"Braw Boy. Good to see you, you filthy Highlander."
"Same to you, drizzle shit." The weatherman was at it again. Insults that sounded like compliments. Shay didn't let that pineapple wither too long on the ground, though. He lobbed back a scorcher that somehow linked Sam's ass with nuclear fallout, but Rebel was beyond caring about the particulars-
Not when he noticed that Brynn still looked rooted into the blacktop. And stood more rigid than the damn light poles.
He approached her, wondering if the deer-in-the-headlights routine was just her elaborate set-up for the verbal smack-down she'd surely been working on since last night-when doing the real thing to him. Three times in a row to be exact, as he'd been eloquently reminded by a very gleeful Rhett. But even as he stepped close enough to see the caramel ribbons that swirled through the chocolate of her gaze, she barely breathed, let alone spoke.
Correction. She breathed, all right. In harsh, tight spurts that got sucked back in as fast as they escaped. At her sides, her fingertips trembled, in between tapping her thighs in a Morse code solely of her translation.
A frown pushed at his brows.
If he didn't know better, he'd peg her vibe as … afraid. Scared shitless, actually.
"Brynn?"
She jerked a glance over, though not in surprise or fear. Not at him, at least. So what the hell had her so fugazi, she was tossing aside a perfectly good chance to rib him once more?
"Brynn?" He lightly cupped her shoulder. Her muscles were as stiff as the steel in the poles. "Ca vien, minette?"
His prompt seemed to work on a little of her strange trance. She blinked fast, swallowed hard then pointed across the tarmac. "We're going to Texas … in that?"
"Would I have told you to meet me here otherwise?" He deliberately chose a lighter tone-out of concern, not cruelty. His sarcasm always seemed to bring out hers. Hopefully, she'd grab the bait.
No chance.
"You told me we were taking an airplane."
The wobble in her voice only intensified. Hell, talk about a perfect chance for turnabout fair play. But taking advantage of a person's fear was what terrorists did-a truth he knew through firsthand experience. Entirely too much of it.
He deepened his hold on her shoulder, instead. "It's a sturdy machine, Brynna."
"It's an oversized child's toy." She yanked from his hold, hunching her shoulders in, starting to bite a nail.
His frown dug in deeper, coinciding with his confusion. "You've been on tour with shows before, right? Haven't you flown all over the country?"
"Not in glorified tin cans!"
Well, this was getting him nowhere-except, perhaps, to a clear way out of this whole situation. Sam could've been standing there in full uniform, a chest full of candy attesting to his expertise in the cockpit, but it wouldn't have made a difference to Brynn. She didn't trust anything about the Piper.
"Look. We don't have time to run through the safety record of the plane, or for you to get therapy about this."
She pulled her hand from her face far enough to make it a fist. "Did I say I needed therapy?"
"Don't think you had to."
Shit. What was that, with the aw-shucks line straight from one of Franzen's lame musicals? Worse yet, what was this electric shock through his chest when his "sweet understanding" instantly turned her eyes into huge pools?
Wrong. This was all wrong. Her horror should've been his triumph. Her reticence, flipped into his golden opportunity. At the very least, he needed to be blasting fate a new asshole for withholding this loophole last night, when he'd gone hand-to-hand with the women and nearly ended up in traction because of it.
Now, his goddamn brain was in the sling, instead-completely useless for lending his voice any kind of authority.
Thank fuck they were standing at the center of a tarmac and not the middle of a Catacomb playroom.
Annnd just like that, his body didn't pay attention to any orders, either. Was it expected to, when his imagination had suddenly populated Brynn Monet onto a St. Andrews cross, naked and bound and spread for him?
Goodbye, pansy musical dude.
Hello, Master Reb-the Dom who'd let entirely too much time pass since his last dungeon play session.
And now really needed to make sure this woman didn't get on a plane with him, to fly to a ranch house on twenty acres in the middle of Texas hill country.
"Okay, so this is going to be a problem for you." Much better. Firm, decisive, final. "So no harm, no foul. Shay's still right over there. You can just leave with him, and-"
Her glare cut him short before her retort did. "Wouldn't that fix everything perfectly for you?" She huffed out a laugh, shaking her head. "Plays right into your wildest dreams, doesn't it?"
You do not want to know what my wildest dreams are made of, cher.
"My needs aren't important right now." He thinned his lips. "And neither are yours. We're wasting time bickering and biting our nails,"-pointedly, he dropped his gaze to the finger she'd been tearing at-"when we should be getting clearance from the tower and getting our asses out of here."
Not a shred of Broadway Joe in that one, either. As a matter of fact, he should've been damn proud of every snarled syllable.
Then why did he feel like such a douche when her shoulders fell again … and her chin trembled, fighting back intense emotions? "I am extremely aware of our time constraints, Sergeant. There's not a second that goes by when I'm not aware."
Sam finally made himself useful by stepping over with perfect timing, saving them both from a surely awkward silence. "Greetings. You must be Brynna. You're famous already around here, you know."
She flashed a smile that never made it to her eyes. "Peachy. Great to meet you, errrr … "
"Sam." He picked up her hand then bowed over it, brushing lips along her knuckles. "Commander Sam Mackenna, of Her Majesty's Royal Air Force. I'm on loan to the ruffians over at Nellis for a few weeks."
"But right now, he should be finishing his pre-flight inspection." Rebel all but broke in between them, disgruntled as hell to watch Mackenna turn on the courtly accent and the King Charles manners, a sure sign he was jockeying for some coo-coo-get-in-my-pants action. No fucking way. "Go ahead. Move along. Check the oil. Kick the tires. Lay out the peanut bags. Chop chop." He shoulder-butted the guy, hard enough to let Sam know he meant business-only to find himself pushed aside by the woman behind him, with the eyes of fear and chin of stubbornness that wrenched at his chest all over again.
"So you're flying this thing?" she asked-demanded-of Sam.
He bent over again, this time in gentlemanly deference. "Yes, ma'am."
"Good. Then don't fuck it up."
She whirled away from them both and marched toward the plane, head high and spine straight, not a trace of her terror showing from this angle. Rebel, battling to ignore what did show well from this view, caught up with her in time to help her step up into the plane. As he did, there was no escaping the sensations that slammed him-nor did he want to. He was … proud of her. And even more. Inspired.
The feelings weren't difficult to peg. They were part of the good stuff about being in Spec Ops, these moments where witnessing someone push past their internal walls outweighed the exhilaration of watching them scale real ones. Pride came from the honor of being part of the moment. Inspiration came from knowing that when his turn came for the wall leaping, he'd be able to use it as strength.
And God, did he want to remember Brynna Monet.
Every damn thing he could about her.
No sense in fighting that one anymore, either. No matter what kind of flame-out he'd suffer when this was over, there was no way to fight the searing lure of her now. Dan Colton's loss was absolutely his gain-and he was going to savor every last possible penny of this fortune.
But right now, nothing was about him. It was about parking his ass in the leather bucket seat next to hers. Examining the white expanse of her face, the dilated terror in her eyes, the taut coil of her hands. Reaching across her to grab the strap of her shoulder belt-a detail lost to the obvious whirl of her thoughts-and clicking it into the fastening on his side. Keeping himself turned toward her, one hand on her jiggling knee, and forcing her to take deeper breaths with the steady squeeze and release of that hand.
Finally, she seemed to get the idea. Her chest began to rise and fall with longer, calmer flows. Rebel remained silent, communicating with her simply through his touch-and his gaze. The latter couldn't be helped. Now that he had her locked in and to himself, he took greedy advantage of the chance to stare his fill. Those dark red lashes, fanned over her cheeks with a little curl at the ends. The bright red wisps escaping her braid, playing at the elegant slope of her neck. The contrast of her lips, the color of ripe raspberries, against her pale, pale skin.