Page 72 of Brawler
She barely had time to gasp before they were pulling her away.
The SEALs moved.
Brawler was on his feet in a heartbeat, Beast lunging with a savage snarl that had two of the suits flinching back. Easy’s rifle came off his knee. Shark shouldered forward, teeth bared in determination.
“The fuck do you think you’re doing?” Brawler’s growl shook the air, his hand locking around Emily’s arm, yanking her back into him.
All of a sudden, Emily was compressed between aggressive male bodies, while there was a shoving, pushing match. She felt like a rope in a tug of war. Her money was on her team.
“Stand down!” Tex barked, sharp enough to slice. The team froze mid-step, muscles strung tight, eyes locked on the suits. Even Beast halted, though his growl still vibrated against Brawler’s boot.
One of the agents flashed a badge so fast it looked like sleight of hand. “She’s coming with us.”
“Not without ID I can read,” Tex snapped, stepping between them, broad frame cutting off the agent’s reach. His rifle swung down, not pointed but not at rest either. “Not without a goddamn explanation.”
“This isn’t your call, mister,” the man shot back.
“Lieutenant,” Easy snarled.
The man nodded. “Lieutenant.”
“It’s Tex. Everything on this tarmac is my call until I hear otherwise,” Tex said, low and lethal, steel threaded with Texasdrawl. He shoved the badge back into the man’s chest. “Try laying hands on one of mine again without clear orders, see how that goes.”
“Tex…” another agent started.
Brawler’s chest heaved, fury radiating off him. He leaned in close enough that the nearest agent flinched, and Emily tightened her hands in his vest. “You don’t touch her unless I know exactly where you’re taking her.”
“Orders come from a higher authority than you,” the man said, jaw tight.
Tex’s voice dropped, deadly quiet. “Then you’ll show me those orders. Right now.”
A tense beat stretched, the rotor wash whipping across them, hot with dust and jet fuel. Finally, the agent produced the paperwork, credentials clipped and formal, the kind of authority even Tex couldn’t ignore.
Tex scanned it, face hard as granite. At last, he gave a curt nod. “They’ve got clearance.”
Emily’s pulse spiked as Brawler snarled, “The hell they do.” But Tex’s arm slammed across his chest, shoving him back a step.
“Enough, Beckett,” Tex ordered, voice like a hammer.
Brawler froze, every line of his body vibrating with fury, but the command rooted him in place. The look he gave Emily…God, the look. Fury, anguish, and something rawer that made her throat close. “Christian…” she whispered. She’d had plans, and none of them involved what had to be the CIA if she had to guess.
One of the agents held out his hands. “The documents?” he asked. Tex opened his pack and pulled out Emily’s life work, handing it over. Then the agents hustled her across the tarmac, cutting off her view.
She stumbled, breath ragged, her wrists aching in their grip. The warmth of belonging, the fierce joy of survival, the weightof Brawler’s kiss, were all snatched away in an instant, replaced with cold dread.
The suits hustled her toward the waiting jet, all clipped movements and silent arrogance, as if she were nothing but evidence to bag and tag.
Something in her snapped.
“Wait just a goddamned minute.” Emily’s voice detonated, sharp enough to cut through rotor wash. “I’m an American citizen, not some criminal. I saved your precious missiles, I savedyour Marines, I saved the SEALs, and this is how you thank me? Kidnapping?”
One of the agents muttered, “Miss Shade, please…”
“Don’t youMiss Shademe,” she spat, heels digging in. “You lay another hand on me, and I’ll make you regret every single day you spent at Quantico. Do you have any idea what I’ve survived in that jungle? You don’t get to manhandle me like baggage. Get your damn hands off me!”
Beneath the fury, hotter and more dangerous than all the rest, desire gone feral. She’d been counting down the minutes until she could drag Brawler into a hotel room, strip him down, and show him how much everything that had happened between them meant to her. She wanted to exchange information, phone numbers, addresses. She didn’t want to leave this way and be out of touch.
She wanted his weight, his mouth, his heat. She wanted to feel him break for her. Instead, these bastards were hauling her away, stealing the one thing she’d let herself ache for. Rage clawed up her throat. How dare they take that from her?
