Brazen (B-Squad #1)

by Avery Flynn

  Marko had never been a Tamara fan. Not even when Taz had first gotten together with the former beauty queen. She was all ice when his brother needed fire.

  Even when she was being nice, the woman had a hard edge that warned off small creatures. Whatever was going on between her and his brother, it was six kinds of fucked up and he didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her—and he bench pressed enough weight to toss her plenty far.

  “I love you, too.” Tamara ended the call and stood still for a moment before letting out a heavy sigh that dragged her shoulders low.

  “Saying your goodbyes before we take off?” he asked.

  Tamara squeaked in surprise and whipped around. “You scared me.”

  He kept his trap shut and his gaze locked on her. People hated that. Made ’em nervous and chatty.

  “It was my niece.” She smoothed her long blonde hair, her hand shaking just enough that the glare from the sun hitting her rock of a wedding ring hit him square in the eyes. “She doesn’t like it when I’m out of touch for long.”

  He snorted. “Uh-huh.”

  Her jaw tightened and her blue eyes narrowed to slits. “Oh I forgot. None of you boys know what it’s like to have a real family. You all grew up as wild as your Gypsy ancestors.”

  Bone-deep resentment sizzled up his spine. “It’s Roma. We don’t like the racist term Gypsy.”

  She smirked. “Well, I don’t like people eavesdropping on my calls so we’re even.” With that she whirled around and strutted to the stairs leading to the jet’s cabin then hustled up them far steadier and quicker than a lot of women in sky-high heels could have.

  The idea of having her with them on this mission didn’t sit right with him, but it hadn’t been his call. It had been Bianca’s, who had never poured stupid into her cereal a day in her life. Still, he had no fucking clue what she’d been thinking.

  Chapter 6

  Bianca

  30,000 Feet Above Western Texas…

  Thirty minutes after takeoff, Bianca left Vivi and Elisa in the cockpit and surveyed her team hunkered around the small woodgrain tables and lounging in the soft cream leather seats. Marko, Lash, Duke and Lexie were playing a cutthroat game of Spades. Taz and Tamara sat next to each other in the middle of the plane. Both had their eyes closed. Keir was pretending to read a book while watching her out of the corner of his eye. The guy had the subtlety of an Ed Hardy shirt. He didn’t need to worry. She wasn’t going to have any more contact with the happy fucking couple than was absolutely necessary.

  Which is exactly why she kept her gaze tilted away from them as she made her way back to the bedroom that took up the jet’s tail end. It was the only place onboard where she could shut a door between herself and the rest of the team so she could finally catch the breath that had been kicked out of her with an emotional steel-toed boot.

  The bedroom was small. There was enough room for a bed, a tiny closet and a dresser, but it was more than enough space for a little solo pity party and to regroup—or plot a murder if she took her girls’ advice. She pushed the door closed behind her, but it came to a stop before it latched.

  She didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. The truth was there in the way her heart hammered against her ribs, the way the butterflies began to swirl around in her belly and the way her body went soft and melty at the first inhale of his cologne.

  The man wrecked her without even trying.

  It wasn’t fair.

  “We need to talk,” Taz said, his voice low and growly.

  Not here and definitely not now. If there was a conversation meant for text, this was it, because face-to-face wasn’t going to end well. Snakes on a plane had nothing on pissed-off, lied-to ex-girlfriend on a plane.

  “I thought the briefing covered everything.” She pushed against the door. It didn’t budge.

  “It’s not about the mission.” Taz pushed the door open and walked into the bedroom.

  He took up too much space in the crowded room. They faced each other, close enough that it hurt not to touch him. Even as pissed as she was, she couldn’t deny that bit of shameful truth.

  Taz stared at her, a dangerous heat turning his eyes a stunning shade of emerald. His gaze traveled down her body in that slow, commanding way that left her panties wet and her nipples puckered.

  This was how it usually started for them. A look so inflammatory it could be a touch. The unspoken challenge for control. The undeniable ache that teased and tormented and tantalized her every sensitive valley and peak. By the time he made the trip back up to her eyes, her entire body was smoldering—his lips curled into a smirk—and he knew it. The bastard.

  Backing down wasn’t in her nature, but she needed more sunlight between them or she’d do something she’d regret. It was a coin toss on whether that would be a hate fuck or a hard slap. She backpedaled until the back of her knees hit the bed.

  “The mission is the only reason you’re here.” She pushed the words out of her mouth, which wanted to stay frozen shut.

  He nudged the door shut with his foot. “Getting Gidget has never been the reason why I’m on this case and you damn well know it.” Two long strides and he closed the distance between them, trapping her between the bed and his rock-hard body. “I’ve only ever been here for you.”

  Part of her believed him. Hell, most of her believed him. But that didn’t change anything. His wife’s arrival—and all the secrets between them—had seen to that.

  The truth sliced through her. She had just as many skeletons in her closet as he did and she hadn’t been any more forthcoming than he had been. It wasn’t part of her personality to get all touchy-feely emotionally, just like it wasn’t in his.

  The reality was, she wasn’t meant for a real relationship. Maybe it was because her parents had abandoned her to that hellhole St. B’s when she was eleven. It could be because the Sutherlands didn’t put any fun in their family dysfunction. Then again, she might just have a personality disorder. Whatever the cause, the result was always the same: ending up alone.

  Taz curled his fingers around her hip, setting off a fire she wouldn’t be able to control for long. “Bianca—”

  She pressed her palm to his chest, cutting him off. The all too familiar shiver of attraction made her whole body tingle. “Leave it be, Taz. We’ll do the job, get Gidget home and then I’ll move out of the gym.”

  He covered her hand with his, locking her in place. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  She glanced down at her hand sandwiched between his and his chest. Her heart flip-flopped and her knees went weak. Damn her mutinous body.

  “That’s not your choice to make,” she said, her voice wobbling.

  It hurt like yanking off a bandage but she peeled his hand off hers anyway. She was strong, but wasn’t a match for the man who’d battled his way up to the light heavyweight boxing championship and had never lost his edge or an ounce of muscle. He let her go, which was exactly what she wanted. And if she told herself that enough, she’d start believing it.

  Taz shoved a hand through his wavy, inky-black hair, closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, they were bright with emotion and determination. “She doesn’t have to come between us.”

  She shook her head. “You think Tamara is the one who did this?”

  “Who else?”

  “You did. I did.” Her sigh reverberated down to her toes. “We weren’t a couple. We were fuck buddies who keep everything on the surface. You don’t know me any more than I know you.”

  “Bullshit,” he snarled.

  She looked up at him, craning her neck to look into his eyes, and reached out for his belt. “And if I dropped to my knees and took out your cock right now, you’d be happy to have everything go back to exactly what it had been like before?”

  Slipping the leather through the metal buckle, she fought against the hot liquid desire sliding through her, making her nipples hard against the lace of her bra. This wasn’t for
fun. This was to make a point. She just had to remember or they’d end up naked and sweaty and sated without anything having changed. Old habits—especially the ones that felt so fucking good—were always the hardest the give up, even if, like now, she didn’t have a choice.

  “Was what we had before so bad?” He dragged his thumb across her bottom lip.

  Her body screamed for her to give in, to melt into him and come around his hard cock buried to the hilt inside her. It would be so easy and feel so good to give in. But after she came down from that high, he’d still be married and she’d still be a woman who always ended up alone.

  She toyed with his belt, the leather the only thing soft about him right now, and nipped at the pad of his thumb—the voice telling her this was to teach him a lesson becoming more shrill as her body responded to his nearness with an almost desperate wanting, just like it always did.

  “No, it wasn’t bad. It was a fantasy. Everything was that first rush of hormones and newness. It wasn’t real. It would have fallen apart eventually.” She hardened her voice as she looked into his eyes, using her anger as a protective shield. “It always does.”

  But this time, she wouldn’t be left shell-shocked and a little more broken like she’d been after her brother killed himself, after her parents sent her away to a boarding school for bad seeds, or after St. B’s had been raided and the girls she’d become sisters with in every way but name scattered across the country. That had knocked her sideways, but having Taz walk away would be like scavenger birds peeling the flesh from her exposed bones.

  Slipping the button of his jeans free was torture, but she did it anyway, needing the pain to remember her new reality.

  “There’s more to us than sex.” He shoved her hand away before she could get to his zipper. “You know it, but you’re too scared to admit it so you fell back into old habits and ran before assessing the situation.”

  She snorted, doubling down on the fury still simmering under the surface of hurt and betrayal. “And what part of ‘my boyfriend has a wife’ did I miss?”

  He worked his jaw, grinding his teeth as the vein in his temple throbbed.

  Sighing, she gave in to the bittersweet, blissful agony of being so close to him one last time and brushed one of his ebony waves away from his forehead. “Taz—”

  But before she could finish the thought, his hands cupped her face and his lips were on hers. Hard, intense and mind-melting, the kiss wasn’t fair. Then again, when had fair ever felt so fucking good?

  This was where they clicked, where they’d always fit perfectly. She couldn’t fight against it because in her heart of hearts she knew she didn’t want to—and that’s what scared her most of all. So she gave in. Just one last moment of madness, what harm was there in a final kiss?

  Taz’s growl of triumph reverberated against her overheated skin as he traced a line of fire across the curve of her jaw and down the column of her throat. The prickle of his short beard against the sensitive spot where her shoulder met her neck made her knees weak and she moaned his name.

  “Do you really think this is all there is between us, Kitten?” he murmured as his talented fingers found their way to her pants, making fast work of the button and zipper before shoving them down a few inches. “Is that why you were tugging on my jeans, looking at me with those big brown eyes and making me think of how good my cock looks with your lips wrapped around it? Where you trying to school me?”

  Any protest her still-angry side may have uttered was overwhelmed by the sensation of his thick, calloused fingers sliding underneath the elastic of her panties. With her jeans still on, he didn’t have a lot of room to maneuver, but he made the most of it with a deft touch against her hard clit, a smooth stroke through her slick folds and a teasing dip inside her aching core.

  “If it was just sex, would you be this slick already?” He curled his finger, circling her opening, sending ripples of pleasure through her body. “No. Your lips are all plump and juicy because you trust me, because you know me.”

  No. He was wrong. He had to be wrong.

  Bianca fought to maintain her emotional distance. This had been her lesson to teach him, but he’d flipped the script. “You get me wet,” she managed to pant out. “Do you want a prize?”

  “That depends.” He slid a second finger inside her, drawing them up on either side of her inner lips until the tips barely touched her clit and delving back down until they were buried inside her, filling her up. “Are you the prize?”

  She couldn’t answer beyond a strangled moan. The pressure was too much and not enough. He took her right to the edge and backed off. Over and over he caressed her, the tightness of the space only accentuating every sensation as she bit her bottom lip to keep from moaning loud enough to alert everyone else on the plane to what was going on.

  “Always so soft and wet for me—not for just any guy who you wanted—for me.” He increased the speed and pressure on all her sensitive spots, playing her body in the way only he could.

  Ignoring sanity’s last whispers, she gave in to the feeling of Taz touching her, teasing her and taking her higher.

  He nipped her earlobe, the quick snip of pain only magnifying the pleasure elsewhere. “You’re on the edge already, aren’t you, Kitten?”

  And she was, her body tightening with every brush of his finger against her clit until she couldn’t take it anymore. The line between misery and ecstasy blurred and disappeared as the vibrations in her thighs crescendoed, the pressure in her core peaked and her climax hit hard enough to snap her spine straight and whip her head forward.

  She buried her face in his shoulder to muffle her cry of pleasure, holding tight to his shirt to keep from falling at Taz’s feet in a post-orgasmic pool of satisfaction.

  “Even as good as that was, and as much as I love hearing you come, there’s more to us than just orgasms.” He pulled away, breathing hard and with his eyes dark with lust and something more. “We aren’t together because the sex is so fucking good. The sex is unbelievable because we’re together. We may not know all of each other’s secrets but don’t you ever think that I don’t know you, Bianca Sutherland. And if you can’t see that, then maybe you’re not really running from us, you’re only running from yourself.”

  Without another word, he walked out of the bedroom, leaving her to try to unravel what had just happened and what she wanted to happen next.

  Fingers pressed to her kiss-swollen lips, pulse pounding in her ears and the last waves of her orgasm still lapping against her, she sank down onto the bed and fought to remember all the reasons why Taz was wrong.

  Taz…

  Three hours into the ten-hour flight with no Bianca sightings since he’d walked out of the bedroom, Taz gripped the leather armrest a little tighter, leaned back in his seat and schooled his face not to betray a thing.

  Not a lot of things in life made him nervous, but the sight of one of Bianca’s pissed-off best friends standing over him with a wide popsicle stick weighed down on one end with hot wax was one of them.

  Elisa flashed an evil grin, then began humming as she slathered the wax over one section of his short beard. The con artist with a heart of black coal was a master of disguise and her transformational skills had helped on more than one mission for the B-Squad, but she seemed to be enjoying the prospect of yanking out every single strand of hair in his beard a little too much.

  After hacking off most of his hair and dyeing it from ebony to a brown only a few shades darker than his skin, she’d said she needed to wax off his beard to make sure a black five o’clock shadow didn’t fuck up his disguise. There was no doubt after what went down at Bisu Manor six months ago that Sterling Walsh had a file on him as well as Bianca, but he still wasn’t buying Elisa’s explanation for the extreme makeover.

  “Do we really need to do this?” he asked as she rubbed a strip of white cloth over the wax.

  “Probably not.” She gripped the edge of the cloth with one hand and pressed the other down ha
rd on his jaw, pulling his skin taut. “But you sure as hell deserve it.”

  The words were barely out of her mouth before she jerked her hand back and peeled off half the skin on his face along with the wax—at least that’s what it felt like. He blinked away the black dots on the edge of his vision as he worked his jaw back and forth.

  For her part, Elisa just stood there gleefully holding up the cloth covered in wax and hair, but not—surprisingly—his skin. How in the fuck some people voluntarily did this to their balls, he couldn’t comprehend. The idea alone made his nuts nervous.

  “Fucking A.” He pressed his hand to the sticky part of his face that throbbed like he’d just gotten the business end of his dad’s belt. “You could warn a guy.”

  “Oops.” She dropped the cloth into the trash and loaded the stick up with another glob of hot wax. “My bad.”

  Gritting his teeth, he forced his hand down and turned his head to give her better access to the virgin territory on his face. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Keir, Marko, Lash and Duke watching. Each of them wore matching horrified expressions. He would have laughed if Elisa wasn’t pressing another cloth strip to his wax-covered beard.

  “I promise it’ll only hurt half as much as I wish it would.” The words came out as smooth and sweet as if she’d just told him that mint chocolate chip was the best flavor ice cream ever. Then she ripped the cloth back with a gleam in her eye.

  He should have expected this. Bianca, Vivi, Lexie and Elisa were a tight unit. Lash called them the coven—but only behind their backs, because he had a genius IQ to go along with that pretty-boy face of his.

  While his chipper tormentor, Elisa, gathered more hot wax, he searched his periphery vision for Bianca and came up with nada. She was either still hunkered down in the bedroom or was keeping out of his sight line.

  Fighting Bianca’s righteous anger with orgasms may not be the best plan he’d ever thought of, but he’d use what worked until she finally got it through her stubborn head that nothing had changed between them. She argued that he didn’t know her—he caught sight of Elisa coming toward him with more hot wax and tensed his jaw—well, he wouldn’t be going through this shit if he didn’t and wasn’t willing to do anything for her.