Locked and Loaded (21 page)

It figured that Mason would make the leap to assume that she'd been the one to bring him on to the task force. It hurt to think he assumed she'd railroad him like that after everything that happened between them in L.A. Or was it simply her ambition and own need to take control of the situation that had him riled and disdainful? Not for the first time, Charlie wished she could get into Mason's head and see what he was thinking.

Mason's gaze smoldered as he looked from Carrera to Charlie. “I told you when I came on that this had to be done
my way
. And so far, all anyone's done is hover, butt in, and try to take over a situation and manage someone they know
nothing
about.” It didn't take a genius to know that Mason was addressing her directly. “You need to let me handle this from here on out. Period. If you don't, you're going to lose the only connection you might have to Faction Five. Is that what you want?”

He might as well have ended that sentence with
Charlie?
Mason wasn't the only one dealing with frustration. Ever since they'd gotten back from L.A., Mason had behaved as though nothing had happened between them. Hurt sliced through her as he looked at her with nothing more than casual interest. Charlie wanted to kick herself for thinking that an intense intimacy had been forged between them in that hotel room.

Pathetic
.

“You know what I want,” Charlie snapped. Mason's eyes widened a fraction of an inch and Carrera sat back in his chair and cleared his throat. She was tired of making amends for the way she'd botched Mason's plans with Kieran. She'd made a mistake and she'd apologized for it. “But even you have to admit that Kieran isn't totally sold on the idea of working with us. You can't cut me out now. It needs to be business as usual.”

“Business as usual?” Mason scoffed. “Wanna fill me in on what exactly that is? Because there is nothing about this situation that's even close to business as usual.”

Now he was just being difficult. His attitude ignited Charlie's anger.
Stubborn ass
. “I'm not going to let you bait me into an argument, Mason.”

“Oh, there's no baiting,” Mason assured her. “And I'll argue my point until I'm blue in the face.”

Of course he would. “Because you're stubborn to a fault.”

Mason's eyes went wide. “I'm stubborn?” Charlie bristled at his incredulous tone. “Seriously, Charlie, you're crazy if you think—”

The muted sound of Mason's cell ringing cut him off. He fished his phone out of his pocket. “It's Kieran.”

Charlie's stomach knotted with anticipation. Carrera leaned forward in his chair, attention focused on Mason, who slid his finger across the screen. His gaze met Charlie's for the barest of moments before he answered. “What's up?”

Mason kept his expression blank as he listened, which only helped to crank Charlie's anxiety up into the stratosphere.

“Yeah.” Mason paused. “Okay.” Another long pause that lasted at least a year. “Whatever.”

Charlie felt like she might crawl out of her skin at any second. The suspense was killing her. Mason's grouchy, disinterested tone didn't help either. His approach to dealing with Kieran was thinly veiled hostility. Charlie couldn't fault him, she guessed. Had she been in court, it would have been her approach in dealing with the defense.

“I can do that,” Mason said after a moment. “I'll need a few days to get everything set up, but it shouldn't be a problem.”

The longer they talked, the antsier Charlie got. She wished Mason would wrap up the call already. The suspense was killing her!

“Why do you need her for this?” Mason's gaze slid to his left, and Charlie's jaw clenched. He was trying to cut her out! Dirty, rotten traitor.

The chances of her being able to prosecute this case were slim-to-none, thanks to her involvement in the undercover aspect of the operation. If Mason managed to get his way and benched her, she'd be practically useless. She wouldn't be proving any points to anyone if that happened.

Mason's expression darkened and tension pulled at his shoulders, tightening his T-shirt over the muscled expanse of his back. “It might take her a few days to line someone up, but I'm sure she can do it.”

Another silence passed. “I'll be in touch,” Mason said as he wrapped up the conversation. “Later.”

He ended the call and shoved the phone back in his pocket. Charlie stared at Mason, her eyes practically bugging out of her head. “
Well?
”

Rather than address her directly, Mason turned to Carrera. “Kieran needs to move a large shipment of gems into the country. Four days from now. He wants me to get them past customs and to keep the feds off his back.”

“And Charlie?” Carrera asked.

Mason let out a long-suffering sigh. “He wants Charlie to line up the buyers.”

“Why?” Carrera seemed as skeptical as Mason. Did neither of them think she was competent enough to pull this off?

“My guess is he doesn't want the sale connected to him.” Mason's brow furrowed and his jaw squared with the words. Something bothered him. “He pulled the same thing in L.A. Sort of. He could have negotiated the sale to Katarina, no problem. But he wanted to put a cushion between them.”

“He could be trying to figure out a way to cover his tracks,” Carrera suggested. “Making sure he could work with Faction Five without anyone being able to make the connection.”

“Maybe,” Mason said. “Or his motives could be entirely personal.”

Carrera's brow furrowed. “How so?”

“He's got a thing for Charlie,” Mason said darkly. “He could be looking for an excuse to see her again.”

“Shit.”

Carrera's displeasure didn't fill Charlie with confidence.

“Mason's exaggerating.” She turned the stink-eye on Mason. She wasn't exactly excited about Carrera reporting that little tidbit to the rest of the task force when he briefed them. “It's not like that.”

“The hell it isn't.” Mason met her look for look. “Which is why we should get her out now.”

“I'm not going anywhere,” Charlie said. They could try to get her out, but she'd be damned if they succeeded. “I can handle myself. Period.”

Carrera and Mason exchanged a look. The chief deputy's resigned sigh made Charlie want to pump her fist in the air. “We'll play it by ear. If having her around keeps Eagan happy and distracted, it'll only help us in the long run.”

“Jesus.” Mason's disgusted tone pricked at Charlie's chest. “This is a fucking joke.” He turned to Charlie as he stood. “Hope you're happy. You're getting exactly what you want.”

Without another word, he strode from the coffee shop and let the door swing shut behind him.

What in the hell was wrong with him? If he thought he could treat her with disdain and simply walk away, Mason had another think coming. He wanted to go toe-to-toe with her? So be it.

Chapter Twenty-One

Mason slammed the front door and strode into his living room. He paced from wall to wall, back and forth, back and forth, as he tried to burn off the anger that pooled and burned in his muscles. No one seemed interested in exercising the least bit of caution, especially Charlie.
Goddamn it
. Mason's fist connected with the wall and he let out a grunt of pain. The drywall cracked, marred with a streak of crimson. Not even his bleeding knuckles could distract him from the agitation that twisted his gut.

Fucking Kieran. Fucking Carrera. Fucking task force. Fucking ambition.

From the start, Charlie had disregarded the danger of her situation. Blind to anything other than the glory, the
win
, she'd run headlong into something she knew nothing about. Had zero experience with. All Mason wanted to do was get her
out
. Keep her as far away from Kieran's world as possible. And not only had Charlie insisted she stay right where she was, she'd managed to convince Carrera that Kieran's interest in her would benefit them in the long run. Was there anyone on this task force who had their damn head on straight?

A knock came at Mason's door. He glared in the direction of the offending sound, knowing full well who stood on the other side. Stubborn didn't even begin to describe Charlie. Her hardheadedness was absolutely exasperating. He'd spent days trying to get her out of his head. To pretend as though he wasn't dying inside every time he talked to her, saw her, got within touching distance of her. So many days practicing detachment, and she'd shown Mason how much their night together meant by offering herself up to Kieran on a silver platter.

Mason knew he had no right to be jealous. Charlie wasn't his. He wanted her to be, though. That got to him more than anything. He didn't care about the job, the glory, none of it. Not anymore. The only thing that mattered was
her
.

Another round of obnoxious knocks started up. It seemed his relationship with Charlie stemmed from their antagonism. She couldn't help but wind him up. Mason stalked to the door and threw it wide, to find her standing on the front steps, arms folded across her chest, her expression livid.

“You're seriously just going to walk away from me like that?”

She must have run to her car and followed hot on his heels after he'd left the coffee shop. He fought a smile as he pictured her, enraged, outraged, and prepared to throw down for whatever wrong she perceived had been committed against her.

That indignant fire was one of the things Mason loved about her. Unfortunately, it was also one of the things that drove him up a freaking wall.

“Yeah,” Mason said as a matter of fact. “I'm a grownup. I can do what I want.” Charlie stomped past him, into the living room, and Mason closed the door behind her.

“You're a pain in the ass, is what you are.”

“I'm a pain in the ass?”
Laughable
. “I'm not the one who's out of her depth and refuses to admit it.”

“Out of my depth?” Charlie's voice escalated with disbelief. “This is my task force. I know exactly what I'm doing.”

“And you won't let me forget it, will you?” Mason asked. “That you're the boss. That
every
decision is yours to make. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you're throwing your weight around again. It was made pretty clear to me today that you're not even above extortion to get what you want.”

“I can't believe you'd jump to that conclusion.” Charlie leaned forward, hands on her hips. “It was Carrera who suggested it would be in the task force's best interest to offer you a position with the Marshals Service in exchange for your help.”

Mason sneered. “So I'm supposed to believe that you hadn't done your homework and didn't know a job with the Marshals Service was the one thing I wanted?”

Charlie met his gaze head-on. “Yes! You were in that boardroom with me, Mason. I didn't have a clue who you were or what your connection to Kieran was. Carlos insisted we bring you on. I didn't want you.” She looked away as though embarrassed to make the admission. “You're stubborn, opinionated, have a problem with authority, and you quit your job with CBP. I saw no value in adding you to the task force. I told you, Mason, there isn't anything I won't do to bring Faction Five down. I thought you'd accepted that about me.”

Her words hit with the impact of a blow to his gut. “What else are you willing to do for the win, Charlie?”

Mason wished he could take back the words the second they left his mouth. He waited for the inevitable crack of her palm across his cheek but it never came. Instead, she leveled her icy blue gaze at him. Her silence was far worse than any other punishment she could dish out. Hurt accentuated her delicate features as she turned and headed for the door.

The eerie, pre-storm quiet of Charlie's hurt and anger settled on Mason's shoulders and pressed him toward the floor. It compressed his lungs. Squeezed the air from his chest. He forced his legs forward and reached the door as Charlie pulled it open. His fingers closed over hers on the knob and he eased it shut.

“What happened to your hand?” she asked without turning to face him.

Mason stared down at his bloodied knuckles. “My temper got the better of me.” He kept his fingers twined with hers. “I think I let it get the better of me more than once today.” It wasn't much of an apology, but it was a start.

“What do you want from me, Mason?” Charlie disentangled her hand from his and let it drop from the doorknob. She turned to face him. Anger still smoldered in her eyes, though with considerably less heat.

Where to begin? Mason couldn't think of anything he
didn't
want from her. His want of her was all-consuming. Nothing mattered anymore. Not Kieran, not the job, not even Faction Five—whoever the hell they were.

He stepped up to her and wound his fingers in the silky length of her hair. His mouth found the outer shell of her ear. “I want everything, Charlie.”

She drew in a slow breath and angled her head toward his. “So do I, Mason. And that's the problem.”

His hopes deflated like a week-old balloon. “Always the job . . .”

“You want everything. Why can't I have everything I want, too?”

Mason pulled away. He smoothed his palm over her hair that a moment ago he'd held gathered in his fist. He'd vowed to keep their relationship strictly professional after L.A. Why was it so damned hard to keep his distance from her? Charlie was intentionally antagonistic. Ambitious to a fault. Hardheaded with a king-size chip on her shoulder. Tough and brave. Beautiful and passionate. She was the perfect storm. Everything he admired and desired wrapped up in one hell of a package.

How could he be anything but obsessed?

“I want
you
, Charlie.” The anger that hadn't fully dissipated made an unwelcome reappearance. “Damn it, I don't give a single shit about anything else. Why do you think I want you as far away from Kieran as possible?”

Her anger reignited. “This is about Kieran? Jesus, Mason. When is this rivalry between you two going to end?”

Mason raked his hands through his hair before brushing it forward with a forceful flick. He blew out a frustrated breath. He might as well be banging his head against the wall, as much good as it did him. “This isn't about Kieran. This is about you, Charlie! If what you say about Faction Five is accurate, they're beyond dangerous. They'll go to any lengths to keep their identities a secret. Do you realize the position you've put yourself in? You could be killed!”

“I—” She averted her gaze. “The task force needs—”

If not for the gravity of the situation—not to mention his total exasperation with her—Mason would have taken a moment to enjoy how cute she was when she got flustered.

“I don't care what the task force needs.” Mason stepped up until he stood chest to chest with Charlie. He guided her face up to meet his. “
I
need you to be safe.
I
need to know that you're okay. At the end of the day,
I
need to know that I didn't put you at risk.” He swallowed against the emotion that gathered in his throat. “I can't have you out in the field while I'm worrying that I can't protect you. It messes with my head. My focus is shot.”

“I never said I needed you to protect me. I know what I'm involved in.”

Mason lived in a constant state of vacillating between wanting to kiss Charlie and needing to shake some damn sense into her. “I know I don't need to protect you. I
want
to!” Mason wrapped his arm around Charlie's waist and hauled her against him. “Damn it, Charlie, I think I'm—”

* * *

Charlie put her lips to Mason's before he could finish his sentence. She didn't know why, but she was terrified of the next words that might come out of his mouth. It was too soon for the intense emotions she felt, and knowing that Mason might feel them too shook Charlie to her core. They'd been playing make-believe for too long. Eventually, Mason would come to his senses. When that happened, Charlie had to be sure that her heart was guarded so her entire world didn't shatter from the pain of losing someone she'd never truly had.

Mason slanted his mouth across hers and deepened the kiss. His tongue traced her bottom lip before he took it between his teeth. Hands groped for bare skin as they tore at each other's clothes. Their breaths became wild pants as their passion built to the point of combustion.

Charlie drew in a sharp gasp as Mason thrust his hand past her waistband and into her underwear. His fingers found her clit and slid against the sensitive flesh, already swollen and dripping wet.

His lips moved against her mouth as he rasped, “I need to fuck you, Charlie. Right now.”

“Yes.” She couldn't think of anything but having Mason inside of her, his large hands on her body, his mouth branding her everywhere it touched.

Mason took her hand and led her up the narrow stairs of his town house to the bedroom. He didn't waste any time in reaching for her shirt and pulling it up and over her head. His mouth met her throat as he released the clasp of her bra and a second later it landed behind him on the floor next to her top. Mason tackled her to the bed, yanked off her shoes, her pants, her underwear. She lay on the bed, bare to his gaze, and he stared at her for a long moment.

“Goddamn, Charlie,” he said on a rush of breath.

Warmth infused her as he quickly undressed. He reached for the dresser and grabbed a condom from the top drawer. Charlie's breath raced, her heart pounded. This had been the longest week of her entire life, being away from Mason.

The gates of their restraint had been opened and all of that pent-up need flooded her. Mason rolled on the condom with a purposeful stroke and Charlie couldn't help but admire the sight of him as he stood before her. His body had no equal.

Mason grabbed Charlie by the ankles and pulled her down the mattress toward him before he rolled her over to her stomach. His hands fastened onto her hips as he hitched her ass up and drove home. Charlie let out an indulgent moan as he filled her and began to thrust. She rocked her hips back to meet his forward momentum, intensifying the sensation from the increased force.

Her fists wound into the heavy coverlet on Mason's bed and she gripped it as though it was the only thing grounding her. Each wild thrust of his hips felt better than the last, each new shock of pleasure that shot through her caused Charlie to cry out for more.

Mason's body came down over hers. He kept one hand on her hip and the other circled her stomach before it slid between her thighs. Charlie sucked in a breath as his fingers found her clit. He slid the pad of one finger over the sensitized knot of nerves as he continued to pound into her. His breath was hot in her ear as he rasped, “Come for me, Charlie.”

“Mason. Oh, God, yes.” Her thighs trembled with each flick of his fingertip and Charlie spread her legs wider to give him better access. The intensity of his finger circling her clit while he pounded into her nearly short-circuited her brain. Charlie squeezed her eyes shut. The sound of Mason's body slapping against hers, his breath as it brushed her neck, his touch, the way he filled her so completely, and the delicious friction as he fucked her was more than she could take. A violent tremor shook her as her world burst into myriad particles of stardust. Charlie cried out, wracking sobs of pleasure that echoed off the walls around her. Chills broke out over her skin, her heart hammered in her chest. Wave after wave of pleasure stole over her as Mason's caresses became softer.

“You squeeze me so tight when you come,” Mason said close to her ear. His words came from between panted breaths, distorted by the force with which he pounded into her. “I can't get enough of it.”

His hand wandered up her torso to cup her breast. Mason held her body against his as he fucked her harder, faster. She reached around and gripped his thigh as she urged him deeper still. Charlie knew exactly how he felt. When it came to Mason there was no such thing as enough. Her want of him was a bottomless chasm, endless and unfillable.

It brought her to heights of desperation she didn't know she could feel.

Charlie lost track of time, space—hell, even her own body. She was weightless, formless, floating on a cloud of bliss. Mason's low moans became desperate grunts as his body slapped against hers. His breath in her ear transformed into rasping growls and every muscle on his body went rigid to encase Charlie in stone. A shout burst from his lips as he came. The thrust of his hips became wild and disjointed. He drove hard and deep as he held her body against his and when he had nothing left to give, he collapsed beside her on the bed.