"Are you insane?"
Rebel might as well have thrown tacks at her instead of words. But the regret didn't stop his dick from its primal need, twitching against his camos after two seconds of impact from her huge, pleading eyes.
Her eyes.
Fuck.
From the moment Rhett and he had arrived to the sight of her on the couch with a desolate Shay, he'd prayed her gaze wouldn't be as huge and stunning and mesmerizing as he remembered-that he'd overly embellished things since seeing her at Shay and Zoe's wedding last August. He'd deliberately steered clear of her that day, knowing she was still hot and heavy with Dan Colton. The less he was around her, the easier it'd be to ignore how breathtaking she'd be once her turn at the altar came-as Colton's bride. Dan wasn't a stupid guy. He was probably just being polite about things, waiting for Shay and Zoe to have their special day before announcing he and Brynna would be celebrating theirs.
Or so Reb had thought.
Colton had been a dumb shit, after all. Had let a treasure like her slip through his fingers.
But now, Rebel Masterston Stafford was going to be just as big a couillon.
Uh-uh.
This was not the same.
He wasn't letting her go as a friend and lover. He was simply informing the insane beauty that as sweet as it was, her noble gesture wasn't going to end up like some gal-pals retreat. No champagne breakfasts and pony rides, even if they did find Zoe.
And that was a big fucking if.
They were, in all meanings of the word except a few-like having the government's official blessing and even a shred of advanced intel-embarking on a covert operation. That meant risk. Lots of it. And danger. Lots of it. And if combining the two, the very real possibility that at least one of them wouldn't leave Texas alive.
If that shit went down for either Rhett or him, procedures were easy. He and Double-Oh had bent or broken the rules so many times, they'd memorized each other's wishes for what would happen after the formalities were taken care of, like making sure the world was told they'd been in an "accident" while on "vacation" then notifying all the pertinent people for each other.
Ironically, the first half of those instructions was the harder part. Rhett's family was thrown to three corners of the world-his mom, dad, and brother lived in New York, London, and Shang Hai respectively.
Then there was the issue of Reb's "pertinent people".
On paper, it all seemed easy. There was just Father, after all. But "second shack to the right, one mile into Terrebonne Swamp" wasn't an address one openly shared. Still, after a close call in Cambodia had slammed his mortality down his throat last year, he'd sucked it up and dragged Rhett on that dismal excursion. He'd barely cut the motor of their rented skiff, letting Rhett look his fill as they drifted by the place: two rooms beneath a tin roof on stilts that rose from mud oozing duckweed, mosquitoes, and a shitload of bitter memories. He hadn't offered to take Rhett inside. Nor had Rhett asked for it.
Reb had been grateful for the tact, but braced for the questions to come later. They'd never come. Rhett had simply known, in ways as mysterious as the bayou they'd just journeyed from, that parts of Rebel would always be like the mossy shadows of the place. Left behind and forgotten.
Things with Rhett had always been like that. Intimate but accepting. Hard but easy.
Brynn Monet was not easy.
She was ethereal and beautiful, generous and adorable-but at the edges of her composure, in places she fought to hide, she was wild, too. He'd never bought the voodoo tales about the rougarous who shifted from human to wolf, or the feu follet, dragonflies turned into mischievous fairies, but this woman gave him pause for thought-especially now, with the craziness that had just spilled from her delectable mouth.
And continued to, as well.
"Insane?" she echoed. "About wanting to help get my best friend back here safely?"
Rebel forced down a calm breath. Damn it. She wasn't making this easy, with those copper flames in her eyes and the queenly flare of her nose. "Helping is an awesome idea." Unbelievably, he kept his tone reasonable. "Just not in the middle of Texas hill country with Double-Oh and me."
Her brows formed a pair of dark ginger arcs-the perfect invitation for him to throw back with a heavy hand on the haughty. Instead, he shifted from foot to foot, wondering why his adrenal system had kick-started a soul-deep tangle usually saved for the shittiest parts of missions. What the hell? How was she turning his senses into sawdust and his equilibrium into a goddamn teeter-totter?
"You think I just want in on the adventure, is that it?" she charged. "That I'm just one of Zo's old dancing buddies who feels ‘left out of the fun' and doesn't understand the risks of what you're doing?"
He had a retort for that-but damn him if the words just jammed in his fucking throat. It had to be her eyes-again. It had to be how they took on an unearthly sheen, framed by those gold-tipped lashes, pulling every piece of reasoning out of his goddamn head.
"Do you know anything about me, Sergeant Stafford?" She swiveled her head back, combo'ing a nod and a shake, which should've given her a bitch-poser vibe. Instead, all Rebel thought of was an Amazonian princess, down to the question of whether he should take a knee and drop a bow. "Okay, I can't help hack into a security system like El or interpret five languages like Zo, but did you know that the reason I started dancing in shows was to make money for school? That I'm only four classes away from landing my criminal psych degree? That maybe, just maybe, I can help you read these guys faster and sharper than any computer readouts or artificial analysis?"
Behind her, El jabbed a fist into the air. "Point for Monet. Go, girl."
She hitched a no-shit shrug. "He gets a minor bye on that one. How could he have known that, without stalking me?" Her quick little glance would yield her nothing but his dark, guarded stare. Oh, mon chou, if you only knew how close I was … "But you don't get mercy for the rest, Moonstormer."
Strangely, a laugh tripped off his lips-coaxed by the magic of his call-sign on hers. Her voice … every word out of her elegant lips reminded him of home. It was sultry and smoky, knowing but innocent-and yes, unbelievably, the balance he needed to echo her words back with authority instead of stupidity.
"The rest, Miss Monet?"
He mocked-a little-with the words. If it bothered Brynn at all, her composure didn't betray it. As best as he observed, she really believed she could help her friend by doing this-no matter what it took. Her tenacity floored him.
And terrified him.
"You know only a few definite aspects of the situation you're dealing with right now," she said, "and Nyles Royce is one of them." A lengthy breath filled her lungs then released. "And we know he likes redheads, right?"
A bizarre sound echoed through his brain. He identified the deafening whoop-whoop from the recesses of his past, watching reruns on the TV in the laundromat on his way home from school.
Code red, captain. Warp core breach eminent.
"Uh-uh." It tumbled out of him just like the chuckle of a minute ago, beyond his understanding or control. That was just fine. She needed to hear the vehemence in it. Everyone in the room did-especially fucking Rhett, who seemed to be giving her some serious consideration. "No way," he snarled before spinning fully at his friend, forefinger extended. "No fucking way, man."
His exclamation worked like the start bell to a prize fight, at least to Brynna. She shot forward, hands on hips, tossing back her hair-like he needed a reminder of the strands that made her perfect Nyles Royce bait-and leveled a withering glare. "You don't think I can do it."
He fumed. "I didn't say that. Or mean it."
"The hell you didn't." Her lips were perfect ribbons, even in her fury. "So Zoe could be drafted for a mission to save Shay, but I'm not good enough for your op to save her. Is that about right, Sergeant?"
Was she fucking kidding? That wasn't about right. Not at all. Didn't she see? Couldn't she tell? She really had to be some Amazonian goddess, meant to be worshipped in the center of a temple, not slogging through the Texas back country with a pair of knuckle-draggers like Rhett and him, seeking out scum like Homer Adler and Nyles Royce.
"Well?" She actually tapped her foot and cocked her head. When one was a demigod, they apparently could get away with that shit.
It also meant they could deal with a dose of their own medicine. He was sure as hell down with that. "Well what?" He cocked his own head, proving she hadn't invented obstinacy on her own. "You're not coming to Texas with us, damn it."