Page 3 of Brawler
Flash turned his head, meeting Brawler’s eyes. Frustration bloomed there, sharp and hollow. Ache lived just beneath it.
Brawler didn’t recoil. He absorbed it like oxygen.Like protein.This…thisright here…was what helivedfor. Not the jokes. Not the missions.
The moment someone trusted him with the thing they were too afraid to say out loud.
Flash’s jaw clenched, flexed. He ran a hand through his hair, restless and uncontained.
“White coats and the loony bin aside…yeah.” His voice cracked just slightly. Then, quieter, like it cost him to say it. “You would understand, big man.” A long pause stretched between them. Then Flash stood suddenly, like he’d stayed too long in a room where the air had thinned. Too vulnerable. Too seen. “Don’t ever change, Christian,” he muttered. He tapped the seat once, a small goodbye. “Get some sleep.”
Just like that, he was gone. Moving down the aisle like he hadn’t just bled truth in the dark.
Brawler sat back, fingers still tangled in Beast’s fur. He stared at the spot where Flash had been. Then down at his dog. Then out into the dim glow of the plane, where ghosts sometimes whispered and wounded men waited for permission to heal.
The bar wasloud enough to blur the conversations, dim enough to soften the edges. Brawler leaned against the counter, a beer in one hand, eyes drifting over the crowd without hurry. He knew the look when he saw it. Froghogs, straphangers, women who came here for the uniform, the story, and the quick and dirty. He didn’t have a problem with that. It was all about slotting body parts for him.
She was easy to spot and just his type: tall, blonde, stacked. That voluptuous body was poured into a dress that fought to contain her cleavage. Her smile was already an invitation, all soft lips and calculation. She held his gaze for a beat too long, the way people did when they were sure they’d already been chosen. No nervous flick of the eyes, no questions in her smile. Predictable. Exactly what he needed.
His muscles were still wired from deployment, from too many hours awake, from the metallic smell of Beast’s blood in his nose. Toby, his brother, was waiting at home, and when Brawler got there, he wanted to be calm, grounded. Not restless. Not needy. He had to purge this from his system first.
He sauntered over to the bar, sat down right next to her.
“You’re very hard to miss, handsome,” she said. “With that broad back perfectly aligned so you can see the door and the bar, you have to be a SEAL.”
He signaled the bartender and ordered her a strong drink. She looked like she could handle it. He set down his phone and pulled out his wallet to pay. The screen lit with the photo of Toby popping into view.
Her head tilted. “He yours?”
The smile faded from his face, replaced with a flat look. He snapped the wallet closed. “I have a story to fill your notch,” he said, voice low, crude, edged with a smirk that didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m not part of it.” She took a sip of her drink, and he leaned on the bar, making eye contact, impatient but contained. All show, all surface. “That what you’re planning? Catch and release, honey?” Brawler said.
She laughed softly. “Gorgeous and witty. That’s it.” She leaned in. “I don’t have any underwear on, and I think you’d fit perfectly.” She looked down. “With some to spare.”
She rose and headed toward the back, one of those dim little storeroom bars kept for kegs and bad decisions. They didn’t waste time. The door shut on the music, sealing them in with cooler air and the faint scent of cleaning solvent. She pressed in, warm and ready, but he turned them so her back hit the wall, his hands settling on her hips, firm.
He set the pace early, the way he always did. Not dominance, but regulation. If she pulled him off rhythm without warning, it would spike his nerves, short out his focus. Not tonight. Not when he needed this clean.
Her perfume was sweet, cloying. He adjusted her angle, kept her moving where he wanted her. Every thrust deliberate, channeling the static in his veins toward a release he needed. She gasped, breath hitching each time he drove in deep, nails curling into the backs of his arms.
She tried to lift her face toward his, lips parting in invitation. He didn’t meet her halfway. Instead, he angled his head aside, catching her hand when it came up to cup his cheek. His body jolted from the sudden spike of too much, too soon. He turned her wrist palm-in and pressed it to his chest, over the soft stretch of his T-shirt fabric, a barrier between them. He kissed her knuckles once, then pushed back into her, never losing the rhythm.
He wondered, briefly, how the hell he’d handle a woman who wantedhimand not the uniform. Someone who looked past the surface and still leaned in. He shoved the thought aside. That kind of encounter meant too many variables, too many ways to lose control. This— fast, clean, contained—was safer.
A whimper slipped from her throat, low and pleased, and for a second, something in her tone brushed against a sound Toby used to make when he laughed hard, pure, unguarded. It passed in an instant, but it landed in his chest, an odd weight under the urgency.
She shifted, tilting her hips for more. He steered her back smoothly, enough she didn’t notice he was directing. Heat. Friction. The slick sound of it in the small room.
It was over quickly, sharp pleasure leaving his muscles loose, and the tightness in his chest starting to ease. Exactly what he’d come for. He zipped up, adjusting himself.
Now that he was sated, he didn’t want her hands on him. It might feel good, but it generated a hollow sensation he wanted to avoid. She tracked him with her eyes. “You were the best of the night,” she whispered.
He didn’t doubt it. But it wasn’t a compliment that landed anywhere he cared about.
They were on the same page, so no answer was needed. Turning away, he slipped out the door, the heat from the storeroom cooling into the familiar emptiness he knew how to carry and could now set aside when he walked through his brother’s door.
Brawler keyedin the entry code, shouldered the door shut behind him, and let the quiet hit. No music, no bassline in hischest, no perfume clinging to his shirt. Just the soft hum of the fridge and the faint smell of coffee.
“Toby!” he called, heading toward the den.
A head popped up over the back of the couch, hair sticking out like he’d run his hands through it a hundred times. Toby’s grin started in his eyes and took over his whole face.
