“You
are
all set up, right?” she pressed. “The command center and all? Where is it? Have you
connected to El yet?”
He felt his smile soften. Damn…this woman. They probably could’ve transported her
to the foyer of the sheikh’s place itself, and all she’d be concerned about was the
effort to save her friend.
Brynn Monet was the real deal.
In the body of a too-good-to-be-true goddess.
Which meant the friend zone was really going to suck ass this time.
“I’ve been on all morning with El. We’ve been running tests on everything—and even
had time to work on a little something else, too.”
He couldn’t help winding a bit of mystery into the statement, to be rewarded exactly
how he’d hoped.
“Something else?” she repeated, lifting an intrigued smile.
“Awwww.” Rebel hoisted the bags onto the ten-foot-long leather couch. “You baked,
didn’t you, honey? Please tell me it was your famous lemon bars.”
“Fuck you.” Rhett chuckled but fought the new twist in his belly. The joke about his
abysmal kitchen skills, normally a stress reliever for them both, felt like a jab
with an extra purpose today.
Brynn puckered her lips. “You want to show me sometime today, Double-Oh?”
He swept an arm toward the plank-floored hallway that led to the rest of the house.
With the other, he hooked out an elbow to escort her. “Your wish, my command.”
Rebel emitted a rumble while falling into step behind them. “Kiss-ass.”
It was a step up from the lemon bars poke—or so he hoped.
The hallway paralleled the grounds, allowing for full enjoyment of the lake views
while walking to Blake’s huge office. Once in there, décor of leather, wood, and masculine
comfort surrounded them. Along one wall of the room were half a dozen framed platinum
records. The desk and computer systems consumed another corner, and one wall was comprised
of two sliding glass doors, opening to the terra cotta patio Rhett had been spending
a lot of time on today. He couldn’t wait to show Brynna why.
“After you.” He swiveled around the big rolling chair in front of the desk, beckoning
her to sit. He offered the matching chair to Rebel, not missing how his friend rolled
at least three inches closer to Brynn. When Reb propped an ankle to a knee, his other
knee rested directly on top of Brynn’s—a contact she seemed completely happy with.
What. The. Hell
?
He barely wrestled away a glower. Not so successful when it came to the mental boot
up his ass. He felt like one of those idiots in a cravat from some BBC period show,
ready to call a “cur” out for daring to touch his virginal lady conquest. Thinking
about Brynn Monet’s “virginal” status was
not
a good idea. Containing his own dick around the woman was torture enough, let alone
stressing about anyone else’s. And “pistols or swords?” wasn’t an expression that
tripped easily off his lips.
No. Screw that.
Rock, paper, scissors, guys. Hand grenade beats pistol
and
sword.
Wait.
Shit.
Reb was the expert at those, too.
So he just had to start showing off
his
weapons.
He peered around, spying the item he needed on the desk behind Brynn. Leaning over
without scooting around, he took an extra moment to savor his larger claim to more
of her physical awareness. With his chest next to her face and his neck against her
hair, it was a moment of tangible intimacy—one that, if he wasn’t mistaken, affected
her as potently as him.
Damn the knightly pledge. If they were alone, he would’ve gone for it. Tangled his
free hand in her hair and tilted her head back. Gazed into her huge chocolate eyes
for all the signs that she welcomed what he yearned to do: plunge his mouth over hers,
then his tongue in along hers…
“Yo, pretty boy?” Rebel’s prompt was a stab of impatience. “Sometime today? We don’t
all have time to sit and pick our zits.”
“
Hey
.” Brynn jerked her knee up into his. “Be nice.”
Rebel chuckled.
Huh
?
It was
really
time for the Rhett Lange portion of this fucking operation.
He tugged on Brynn’s chair, halting the knee fornication, before facing her toward
the three huge monitors on the desk. One belonged to Blake, so remained dark. A ton
of coding consumed the screen next to it. He’d been double-checking the shit, ensuring
their firewalls were up and the IP was routed through fifty other cities, in preparation
for when Adler and his goons latched on to their chatter with Vegas. Yes,
when
they latched. No way in hell had Adler dared this super freak move and not anticipate
there’d be some hot pursuit. The fucker had likely been ready for them for weeks.
The third monitor displayed a blue screen of death, until Rhett jiggled the joystick
in the box he’d just grabbed. After a few blinks, the screen “woke up” to relay a
high-def feed from a mobile camera.
He grinned and swiveled the control stick.
Fewer things were more fun to a gadget geek than showing off new toys.
Brynna leaned forward, tilting her head as if to make sense of the image. “Is that…grass?
And the underside of a bush?”
He pushed the stick forward and shifted his thumb over one of the two buttons on the
pad, swiveling the camera around. “Ding ding. Prize for the beautiful lady.”
“Wasn’t hard,” she replied. “The image quality is exceptional. But unless they’ve
started making GoPros for mice—
whoa
.” She cried out as a structure appeared in the picture. “Isn’t that…this house?”
Rebel supplied the answer to that. “Looks like it.” He peered behind them. “That patio
right there, as a matter of fact.”
Brynn rose. Peered at the monitor, the patio sliders, then back again—before gasping
as
she
appeared on the monitor. Her legs, at least.
“What the—”
The “mouse cam” appeared to roll over the threshold, into the office. Rhett chuckled
softly as Rebel joined his perplexity with Brynn’s, surging to his feet and staring
at the floor—right where he should’ve been looking into the lens of a little rolling
camera.
Reb shot him a frown.
Rhett bounced back a wicked grin. Maneuvered the camera until it practically crawled
up Moonstormer’s leg.
“Fucker.” Reb jumped. The pound of his landing was joined by a metallic sound, as
if an erector set had been tossed. The camera feed confirmed it, the image going nuts,
showing the room’s walls and ceiling before balancing again—with a close-up of Reb’s
boots. “What the
hell,
Double-Oh?’
The late morning sun cast a strawberry halo over Brynn’s hair as her head tick-tocked
between the monitor and the floor. “Exactly what he said.” Her gaze was huge with
curiosity. “What’s going on?”
He couldn’t resist letting the mystery stretch for another moment. “Well…dielectrics
have come a long way in the last few years. Let’s say that much.”
Brynn cocked her head, unwittingly becoming the world’s most adorable kitten. “Huh?”
Rebel pushed out a dazed snort. “Shit. Of course. But the metasurface advances…they
can conceal all the nooks and crannies of a camera?”
“When it’s really the size of a mouse—and they’ve successfully tested a spray-on version
of the stuff? Yes.”
“Helllooo?” Brynn swept a hand in a wide arc. “Somebody want to break this down for
the girl who barely understands the buttons on the TV remote?”
Rebel gave her an indulgent grin. “The camera’s still there,
minette.
It’s just invisible.”
Minette
?
Thank fuck Brynn kept stealing Reb’s attention, her jaw dropping into an adorable
gawk. “Serious?” she blurted, giving Rhett time to neutralize his features again.
“The technology’s been in development for years.” He rushed it out too fast, but would
be damned to let Reb grandstand through the subject of
his
expertise. “Using ceramic beads embedded into a thin layer of polytetrafluoroethylene.”
Brynn blinked. “The girl who can’t get to CNN without a guide, remember?”
“Teflon.” He flashed an indulgent smirk with the clarification.
Rebel approached the camera again. “They had a lot of early success with it, but only
with two-dimensional scenarios.” Using the monitor as his guide, he stepped all the
way around the device this time. “Never something like this. A moving object, in all
dimensions, able to manipulate light waves on all sides.” He pushed a fist against
his chin then shook his head. “This is a huge slice of awesome, Double-Oh.”
Somehow, Rhett couldn’t revel in his friend’s praise. The verbal applause from Reb
felt as it always did, generous and warm—but there
was
a difference to it now.
Because of what was added to the air now.
The palpable connection established between Brynn and him.
Rhett grunted against the knot in his throat. He wanted to think he was imagining
things—but was punched by glaring evidence otherwise. Brynn stepped over, moving up
aside Reb. Screw that. “Aside” didn’t begin to describe it. The woman turned into
female plaster, hooking her arm around Reb’s elbow then pulling herself close, wrapping
at least one whole side of her body against his.
And the fucker didn’t flinch one inch from it.
The knot tightened in Rhett’s throat. Squeezed liquid fire down into his stomach.
Didn’t take a goddamn rocket scientist to burn off a conclusion from there—or to wonder
where they’d both stashed their Mile High Club membership cards.
“This is perfect.” Oh, yeah. All the signs were evident in Rebel’s tone, too. The
silk of contentment. The thrum of confidence. The boost of his Creole drawl. All bore
evidence to the obvious now. That asshole had recently gotten laid.
“For what?” Brynna prompted him.
“This is the mouse that’s going to gather our cheese,” Reb explained. “Our way inside
the building, to gather initial intel. If Adler’s goons can’t see this thing, it’ll
have free reign of the whole building.”
The acid eased by a few drops as Brynna jerked in surprise, the action peeling her
back from Reb a couple of inches. Rhett would’ve been ecstatic with at least a couple
more but it was a start.
“Really?” When she directed the question his way, his tension softened again. “That’s
possible?”
He held up the box. “World’s most fun RC car. It has a range of five hundred miles.”
Her eyes warmed as her smile widened—and just like that, his muscles became taut rope
again. Why’d she have to look that beautiful while feeling up the middle of Reb’s
rib cage? “Special Forces. One of the best places to be a tech geek,” she cracked.
And Goddammit, why’d she have to call
his
ball with such accuracy?
“Okay, who’s been feeding you our deep, dark secrets?”
He managed enough of a grin to turn it casual.
Hers faded, in the shadow of her total sincerity.
“I don’t know a remote from a radio wave, but I sure as hell honor those who do.”
He had nothing for that. How could he, when she spoke with such a magical, heartfelt
husk? When the sheer spell of her voice filled his brain with only one obsession now:
the image of her “honoring” him in other ways? On her knees. Those huge eyes turning
up to him. That strawberry sweetness of a mouth, opening to take his cock inside…
His spun back toward the desk, concealing his hard-on by pretending to check the monitor.
Was that what enticed Reb to the about-face on his hostility toward her? Had it been
the magic of her voice, even just asking him for something simple like a bottle of
water? If they’d started talking and she started in on other subjects…
hotter
subjects…no wonder Rebel had been a goner.
Not
the Zen candle of thought he needed right now.
“Of course, one of us will need to get in at first, to plant the camera.” Rebel turned
to pace toward the patio, though threaded his fingers through Brynn’s first, conveying
he did so reluctantly. “It’s a little less than an hour into Austin. I’ll leave around
eleven, get there about midnight, be in position to move on things about thirty mikes
after that.”
Well, that did wonders for dampening the boner. Setting down the controller with a
definitive
thunk,
Rhett pushed off from the desk and paced outside, too. “Who the hell says
you
get to have the fun?”
The sun bore down on the lake, casting Rebel’s forceful features into silhouette as
he looked out on it. “Because if I’m caught or killed, at least the camera’s inside
and you can drive it. If you’re eliminated, mouse cam is dead and useless.”
“Stop.” Brynn stomped out now, hands flying to hips, hair fanning in the wind. “Nobody’s
getting caught, killed, eliminated, or dead.” She exhaled with definition. “The three
of us will go together.”
Rebel angled a sharp stare back at her. Rhett clenched back a growl—and then a grimace.
Growling wasn’t usually his style—and if he indulged, it was motivated by specific
circumstances. Watching Reb get his Dom face on was definitely not one of them. But
never had he seen that look outside a kink dungeon before. Never did he think Reb
would meet a woman who inspired it like that.
Or anticipated that he’d get so furious about such a connection.
“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.”