Page 11 of Rescued by a SEAL

“And avoiding her paycheck along with it?” Mason asked, raising his eyebrows. “Doesn’t add up. Besides, she could’ve easily just told me she wasn’t interested, and I would’ve backed off. She knows that. Hell, she could’ve told any one of you guys that she wanted me to leave her alone. We’re in here all the damn time.”

Ryker shrugged, his gaze trailing after two women walking by their table. Each had on a cropped top and a short skirt that barely covered their ass. Mile high come-fuck-me heels. Mason would’ve been all over that type of woman when he was younger, but now?

His gaze was drawn again toward Taylor.

Those tight jeans and snug tee shirt did more for him than those women flaunting their bodies.

Hell.

When had he turned into such an old man, anyway?

“Excuse me,” Ryker said, abruptly standing up from the table. “I’m going to go buy those ladies a drink.”

“Both of them?” Hunter asked, grinning. Emma had finished eating and was snuggled up against him, and he absentmindedly caressed her shoulder.

“If I’m lucky,” Ryker said with a smirk. “Don’t wait up for me, fellas.”

The table chuckled as he sauntered away.

“He’s never going to change, is he?” Emma asked glancing up at Hunter.

“That’s a negative, princess,” Hunter said.

“Not a chance in hell,” Mason agreed. He watched as Emma nonchalantly took Hunter’s hand and almost shook his head in disbelief. A couple of months after they’d met her in London, and those two were head over heels.

He never thought he’d see his SEAL team leader anxious to settle down with a woman, but the truth was stranger than fiction sometimes. Emma had moved in with Hunter—flown across an entire ocean to be with him—and they were happily together now. They had the house. The lovey-dovey looks. All they needed was a dog and the two point five kids to be living the American dream.

“Ryker seems rather happy chasing after women, no?” Camila said from her seat beside Colton. “Men like that have no reason to change.”

“Somehow you changed this guy,” Mason said, nodding toward Colton. “He wasn’t going to let us leave Colombia without you.”

“Can you blame him?” Camila teased, pretending to pout at her boyfriend. “Look what he’d be missing out on if he’d left me behind.”

Mason smirked in amusement, but Colton’s jaw tightened. They joked about their relationship now, but Colton and the rest of the Delta team had rescued Camila from a sex-trafficking ring in Bogota. No one wanted to think about what would’ve happened if they hadn’t gotten to her in time.

It killed Colton and the rest of the guys even now knowing there were other women still being held down there. Not to mention all the other women being trafficked world-wide. There wasn’t a hell of a lot one SEAL team could do to rescue every single woman in harm’s way though. Mason’s mind had been occupied enough with Taylor recently, trying to solve that puzzle.

The conversation continued on around him, but Mason’s gaze was again drawn to the front of Anchors as Taylor walked out from behind the bar with a pad and pen in one hand.

Her dark ponytail swished back and forth, her hips swayed slightly as she moved, and then Mason was instinctively rising.

Walking over toward her.

Her lips parted in surprise as she saw him approach, but she paused, waiting for him to get to her.

He noticed the rise and fall of her chest, her breasts pressing against her form-fitting tee shirt. Hell, there were plenty of women in here wearing significantly less than that, but Taylor in a snug shirt and tight jeans was sexy as hell. A long silver pendant was around her neck, and he saw she had tiny silver hoops in her ears.

Nothing about her was flashy or attention seeking like the women who were quite obviously trying too hard, but she sure had his attention every time he waked in.

One glance at her always had his heartrate increasing and his libido rising.

“Long time no see,” he said in a low voice, loving the flush that spread over her cheeks as she gazed up at him. At six-foot-two, he towered above her petite frame. Something about that made her all the more appealing to him though. He felt protective of her. Attracted to her.

And definitely interested in getting to know her better.

Preferably intimately, but he’d settle for taking things slowly. At the rate they’d been going, it be another few weeks before she even agreed to go out with him. It had taken long enough just to get her number.

“You disappeared for a while,” she said with a small smile. Her chest rose and fell slightly as she spoke, and he realized she was nervous with the way she was clutching her order pad in a death grip.

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