Chapter 6
Reece stood with a shoulder resting against one of the massive columns flanking the concourse of Sector HQ.
The space was vast and brutal—polished duracrete floors, vaulted steel ceilings, and the low hum of waiting shuttles vibrating through the walls.
Mercs were passing by in loose clusters, some of them in fatigues, others in battle-scarred armor, all of them moving with the same deadly purpose.
Reece ignored the foot traffic and kept his eyes fixed on a point directly across the concourse from where he was standing—the door to the briefing room.
His mind kept rehashing the scene that had played out on the other side of that door a few minutes ago.
He didn’t quite feel guilty about it—Fairchild had consented to everything—but he wasn’t exactly proud of it either.
The whole situation just didn’t sit right with him, like a pebble stuck in his boot.
So now, here he was… waiting.
For Fairchild.
After they had finished, and Lennox had given her approval, Reece and his team had pulled their clothes back on. Fairchild, on the other hand, had required a more extensive clean-up. She had retreated to the small bathroom attached to the briefing room. She’d been in there for ten minutes now.
Reece had sent his team back to their ship, the Peregrine.
Dutton had given his usual stone-faced nod of compliance.
Nash hadn’t said anything either, aside from “Yes, sir,” but his cocky smirk had spoken volumes.
Reece might have given the young Merc a dressing down, if his mind hadn’t been elsewhere.
Fairchild. Why did it have to be her?
If he had any damn sense, he would have gone back to the ship with his team. He would be seeing Fairchild again soon enough. They were scheduled to meet tomorrow morning for mission prep.
But Reece couldn’t wait that long. He needed to see her now. He needed to tell her something, though he wasn’t quite sure what.
He would have to figure it out fast, because the door to the briefing room had just opened, and now Fairchild was stepping through. Reece’s heart jumped at the sight of her.
So did his cock.
To look at her now, one would never guess what she’d just been through, stripped and shared by three men while her superiors watched and judged.
She was dressed and clean, and her hair was once more pulled back into a tight ponytail at the back of her head.
Beneath the brim of her cap, her face showed no signs of humiliation.
As she stepped out into the concourse, her eyes performed a quick sweep of her surroundings. Her gaze didn’t hitch when it passed across the place where Reece was standing, but he knew she had seen him, even though she was pretending she hadn’t. Those eyes of hers didn’t miss a thing.
She turned and started to move away down the concourse. Let her go, Reece thought to himself. If you try to talk to her about what happened, you’re only going to make things weird.
Too late. Things were already weird. And his feet were already moving.
He caught up with her and fell into pace alongside. She didn’t look at him, but he knew she knew he was there. She was a Merc. Her situational awareness was too sharp not to detect his presence.
“Fairchild,” he said, “about what happened in the briefing room—”
She cut him off without breaking her stride. “What about it?”
There was an edge of threat behind her words, cold as steel and sharp as a blade. Reece had known it was a mistake to approach her so soon, but his feet kept carrying him along beside her anyway.
This wasn’t like him at all. He’d never been one to chase. But there was something different about Fairchild. A lot of things, actually. She was a Merc, like he was. A killer born and bred.
“I didn’t know they were going to make us do that,” he said.
“I thought you’d already been briefed.”
“About the mission, yes. I didn’t know they were going to test us like that, right there in the damn briefing room.”
Fairchild didn’t even blush.
“If this is an apology,” she said, “it’s not necessary. You were just following orders, like a good Merc. If you and your team hadn’t done it to me, somebody else would have.”
Those words—somebody else—sent a sudden fire coursing through Reece’s veins.
It was a particular species of rage to which he was unaccustomed.
In fact, he could only remember experiencing it once before, and that was a few minutes ago in the briefing room when Fairchild had called herself that word he didn’t like.
Before he even knew what he was doing, he had grabbed Fairchild’s arm and jerked her to a stop. It was not, he realized, a particularly bright move.
With a cat-like quickness, Fairchild spun and caught his throat in her right hand. Her grip was like an iron vise.
“Let me go,” she snarled.
Reece released her arm and raised both hands in a gesture of surrender. It wasn’t that he was defeated, per se. He could think of at least a dozen ways to get her hand off his throat and regain control of the situation. He was aware, however, that other Mercs had stopped to watch the confrontation.
He was also aware that his cock was rock hard in his pants.
Fairchild tightened her grip.
“Don’t you ever grab me like that again,” she growled.
“If we go through with this mission,” he said softly, “I’m going to be doing a hell of a lot more than just grabbing you. React like this, and it’s liable to blow our cover.”
Fairchild dropped her hand from his throat, but her eyes still held firm, and they were full of fire.
“You know what else is liable to blow our cover?” she said. “If you decide to turn all jealous and possessive in the middle of the mission. Shit, you almost blew it back there in the briefing room with that whole nobody’s-slut-but-mine business.”
Reece heard murmurs and chuckles from the onlookers.
“Fairchild—”
“Shut up,” she said, cutting him off again. “Look, I get it, okay? You’re protective. You think of me like your kid sister or something. But I’m not.”
She didn’t get it—she didn’t get it at all—but Reece wasn’t about to try and explain it to her here in public. Besides, she wasn’t letting him get a word in edgewise. She stepped closer, until Reece could swear he felt little threads of electricity crackling between their two bodies.
“I want revenge,” she said in a voice that lifted the hairs on the back of his neck. “And I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to get it. Whatever. It. Takes. If you’re not down with that, I’ll tell Lennox to get me a Merc who is.”
Reece felt another scorch of jealousy inside his chest, but this time he managed to keep it contained. There was no way he was going to let Fairchild embark on this mission with a different team of Mercs. No way in hell.
“I’m down.”
Fairchild held his gaze a moment longer, as if searching for any signs of weakness lurking behind his eyes.
“Good,” she said at last. “In that case, I’ll see you tomorrow for loadout.”
And with that, she turned and marched off down the length of the concourse.
Reece stood and watched her go, letting his eyes trail downward from her muscular shoulders to the firm, round shape of her butt twitching back and forth as she walked.
His cock strained against the front of his pants. He cursed under his breath.
“Fuck.”
Reece had just learned two important lessons about Sonia Fairchild.
One, she was tougher than he’d given her credit for—a hell of a lot tougher.
And two, it was going to take more than brute force to tame her.
He would have to be smart about it, think with his brain instead of his dick.
That was fine by Reece. Strategy had always been his strong suit.
He smiled faintly to himself. Then he turned and headed down the concourse in the opposite direction.
This promised to be a very interesting mission.