Page 75 of The Wild Charge

“Oh, Cassandra? Your sister?”

“Don’t call her that, I don’t have any sisters,” he said with a sneer.

“You have two, actually.”

The sneer widened and Tenny slammed his toothbrush back into the cup.

“They’re Fox’s sisters, and he’s your brother,” Reese pressed, “so that means–”

“I know what it means,” Tenny snapped. “Why was shethanking you?”

They’d found Tenny on that mission to London, but he hadn’t been a part of it. Fox had come face-to-face with him, and incapacitated him, in the conference room of a high-rise building, when Tenny had still belonged to his old masters. Reese had dropped out of a ceiling to rescue little Cassandra, and then, later, she’d wanted to come and thank him, shy and blushing, for doing so.

Tenny stalked out of the bathroom and came to sit on the edge of the bed, way down at Reese’s feet. Reese wanted to lean forward and press his thumb to the groove between his brows, smooth it away…

And then it all clicked together in his brain. He felt the urge to smile. “Are you jealous?”

Tenny bared his teeth. “Fuck no, answer the bloody question!”

Oh, he wasveryjealous. Reese wanted to kiss him.

Instead, he said, “The people you used to work for took Cassandra as a hostage. When he we got inside the building, I went up into the ceiling to access the room where they were keeping her. I extracted her, and then she thanked me for it.”

“Thanked youhow?”

Reese decided to put him out of his misery before the vein in his forehead burst. “By saying ‘thank you.’ Mercy was there. Nothing else happened.” Tenny started to respond, and Reese said, “It was the first time anyone had ever thanked me for doing what I do. It was…it was nice.”

Tenny opened his mouth – and then closed it. He let out a long, slow breath through flared nostrils, tension smoothing from his face. He glanced down at his bare feet on the carpet. “Shit,” he muttered.

“You don’t have to be jealous.”

“I’mnot.” He huffed another minute, then found Reese’s foot beneath the blanket, and squeezed it. Cheeks pink, voice a little rough, he said, “Can I suck your dick now, or what?”

“Yes, please.”

Twenty

Ten a.m. the next morning saw them stationed at baggage claim at McGhee Tyson airport. Tenny had gum, and he cracked it loudly in between obnoxiously perfect bubbles that never popped too soon and wound up stuck to his chin. He really was good at everything, the little shit.

Fox twisted another look toward him over his shoulder, where he and Reese stood propped against a tiled support pillar like light and dark bookends. Tenny had his arms folded, breathing with slightly flared nostrils – agitated. Reese stood loose and placid as a still pond in winter.

Fox nearly grinned when he recalled what Reese had said to him earlier, outside the clubhouse, when they were collecting a van.I think he’s nervous about meeting them.Just a murmur, his expression unusually animated. Then, even quieter,I told him not to be jealous, but it didn’t work.

Jealous? Fox was baffled. Even more baffled to have been spoken to about emotions by Reese of all people. Those two were either a wonderful, or a hideous influence on one another – jury was still out.

What are you hens clucking about?Tenny had snapped, and they’d broken apart.

Fox still didn’t understandwhyhe’d be jealous – he’d made faces yesterday at mention of Raven’s arrival but that was just his normal asshole schtick – but there was no mistaking the tense looks Tenny kept skating sideways at an oblivious Reese, who scanned the baggage claim with a more relaxed version of his usual attentiveness.

Walsh’s phone pinged, and Fox twisted back around to find his other brother smirking at the screen. “That’s Ghost. He wants us to pat Maddox down before we let him on property.”

Fox snorted. “The old man’s getting paranoid.”

Walsh’s smirk faded as he typed a reply and slipped his phone away. “Aren’t you?” he asked, single brow lifting.

Yes. But he had been long before Ghost arrived there, or Walsh either, for that matter. He shrugged.

Walsh leaned in close enough to ask, “What’s wrong with our littlest brother?”

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