Undaunted

by Joss Wood

  Reagan pulled her head away so that she could look at him. “Every muscle in your body just tensed. Why?”

  God, he couldn’t tell her, he wouldn’t tell her. “I was just thinking about . . .”

  He couldn’t find a lie, couldn’t seem to come up with an excuse.

  “About?”

  Shit. “You . . . this.”

  God, he couldn’t have this conversation with her when he was still half-hard and naked, her body tempting him to take her again. Axl rolled away from her to sit on the edge of the bed.

  “What about me . . . this?”

  She wasn’t going to let it go. Dammittohellandback.

  “Uh . . . nothing. I was just being a possessive asshole.” Axl rested his forearms on his thighs and stared at the laminate floors of Sawyer’s spare bedroom. If he was going to spend more time in Mercy, he really needed to find his own place, Axl thought. He and Reagan couldn’t do this if Sawyer was around . . . They weren’t going to do this again. Onetime thing . . . Remember that, dickhead?

  “Hold on, you think that I do this, have sex, often?”

  Oh, hell, were they still talking about this? Axl didn’t bother to answer her, knowing that this was one of those times when it was better to stay silent.

  He expected a lecture about women’s rights, about feminism, about the difference between sex and love. He believed in the concept except when it came to Reagan. Call him a jerk. Equal rights were fine for other people but he loathed the idea of Reagan sleeping around.

  Reagan’s chuckle had him turning around, and he frowned at the mirth in her eyes. Okay, he really didn’t know what was so funny.

  Reagan, a grin still on her face, pulled the sheet up to cover her breasts and sat up, her expression earnest. Still amused but earnest. “You couldn’t be further off base. I’m practically a born-again virgin, and the reason it was so good is because we seem to spark off each other.” Reagan sent him a teasing smile. “Or it could be because you are really, really good at sex.”

  He ignored her compliment, focusing on her virgin comment. “Sorry, what?”

  Reagan pulled the sheet between her fingers as a tide of red moved up her chest into her cheeks. “That thing you did with your mouth and fingers . . . so good. I’ve never, well . . . Never.”

  No way. “You’ve never had oral sex?”

  “Or much sex,” Reagan reluctantly admitted, looking at the ceiling.

  Axl pushed his hand into his hair. “How much is not much?” he asked.

  “Do we have to discuss this?” Reagan asked, still not able to meet his eyes.

  “Actually, yeah.” He wanted to know, dammit. God, he’d done some shit last night that needed a certain comfort level, some experience which he assumed Reagan had.

  “Not a lot, okay?”

  Axl gritted his teeth. “How. Much.”

  “Twice! Twice before,” Reagan shouted.

  Please let that be two lovers, not two times she’s actually done the deed. Axl dug his fingers into his eye sockets. “Explain.” He spat the word out and kept the pressure on his eyes.

  “Would you like me to draw you a picture? I’ve had sex twice before.” Reagan’s words dropped like little chunks of ice. Axl opened his eyes to see her roll out of bed, all long muscles and creamy skin.

  Shitcrapfuckdamn. He repeated the word out loud.

  Reagan grabbed a shirt from the pile of laundry on the easy chair next to the bed and pulled the Caswallawn-branded T-shirt over her head, and the fabric dropped to mid-thigh. She pulled her hair out from under the neck band, and it fell, bright and blond, over the black fabric.

  “Why is this an issue? I thought you enjoyed last night,” Reagan asked, her tone feisty but her eyes reflecting her confusion and not a little hurt.

  “Toss me a pair of pants.”

  Reagan grabbed a pair of training shorts and shot the garment at his head. He snatched the shorts before they could slap him in the face. He dressed, turning to her when he was adequately covered. “Reagan, I did enjoy what we did. I couldn’t get enough of you.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I thought you were experienced. I would never have . . . If I’d known . . . We did some stuff . . . Shit! I would’ve been gentler, less demanding.”

  “I didn’t want gentle and I wanted demanding,” Reagan stated, her tone hard. “I wanted what you gave me. I’m not a fragile flower who withers at a little raunchy sex. Can we drop the subject please?”

  It wasn’t any of his business but he wanted to know. “Why only twice?”

  Reagan narrowed her eyes at him. “None of your business.”

  Yeah, but he wanted, needed, to know. His curiosity was killing him.

  “Moving on.” Reagan yawned and slapped her hand to her mouth. “I’m going to be less than useless all day since we hardly slept last night.”

  “Take the day off,” Axl suggested as he walked to the bathroom. He used the john, washed his hands, and looked in the mirror above the basin. He brushed his hand across his jaw and grimaced. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was one big rash. Note to self, shave more often.

  Follow-up note to self . . . don’t bother as this was a onetime thing. One night and it was over . . . son of a bitch. He wouldn’t mind doing this again, and again and . . .

  “I can’t just take the day off, Axl.” Reagan’s frustrated voice drifted into the bathroom.

  Axl frowned at the starch in her voice as he turned to look back into the bedroom. She’d sat down on the bed again, leaning against the oversize, caramel-colored leather headboard, and as long as he lived he would always remember her gripping the top of the board, her body arched, her hips tilted . . .

  “Have you checked the schedule lately? You are off for the next two days.”

  “No I’m not.” Reagan frowned, looking around for her phone.

  “Trust me, you are.” And wasn’t it ridiculous that he knew her schedule as well as he did his own? It was just a habit, Axl reassured himself, nothing to be worried about. Since Reagan joined Cas, he regularly checked her schedule, nothing had changed.

  “Crap. I thought that was next week,” Reagan muttered. “What am I going to do in Mercy for two days?” Reagan tipped her head sideways. “Any chance of you putting me through my paces while I have some time off?”

  And they were back to that. Axl mentally reviewed his days and thought that he could do that, provided he didn’t get a call that would take him to Brazil. Speaking of that, he needed to check in with his team and soon. He slanted a look at his phone on the bedside table. Then again, if his team needed help, or the situation had changed, they would’ve called him.

  Axl could think of a fine way she could spend her days off and none of it involved barreling over obstacles or being on the range. And none of it involved being dressed.

  “Well?”

  Axl looked at the bed and lifted an eyebrow. “Back to business, are we?”

  Reagan folded her arms across her chest. “Would you prefer me to simper and demand to know when I am going to see you again? I see you all the time and we both know that this was a onetime thing.”

  “It is?” Of course it was, but he was interested to find out why she thought so.

  Reagan’s look tried to wither him on the spot, but he’d never allowed her sarcastic gestures to faze him. “Last night was an aberration, a step out of time. It’s not like we’re going to do this again.”

  “Why? Don’t you want to?”

  Frustration and confusion crossed her face. “Yes . . . No! We can’t. This isn’t who we are.”

  “Who are we?” Why was he pushing this? What was he trying to achieve? Axl wished he knew.

  “We’re colleagues, acquaintances who are—were!—attracted to each other. We’ve done that now so we can go back to being what we were.
Are.”

  “I thought we were going to try to be friends.”

  Reagan didn’t reply. She just linked her fingers together and stared at her pretty pink toes. “Can we be? Didn’t we just blow that boat out of the water?” Reagan quietly asked.

  “The one has little to do with the other.” Axl wondered if he was trying to convince himself or her. “We can be whatever we want to be, Reags. We can be colleagues who have sex, friends who have sex, or just colleagues or just friends. There’s no written law that says we have to be a specific way.”

  Reagan’s feet hit the floor. “You make it sound so damn easy,” she complained.

  Axl’s laugh was short and devoid of humor. “Nothing to do with you is easy, Hudson.”

  “I’ve heard that before.” Reagan walked around the bed, and when she passed Axl, his hand shot out to grab hers. She stopped, looked at him, and when she wouldn’t take the step toward him, he moved in her direction, slipping his arms around her waist and burying his face in her hair.

  He lifted his head to look down into her lovely face. “I’m not sure how any of this is going to play out, Reags, so why don’t we just take it day by day? We need to find a new way to deal with each other, because the old way isn’t working.”

  Reagan tossed her head and tried to look brave. He would’ve bought it if her bottom lip wasn’t trembling. She pulled away from him, walked into the bathroom, and opened the door to the shower stall and flipped on the hot tap. Unembarrassed, she pulled the shirt off and stood there naked, testing the water with her hand. Reagan stepped into the shower and looked at him through the clear glass, her eyes miserable. “I know and I’m sorry. This, the morning-after thing, it’s not something I know how to handle.”

  She dropped her head and traced the outline of a tile with her big toe as water soaked her hair and rolled off her spectacular body. Yet it was the vulnerability in her voice that sucked him in. He hated seeing the tension in her shoulders, the muscle that ticked in her jaw.

  “I know I’m being bitchy and difficult; I always am when I feel uncomfortable. In a couple of hours we have to treat each other as work colleagues and forget all this and it’s weird, you know. I’m trying to wrap my head around it. I’ve never had it . . . so good. Never really had it at all, but I never expected it would be that good.”

  Axl couldn’t help the surge of satisfaction he felt at her words. He almost told her to forget about MKR, his position that he didn’t sleep with his staff, about Callow’s problem and his need of their protection. He wanted to suggest that they run, leave it all behind, disappear. Just the two of them . . .

  Then he gave himself a mental kick and told himself to grow a pair. Running away together was a nice fantasy, but it never solved a damn thing. Problems had an uncanny way of catching up.

  “Unless we tell them, nobody will be able to tell what we did together,” Axl said.

  Reagan’s expression screamed that she didn’t believe a word he said. Neither did he, really. But that was for later. Right now, there was a naked girl in the shower and he was talking and not touching. Besides, he and Reagan weren’t great at talking. Conversations invariably led to fighting, and that wasn’t what he wanted right now.

  God, how was he supposed to resist her?

  “It’s still last night and a new day hasn’t really begun yet,” he said, using his most persuasive voice. Not waiting for her reply, he pushed his shorts down and pulled open the shower door.

  “Actually, it’s very much morning and the new day has started,” Reagan said as his arms slipped around her slim, wet, fragrant body.

  “I’m sure you’re mistaken. It’s still the middle of the night,” Axl insisted. “One more time, Reagan, and I’ll be satisfied.”

  Not a chance in hell, but one could always hope.

  Axl shuddered when Reagan’s hands tunneled into his hair and her tongue tangled with his. He rose again, harder and hotter than before, and in that moment he absolutely believed that he was put on this earth to pleasure Reagan. Hands skimmed over her body, fingers squeezed her breasts, his tongue played with her nipple. The water ran warm over them and steam surrounded them as his fingers skated over her muscled stomach and down into her strip of hair, parting her folds, finding her heat. Reagan groaned his name as his fingers probed and entered her, his thumbs caressing that point of pleasure until she was whimpering into his neck, begging for release. She dropped her face to place her mouth on his shoulders, sucking on his skin, panting in pleasure as he mimicked the sex act with his fingers. She arched and demanded more, but he wanted to watch her, wanted to see whether she could look more beautiful than she already did.

  She was lost in the world he’d taken her to, lost in the way he made her feel. Axl easily admitted that he’d had many women, probably more than he should have, but none of them had ever responded the way Reagan did, none of them made him want to delay his own pleasure to make her feel insanely wonderful. Axl knew that he would remember this moment for the rest of his life. She was so close, teetering on the edge, but he wanted her to wait, wanted to watch her a little longer, watch her brown-black eyes widen, the way pleasure flushed over her skin. So he stilled his fingers and, ignoring her protestations and his own demand for sexual release, slowed the process down by kissing her softly, gently, almost chastely, so that he could build her up again.

  When her moans became louder and her demand for release more intense, and after he’d pushed his fingers back into her slick channel, he swiped his thumb across her clit and she bucked against him and exploded around his hand. She ran hot and high and fast before sinking back to earth murmuring his name. Axl pulled back to look at her and knew that, for as long as he lived, he’d always remember Reagan standing in the large shower, the weak rays of the sun casting shadows through the bathroom window over her skin, highlighting her subtle curves. Her hair was wet and her lips were curved with feminine satisfaction. Under his hands, she still vibrated from the violent orgasm that had ripped through her.

  He just wanted to look at her, absorb her. Hold her and, just for this moment in time, love her.

  So they stood there for a while, her one hand on his hip, the fingers of her other hand holding his between her legs. It was curiously intimate, strangely and compellingly sexy, standing in the shower with this woman he had no business wanting, her face tucked into his neck.

  Strange that it didn’t matter that he was still as hard as a rock; Reagan was wet and warm and satisfied and he could live with that.

  Then Reagan reached for him and . . .

  Crap, his halo cracked. Axl did the only thing a hot, red-blooded man would do, could do.

  He took her up against the shower wall.

  ***

  Later that week Reagan, standing in the break room at Caswallawn, heard male voices and looked out of the window onto the big obstacle course below her. Axl, Sawyer, and Kai were standing in the middle of the course, in deep discussion, gesturing to the obstacles around them.

  Reagan made a cup of coffee and, gripping it in her hand, walked down to the indoor gym, waved to Mac—who was putting a newbie agent through his paces in the ring, which, as she knew, involved being repeatedly tossed to the floor by Mac—and went out into the weak sunshine outside.

  As she walked toward the unholy trio she looked at Axl, dressed in track pants and a hooded sweatshirt under a padded, navy sleeveless jacket. God, he was gorgeous. She hadn’t seen him for four days. Shortly after their spectacular sex in the shower he’d received a call from Brazil and within ten minutes he’d left her, brushing his lips across her cheekbone and asking her to lock the door on her way out.

  How would he treat her today? How would she respond? What was she supposed to say? Do? It was one thing to practice being cool and calm and collected and another to do it.

  Especially since with one look he could cause her ovaries to go into a nuclear
meltdown.

  A look like that, she thought as his eyes met hers. She was sure that he didn’t mean to undress her in front of his friends, but she sure felt like he was. There went her top, and he was pulling her bra cups down, bending his head to pull her nipple into his mouth.

  “Hey, we were just talking about you,” Kai said. At his voice, the coffee in her hand sloshed over and she squawked as the hot liquid scorched her skin. Axl immediately whipped the cup from her and drops of hot coffee landed on her hand.

  Reagan shook the droplets from her hand and gestured to Axl to return her coffee. She scowled when he took a large sip and wrapped his big hand around the mug.

  “Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” he said on a cocky, come-and-get-it grin.

  “Jerk,” Reagan muttered, taking a leaf out of his book and trying to act like he hadn’t licked her from top to toe. Reagan jammed her hands into the pockets of her Cas hoodie and lifted her eyebrows in Kai’s direction. “Why were you talking about me?”

  “We were just talking about how to test your fitness as per your foolish desire to join MKR.”

  So Axl hadn’t told his partners what they’d discussed with regard to her next career move. She was grateful. This way no explanations would be needed. “Uh-huh.” She bent her fingers in a gesture to Axl to give her back her coffee. He did but not before taking another large sip.

  “What did you have in mind?” she asked, scowling at the lack of caffeine in her cup.

  “The best way to test your stamina, determination, and fortitude is to do something like Hell Week,” Axl stated.

  Reagan blanched. Hell Week, as in five and a half days of cold, wet, brutally difficult operational training on fewer than four hours of sleep? Uh, no. She didn’t think so.

  Axl’s low laugh rumbled over her. She narrowed her eyes when she saw that Sawyer and Kai were smiling too. “Don’t look so worried, even I wouldn’t do that to you. We’re not the Navy and we’re not about to make the expensive investment in your training.”