“What? No! You can’t just quit.”
Reece smiled inside his hood.
“Watch us.”
Fairchild couldn’t help but smile back, as she realized she’d said the same thing in the singular to Lennox just a few minutes before. But her smile was short-lived.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked. “Are you sure you really want to quit the Guild?”
“If the choice is between you and the Guild,” Reece said. “We choose you. I meant what I said back there in the briefing room. We’re not just a team, we’re a family…”
He touched her abdomen.
“…Literally.”
Fairchild knew it was still far too soon to feel anything stirring inside her. It had only been one week since she and her guys had had sex without birth control for the first time. The new life that was growing inside her was still microscopic at this point. Too small for even a Merc’s augmented nerves to sense.
Still, as Reece placed his big hand against her belly, Fairchild could swear she feltsomething.
Her body was beginning to heat up, the way it always did around her guys.
“What will we do for money?” she asked.
“We’ll figure something out. A quartet of ex-Mercs will be in high demand. Private security. Combat training. Consulting. The sky’s the limit.” He grinned. “Besides, we don’t really have to worry about money, you know. My family’s loaded. They made some good investments in the silk trade back in the day.”
Fairchild looked back and forth between Dutton and Nash. She didn’t even have to ask if they were going along with their leader on this. They were a unit. Everything they did, they did together.
Including her.
Fairchild closed the gap between her body and Reece’s, letting herself feel how hard he was beneath his clothes, letting him feel how hot she was beneath hers. She stared up into his handsome face and smiled.
“Guess this calls for a little retirement party,” she said. “I vote we head over to the Joy District, get ourselves a room, and celebrate until every drop of energy has been drained from our bodies.”
“Fuck that,” said Reece. “I can’t wait that long.”
Before Fairchild even had a chance to react, he had swept her off her feet and flung her over his shoulder. Then he turned and headed back down the concourse in the direction they’d just come. Dutton and Nash followed close behind.
CHAPTER 32
Even though she was facing backwards over Reece’s shoulder, Fairchild knew exactly where he was taking her. The halls of Sector HQ were as familiar to her as the back of her own hand. She could have walked them blindfolded if she’d had to. So, when Reece used her butt like a battering ram to bang the door open ahead of them, she wasn’t the least bit surprised by the sounds that greeted her ears—The hard slap of gloved hands pounding into pads. The smack of high-powered kicks slamming into bags. Grunts of exertion. Growls of triumph.
It was the hand-to-hand combat training room.
One of them, anyway. The HQ was a big facility, and it was equipped with many areas where the Mercs could hone their skills. This particular training room wasn’t the biggest, but it was the closest, and it had everything Fairchild and her three guys needed.
She twisted around on Reece’s shoulder and looked into the room. There were a few sparring mats off to one side and training equipment all around the walls—heavy bags, speed bags, torso training dummies. But the centerpiece was the structure that dominated the middle of the room.
A raised octagon surrounded by a chain-link cage. It was just like the one they had used that first day aboardthe Allura, when Nash had challenged her to a fight.
Fairchild’s body had already been humming before they stepped into the training room, but now, at the sight of the octagon, her arousal shifted into full gear. Her nipples went so hard so fast,it was a miracle they didn’t poke right through the fabric of her tank top, and she was pretty sure she had a visible wet spot forming in the center of her shorts, for everyone in the room to see. Not that it mattered, she supposed. With their augmetically enhanced vision, the Mercs could see right through her clothing if they wanted. Which probably had something to do with the way Reece suddenly roared.
“Everyone out!” he bellowed. “Right fucking now!”
His voice was so loud and so deep, it seemed to rumble the very walls of the room. Sparring matches paused. Punching bags went silent. Every head in the place turned toward Reece.
For a long moment, nobody said anything. Then, one by one, the men in the room took off their gloves and headed for the exit. Fairchild couldn’t see Reece’s face, so she wasn’t sure what the men had all seen in his eyes, but whatever it was, it had made them think twice about challenging him.
God, that was hot.
