He set his internal clock and let sleep take him.
* * *
FANTASY ISLAND CAME with a sleeping beauty.
If Maddie had known Mason was the reward for early-morning exercise, she'd have jumped out of bed. He looked downright edible-and sound asleep. Poor baby. She stepped off the path and into the lookout point. Just as pretty as it had been the other morning, when Mason had startled her and she'd lost her memory card. Calm blue lagoon with a clear view of the fringing reef. Lots of palm trees and just a slice of white sugary beach. She was looking at calendar material.
The man didn't hurt, either. She told herself that her heart banging in her ears had nothing to do with Sleeping Beauty, even if he did look cute, sprawled facedown on the love seat. When he didn't so much as twitch as she approached, she checked to make sure he was breathing-which he was, because his lungs were undoubtedly as fit as the rest of him-and then checked out his mighty fine ass in his cargo pants. He wore the usual pair of industrial-strength boots and the fitted cotton T-shirt that seemed to be his wardrobe staple when he wasn't sporting chef whites. Today he looked like a mixed-martial-arts champion or someone else suitably large and rough around the edges. The only thing missing was a sleeve of tattoos. God, she loved a good tattoo.
Almost perfect, but not quite...
Huh. Maybe that could be fixed.
She rummaged in her bag-the joys of being prepared-and fished out a stick of sunscreen. She was an excellent almost girlfriend, because this was classy colored sunscreen that came with cartoon characters on the tube. But really, she had a problem. What to write? The thick, corded arm over his face severely restricted the amount of available real estate. His other arm stretched across his head. She looked up at the sky. Perfect. It was like having her very own darkroom-he'd be sporting her extraspecial message in about another hour. Delicately, she finger painted a word onto his arm, outlining three perfect letters in the cream. H-O-T.
She was just settling in to enjoy herself when Mason came awake. One minute, her sleeping beauty was sprawled out in a power nap, and the next he'd rolled, pulling her beneath him and pinning her wrists with one hand. His hand gripped her jaw, the other pressed over her throat.
Oh. My. God. Mental note: don't poke the sleeping giant.
The sunscreen fell from her hand as her heart kicked into overdrive. Mason looked...scary. And she wasn't entirely sure she could breathe.
"It's just me," she said hoarsely.
He blinked and looked down at her. He didn't ease up on his grip on her jaw. "Maddie?"
She twisted her head, trying to dislodge his hand. Downplay it. "Somebody wakes up grumpy."
He stared down at her, as if he had no idea how he'd ended up on top of her. She'd draw him a diagram-later. She wriggled, because the position had both possibilities and some serious drawbacks. Breathing, for instance, fell into the drawback category. Her man seriously outweighed her and it felt as though a water buffalo had parked himself on her boobs. Taking a deep breath was impossible.
Help.
"Maddie?" The way he rasped her name in a sleep-roughened voice fell into the possibilities column. He whipped his hand away from her throat, a move she appreciated even as she made a mental note to never, ever poke him awake in the middle of the night. "Fuck."
"I'm good with that," she said, because making a joke was so much better than dealing with unwelcome trembling she couldn't quite stop. When had Mason gotten so fierce looking? "If you're volunteering to put out."
He didn't look particularly pleased to see her, but he also didn't wear his emotions on his face. She wiggled again, to remind him that she was still pinned beneath him-with the water buffalo parked on her chest. And, thank you, downtown interest from Mason. She also had to wonder why he still hadn't let go of her wrists.
"Are we playing domination games? Because I've never done that before. You could be my first."
He sprang off her, and that was about as far from flattering as it was possible to get.
"Did I hurt you? Can you breathe?"
She took a quick inventory because he looked so serious. It was cute, the way he worried. "I'm a little more 2-D than 3-D at the moment, but I'll live. And I've got my inhaler if I need it."
He thunked his head back on the lounger and groaned. He hadn't been all that rough, so she had no idea what his problem was. Maybe he was still wrestling with his inner gentleman-in which case, she was probably the one who needed to do the apologizing, because her inner bad girl had come out days ago with one goal and one goal only: get Mason into bed.
He pushed up on one elbow. She, on the other hand, was content to lie there and stare up at him. Who needed to get all energetic about things? Not only was he gorgeous when he was all sleepy and rumpled, but his eyes held a concern that she liked all too much. She really didn't think she was just a convenient vacation hookup for him. Really. She didn't.
Or maybe that was just more wishful thinking on her part.
"No bruises. No broken bones," she said cheerfully. "In fact, I'm as good as new."
He rubbed his thumb over her throat, smoothing the skin he'd strong-armed. "Hurting you is the last thing I want to do. You need to be careful when I'm asleep. I don't-"
"Wake up well?" Understatement. On the other hand, his words sure implied he planned on doing some more waking up around her, and just the thought had her heart hammering at her rib cage, as if the thing could leap straight out and into Mason's arms. If she was lucky, the waking up would happen after a night of really hot sex. She could suggest a practice session. Or two. Or six...
"Yeah." He dragged a hand down his face. "Look-"
She needed to point one thing out. "If you apologize, I'm going to kill you."
He nodded. "Duly noted, although I feel the need to point out that apologizing would be the polite thing to do."
"Because you pinned me?" She shrugged. "You startled me. I got over it. To be honest, I found it kind of sexy."
He made a choked sound.
See? The man really didn't have serial killer tendencies after all. She'd caught him at a bad moment. That was all.
"I've shocked you." She crossed her arms over her chest. Partly because she needed to do something with her hands, and putting them on Mason's body was apparently not an option this afternoon, but also because the move gave her some serious cleavage. From the way Mason's eyes darkened, he'd definitely noticed. He didn't make a move, though. The man sure had discipline.
She sighed. "You're going to insist on being a gentleman, aren't you?"
"Probably." He stood up. "Come on."
"Where are we going?" Say to bed, her inner bad girl begged shamelessly. Because that was where we really want to be.
"I'll walk you back to your place because I'm a gentleman," he said, flashing a grin. She made a face. "How can you look like such a bad boy but be such a nice guy?"
* * *
MASON AND LEVI had done BUD/S training together before they'd shipped out to the same unit. That practically made them an old married couple, but right now Mason had divorce on his mind. He tracked Levi down and found the guy doing push-ups on the beach. Levi turned his head as Mason stormed the beach.
"What's up?"
He tackled Levi and the man collapsed with a satisfying thud on the sand.
"You couldn't give me a heads-up that Maddie was moving?"
Levi grunted and bucked upward. Mason turned his own head just in time to avoid a fistful of sand aimed at his eyes. Levi fought dirty, which was okay, because Mason was no gentleman, either. No matter what Maddie believed. He rolled, using his weight to pin Levi down.
"We're having a conversation about this," he ground out. He was in a pissy mood and he knew it, but he didn't need Maddie sneaking up on him when he was sleeping. "She was perfectly safe," Levi said, hooking a leg around his. Mason went briefly airborne before his back met the sand. Jesus. That hurt. Wasn't sand supposed to be soft? Surging up, he went for Levi, pulling the other man back down.
"How do you know that?"
"Because I followed her up that hill. I even waited while she checked you out, did her thing and you woke up. Some dating advice? Choking the girl is a guaranteed way to lose the girl unless she's into some really kinky stuff you'd be better off avoiding."
Okay. So Maddie hadn't been out alone. He let Levi's head go, enjoying the satisfying thunk when Levi's skull connected with the sand.