back staring up at her in total amazement.
Two things hit him at once. The first was