Roxanne St. Claire - Barefoot With a Bad Boy (Barefoot Bay Undercover #3) Read online

  Barefoot with a Bad Boy

  Barefoot Bay Undercover #3

  Roxanne St. Claire

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to Barefoot Bay Undercover…where love is in the air and suspense will heat up the sand. Like every book set in Barefoot Bay, this novel stands entirely alone, but why stop at just one? Barefoot Bay is a whole world of romance, friends and family, and unforgettable stories, divided into bite-size trilogies so you can dive in to the water anytime and stay as long as you like!

  The Barefoot Bay Billionaires

  Secrets on the Sand

  Seduction on the Sand

  Scandal on the Sand

  The Barefoot Bay Brides

  Barefoot in White

  Barefoot in Lace

  Barefoot in Pearls

  Barefoot Bay Undercover

  Barefoot Bound (prequel)

  Barefoot with a Bodyguard

  Barefoot with a Stranger

  Barefoot with a Bad Boy

  Want to know the day the next Barefoot Bay book is released? Sign up for the newsletter! You’ll get brief monthly e-mails about new releases and book sales.

  http://www.roxannestclaire.com/newsletter.html

  Dedication

  Barefoot With a Bad Boy is dedicated with love and gratitude to the thousands of readers who’ve reached out and asked me to write Gabe’s book. Thank you for plucking this secondary character from the pages of older books and falling in love with his dirty mouth (you’ve been warned: he swears a lot!) and his clever wit. I hope that his love story meets and exceeds your fantasies.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Books Set in Barefoot Bay

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Prologue

  “Gabe?”

  “Mmmh.”

  “Are you awake, sweetie?”

  “No.”

  “Please wake up.” A finger trailed over his bicep. Soft. Enticing. Inviting. Like the woman who owned it.

  He eased around, sucking air when his morning boner jabbed a luscious hip. “Okay.” He grunted the word. “I might be awake.” He slid a hand around Isadora’s waist and turned her so they were facing each other. “Awake…enough.”

  She hesitated for a second, then melted into him. “It’s impossible to resist you.”

  “Why would you want to?” He used his knee to spread her legs, heat and blood surging as his dick found its way home.

  “Because I have tell you something that might be…hard.”

  He opened one eye just to see if she could possibly be serious. “That joke is too easy for me, even at this hour.”

  “No joke is too easy for you, at any hour. But I do want to talk.”

  There was an edge in her voice. The predawn light slipping in through the cheap metal blinds revealed bright green eyes that had definitely been alert for longer than he had. A hint of shadows under them made him suspect she might have been awake for hours. Even so, Isadora Winter was beautiful, and when she was the very first thing he saw when he woke up, Gabe Rossi was a happy, happy man.

  Happy and hard.

  “Talk later.” He gave a little thrust, nesting in her warm, wet center. She let out something that fell between a sigh and a moan, which he took as permission to proceed without caution, slowly building the rhythm and the heat between them.

  “We’re perfect together,” he mused, fading sleep and growing need making him feel expansive and honest.

  No, it was Isa who made him feel that way. Isa with her jade eyes and wavy chocolate and caramel hair. Isa with her quick wit and tender heart and sweet, sweet soul. Isa who got him like no woman he’d ever met and had him like no woman ever would.

  “Isadora…” He nudged his way inside her, earning a quiet gasp of pleasure. “I adore ya.”

  “And poetry at dawn.” She laughed under her breath, turning onto her back with another sigh, this one pure resignation.

  “It’s working, isn’t it?” He moved over her but kept his face nestled in the smooth skin of her neck. There, he could flick his tongue under her earlobe because he knew it was step one to making her lose it.

  Shuddering under him, she bowed her back, letting him deeper into her. Which would be step two. He slammed into her, not bothering to hold back or use any finesse.

  They’d finessed the holy hell out of each other last night. Every night. But right now, all achy morning wood, he just wanted to start the day right, buried inside the woman he loved. He inhaled the lingering fragrance of Chanel No. 5 mixed with the remnant aroma of a hibiscus flower she tucked behind her ear when they went out on hot Cuban nights.

  All those sexy, spicy scents that his brain would forever associate with this woman. His woman.

  She dug her nails into his shoulders, and her whimpers grew more desperate as the sound of her imminent orgasm dragged him to the edge. His balls clutched in agony and ecstasy while his lower half seized up with blinding, crazy pleasure. Everything faded until the world was gone.

  Only Isadora and Gabe, one unit, one thing, one…one.

  “Oh, Gabe. Gabe. I can’t…”

  “Yeah, you can.” He ground into her slick skin, holding her so tight he felt every muscle tense. “Just…like…this.” Opening his eyes, he lifted his head to see her face. He loved to watch her come. It did him in.

  Pleasure punched its way through, wicked and wild and…wait. Were those tears in her eyes?

  Of course they were. Because…this was it. This was the real fucking deal, and he was all in. All in.

  Literally and emotionally. All…the…way…in.

  He squeezed his eyes closed, a warning to slow down flittering through his brain, but it was instantly wiped out by the need for her. Need and heat and exquisite, sweet torture collided into one long, achingly perfect release of everything he had into her.

  Oh, hell yeah.

  He collapsed onto her, vaguely aware that she hadn’t come.

  Digging for strength, he pushed up again. “We’re not done, baby,” he promised her.

  “Yeah.” Her voice was soft and uncharacteristically uncertain. “Yeah, we are…for the time being.”

  He managed a dry laugh, slipping his hand between them, working his finger over her. “I don’t think you’ve actually met Gabe Rossi, orgasm deliverer.” He rubbed the spot where they joined. “I should have introduced myself that way when we met at headquarters. Right”—he made a tiny circle, guaranteed to make her melt—“on the damn CIA insignia. Remember the spot?” He underscored that by rubbing her spot.

  But she didn’t move, didn’t arch into his hand and let him pleasure her the way he’d done a hundred times since the day
he spied a beauty of a recruit and teased her right into his bed that very week. And every time he needed a translator on a job, he requested Isadora, and they always fell a little bit harder into each other’s arms.

  And then they hit Cuba. Guantanamo Bay. Of all the craptacular places to fall in love. For these six months, it wasn’t just hot sex and good times. This was it. Forever.

  They both knew it.

  “I really need to talk to you,” she said, still not giving him full access to the tender skin between her legs.

  Is that what she wanted to tell him? How serious this was? Because he was totally down for that conversation. As soon as he delivered what he’d promised.

  “Not until you are weak and under my spell.”

  Her eyes, still misty, narrowed at him. “I am not weak.” The statement sounded like a well-practiced mantra…or a protest. “Nor am I under your spell.”

  His finger stilled, more from the tone than the words. Her tone from the minute he woke up, come to think of it. Isa laughed during sex. She never gave up without full satisfaction. She delighted in everything they did in the sack and out of it.

  But not today. She wasn’t delighted at all.

  Very slowly, he removed his hand and, worse, himself. Pulling out, eyeing her with a mix of trepidation and curiosity, he let his weight fall on his side of the bed.

  On his back, he took a slow, deep breath. Without a word, she inched closer and placed her head on his shoulder. A shoulder that he swore God made for the sole purpose of letting Isa rest on him.

  “What is it?” he finally asked.

  “I’ve been reassigned. Long term. Possibly years. Undercover. And I’m leaving Cuba in about an hour.”

  He closed his eyes as the knife ripped right through him. “Fuuuuuuuuuck.”

  *

  Isadora slipped out of bed before he could finish his favorite exclamation, or change her mind. Which she’d like to think she was too strong and determined to let happen, but it was Gabe. And, despite her protests, she was completely under his spell.

  But some things trumped love. Like…duty. And lives—precious, innocent, important lives—that needed to be saved.

  “Where are you going?” he demanded.

  “The bathroom.”

  “Isa.” All humor was gone. Eyes the color of a perfect summer sky turned to stormy slits. “Where the hell are you going?”

  “You know I can’t tell you.” Especially because she wasn’t entirely sure herself, just that it was far and deep under.

  “What? You’re serious?” Gabe gave a disgusted choke, running a hand through his thick, dark hair as if he wanted to tear out the truth that was finally processing. “They can’t reassign you. Who else could translate shut up you needle-nose dick in Punjabi and Urdu? I need you here.”

  “Well, they need me somewhere else. Last time I checked, I didn’t work for you, I worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, and I go where they tell me to go.” Or, in this case, where she asked to go.

  She headed across the tiny studio apartment to the bathroom, closing the door without slamming or locking it, the very act of being so in control giving her the adrenaline shot she needed.

  “Isa.” He was right outside the door now. “We have to talk about this.”

  Oh, now he wanted to talk.

  But he was right. They did have to talk. If she couldn’t convince Gabe that she was strong, driven, and doing the right thing, then how could she infiltrate a covert operation and stop deadly attacks? This was just the first of many obstacles she was about to face.

  But if she opened the door, there would be gloriously naked Gabe, ripped, built, and hung like no man she’d ever met, leaning against the doorjamb with just enough of a crooked smile to let her know he had this fight in the bag.

  Think of Mom and Dad, Isa. You could save someone the pain you’ve been through.

  She called on Dexter Crain’s words to give her the strength she needed, slipping on a cotton robe before she opened the door.

  He was glorious all right, and naked. And built to make a woman weep with want. But there wasn’t even the shadow of a smile on his face.

  “How long will you be gone?”

  How could he even ask that question? “How long have you been a consultant for the CIA?”

  “Coming on eleven fucktastic years.”

  “And have you ever, in that entire time, known the length of an assignment?”

  “I might have had an idea. And your stuff, the translation stuff, they know how long they need you.”

  Translation stuff. There it was, that subtle dismissal because the stuff that Isadora Winter did for the CIA wasn’t exactly the stuff that Gabriel Rossi did. He was a badass contract agent who kept the company at arm’s length, and she was a low-level translator and employee who jumped as high as they demanded. Higher.

  And this assignment? Over the top, which was why it appealed to her.

  “This is different,” she said vaguely. “And…important.”

  “It’s all important, Isadora.” He found his voice now, and his brain was fully engaged as he pinned her with his eyes and barely hid a low-grade bubble of anger.

  “This is antiterrorism, Gabe, and you, of all people, know how important that is to me.”

  “What the hell do you think we’re doing here? Why do you think we’ve spent the last six months in this particular corner of hell trying to convince asswipe terrorist detainees to go home to some fuckistani country and spy for the US? That’s antiterrorism.”

  Indirectly. And her translating job was pretty mundane. This new one would be anything but. “I want this assignment,” she said.

  He pushed by her, grabbing his toothbrush and twisting the faucet hard enough to pull the rusty thing out of the wall of her dilapidated Cuban apartment.

  Of course the Italian temper would flare. Because he heard “I want this assignment more than I want you.” Which wasn’t what she’d said, but maybe it was implied.

  She did want this assignment, she thought as she pulled a suitcase out of the tiny closet. Not only were her linguistic and translation skills critical, she knew the targets and their weaknesses. So did Gabe, of course, and a few others who’d been at Gitmo these past few months, but none of them spoke a dozen languages. None of them could slide under the radar, unnoticed and unrecognized.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about it sooner?” He stood in the doorway, a mouthful of toothpaste, the brush frozen in midair.

  She shrugged. “I thought you were going to take that assignment in Miami and we’d go our separate ways. Again.”

  “I never wanted that job in Miami, Isa.” He turned and spit noisily into the sink. “I was planning to tell them this week to shove Miami and their Cuban Mafia up their asses because I didn’t want to leave you. Again.”

  She refused to let that sway her. “Well, I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t absolutely sure I’d get it. I’ve been waiting for word from Washington, and that just came through overnight.”

  “Washington and not Langley?” He yanked a towel from the rack and swiped it over his mouth.

  “Both.”

  “So Sexy Dexy’s given you a plum job in Europe with stupid benefits and easy hours.”

  “Not in Europe,” she said, plucking some jewelry on the dresser into her hand. There were no benefits, and the hours would be 24/7.

  He came out of the bathroom and got right in front of her, his eyes cobalt blue with anger now. “But it is a Senator Dexter Crain special, handpicked for his best girl.”

  “You don’t wear jealousy as well as your snarky grin, Gabe.”

  “Oh yeah.” He snapped the towel and flipped it on the bed. “I’m burning up with jealousy over some white-haired monkey whose lips are swollen from kissing every behind inside the Beltway.”

  She closed her eyes, grateful that he was pissing her off with his tantrum and not sweet-talking her. Or, worse, making her laugh. “Dex is the chairman of the Senate Intell
igence Committee, and his connections at the CIA got me here, as you recall, a move that suited both our needs.”

  “My needs are eternally grateful. Why is the Dixter yanking you away, then?”

  “Gabe.” She was used to his flippant comments and bone-deep irreverence, but on this subject, it irked. “You know he’s been like a father to me since my parents died. I’d have never joined the CIA without his help and influence. He gave me a purpose again, a reason to fight after 9/11.”

  “We all had a reason to fight after 9/11.”

  “Not quite like mine.” She wrapped her arms around herself, the memory of that horrible day as a freshman at the University of Virginia still raw. Dex, her father’s closest friend and a man she’d known since childhood, had called her personally to tell her that not only was Colonel Winter in the Pentagon on the way to a joint task force meeting, but Isadora’s mother had accompanied him and was walking with her husband when the plane hit, killing them both.

  She still couldn’t take a deep breath when she thought about the intensity of the loss. Only the love of Senator and Mrs. Crain had gotten her though those ugly, broken days. “He’s watched over me and helped my career in ways I cannot begin to explain, and I’m tired of trying. I know you don’t like him or his politics, but I owe him a lot.”