Page 22 of Over the Edge

“How are logic and letting my hair down antithetical to each other?”

“Anti—what?”

“Antithetical. Mutually incompatible or directly opposed to each other.”

“Ahh. Like you and me,” she observed.

He stared hard at her, frowning for no reason she could suss out. “What?” she finally demanded.

“Is that what you think of me? That I oppose you?”

“You sure as heck opposed me on coming on this mission, and now, on this crazy notion of going to Pakistan to sacrifice yourself.”

“So you don’t think Kenny needs to be rescued?”

She scowled, irritated that he would even ask such a stupid question. “Of course I think he needs to be rescued. But rescuedsuccessfully. I think you running off expecting to die is a death sentence for both of you. And maybe for me, too, when I have to try to save you both.”

He merely gazed at her impassively. Finally, he murmured, “Antithetical, indeed.”

“You aresofrustrating,” she muttered.

“How am I frustrating?” he muttered back. A hint of a purr vibrated in his voice. It was deep and low, almost subliminal.

She jolted and found herself staring fixedly at the toe of his beige, all-terrain boot. Ohgodohgodohgod. She was so bad at the whole flirting with men thing. A dispassionate corner of her mind registered amusement that he had abruptly turned to flirting with her to deflect her personal questions. But the rest of her was still a stammering mess. Lord, she had it bad for this man.

What would Sherri Tate do in this situation? The third female Valkyrie, Sherri was a former beauty queen and a consummate diplomat, particularly at handling come-ons by men. She would make eye contact, smile politely, and say thank you in that warm, but distant way of hers.

Anna looked up at Trevor and opened her mouth to say thank you, but the words stuck in her throat, and she ended up opening and closing her mouth like a fish gasping on a dock. “Geez. I suck at this,” she finally mumbled.

“Suck at what?” he asked mildly.

She wasnotconfessing that she was trying to flirt with him. Totally flustered, she leaped to her feet. “Can I get you a drink?”

The bastard was grinning at her, as if he knew exactly how jumpy he was making her and why. “No, thanks,” he answered. “I grabbed a couple of bottles of water in the airport.”

She fled down the aisle and finally let out the breath she was holding when she ducked into the galley.

Jeez. She’d just run away from her swim buddy. He was supposed to be her best friend on the team, the one she could say anything to. The one she could always turn to for help. They had each other’s backs in all things.

Which they did easily and naturally out in the field. She trusted him with her life when bullets were flying overhead. But here? In a civilian environment? Where he was a man, and she was an actual woman—not just a soldier with female body parts? The last time they’d tried this, they’d ended up kissing each other’s brains out in the parking lot of Mabel’s dance hall.

She couldn’t exactly ask him for help in learning how to flirt with men, particularly when he was the man she wanted to flirt with. Or could she?

He was a few years older than her, in his early thirties. And he was European—or whatever Britain considered itself these days. The point was, he wasnotAmerican. He could bring a foreign sophistication to the art of flirting.

By that measure, he was just the person to help her out with her crippling inadequacy in dealing with men. Decision made, she marched back toward her seat…and Trevor.

CHAPTERSIX

Trevor felt Anna approaching. It was shocking how hyperaware of her he was, so much that he actually felt her coming back to her seat. Yes, he was supposed to be that connected to all of his Reaper teammates. But not inthisway. Her mere proximity was an electric charge across his skin, bright and sharp.

Worse, he’d actually missed her in the few minutes she’d been gone. Her absence felt wrong. A void that demanded to be filled with her laughter and warmth, her steady common sense and quirky humor. Pining after a woman was emphatically not his style. But he’d also never spent anywhere close to as much time with any woman as he’d spent with her, day and night for the past year.

Teaching her how to be a special operator had been the most fun he’d had in years. But still. He shouldn’t bepiningfor her. After all, he wasn’t pining away for Cal or any of the other Reapers.You, sir, are fucked.

Which begged the question of how he was supposed to leave her for good when they hit the ground in Zagistan. He had no intention of dragging her up into the mountains on his search for Ken Singleton. It was too dangerous for a baby operator. Way too dangerous.

Granted, in comparison to other women, she was a cheetah among sheep. He knew from training with her just how swift, strong, and flexible she was physically. And mentally? She was definite apex predator material.

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