No Time for Caution

by K. T. Samois

  His voice is one of the best things about him, and she likes it so much more when it’s muffled between her legs. The only downside is that every time he’s got his mouth there, her own starts babbling the most obscene things. Every single one of those daydreams in that journal, every dirty fantasy she’s ever jotted down…

  Now I can have them all. Oh, God, we’re filthy rich, and I am going to make an honest man out of him and then let him fuck my brains out on-

  “-silk covered sheets, and soundproofed walls, and somewhere just for us, and a bathtub the size of a pool for us to share, and I want a room with all leather chairs and wooden cabinets that lock and maybe something for restraints, because that’d be fun to try and- Hardin!”

  His mouth is a live-wire between her legs. If it weren’t for years of practice and the bolster of his hands holding her steady, Ree’s sure she’d have toppled over by now.

  “Please, Hardin-”

  “My title, Riona,” Hardin says with military precision, and Ree shudders, hard.

  His hand rises, teasing her with fingers dextrous enough to disarm a bomb. Leather slides under lace, and as he strokes her, Riona’s hands dig into his shoulders hard enough that she feels a nail snap. She doesn’t even care.

  “Sir! Please, sir.”

  “Please, sir, what?”

  “Please, sir-” This is the moment of truth. Ask for it. Politely. “Please, sir, please make me come.”

  The noise of triumph Hardin makes goes straight to her core, and when his hand pulls her panties aside and spreads her, it takes barely more than a breath for her to come shuddering apart.

  She’s barely finished when she’s snapping her leg down and sliding to her knees, hands fumbling with his zipper in their eagerness.

  When she gets her mouth around him, he’s hot as a brand.

  It doesn’t take long, either; he groans her name when he finishes, and Ree licks her lips with satisfaction. Sitting boneless between his feet, she sighs contentedly as he tucks himself back into his trousers.

  “Green,” she purrs, and then tosses the entire mass of her hair over his thigh. “So green.”

  Hardin sits back in the chair, a self-satisfied smile on his face. His voice sounds terribly fond as he removes his gloves and tosses them aside. The light reflects off the leather, seal-slick with her arousal, and Ree resolves to buy him a hundred bespoke pairs.

  “Ballet, hm? I’ve never seen one like that.” He gets his bare hand in her hair, stroking his fingers along all the pulse points, and Ree goes boneless.

  “Well,” Ree says from her spot on the floor, mocking every snooty dance mistress she’s ever heard. “You’re a man of means now. It’s important to be refined.”

  ***

  “Oh, I loved this place! Good call, Captain.”

  “It was a wonderful evening, Riona, with extremely pleasant company.”

  “And if you keep that tone up, we’re going to keep ours waiting”, she teases back. He chuckles, but releases her hand to guide the car into the valet parking. Ree stays seated when Hardin steps out; he waves away the valet and gets the door for her himself.

  “Let me guess,” Ree says as she scans the crowd. “The big guy in the wrap-around sunglasses; for sure, he’s ours.”

  And the whip-thin man with the dark eyes and dark hair, who drops a cigarette and sidles away from the wall like a street-dog from somewhere hot and dusty. He’s one of ours too. He must be Rozier.

  “There’s Martinez,” Hardin adds, nodding his chin at the short woman with dark hair and berry-black eyes cutting through the crowd like she’s all elbows.

  “And you must be Theo.” Ree greets the man who lopes up to them. He’s a handsome Asian man in his mid-thirties, dressed in a slim-tailored suit and wearing a vintage Patek Phillippe watch that costs more than some cars.

  Old money, Ree thinks, looking at the easy way he wears it. You make interesting friends, Captain.

  Mr. Theo Chen - of the Chens of Hong Kong, Sydney, and, most recently, New York - grins at her. The effect thaws the patrician lines of his face, and Ree relaxes a bit. “Sure am,” he agrees.

  “And it’s lovely to meet you. The Captain’s said nothing at all about you, ever, Miss Araby. Clearly, an interrogation is in order.”

  “Then before we begin, let me thank you for an excellent recommendation for a first date, or a last meal! We had a really great time, Theo.”

  She can see his look go from polite interest to professional focus, but before he can say anything, the boulder arrives. Martinez follows in his wake. Ree greets them both with the same cheery tone.

  “Hi! You must be Martinez. And- wow.” Ree blurts, eyes flying wide at the sight of the Desert Eagle tucked into his shoulder holster of the extremely large and very intimidating man’s suit jacket.

  “I get that a lot.” Shard says with a chuckle, but even though her cheeks go bright red, she doesn’t back down. Rather, she holds his eyes steadily, and then drops them deliberately to his gun.

  When she speaks, her voice is businesslike.

  “I didn’t know the .50AE are concealed carry qualified in New York State.”

  “They’re not,” Shard replies, a lazy challenge in his voice.

  Unfortunately for him, Ree’s a hard woman to intimidate. “Then zip up your jacket so you don’t get caught,” she tells him as though she were giving Moira some solid life advice. “We’re a start-up. I can’t afford to post bail.”

  There’s a moment of crackling silence wherein Ree reminds herself this man defuses — or builds — bombs for a living, and then-

  “I like her!” He announces to the world at large and makes his way towards the restaurant front doors. Ree looks up at Hardin and gives an anemic wheeze.

  Theo makes the arrangements for the table in rapid-fire Hokkien, and it takes the server about two seconds to find them a spot. If I thought the service before was fast… I wonder if he knows, or is, the owner? Either way, good guy to know. Sorcha hasn’t been this nice to me since grade school.

  “Get the century egg with chilli pepper sauce,” Shard recommends, and Martinez snorts.

  “If you feel like feeling it later, ey? That’s spicy. The deep-fried lobster dumplings are pretty good, though.”

  “Martinez, the last time you had something else, we were all a decade younger,” Hardin says dryly.

  “You’ve known each other that long?” Ree blurts before it occurs to her that that might be a bit gauche to say to a pack of mercenaries. Martinez barks out a laugh, but Hardin only nods.

  “Give or take. We met up in the sandbox at the same FOB.”

  “Speaking of spicy. Roz, didn’t you eat some shrapnel on that one?” Shard hasn’t taken his wrap-around lenses off, and Ree’s a bit afraid to ask about it.

  “A bit,” the quiet man says. He’s got the sort of face that might be in its thirties or might be three-thousand; she’s pretty sure she recognizes him from carvings in the Babylonian exhibit at the Louvre. “Most of that mission is still Classified, though.”

  “Probably filed next to the Arc of the Covenant-” Martinez fills in.

  “-and wrapped in the Shroud of Turin, no doubt.” Hardin finishes with a ghost of a smirk, clearly an old refrain amongst friends.

  Ree’s glad to know he doesn’t run these missions on his own, that there’s someone there to watch his back.

  “Enjoy your meal, everyone!”

  The servers descend like a murmuration of swallows, all moving in one big flurry of plates. When they retreat, there’s food covering nearly every surface, and although everyone gets themselves busy with eating, the inevitable shoe drops the second they’re alone.

  “So now that we have a bit of time to chat uninterrupted… what’s with the very short notice squad reunion, Captain?”

  “Jesus, Martinez,” Shard mutters. “No tact.”

  “Man, I got a kid with a bedtime. This is a fancy feast and all, but I am on a schedule. Not that I don’t love you guys, but
my mom’s watching Graciela for me tonight. If I show up late, it’ll be to a kid with a belly full of Abuela’s candy.”

  “Oh, may I ask how old she is?” Ree knows it’s probably best practice not to know too much about your mercs, but these are friends of Hardin’s. She’ll take the risk.

  “Eighteen months and getting bossier by the day.”

  “Well, we’ll try not to keep you, Martinez, and thank you for joining us. It was actually my idea.” Ree says, taking Hardin’s hand in hers. “I asked Hardin to do it.”

  “Do what?” Theo leans forward, eyes fixed on hers. His gaze is strikingly direct. Ree holds it, but it’s a struggle; her instinct is to drop her own.

  She refuses. He isn’t Hardin.

  “Well, we — Hardin and I — have something to share with you all.” Hardin gives her hand a gentle squeeze of encouragement. When he smiles down at her, Ree feels like she already runs the world.

  “Congratulations!” Shard’s basso rumble breaks the intimacy of their gaze. “Is it a boy or a girl?”

  Ree rears back in shock.

  “Pardon me?” Her tone is glacial.

  “Well, if that isn’t it, when’s the date?” Martinez leans forward, and her eyes flick from Ree’s bare left hand to Hardin’s bone-white face. “Don’t be cheap, Captain.”

  “What,” Hardin says, sounding like he’s planning to light the room on fire, just for an excuse to leave it.

  “You aren’t asking us to stand for you at your wedding, Hardin?” Theo sounds deeply amused by the whole thing; he’s settled into his seat like he’s spectating at Wimbledon.

  “What?! No!” Hardin blurts, so quickly that he must feel a bit needled. Despite everything, Ree has to purse her lips to hide a brief smile.

  Time to help Hardin out of his mess.

  “In all seriousness, though, we asked you to join us tonight because Triskelion Security has been awarded a gig handling security and logistics for a humanitarian mission run through the DoD. Hardin believes — and having met you, I concur — that you would be the best team for the job.” Ree says it with as much confidence as she can cobble together.

  “You—” and Martinez says it like a dirty word, “want to run a squad?”

  Her voice is flat as a dried riverbed and about as inhospitable. It isn’t like Ree can blame her, so she doesn’t bother getting defensive.

  “No.” Ree says, all business. “That would be ridiculous. Hardin wants to run a squad. I want to own a company.”

  “Damn,” Rozier says; it’s the first time he’s spoken in about ten minutes, and Ree twitches a bit in surprise. “Riona, if the Captain won’t, I’ll happily volunteer to make an honest woman of you.”

  Ree laughs, high and bright, but runs her thumb over Hardin’s knuckles. “You’re sweet to offer, Rozier, but I’m a bit too attached to my Captain to wander.”

  “And this contract,” Shard asks. “It’s confirmed Department of Defence?”

  “Signed, in ink and by hand, with a fancy logo and two suits to impress for it,” Hardin says. He still looks a little queasy; clearly the talk of orange blossoms has unnerved him. Ree tries to make up for it by sharing her scallop dumplings with him; he pops it into his mouth, nodding appreciatively.

  She breathes an internal sigh of relief. Crisis averted, with the conversation now meandering towards the two suits. “Excuse me for a second, everyone.”

  ***

  “Scuse me, gents, but you know girls piss in pairs.”

  Hardin rolls his eyes at the thought of Martinez, possibly the gruffest person he knows, calling herself a girl. He’d make a comment about privacy, but after the business with little ex — We are not calling her that! — he feels much better knowing Riona has an escort.

  A companionable silence falls over the table for a few moments as the men each seem to size the situation up. It’s Theo who speaks first.

  “Damn, man. Where did you find her?”

  Hardin doesn’t bristle, but he feels his spine tense up. Theo’s an old friend with shared… tastes and hobbies, but Riona’s one of a kind and Hardin doesn’t suffer from a generosity of spirit.

  “She cold-reads like nobody’s business,” Theo says, and Hardin relaxes minutely.

  “Is she one of us?” Shard asks, and Hardin shakes his head.

  “Airport, and no. We’ve been together for ten months now and living together for four. If she were one of us, I’d know. But she’s wasted as a civilian, Theo. I applied for this bid first. I didn’t get it.”

  “Yet here we are.” Shard cuts in, but he doesn’t sound happy about it. “What string did she pull?”

  “No strings. I did not know she had resubmitted the bid until she mentioned it. I… did not take it well, precisely because she is a civilian. But… we got the call. And well, I’ve seen her keep her head in the field.”

  “What field? It’s Manhattan. The closest you get is the Stadium or the Park.” Theo’s tone says joke, but his words are an interrogation.

  “We got held at gunpoint recently. Or rather, she was while I was out on a run.”

  It still tastes bitter to admit he hadn’t been of any use.

  “By whom?” That’s from Shard. “One of J’s? How’s she alive?”

  “So you know about that.”

  Shard snorts. “You’re a five million dollar man, Hardin. Of course I know.”

  Hardin shakes his head, baring all his teeth in a jackal’s smile. “Wrong. I’m a fifty-million-dollar man now.”

  “Twenty-five, actually.” Rozier blows on his green tea before taking a slow sip. “This is excellent news, by the way. I am happy for you, Captain. She is an excellent match. But you are only a twenty-five million dollar man. As you said, the lady is an equal partner. And if she’s as accomplished as you say, then she’s a formidable one.”

  “You sound like you approve, Rozier.” Shard doesn’t trust strangers, but Hardin supposes being the lone survivor of one of J’s unit annihilations would put some paranoia in anyone.

  “I do.” Rozier says, and Hardin would trust his instincts to pick a cyanide pill out of a jar of skittles. “She picked me out of the crowd, and I was not trying to be noticed.”

  Shard blinks, slow and ponderous. The effect reminds Hardin of nothing so much as a hippo, slowly swinging its head from side to side. The effect is just as chilling, because Hardin knows the terrifyingly adept mind behind those dim expressions.

  “Huh. All right then, Captain. Guess fate’s given you a recent decent dice roll. And she gave me shit about the gun. I like that.”

  “About that,” Hardin snaps, and Shard shrugs one massive shoulder.

  “I left the magazine in the hotel. I wanted to see what she’d do.”

  “Were you satisfied?”

  “Yea, she’s all right.” Shard concedes.

  Theo laughs. “More than all right, I’d say. Are there more where she came from? I’m asking for a friend.”

  “Leave me out of this,” Rozier says with a wave of his hand, even as Hardin nods.

  “There are, in fact. She’s one of the youngest of seven sisters.”

  “Seven sisters?” Roz shifts his eyes over to Hardin. “That is auspicious.”

  Shard snorts, amusement clear on his face. “It’s a search category.”

  “It’s Jurassic Park,” Hardin tells them.

  “In what way?”

  “They’re a pack of raptors,” he says. “So naturally I fit right in.”

  “Bullshit.” Shard retorts. “Have you seen your woman? You’re the goat, bro.”

  ***

  They’re nice, and they try to include her, but there're undercurrents she can’t track just yet, and while she’d expected that, it’s still not a lot of fun.

  “Good. It’s you. I was hoping we could talk.”

  Martinez has somehow slipped into the curved bathroom without making much of a sound, and Ree whips around, brandishing a lipstick. She drops it when she recognizes Martinez, but her h
eart is still thumping. “Warn a girl! Do you even make noise?”

  Martinez, Guadalupe Inez. 36. Operations Specialist. Proficient in long-range weapons. Spotter, sniper, all around solid sharp-shooter. She can remember Hardin’s personnel guide like she’d taken a photo.

  He’d distinctly neglected to mention: Quiet as a fucking cat.

  “Wouldn’t be good at my job if I did, Ms. Araby. But I am serious. I need to talk to you. I hope you’ll forgive the location for an HR chat, Ms. A, but I’ve got dependents. Guadalupe’s with mom when I travel, and she doesn’t know what her Mami does for a living. Only that I travel, and then I come back.”

  Ree feels her heart clench.

  “I- “

  Martinez fixes her with a tar-dark glare, and Ree wonders what it is she’s waiting for her to say. And then it becomes clear.

  “I can’t say I understand.” Ree says instead, and that makes Martinez’ expression snap to hers.

  “I can’t.” She insists with a shrug. “Hardin and I haven’t even had that talk yet. But I know what it means to keep promises to the people who matter to you. Insofar as I’m able to, you have my word that I’ll exhaust every option I have to get you home to your daughter. I can promise that.”

  “You talk a good game, gringa. But what would you be able to do if something went south? New girl on the block going up against J — you know she takes things personally.”

  Martinez doesn’t even sound confrontational; that might actually make it worse. Ree’s always managed things at home, but that’s different. She knows them. She can handle Moira.

  They’re mine, Ree thinks, with fierce resolve steeling her nerves. They’re mine. She’s mine. She’s asking me, because it’s my job to know.

  “I’m living with her ex. It was always going to be personal. I hadn’t even submitted the bid when little ex tried to shoot me in the face. I guess she was after Hardin but figured I’d do in a pinch.”

  “Who?”

  “Ah. One of Hardin’s evil exes. I keep hearing about J, but nobody told me about the one who could hack my front door and hold me at gunpoint.”

  “You — aren’t dead.”