Deuces Wild (Gemini Project Book 3)

by Bianca D’Arc

  “Sit rep,” Marlon demanded as he made his way back to the mansion along the wooded path.

  “Uh…” It took a lot to make Jeff Shera incoherent. Marlon wondered what it was this time.

  Once before, he’d been completely stymied when a bunch of children had surrounded them in a foreign land. They’d been fully armed and covered in the enemy’s blood, yet these frightened children had clung to them, seeing them not as a threat, but as saviors. That had left both of them speechless, if Marlon was honest. Not just Jeff.

  “Come on, man. What’s going on with you?” Maybe coaxing would work.

  “There’s this girl…” Jeff seemed at a loss for words but forged ahead. “Woman, really. She’s… She’s…”

  “A pretty girl has you acting like a teenager with his first hard on?” Marlon shook his head.

  Jeff hadn’t had sex in a while. Hell, neither had Marlon. They’d discovered—much to their chagrin—that being joined at the brain didn’t shut down when they wanted some alone time with a willing member of the opposite sex. It had caused them a bit of…discomfort, so they’d avoided the whole issue for the past few months.

  Things were coming to a crisis point, though, if Jeff’s response to a beautiful woman was this bad. Was she some sort of femme fatale? A Mata Hari intent on learning all of Jeff’s secrets and spitting him out after she’d chewed him up real good? Marlon wasn’t sure what kind of woman would make Jeff this unintelligible, but she had to be something special. Jeff was a hardened operative. He wasn’t some green boy to be trailing after anything in a skirt.

  Marlon quickened his pace. He wanted to get a look at the woman for himself. He decided to detour through the pool area on his way back to the house. A quick turn onto a path that led to the formal garden and the pool suited his purposes.

  When he arrived at the pool, coming in through the side gate, he noticed that there were some knockout women in bikinis sunning themselves in the large lounge area, complete with bar, two bartenders, and a number of wait staff. The women were beautiful, but most had their eyes closed and were soaking up the late-season sun. The few who were watching anything were either fussing with their own appearance or had their eyes glued to the two in the pool, swimming laps. Marlon recognized Jeff’s clean strokes at once, but the person swimming beside him…

  Holy cow. That was a woman keeping pace with his swim buddy. A voluptuous, tall woman with curves and muscles. She wasn’t straining, but she was easily keeping pace with Jeff. No wonder he was impressed. It took effort to keep up with Jeff, as Marlon well knew.

  “Who’s the mermaid?” Marlon sent to his swim buddy telepathically.

  “Maya,” Jeff answered, swimming on automatic while his mind was still dazed.

  “Pretty name. Impressive form. She been swimming with you the whole time?”

  “Almost. She’s…amazing.”

  “Quite a swimmer,” Marlon agreed. He wasn’t able to see much of the woman aside from the fact that she was tall and athletic. “Are you almost done?”

  “Yeah, we agreed to one more lap,” Jeff reported, sounding a little more coherent.

  “I’m going over to the bar. Meet me there.”

  Marlon walked casually over to the outdoor bar as if he’d just decided to stop there for a beer on his way back into the house. He wasn’t quite dressed for the pool, but there were one or two other men who were wearing tennis or golf clothes, so he wasn’t too out of place. This particular bar seemed to cater to anyone who was enjoying outdoor activities. The tennis courts, he noticed as he walked closer, were just on the other side of the fence from the pool, and there was a putting green just beyond that, which led to the rest of the golf course spread out around the remainder of the property.

  Marlon ordered a beer for himself, just to be sociable. He normally didn’t drink when he was on duty, but this was a covert op, and he had to fit in. He sat on one of the bar stools and swiveled casually to face the pool as he took a swig out of the imported glass bottle. He lowered the beer to his side, unnoticed, as the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen levered herself out of the water with one powerful push of her arms.

  Grace, beauty and raw strength. He’d never seen it combined in such an enticing female package before. This Maya, whoever she was, made his gut churn with desire, just at first glance. Now, he fully grasped what had made his normally loquacious partner into a tongue-tied mess. Damn. That was a Woman, with a capital Wo.

  She stood, tall and statuesque, the water sluicing off her body as she reached for a towel she’d left on the nearby lounge chair. Jeff stood next to her, a little gawky as he seemed to lose all his cool at seeing the sleek woman in the modest one-piece bathing suit.

  There were other women here flaunting themselves much more openly, but none of them—even though they were beauties—could hold a candle to the freaking Amazonian royalty who had just swam with a Navy SEAL and not only lived to tell the tale, but smiled as if she’d had only a light workout.

  She toweled her hair, which was dark with water. Brown, or perhaps a dark blonde, Marlon thought, when dry. It was long-ish, past her shoulders and a little wavy. He wondered what she’d look like when it was dry. Her face was classic. Sharp cheekbones, straight nose, luscious lips and inquisitive, dancing eyes. Damn. She was gorgeous.

  And if he didn’t stop thinking about her like this, his instant attraction was going to be pretty obvious to anyone who happened to glance at his crotch. It had been a long time since a woman had affected him so profoundly, and he hadn’t even talked to her yet.

  Normally, he was more cautious. He liked his girlfriends to have brains, as well as beauty. He liked to be able to talk to them. Go places with them that they would both enjoy. Museums, galleries, stage plays. He’d gotten over the buckle bunny phase of his youth when he’d competed in rodeo as a young man. He’d won his share of buckles, and he’d enjoyed his share of mindless encounters.

  He hadn’t enjoyed that sort of thing in a long time, and he’d never go back to meaningless relationships. He had been more into steady girlfriends with a future in mind when he’d joined the teams. In fact, he’d been on the verge of proposing to Aileen, a medical student who’d had her own priorities, when he’d first gone overseas. The relationship hadn’t lasted long, after that. She’d had her career to pursue, and so had he. He’d regretted it, but he knew it hadn’t been meant to be. Somewhere out there… He had hope the right woman was waiting for him to find her.

  After Aileen, he’d been kept too busy to form any more serious attachments. He’d had a few more casual relationships that he’d hoped would lead somewhere, but they’d all fizzled for one reason or another. Since being tapped for the Gemini Project, things had been even more difficult in his dating life.

  It was almost cruel, but his partner and he had very similar tastes in women. Since joining mind to mind, they’d shared everything and learned they were even more alike than they had believed. The woman one liked…well…so did the other. But how many women out there would stand being pursued by two men?

  In recent months, two teams from their unit had found just such women. They’d formed trio relationships that seemed to work for them, but Marlon secretly wondered if it could last. He hoped, for his friends’ sakes, that it would, but he just wasn’t sure how that sort of thing could last long-term.

  Pushing all that aside, how was this going to work, right now? Jeff was clearly gaga over the beauteous Maya. Marlon wasn’t far behind, if he was being honest with himself. They were here to do a job. Could they concentrate on the task at hand with a giant, beautiful, luscious distraction like Maya around? Only time would tell.

  Jeff made a show of spotting him at the bar and waved as he toweled off. He said something to the woman at his side, and then, both of them made their way over to the bar.

  “Hey, Marlon, this is Maya. Maya, Marlon,” Jeff introduced them with a grin.

  Marlon reached out to shake her hand and was surprised by the jolt of elec
tricity that seemed to spark between them as their hands met. He let go and tried his best to cover his confusion.

  “Nice to meet you, ma’am. What are you having?” He gestured behind him to the bartender, who moved closer immediately.

  “Just sparkling water with a twist of lime, please,” Maya said to the barman over Marlon’s shoulder. She smiled at the man, and Marlon was able to get a good look at her close up.

  Flawless. That’s what she was. A flawless beauty built on Amazonian proportions with smoky gray eyes that made him want to get burned by her undeniable fire. Hot damn.

  “Are you here for the card play, ma’am?” Marlon asked, wondering what had brought this beauty to this place. Was she a Mata Hari, after all? It wouldn’t be easy for most men to resist a woman like this. She could make a killing—literally and figuratively—as a covert agent.

  “Oh, no,” she said, reaching past him to get the drink she’d ordered. Marlon caught his breath at her nearness. There was a definite sense of electricity around her. He’d never experienced such a thing before. “I’m here with Hiram Abernathy. Do you know him?”

  “Abernathy?” Jeff put in, standing next to Maya and signaling to the bartender that he wanted a beer like Marlon’s. “My dad did some business with him a while back, I think. Something about a new restaurant he was opening near Seattle. My dad supplies the beef and bison.”

  Maya looked surprised but then pleased as she turned to look at Jeff. “Shera’s Meats,” she said. “That’s where I’ve heard the name before. My brother’s friend owns Flambeau’s—the restaurant you’re talking about. Hiram is the silent partner who put up the cash to get it started.”

  “Small world,” Marlon observed. If she was here with Abernathy, she was more than likely involved with the man. To his knowledge, the reclusive billionaire wasn’t married and didn’t have children that anyone knew about.

  Not much else was known about Abernathy, and part of the mission brief was to gather intel on as many of the attendees as possible. Marlon wasn’t too happy at the idea of using Maya for information, but if she was here with Abernathy, any designs he or Jeff might’ve had on her would probably be for naught. Their families might be loaded, but they weren’t really in the same league with someone like the reclusive billionaire. If wealth and power attracted this beauty, they wouldn’t get a second glance.

  “And what about you, Marlon?” Maya turned the power of her smile on him. Maybe she was also gathering intel…for Abernathy.

  “My family’s been in oil and gas for a few generations,” he told her. Since their cover story was their real backgrounds on this peculiar op, it was easy to mingle as he would have had he been attending a social function at home, or on behalf of his family.

  “So, how did you two meet?” she asked of them both. “You seem like old friends, not new acquaintances.”

  “Observant, isn’t she?” Marlon sent to his partner, silently.

  “You think she’s gathering information for Abernathy?” Jeff asked immediately. Marlon should have known his partner would be thinking along the same lines he was.

  “Definitely possible,” Marlon replied. “Why don’t you take this one while I observe?”

  “The Parkhursts are in Texas,” Jeff answered her question for both of them. “The Sheras are in Oklahoma. We’ve known each other socially since we were old enough to be dragged along to our mothers’ charity functions.” Jeff chuckled, and Maya smiled in return.

  “Do you work for Abernathy?” Marlon asked, as if he were the gauchest thing around. Such questions weren’t usually asked in polite company, but this was a poker tournament, and he and Jeff weren’t quite in the elite class of Abernathy and some of the others.

  Maya didn’t take offense. She merely shrugged. “I’ve known Hiram for a while now. He invited me along, and I thought it would be fun. My brother recently found his mate…uh…he got married.” She seemed to stumble over her words a bit, which struck Marlon as odd. He made note of the words for later consideration. “Things are a little too lovey-dovey at home right now, and I figured I’d give them some space while their relationship is still so new.”

  “Whirlwind romance?” Jeff asked, as if sympathetic.

  “Yeah,” she replied, shaking her head. “He just saw her, and he knew. Sometimes, that happens in our family. Love at first sight.”

  “Well, I hope it works out for them,” Marlon said, raising his beer bottle. She joined in the toast with her soda water, and they all took a sip.

  “Are you on your own for dinner tonight?” Jeff asked Maya, sounding a bit impulsive. “I mean…I haven’t seen Abernathy around. Is he even here, yet?”

  “Oh, he’s here. Just working. He doesn’t stop working, even when he’s traveling. He closeted himself with his assistants and told me to go enjoy myself, which I’m doing. I doubt he’ll be finished before dark,” she said, sipping at her drink.

  “Then, you must join us for dinner, if you have no other plans,” Marlon put in smoothly. “Any woman who can keep up with Jeff in a pool is a woman I’d like to know better.” He grinned in a non-wolfish way—he hoped. “Ol’ Jeff here was a state swimming champ, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know,” Maya said, turning to Jeff. “You were going easy on me, weren’t you?”

  Jeff crossed his heart like a kid. “Nope. You’re like a mermaid, Maya. Maybe I wasn’t swimming all out, but I definitely wasn’t holding back for your sake. You’re just that good.”

  She blushed and lowered her eyes. “Thanks,” she murmured before shaking her head just once and seeming to regain her composure. “And thank you for the dinner invitation. I don’t really know anyone else here yet, so I had planned to just get room service. You’ve saved me from a lonely meal in my room.” She finished her soda water and placed the empty glass on the bar, brushing very close to Marlon again. Damn. He wanted to move in on her but knew that was totally out of bounds. “How about I meet you down at the dining room entrance in about an hour?”

  “Perfect,” Jeff answered for them both. Marlon was still catching his breath from her close move. “We’ll see you then.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Maya hadn’t been sure about the role Hiram had asked her to play. She’d thought she was coming along on this trip to provide security for him, but he had others in his regular entourage who were watching over his daytime rest period. They were people who’d been with him for a long time and knew the peculiarities of guarding the repose of an ancient vampire.

  Hiram pretended he was working during the days, and he’d had his assistants move in a complete office suite to one section of the penthouse he’d been given. If anyone came to the door during the daylight hours, they’d find gatekeepers in the form of Hiram’s staff, who would not allow anyone or anything to disturb their boss’s work.

  Maya had been surprised, at first, that Hiram had brought so many others along on what she’d thought was going to be a more private trip. She didn’t mind, but she felt a little superfluous. She was fully capable of guarding Hiram. As a grizzly shifter with innate magic of her own, she could guard him against all sorts of attacks both physical and magical.

  But, it became clear as they set out on this journey, he had another role in mind for her. A role that didn’t sit well with her bear side, who had a fierce, protective spirit. Hiram wanted Maya to be window dressing. He wanted her to play the spoiled girl-toy, sunning herself by day at the pool while learning all she could about the others who’d been invited. Not only that, but Hiram had specifically asked her to introduce him to the other shifters who would be present.

  She wasn’t sure how that was going to go down. Shifters tended to stick to their own kind, historically. Since the end of the Dark Ages, the various supernatural groups had gone their separate ways. Vampires didn’t generally mix with shifters, and vice versa.

  But things had been changing in recent years. Hiram had forged an alliance with the bear shifters of Grizzly Cove. Maya knew that th
e world famous vintner, Atticus Maxwell of Napa Valley, had recently allied himself with the Redstone Clan out of Las Vegas. She knew Maxwell was a vampire as well, though Maya had never encountered him in person.

  Fey were walking the earth again, among shifters and vampires alike. Various shifter groups were working together to defeat Venifucus mages who wanted to steal their power for deadly purposes. The reappearance of that menace had been well documented. Thought gone for centuries, the Venifucus brotherhood had survived underground, working toward their evil ends, and had recently come out into the open, attacking shifters and Others with seeming impunity.

  The world was going to hell in a hand basket, but Maya knew that Hiram was one of the good guys. She never would have agreed to work with him otherwise. He was seeking allies among billionaire shifters and humans in positions of power. She thought it was probably a good strategy, though Hiram had said she could tell her brother about the trip only after it was over.

  John had been born with the truly strategic mind in the family, and she bowed to his expertise in planning ahead, though not much else. He was still her little brother, after all. Everybody else in Grizzly Cove followed his orders. He needed Maya’s sass to remind him that he wasn’t king of all he surveyed. Big sis kept him honest. Or so she told him on a regular basis, she thought with an inward smirk.

  She dressed for dinner, consulting the schedule Maximilian had devised for what to wear. Her jewelry designs were set off to perfection against Max’s masterpieces. She had to admire the way she looked in the full-length mirror in her room. She’d never looked so glamorous in her entire life. Her inner bear preened a little, making her feel warm inside. Both halves of her soul enjoyed feeling pretty, which didn’t happen all that often.

  She couldn’t wait to see Jeff and Marlon’s tongues hanging out of their mouths when she appeared in the dining room. She’d never been a femme fatale, but she almost believed she could pull it off, looking at her reflection now. Of course, she’d never really wanted to impress a man with her looks the way she wanted to make an impact on the two men she’d met earlier at the pool.