“That joke got old about the twentieth time you trotted it out on Fantasy Island after we did the beach thing. Do I look like a missus? Maybe I missed the part where you tattooed property of on my ass.”
She bent her knees, ducked under his arm and pushed him hard against the wall. He let her slam him into the paint job and that pissed her off even more. Life was one big joke to Levi Brandon and she hated it when he played with her.
“It’s not a joke, babe. We’re married.”
“Uh-huh. Tell that one to the judge and back the hell off.” That was another thing about Levi—he could deliver a joke with a perfectly straight face.
“You need to listen to me on this one.” He flipped her around smoothly, face to the wall, wrists pinned over her head. Since the man had to have almost a hundred pounds on her, she was at a definite disadvantage in close quarters.
“Scared?” Sure, it wasn’t nice to taunt him, but around him her inner five-year-old came out to play.
“Not exactly,” he said cheerfully. “But someone’s going to end up in the ER if we keep showing each other our moves. Plus kink’s not my thing. I didn’t come here to hurt you.”
“So you’re manhandling me to be nice?” She didn’t bother hiding the disbelief in her voice. Truth was, Levi did what he wanted and he didn’t worry about the consequences. It must be nice. She was also fairly certain he had a much broader acquaintance with kink than she did.
In answer, he kicked her legs wider, which was a challenge given the lack of give in her skirt. Heat hit her hard between her thighs, her panties dampening as she felt him against her back. Chemical reaction. That was all. Sure, it sucked that she got horny around Levi, but he came in a pretty package and looking at him had never been a hardship. It was when she had to listen to him that things went to hell.
It took him less than fifteen seconds to find the gun tucked in the small of her back. He slipped it out of her waistband and set it on her desk. “Sexy.”
“Back off and tell me why you’re here.” Had the Marcos brothers managed to shake the charges against them? If they’d been assigned a third mission together, surely the special agent in charge would have notified her.
“You think I need a reason to be here? Maybe I had a couple of weeks of leave coming to me and just missed your lovely face.” He pressed harder against her, tucking his dick against her butt as if he had some kind of right to do so. Clearly, it had been too long since she’d had sex—working undercover with SEAL teams had definitely put a crimp in her social life—because she couldn’t even work up much outrage at his erection. He was huge, he was turned on and apparently her sexual drought had lasted long enough that she was willing to cut him some slack. Sucker her brain crowed at her libido.
“Well, I’m not helping you with that.” She wriggled her butt against his front just to make her point and he hissed.
“Yeah. Don’t worry about it. Dick’s got a mind of its own and it really, really likes your skirt.”
And that was the problem with Levi. The outside package was hot—hello, she’d never met an ugly SEAL—but then he opened his mouth. Too bad she couldn’t duct tape his lips shut and just admire the view.
“Could you be more offensive? Is this your idea of a joke?” Because she didn’t feel like laughing and she was this close to kneeing him in the balls the next chance she got.
“You hear a punch line coming out of my mouth?”
“You want to know how many practical jokes I’ve been the butt of over the years? When you’re the only female on a team, you hear it all.”
He whistled. “You work with some nasty people, Dixon.”
She drove her head back, pulling free of his hold and swinging her elbow toward his cheekbone. If she accidentally introduced his head to her desk on his way down, she didn’t care. He hit the floor with a thud and a laugh, twisting to avoid her office furniture. Great. The agents on the floor below would be banging on the ceiling.
Grabbing her gun, she loaded it with swift efficiency while he rolled lightly to his feet. “A vagina doesn’t make me stupid.”
He gave her a look she couldn’t interpret. “I’ve never thought you were stupid.”
Well. Okay, then.
He grinned at her and kept right on running his mouth. Levi never had known when to quit. “Deadly. Irritating as hell. Adorably geeky when you get your computer on. Those adjectives all work for me, although after you seeing you in your skirt, I’m adding sexy because I believe in calling it like I see it. You should dress up for me more often, babe.” Chuckling with amusement, he added, “I have nothing but respect for your skills. I just give you shit because I give all my guys crap.”
She pretended she didn’t feel a small spurt of warmth at his compliment. After all, she was still debating hurting him.
“I’m just one of the guys now? Go away.” She dropped into her office chair and motioned toward her door with the gun. She’d left the safety on, which was more than he deserved. “That was fun. We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
He leaned against the edge of her desk and fished an envelope out of his jacket. “We’re married. Read for yourself.”
She opened it and pulled out a fancy-schmancy certificate with black calligraphy and plenty of gold foil. Once upon a time, the thing had probably been elegant as hell, but now it was full of creases from repeated folding. Hot sauce decorated one corner. Obviously, whatever it was, he highly valued it. Not.
The letter was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Brandon and she got a bad, bad feeling in her stomach. “This is dated three weeks ago.”
He shrugged. “I was in a foxhole. The postal service doesn’t deliver out there.”
She read on and froze. “How can we possibly be married?”
“I imagine it was that part where the minister asked us if we ‘did.’ Shoulda lied, babe.”
“That was a fake ceremony.” She set the papers on her desk. Levi had to be joking for some sick, twisted, unfathomable reason. They couldn’t be married. They were the two least compatible people on the planet, not to mention she’d sworn off marriage after watching her parents’ union explode so spectacularly.
And if those weren’t good enough reasons, she had a performance review in four weeks, and a congressional hearing to attend in two. She’d blown the whistle on a team of DEA agents who’d treated their Central American posting as party central under the mistaken assumption that they could do whatever they wanted with impunity, so it definitely wouldn’t look good if it came out that she’d been involved in a fake wedding ceremony in Belize. A ceremony where the real bride and groom were supposed to be a notorious drug kingpin and his girlfriend, but they’d been a no-show because they’d been arrested and carted out to international waters by an undercover SEAL team. She could practically see the headlines now: DEA Agent Is Wedding Proxy for Drug Lord.
Levi lifted his broad shoulders in another shrug. “Apparently, the minister didn’t get the memo and someone in the registry department agrees with him—and sent us that commemorative piece of paper.”
“It has to be a prank.” God knew, the SEALs loved a good joke. This one seemed kind of elaborate, but sometimes the guys had too much thinking time on their hands. “Did you call the registry department and verify this? Or do you believe anything someone writes on a piece of paper?”
“The registry department,” Levi said tightly, “apparently had a close encounter with a tropical rainstorm two weeks ago. Most of the roof went and the filing system took a direct hit. No one is answering the phones because half the staff is on leave while the government rebuilds. The half of