Page 3 of Over the Edge

He opened his mouth to answer, but a voice boomed behind her, making her jump.

“Yo, Trev!” their huge teammate, Axel “Axe” Adams, bellowed from a range of approximately two feet. Axe sported his usual, off-duty biker garb—a sleeveless leather vest over a sweat-stained, heavy metal T-shirt, a thick, chrome chain hooked to his belt and disappearing into his front jeans pocket. He continued bellowing, “Why aren’t you out there dancing and scoping out chicks? It’s a target rich environment, bro.”

From behind Axe, Joaquin “Jojo” Romero piped up. “Cal told us specifically to blow off some steam, tonight. Have some fun. Loosen up a little. Does Trev look loose to you, Axe?”

“Naw, man. He looks some-kind-a tight to me.”

“How tight?” Jojo asked drolly.

The big man tilted his head, considering Trevor. “He’s so tight I’d need a sledgehammer to drive a toothpick up his ass.”

Trevor rolled his eyes as Jojo laughed and waved the bartender over. Leaning across the bar, Jojo shouted over the noise, “Have you got a half-decent single malt scotch back there?”

The bartender nodded.

“We’ll need the bottle and a half-dozen shot glasses, then,” Jojo shouted back.

A half-dozen? Anna’s heart dropped. The whole team must be here. There went her intimate conversation with Trevor to convince him to open up to her about the argument. Drat.

Trevor might be comfortable in a crowd, but he preferred to have serious conversations one-on-one. If the Reapers started drinking together, she would never get him to tell her what had gone down between him and Cal.

“C’mon, you two,” Jojo shouted in her direction. “We’ve got a booth.”

“You all go have fun!” Trevor shouted back. “I’m good here.”

Well, hell. Now she would have to choose between hanging out with the team or staying here with Trevor, which would be a blatant invitation for the entire Scooby gang to harass them both about hooking up. And that would be a sure recipe for Trevor never to speak to her alone again.

She stood up reluctantly. To Trevor, she suggested lightly, “Come over and be social with the team. Maybe do like Jojo suggested and let your hair down a little. He is right. You do seem tense.”

He opened his mouth, clearly intending to say no. Her heart dropped all the way to her feet in disappointment, and she mentally dropped kicked her stupid feelings as far away as she could launch them.

A little voice in the back of her head whispered that she was an idiot for harboring a secret crush on him. It was hopeless. He would never see her as anything other than one of the guys. At best, he might one day see her as a little sister. But nothing more.

Axe stepped around her and threw one of his massively muscled arms across Trevor’s shoulders, dragging him off his bar stool by brute force and rumbling, “Nobody likes a party pooper, man.”

Sympathy for Trevor coursed through her. It wasn’t like anybody ever successfully said no to Axe. He would just pick you up and make you do what he wanted you to. She followed the two men as Axe cheerfully forced Trevor toward the opposite side of the saloon and the big booth Leo Lipinski and Lily Van Dyke already sat in.

Leo was the only married guy on the team, although his wife of less than a year was still living in California and showed no signs of moving across the country to join him here in North Carolina.

Lily was the other woman on the team and a great kid. An ex-gymnast, Lily was the smallest, quickest, and most agile of the three women Cal had chosen to be the first female SEALs. She came across as a sweet little thing, but she had steel in her.

Axe shoved Trevor at one of the bench seats, and the Brit staggered forward before regaining his balance. Anna shook her head. Trevor was six-feet of pure muscle, and Axe tossed him around like a rag doll. That guy was an ox. But he was their ox.

Axe gestured at her to slide into the banquette seat after Trevor, and she gulped. They were colleagues. Just friends. She could do this. Keep it casual. Professional. Donotnotice Trevor’s muscular thigh only inches from hers or the way heat poured off of him to envelop her in the tight quarters of the booth.

Axe sat down, casually knocking her across the sticky vinyl and mashing her entire left side against the furnace that was Trevor.Hello, sailor.

“Sorry,” she muttered in his general direction.

“No help for it,” he replied dryly. “Axel’s a mastiff who thinks he’s a chihuahua.”

Jojo barked at Axe in a high-pitched yap from across the table. Axe wadded a napkin and threw it at Jojo, who snagged the paper missile neatly out of mid-air and shot it back at the bigger man.

Lily, wedged between Leo and Jojo, laughed and warned Axe, “Don’t try to out-throw the Jo. He wasn’t drafted by the NFL for nothing.”

Axe snorted. “Puny human. I could crush him.”

“Oh yeah, Hulk?” Jojo retorted. “Try me.”

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