Page 17 of Brawler
She couldn’t help herself. Brawler’s buttons were too much fun to push, and she wanted a rise out of him. The Neanderthalwith his jaw always locked tight like granite. God, he was begging for it.
Brawler huffed out a breath that came too close to a growl. His gray eyes narrowed, lips flattening into a hard line. “His name is Beast.”
Emily straightened slowly, pinning him with her best smirk. “Does that make you Beauty?”
The team broke into peals of laughter, weapons rattling as shoulders shook.
Flash doubled over, chuckling. “Beauty the beefcake.”
“Goddammit,” Brawler muttered, color climbing his neck, darkening under the sun-browned skin. Emily caught the flicker of heat in his eyes and felt a twinge of remorse for making him the butt of the joke. But damn if he didn’t goad her into it.
Flash grinned wide, eyes gleaming. “What’s next, a ballgown?”
“Nah,” Easy said, smirking as he slung his rifle over his shoulder. “He doesn’t have the hips for that kind of skirt.”
“Tutu. Better range of motion.” Shark’s voice was flat, his delivery as dry as bone, which only made the laughter worse.
“Distracting to the enemy,” Bondo added, trying to stifle his mirth but failing.
“He’s climbing the couture ladder from peasant to princess,” Flash said. “Maybe he needs?—”
“If you say tiara…” Brawler cut him off with a crushing, murderous look that promised retribution.
The laughter ebbed when he turned back to her. In one stride, he closed the distance, stepping in so close she had to tilt her chin to hold his gaze. His eyes were dark pewter, depth and weight behind them, and his voice dropped into that husky rasp that went straight through her bones. “Laugh it up, pixie dust. That makes me his big, bad handler. You don’t want to see either of us in action.”
Her smirk faltered, breath catching. Heat spiked, sharp and sudden.See him in action.The words landed in her chest and slid lower, betraying, impossible to ignore. Her gaze betrayed her, raking down the lines of his body, broad chest, corded arms, solid thighs, before snapping back to his eyes.
They flashed, sharp as a blade. He’d noticed.
“Don’t go there,” he said gruffly, a low warning that shivered across her skin. “This mountain doesn’t heel that easily.”
Emily’s breath caught in her throat. Heat rippled down her spine, scattering her thoughts like startled birds. Her backstabbing mind went directly to what she could do to make this man heel. She forced herself to take a step back, boots sinking into the spongy leaf litter.
Out of the corner of her eye, Emily caught Flash nudge Easy. The laughter had died off, replaced by the taut hum of awareness. Something had shifted between their teammate and the fiery redhead, and nobody missed it.
The sooner she put distance between herself and Brawler, the sooner she could reacquaint herself with common sense. Every word he spoke vibrated against her nerves, his sheer physicality shorting out logic until all she could think about was the weight of his gaze and the gravel in his voice.
“Well,” she said tightly, dragging in the thick, humid air like it might steady her pulse, “this has been a slice, but I need to get back to work.”
The jungle answered with a low chorus of cicadas, the scent of wet earth and crushed greenery heavy in the air. She shifted her pack higher on her shoulder, meaning to push past. That was when she noticed it. The subtle shift of bodies, the way seven armed men seemed to melt into new positions around her. Not threatening, but enclosing. A perimeter. Their banter might have been easy, but their instincts were lethal, and every one ofthem had just moved to shield or strike if the jungle spat danger at them.
Her stomach dropped.
They weren’t going to let her go.
Tex stepped forward, his tall frame cutting into the sliver of space between her and Brawler. The air seemed to tighten with the move, his expression stripped of all the warmth she’d glimpsed earlier. Dead serious. Commander serious. “Emily,” he said evenly, “it would be best if you stayed with us until we can get you out of here.”
Her shoulders snapped rigid. She crossed her arms, the defensive gesture doing nothing to hide the tremor running under her skin. “What? You can’t be serious.”
“I’m afraid I am.”
The words landed heavily.
She instinctively stepped back, the heel of her boot grinding against a root. Panic spiked, tangling with the stubbornness that always kept her upright. Dani’s face flashed in her mind, smiling, gone too soon, and the dissertation that carried her sister’s shadow written across every page. She couldn’t abandon it. Not again.
“I have work to do,” she said, voice rising, almost cracking. “This trip is the last part of what I need to finish my dissertation. I can’t just go back to New York without my data.”
Brawler moved before she finished, his bulk closing in like thunderclouds rolling over the horizon. His gaze, cloud-dark and sharp with lightning, pinned her in place. “If I hadn’t been on that path…”
