Mastered By The Mavericks (13 page)

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.”

And maybe he had to be more careful about the uptake on the miracle shit.

“So she went from kicking your ass last night to gazing stardust at you today, because
you—what?—let her use most of the armrest in the plane? Brought a copy of the rom-con
starring the dude with the dreamy hair and sat through it with her? Gave her the best
foot rub of her life?” A gape took over as Reb looked away, his expression clouding
over. In return, Rhett took his own turn at confusion. “Christ. So what the fuck
did
happen?”

Rebel poured more water and gulped a giant swig. Elbows on the chopping block, he
stared out into the herb garden. “She turned applesauce on me when she saw the Piper.
Turned white as a ghost as soon as Sam fired up the engines. So I…distracted her.”

“Distracted,” he echoed. “Without your cock?”

Reb’s fingers, flattened on the wood counter, compressed until the nail beds whitened.
“I didn’t say that.”

A chuff escaped. “But you didn’t fuck her.”

Rebel shoved up. “Does it matter? I got her here, didn’t I?”

He had no idea what re-sparked his rage more: the dickhead’s callousness, or his righteous
claim to it. Did it matter? His anger was back, blistering and hot, firing into his
arms, ramming them into Rebel’s shiny chest. “It does matter, you arrogant prick.
In case you haven’t picked up on it yet, Brynn Monet isn’t a panting little thing
who wants to bow at your feet and beg for your flogger.”

Reb stumbled back but cocked a smirk through every step, his moves like an insolent
rag doll. “Buddy, you might be very surprised at what that girl wants.”

“Woman. She’s a
woman
, damn you—one who’s had her heart fucked with enough by players like you.”

The guy stopped. No more rag doll. The grin fell away, too. “Right.” His eyes narrowed,
all traces of color gone. “Because a catch like
you
is what she’s looking for, huh? Love songs and long walks on the beach, with sex
on the side? A Dom who’s willing to settle on limits that keep her ‘happy’ because
the alternative just may be—oh,
gasp
—losing her and being alone. And God help poor little Rhett Lange if he’s alone, discarded
again by the world, wandering the Earth in search of his lost, broken—”

One fist. Driving straight for that asshole’s face.

Stopped midair, skin smacking skin, sweat exploding.

The monster who stopped him—

Now the friend who stared at him, unblinking and unrelenting.

Daring him. Like so many times before.

Drawing him closer. Like so many times before.

“Let. Go.” His lungs shook on the syllables. He twisted his wrist inside Reb’s.

Rebel just kept staring, with those eyes as fathomless as midnight. “I won’t ever
discard you, Rhett.”

Rhett.
Not Double-Oh or dude or dickhead. His name, so simple, nearly sanctified…rasped
with that baritone intimacy. Yet asking for even more.

“I said
let go
.”

“Why?”

The fucker tugged harder, bringing him eye-to-eye. Breath to breath. Heat to heat.

“Because I’m pissed at you.”

“Pissed?”

He had the nerve to say nothing else. To say everything else. To arch one black brow,
turning it into the curve of a question mark…without the finishing dot.

Beckoning Rhett to be that completion.

Firing every drop of his blood with the same goddamn need.

Making him wonder…once more…what it might be like. To reach out, to touch, to fill
his senses with this sun who’d been lent to the Earth as a man. Just once…

No.

A matching sound, low and vicious, clawed up his throat. He finally shoved free, chest
laboring, eyes glaring. That was the trouble with dreams about touching the sun. They
could only be dreams. Taken to reality, they incinerated a man.

He wheeled around, heading back toward the door out to the grounds. “Take a shower,”
he growled in the doing. “You stink, asshole.”

His own plans?

He was going to jump in the lake.

And hoped, when he got out, that his mind
and
his cock wouldn’t still be raging beyond any semblance of control.

‡

Peace in our souls.

Paradise in our hearts.

B
rynn gazed at
the framed needlepoint, hanging on the wall in the little den next to the office,
and wondered whether to laugh or cry.

Or cut to the chase and scream.

The temptation bubbled from her belly into her throat as one of the guys—at this point,
they were both being such ogres that it didn’t matter which—slammed a door off the
living room. It had been like this for hours between them, increasing as the afternoon
turned to twilight, pushing through the whole house like a pressure cooker about to
blow. She counted on the night bringing an equally murky mood between her mission
mates.

What the hell had happened since this afternoon?

She
certainly didn’t have anything interesting to report. After stomping out on them,
she’d found one of the guest bedrooms with the intent of sulking away her frustration
for a while. Instead, a wall of exhaustion had hit.

Two hours later, she’d been yanked from half-asleep to fully alert by the sound of
skin smacking skin, then a duel of low growls. She’d been too far away to distinguish
the cause of the fight, only knowing it ended in Rhett’s escaping toward the lake
at a jog, the tension in his torso turned to ironic beauty beneath the sun. Half a
minute later, she’d heard rushing water and the clack of a shower door.

Process of elimination led her to think of Rebel beneath that spray—and the heated
temptation to join him there. But unnerving instincts had held her back. She couldn’t
help but remember Shay’s words from last night.

You go through a different submissive each month, asshole
.

Though Shay’s rage had spawned the words, Rebel sure as hell hadn’t denied them—meaning
the “diversion” he’d given her on the plane was exactly that for him. A pleasant way
to pass the time No more, no less.

But as the minutes passed, even that truth had been eclipsed by the cloud that spread
through the house, undeniable and thick, the aftermath of whatever had gone down in
the kitchen. The toxic aura was an affront to every gold and pink thread of the needlework
on the wall. Brynn could practically feel the tenderness put into every inch of the
piece, and wondered what special lady in Dax Blake’s life had created it. Mother?
Sister? Wife? And what would that woman think about the way the males in this place
were acting now, avoiding each other in stony silence—when they weren’t grunting profanity
under their breaths or abusing every piece of furniture they could?

Whump.

A lot like that.

She pegged the perpetrator of the cabinet slam as Rebel, since the
rat-a-tat
s on the computer in the next room could only be Rhett’s. In the kitchen, plastic
crunched. A soda can
thwopped
.

Rhett cleared his throat. “Hey. The Sriracha chips are mine.”

The cabinet creaked. “There’s two bags.”

“Right. And they’re both mine.”

A gritted curse in French. Steps that pounded so hard, the walls jittered.

Brynn exhaled as the needlepoint bounced on its hanger. So this was what it felt like
to referee three year-olds.

She swung out of the chair, setting aside her e-reader. Just when she was getting
to the best part of the novel, too. The rock star and the geek scientist would have
to deny their desires for a few minutes longer.

Maybe longer than that.

Deciding to hit Rebel first with the censure about playing nice, she rounded the corner
into the office—

Just as Rebel entered from the other door, already dressed in head-to-toe black for
his subterfuge tonight. He had a bag of Sriracha chips in each hand—that he suddenly
turned over, raining the spicy contents onto the floor.

“What the hell!” She gaped at Rebel, who glared only at Rhett—who simply leaned back
in the chair and rolled his eyes.

What the hell
?

The internal echo didn’t dilute the shock. Was this kind of shit
normal
for them?

“Here you go.” Rebel tossed the bags back over his shoulder before whirling back toward
the kitchen. “Have at it, pal.”

“Rebel!”

Brynn hurried after him, catching up only after he’d stalked out the front door of
the house itself. It was then, while pulling him by an elbow, that a wave of energy
poured off of him—jolting her with a crazy new awareness.

The violence he’d just hurled at Rhett…wasn’t just violence. She knew it because he
redirected all of it at her now, and a lot of it was already familiar to her. A force
she’d already experienced once today—in the depths of his gaze and the magic of his
fingers—during the flight down here.