Mastered By The Mavericks

by Angel Payne

  “No.” Well, that made it easier to bite out the word. “Moon’s…right. He knows the skins and skeletons of buildings better than me.” The concession tasted like sour milk in his mouth. “And it’s best if he goes streamlined. We’ll only bog him down.”

  Brynn spun, looking ready to challenge him to some hand-to-hand now. “You mean I’ll bog him down.”

  He let her come, his feet planted and his jaw squared. The little brat didn’t know it, but this was a huge fucking favor. An excuse to match her piss and vinegar? Oh, bring it on. “Let’s get something clear, sweetheart. I don’t say what I don’t mean, and I don’t expect to be questioned about it at every turn. Reb’s going to bell this cat faster if he’s on his own, instead of over-the-shouldering about us the whole time.” He jabbed a finger back toward the house. “We can both be bigger assets to him from that office, feeding him information like traffic patterns and police chatter, than waiting for him in some field with our thumbs up our arses and our hearts in our throats.”

  Wait.

  What the hell?

  Our hearts in our—

  Christ.

  What the fuck’s going on now, asshole?

  That shit violated every last code between Rebel and him. It didn’t matter that they were unwritten, unspoken codes; they just were. Chatting up garbage like their “hearts” was no-man’s land—forbidden territory, no matter what tenor the conversation took. Just because the team mix was different didn’t mean the rules could change. At least they weren’t supposed to.

  But they had.

  Because Rebel had let them.

  Exchanged things with this woman up in that plane. Things like bodily fluids.

  So yeah, the rules were changing. He just wished to hell he knew which ones, and how much.

  Time to wing it, mate.

  “Look.” He met her gaze as he launched back in. “You belong on this op, Brynn. It was why I stood up to that wanker for you last night.” A tick of his head indicated Rebel as the subject of the wanker reference. “You’re going to get to do your part. You will help us find Zoe. But only if you’re alive for it. For that to happen, Rebel and I call all the shots right now.”

  She pursed her lips. Really wasn’t necessary. The hot spice of her eyes conveyed her frustration clearly enough. “So…what? Just sit down, shut up, and take orders?”

  “In less than ten words?” he rejoined. “Yes.”

  “In less than five words, Sergeant, fuck you.”

  Karma was going to find some grand retribution for his reaction to that—but at least he managed to rein in his grin before it broke all the way free. How could he be blamed when she was so damn enticing, snitting at him like a tomboy denied a spot in the dodgeball game, but stopping directly between Reb and him, hands coiled as regally as a princess?

  When she stamped a boot down—holy shit, stamped her foot—he made karma no more promises on his composure. He was saved by glancing over at Reb, and catching the same struggle on his face.

  Well…shit, part fucking two. He didn’t even want to think about being on the same page with Moonstormer again. Man-slut Stafford didn’t get to flash his damn charm and bounce off the shame hook so easily this time. But that wasn’t getting addressed anytime soon. Put it in the box—but keep it on top.

  At least focusing on that task cleared the way for a shot of calm. “Peach—” Which apparently, didn’t cover his verbal filter. The word begged to be let out whenever he looked at her, the color defining so much of her beauty. “We all do things we don’t want to do, for the sake of the—”

  She cut him off with a splayed hand to his breastbone. “For the sake of the mission?” she shot. “You’re seriously going there? Let me save you the effort, Sergeant. I’ve heard that one before, in much more creative ways.”

  The calm was nice while it lasted. No way was it holding up to the confusion she’d just brought down in an avalanche. Out of pure instinct, he looked to Reb again. Once more, the guy’s face mirrored his thoughts. Step carefully. Somehow, they’d pinged a sensitive nerve—demonstrated to the hilt by her sudden shove back, finished by a bitter laugh.

  “Yep. Heard them,” she rasped. “Even liked them. Still do. That’s my damn problem, isn’t it? Let’s see… ‘Embrace the suck’. That’s a good one. Or how about ‘bite the bullet’? I also enjoy ‘watch my smoke’, ‘diehards get it done’, ‘bounce the rubble’, ‘push the hard deck’…”

  “Damn,” Reb uttered.

  “Ditto.” Rhett wasn’t sure how to punctuate it, aside from a bewildered stare. Obviously, Dan Colton wasn’t the first man who’d had to take off his gun belt before climbing into bed with her—though considering her in bed with some cocky-ass soldier boy was like biting a brick of gravel. It was hard enough to contemplate her getting horizontal with Reb in the plane. No. Scratch that. It was fucking impossible.

  He chose to focus on the woman herself, despite how her backlash morphed from bitter to openly hostile. “I could regale you with more—but you know what? None of them matter or apply. I’m not going to ‘sacrifice for the mission’, because to me, this isn’t a mission. This is my best friend’s life. I’m not going to sit back and just wait to ‘hit my mark’ when one of you tells me to. I have ideas to contribute, too.”

  Oh, yeah. A sensitive nerve. Probably more than one.

  But which ones?

  He was on unfamiliar ground. And as much as it sucked to admit it, was open to offers of help—

  Even if it meant asking Rebel for it.

  But by the time he looked back to his friend, Reb had already picked up the torch. At Brynn’s side again, he wrapped a hand around her waist, pulling her in with the surety that spoke an undeniable truth. He’d already done it before. Sure enough, Brynn’s body acquiesced like butter over a flame, softening against him—though her face conveyed a different story. She wasn’t happy about the biological betrayal. At all.

  Rhett’s jaw constricted. Feeling your pain, little peach. More than you know.

  “Your ideas are important, cher.” Reb’s voice was firm but intimate, another facet Rhett had never expected to surface beyond dungeon walls. “And we’ll listen to every one of them—when the time is right. That time is going to be when we have more intel to work from.”

  More conflict sprinted across her features. Her spine stiffened. “So I really am supposed to sit down and shut up?”

  Rebel let her push away, earning him massive points in Rhett’s book. Rage was like diamonds on Brynna Monet. She was five times more gorgeous for it.

  “You’re supposed to stay calm and trust this process, Brynna,” Reb ordered. “You’re supposed to trust us.” He tilted his head, as if seeing into her own. “Last night, you dared me to trust you, that you could handle the pressure if shit went sideways out here. Well, you earned that trust—but now the scales have to balance back. If you can’t tell us that your conviction is a hundred percent behind us, speak the hell up now. Double-Oh can get right back on the hot line, and Sam can be back in Austin with your ride home. Seeing as how I’m headed back toward town tonight, anyway…”

  Her mouth dropped. Definitely a good thing/bad thing. While Rhett forgot about wanting to pummel Reb’s chest like a victory drum, his distraction was delivered by the perfect O of Brynna’s lips—causing other parts of his body to beat with twice the fury.

  “You wouldn’t dare.” Her indignation only made everything worse. So fucking gorgeous. She was the kind of woman who immortalized redheads, Helen of Troy mixed with Ann Margret, sprinkled with enough Agent Scully and Emma Stone to ensure he forgot all about his longtime fealty to Scarlett Johansson. This was even worse, because his mental boner for her was as mighty as the one between his legs. No wonder Rebel had jumped her during the plane ride—underlining the steel in the guy’s fortitude now.

  “We would and we will.” Reb scooped his stare from her to Rhett then back again, building his conviction by the second. “Unless we have your assurance that we
call the shots—for now.”

  She shifted from foot to foot. Drummed her fingers on her thighs. Finally slanted her head at him, full of taut wariness. “For now?” When Reb returned a smooth nod, she snapped, “What the hell does that even mean? What are the parameters on that? ‘For now’ isn’t a clear—”

  Rebel ripped her short by sweeping a hand beneath her chin. Gripped it so hard, she winced for a second.

  “Trust, Miss Monet.” He held fast as she tried to jerk away. “It’s your choice. Balance the scale now, or pick up your bag, walk out the door, and wait for me in the car.”

  Her nostrils flared. Her lips parted, exposing gritted teeth. After a grueling trio of those harsh breaths, she raised a hand, gripped his wrist, and thrust it away. “Fine,” she seethed. “We do everything your way—for now.”

  For the first time, Reb’s composure developed a crack. His breaths were far from serene as he pulled his hand to his side, fisting it. His stare narrowed as he charged tightly, “Because you trust us?”

  “Because I trust you.”

  He exhaled with more calm. “There. That’s not so hard, is it?”

  She took a long moment to respond—if that was how one could label her wordless turn from Reb, followed by a determined stomp down the path through the tall grass, toward the lake. But in every stiff step she took, Rhett could interpret the words she’d left unspoken, the message hurled behind on the air like holy water tainted with a curse.

  Not so hard?

  That was probably one of the most hellish things she’d ever done in her life.

  * * *

  THE SILENCE ALSO brought the waiting.

  Because of course, as long as the subject of hell had come up, the Rhett Lange version deserved a visit, too.

  Hours’ worth of it.

  The recruiters never talked about this part of the job, even in Spec Ops training. Tumbling from a plane at twelve hundred feet? No problem. Navigating from a swamp without electronics or a compass? Piece of cake. Hand-to-hand combat with everything from an armed hostile to a rabid gorilla? Fuck, yes. But keeping oneself from tearing off their own skin while waiting for night to fall? Not a single manual on that. Not a word of advice to fight the insanity that crawled up a guy’s bloodstream—or the memories that taunted his mind when there was nothing to fill it but time, stretched into torture.

  At least that was how it had seemed…to his ten year-old mind. Eight hours of a trans-Atlantic flight, even filled with the coolest books, movies, and video games, were still eight hours to ask the questions he didn’t dare voice aloud—for fear of the answers he’d get in return.

  Why’d they even have me, if they can’t live on the same continent?

  Why do I have to be the ping pong across the ocean every month?

  Why don’t I belong with either of them?

  And the worst ones of them all…

  Was I the one who caused this in the first place?

  What did I do wrong, to make them give up on each other?

  He’d called them The Ghosts: the demands that refused to go away, even when shoving them to the darkest places in his soul. But as the years went by, he was tired of letting the demons have that power. He fought them, chasing them to the reaches of his conscious. But it wasn’t far enough—so he turned the whole world into his ghosts. He’d lashed out at everyone, indiscriminate in his choice of enemy.

  Three years, twenty suspensions, and six expulsions later, Mother and Father had him transported to the Heritage Military Academy in upstate New York.

  It was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

  For the first time in his life, his anger received structure, his violence was transformed to effectiveness, and his loneliness was filled with seventy-five brothers, all as fucked-up as him.

  And the ghosts?

  Banished.

  Washed away by the irreverent humor and easy Creole drawl of the force of nature they’d assigned as his roommate. Rebel Masterston Stafford was like nobody he’d ever met—or likely ever would. Their connection proved that opposites really could magnetize and repel at once.

  A truth that’d held all the way to this day.

  To this minute.

  Though soaked with sweat from a run around the ranch’s grounds, his blood still simmered, too hot for the hours left of this goddamn waiting game—still at the temperature it had boiled to when discerning Rebel’s skank move from this morning. But what the hell then? Go high and mighty and ask him what the fuck he was thinking, taking advantage of two solitary hours with Brynna?

  Right. And brand himself a hypocrite in the doing.

  Same opportunity? Same circumstances? You would’ve made the exact same move, asshole.

  And God, could he imagine that opportunity. Those circumstances. The sky cruising by outside the window. Sam conveniently “occupied” in the cockpit. The engines vibrating through the seats. Brynna looking up with those wide chocolate eyes, breasts peeking from beneath that rough work shirt. Reb staring back, eyes glittering with black-violet dominance…

  Shit.

  Shit.

  “Hey.”

  Wasn’t that convenient. As if manifested by the force of Rhett’s thoughts, Reb strolled into the kitchen, bare to the waist. He was sweating to the point of sheen, simply missing a ship deck and some Hessians to transform into one of the sea scoundrels from whom he was descended. Damn it, even the laces on his black sweats weren’t tied.

  Motherfucker.

  “Where the hell have you been?” It was practically condemnation and Rhett didn’t care. Might as well get the agony of this over with. Reb enjoyed providing details of his conquests between the sheets, and Rhett doubted this would be any different. He pushed both hands against the counter, bracing himself for the guy’s play-by-play of what had happened with Brynn, heartened by the knowledge that in a few minutes, the ordeal would be done.

  Yeah. That was for the best. Get it handled and put away by the time Reb left for Austin tonight.

  “I hit the gym.” Rebel grunted, wicked the sweat from his neck with a towel from a nearby drawer then filled a glass from the water purifier. “Did you see the setup Dax has in there?”

  “No.”

  “You need to. Dude’s got the American Ninja Warrior trials going on in there. Truth. He’s got a spider wall and a parkour run.”

  “Oh.”

  “You get in a run?”

  “Yeah.”

  He peeled off his own shirt, able to dip his head into it, hiding the new color on his face. Christ. Was this for real? Was he stammering and blushing in shame, all because of where he’d assumed—with justification—where the dipshit had just been?

  Or perhaps was headed now.

  Of course. That had to be it. Made more sense, considering Reb’s nature. To him, free afternoons weren’t trips to hell, but fields of opportunity. He’d have gone for a workout first, capped perfectly by a romp with Brynn. She was probably naked and ready for him right now…

  “So where’s Brynn?”

  Which thoroughly justified blurting that out.

  He prepared for Reb’s innuendo-spiked reply. Instead, without anything but sincerity, the guy filled in, “Asleep. For a while, I think. Makes sense. She didn’t leave Shay and Zoe’s place until about four a.m.”

  “True.”

  He ducked his face again.

  You’re such a moron.

  A moron with validation. Was he just supposed to ignore Rebel’s whoremonkey antics—again?

  Reb finished off his water then slammed the glass to the counter with an ear-ringing blow. “Okay.” He brought his palm down with just as much force. “Out with it, fuckhead.”

  Shit. Or…not. If a come-to-Jesus was what Reb wanted, that was what he’d get.

  “Out with what?”

  “The reason why you’ve been a spitting churl since Brynn and I got here. What the fuck, Lange?”

  A laugh felt agonizingly appropriate. “A…churl?”

/>   “You prefer shit fungus? Douche canoe? Wanker of the day?” Reb tossed the Brit slang at him with chin raised high. “You’re still not getting a goddamn trophy for it.”

  The expression, one of the asshole’s favorites to sling in their Heritage days, worked no nostalgic miracles now. Instead, it made Rhett think of how Rebel had treated women since the day they’d met, pouring on the bayou charm to get between their thighs as fast as he could. During their adolescence, it had made Reb a demigod in his eyes. Through boot camp, Special Ops courses, and Live Environment training, it was understandable as a pressure release—but in the last few years, as they’d learned about BDSM together, it wasn’t cute anymore. It sure as hell wouldn’t keep getting his blind eye. Starting now.

  “Fine. Trophy’s all yours, Moon. Congratulations.” As the words spilled, so did his resolve. What the hell was the good of this? And why was he even doing this, right now? Brynn had already proved she was able to physically handle herself, so why was he in such a fucking twist about protecting her emotionally?

  Because it’s not her who needs the protecting?

  Yeah. It was so time to be done with this bullshit.

  “I’m going to take a shower.”

  “The hell you are.” Rebel caught him around the bicep and spun him back. “We’re not done.”

  “That sounds like a personal problem, man.”

  “You haven’t answered me.”

  Rhett ripped his arm free. “Does it matter if I do?” Dared raising his glare to Rebel’s face. The bastard’s gritty gaze and tight mouth betrayed what a shitty night’s sleep he’d gotten, a pre-mission norm for him. The guy needed to bathe then crash. Badly. “It won’t change a thing, Rebel.”

  Cords of tension twisted down Reb’s neck and shoulders. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That you fucked her.”

  Well, that was one way of blowing his strategy to hell.

  “Fucked who?”

  Now that was really funny. “I don’t believe this. Who else, dipshit? You going to tell me Brynna was just practicing a new show number, draping herself all over you like that?”

  The guy had the decency to finally drop the act. Thank fuck for small miracles. “I didn’t fuck her.”