“I pull my weight,” she said, exasperated. Like his sarcasm, her words were threaded with more defense than they should be.
With a shove, she moved him enough to wriggle out from underneath his weight. He landed with a thud and a whoosh of breath.Served him right.
“What’s wrong T?” he teased. “Get nervous when the man’s on top?”
Her glare could’ve frozen hell, but with Lyons, it only amped up the heat simmering in his gaze. The man simply didn’t know how to turn off his fuck-me eyes. Fortunately, she had the best defense.
“You wish. I’m taken, Lyons, so stop trying.”
“Oh, everyone knows you’re taken,” he said. “You talk about your douche-bag boyfriend all the time.”
“Fiancé, Lyons,” she bit out. “Scott is my fiancé.”
“Right,” he said with a cheeky grin. “A douche bag who’s sent you what? One letter in the last two months. I’m telling you, if I had a woman like you, I’d send a letter a day with flowers and chocolate, minimum. I’d probably write a poem or sing you a song.”
“Well, good thing you don’t have a woman like me because I hate flowers. They wilt and die. Is that really what you want to tell your girl?”
He arched a brow. “What do you mean?”
“That your love for her is as fleeting and fragile as a wilted flower? Scott doesn’t do crap like that because he knows what that kind of gesture means to me.”
“You’re fucked in the head, T,” he said. “Can’t you just let a guy be a guy? Or is it always about who has the bigger balls? I feel sorry for the douche.”
“Stop calling him that.”
“What? Douche?” He shook with a soft laugh. “Hey, I just call it like I see it.”
“And how is that?”
“That guy has to be a total pussy—”
“You don’t know shit.”
“Really? You’re telling me there’s a heart under those brass tits?”
“Sergeant!” Collins cut Lyons off. “Show a little respect.”
She didn’t need Collins’s interference but appreciated him putting an end to Lyons’s shit-talk about Scott. Lyons shutting the fuck up topped high on her list of priorities, right after not getting shot.
There weren’t any more shots fired, but Collins wouldn’t risk his team until he was certain it was safe. Until they had eyes in the air, they were stuck on the ground. Good thing they had drones.
TWO
Surgery
A quick sweep by a drone,and Command called in the all-clear. Tia climbed off the ground and went to fetch her pack. Lyons grabbed it first, hefting it up for her to slip into the straps. She could grab her own pack, damn it, but said nothing as she shrugged into it and settled the seventy pounds on her back. A deep inhale brought his musky scent to flood her nostrils. None of them had seen a shower in two days, and she hated to think how funky she must smell, but Ryker always smelled warm, male, and intoxicating.
With a hard squeeze of her lids, she reminded herself she was nearly a married woman. Within a few months of the end of this deployment, she and Scott would tie the knot. That was something they needed to start planning, but managing wedding plans on deployment was laughable at best, and Scott, like most men, had little interest in planning the big event.
“Thanks,” she managed and then took another sniff before Lyons wandered off.
He was simply trying to help, and she shouldn’t bite his head off, except Lyons wouldn’t have done that for any of the other men on the team.
Collins gave the signal, and the six of them took off with him in the lead. Lyons paced himself a few steps in front of her position while Warren took up the rear. Drummond and Marks hoofed it in silence. As the sun sank below the horizon, Collins picked up the pace, pressing forward to their destination.
All that sounded was the chugging of their breaths and the faint whispering of the wind. The sun disappeared, but the unrelenting heat remained as the sky blackened with the coming of night. When she wasn’t sucking air, Tia pulled at her hydration tube. It was a fancy name for the hose attached to her CamelBak, but that was the military. They had a name for everything. By now, her water had to be nearly half gone.
When they arrived at their destination, they worked with the flawless precision of a well-trained team, speaking only when necessary. The special ops troops hung around, offering to help, not realizing they were simply in the way. Tia and her team had the same intensive training as these special ops forces. Using only night-vision goggles, they set up their gear in the pitch-black and prepared to perform field surgeries.
