Beneath the Surface (3 page)

When he dipped his head, she felt Asher’s breath skate down her neck and resisted the involuntary shudder in the base of her spine. The man was sex-on-a-stick hot. That, she wouldn’t even try to deny, but just because the woman in her could appreciate an impressive specimen of male flesh didn’t mean she would ever indulge in it.

“Fair warning.” His whisper was a low throaty growl in her ear. “You keep sweet-talking me like this and grinding your hot little body against mine, I might lose all control and ravish you right here on the dance floor.”

An affronted gasp broke from her throat. Sweet-talking? She’d just called him an asshole, and he was the one doing all the grinding. “If you so much as touch me, I swear I’ll shank your foot with the heel of my shoe.”

“Sweetheart, I’m already touching you.” Again that deep, masculine chuckle rumbled in his chest.

She refused to admit how much the sound of it affected her, or the way the vibration teased her nipples, sending little currents of pleasure tingling between her legs. Damn him . . .

“Do I amuse you?” she snapped, craning her head, which was a huge mistake. Looking into Asher Tate’s eyes was like peering into a kaleidoscope. The variation of color staring back at her was absolutely mesmerizing.

“A little,” he confessed. “But when you’ve spent the last six months staring at sand, it doesn’t take much. If you really want to amuse me, I’ll bet my ass I can come up with something more entertaining than this.”

“I’ve already seen your ass. Trust me, it wasn’t that impressive, and I certainly wouldn’t bet on it.”

She was a damn liar. It was and she would, but she’d eat dirt before she ever admitted as much to this arrogant jerk. The look of surprise on his face was almost laughable. He missed a step and sent them bumping into Aiden and his wife. After a mumbled apology, Asher moved them to a quieter area of the dance floor. The teasing light in his eyes was replaced by something more serious. She didn’t think she liked the intensity of what she saw staring back at her.

“Is that why you’ve been so pissy with me today? Listen, sweetheart, I’m really sorry, but I’ve gotta confess, I don’t remember jack shit about what happened last night. Did you and me . . . did we . . . hook up?”

What? Was he serious? “No, we didn’t ‘hook up’!” she hissed, stomping on his instep. “But I’m sure the coat-check girl who you did screw would be glad to know that you don’t even remember her!”

His top lip curled in a crooked grin. Understanding lit his eyes as if it all made sense to him now. “I get it . . . You’re not pissed that we fucked, you’re pissed that we didn’t.”

Heat flooded her cheeks—and everywhere else as her mind inadvertently took the place of the coat-check girl. “I think I actually hate you right now.”

“Don’t hate the player, sweetheart. Hate the game.”

“You make me sick!” She tried to step back and put a little distance between them, but he wouldn’t let her go.

Instead, he pulled her closer—if that was even possible. Dipping his head to her neck, he let his lips brush against her thundering pulse as he growled, “That may be true, but I guarantee I could make you come harder than you’ve ever come in your uppity little life. Of course, you’d have to actually give up your precious control first, and I’m willing to bet you’ve never done that, have you? Given a man total freedom with your body?”

Quinn gasped, and this time when she took a step back, he let her go. Using her momentum, she slapped him across the face. He didn’t even flinch, the bastard.

“Took you long enough . . .”

What the hell was that supposed to mean? Had he wanted her to hit him? What purpose could that possibly serve? No . . . it didn’t matter. She was done. Quinn took another step back, then turned and stormed away. Asher’s words were a low blow dealt with lethal precision. If she never saw this man again as long as she lived, it would be too soon.

CHAPTER

3

T
his AR-15’s got really smooth action. Stays right on point.”

“I told you it would.”

“You did a great job modifying it to fully auto. How soon can you get one ready for me?”

“A week?”

Jayce flipped the safety, dropped the magazine, and double-checked the chamber with speed and fluidity that came from years of practice. He handed Asher the weapon and then pulled his pistol from a holster behind his back. Pointing it at the target seventy-five yards out, he emptied the Glock .45 semi-auto, forming a tight cluster of holes around the center ring. Impressive fucking shooting, especially from this distance. Then again, Asher wouldn’t expect anything less from his old Recon Six sniper and fellow team member.

“Missed one . . .” Asher nodded downrange.

Jayce chuckled. “Blow me, Tate. Let’s see you do better.” He reloaded the .45, slammed the clip home, and handed Asher the gun.

He took aim and fired the weapon with the same rapid succession as his friend, blowing out the abused center of the target.

“Ha! Missed one!” Jayce threw a sharp elbow into his ribs. “Where’d you fucking learn to shoot?”

“From the same asshole that taught you, obviously.”

“Remmy . . .” they answered in unison, and shared a nostalgic chuckle. Asher made the sign of the cross over his chest and lifted his eyes toward heaven.

“Fucking miss that guy,” Jayce murmured. “Best goddamn sniper I ever knew.”

Asher couldn’t disagree. “So, you gonna tell me what you need the gun for?”

Jayce cut him a glance and holstered his weapon. “Not unless you want in. This one’s off the books.”

“All your jobs are off the books.”

“They are since Nisour.”

He didn’t miss the disgruntled tone in Jayce’s voice. “No thanks, man. I’m actually thinking about retiring.” He was prepared for his friend’s surprised look, but not the disappointment that ground the salt deeper into Asher’s festering wound.

“Come on. You can’t let that shit get to you. Some missions just go to hell and there’s nothing you can do about it. Insurgents look like civilians. You can’t tell them apart. That’s what I told them at Peterson’s trial and that’s what I’m telling you right now. It’s what makes those ragheads so goddamn dangerous. She was warned to stop and kept driving at us, what the fuck were we supposed to do?”

“She had a fucking kid in the car.”

“Then she should have stopped the goddamn car when she was warned. It wouldn’t be the first time one of those radical bastards blew up a kid.”

Asher shook his head. “I wish I had your conscience.” He grabbed the AR off the rest and carried it back up to the house. “I sure as hell would be sleeping a lot better.”

“You just got to turn it off, man. Quit fucking caring about shit.”

That sounded tempting, but Asher knew it wasn’t that easy. Every action caused a reaction and every decision came with a consequence. Asher suspected Jayce’s had cost him his soul a long time ago. The man had changed since they’d served together in Recon Six. Then again, hadn’t they all? Who was he to cast judgment? They were all just trying to make it through, one day at a time.

Asher mounted the steps of the back porch and entered the kitchen.

“Nice place you got here,” Jayce commented, following him inside.

“Thanks.” He wasn’t one for company, but Jayce had dropped by today to see him about getting his AR-15 modified to fully automatic. He’d turned his cell off a couple of weeks ago when Peterson’s trial began and the press started swarming him like fucking piranha. Asher walked over to the pantry cupboard he’d modified into a weapons safe and opened the door.

“You build it yourself?” Jayce glanced around the kitchen, craning his head to peer around the corner into the living room.

“Most of it.” He entered the key code and turned the lever. “The logs are from the property. I had it shelled when we were on our last ops. Been working on it since we got back.”

The one-bedroom log house tucked in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains wasn’t anything you’d find on
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
, but he wasn’t about luxury. Sniper’s blood ran through Asher’s veins. He was reclusive by nature and there was no undoing the years of training and conditioning that had turned him into a hardened soldier—a killer. The A-frame was a basic design with a master bedroom loft that led to a balcony off the front. The vantage point and height elevation gave him the perfect view to monitor the inner perimeter of the property.

Jayce chuckled. “Who would have thought, carpenter by day, Black Ops soldier by night. Impressive . . .”

“The labor’s cathartic. It’s nice to build something rather than destroying it for a change.”

“How many acres you got here?”

“A hundred and fifty. They head up into the mountains.”

Asher opened the safe door and set the AR back in its place. He was closing it when Jayce said, “Holy shit, man. You preparing for a war?”

The safe was stocked with guns and a multitude of armaments—military issue shit he could probably get in a hell of a lot of trouble for having, but over the years he had collected quite a diverse stockpile. Asher shrugged. “You never know, right?” He closed the door, then the pantry cupboard. “Want a beer?”

“Sure.”

Asher crossed the kitchen and opened the fridge, pulling out two Landsharks. Sliding one down the table toward Jayce, he took a seat across from him and stretched out into a lazy sprawl.

“You heard from the boys?” Jayce twisted off the cap and took a pull from his beer.

He posed the question as casually as if inquiring about the weather, but Asher wasn’t fooled. “Not since the depositions.”

“It wasn’t your fault, you know. Nobody blames you.”

“You can keep sayin’ that, but it doesn’t change a thing. It was my team, my mission—I’m responsible for those men, it was my fuckup to hire Peterson.”

“I don’t blame Peterson.”

Of course he didn’t. These were two very opposite sides of the coin they stood on, a sensitive subject they’d both be better off not broaching.

“His trial will be wrapping up this week. I think it’ll go a long way with the jury if you spoke on his behalf.”

And here was the rub. Was that why Jayce was really here? To try to convince him to intervene in Peterson’s trial? He should have known the guy wanted more than a souped-up AR. Asher tipped back his beer and downed a good portion of it. He was considering the possibility of getting piss-ass drunk when the red light above the fridge began to flash and a high-pitched beep sounded in the living room.

“What the fuck is that?”

“Someone’s coming up the driveway.” Asher rose from the chair, opened the sliding lid on the breadbox, and pulled out his Sig Sauer P226 from its spot beside a loaf of Country Hearth 12 Grain.

“Holy shit, Tate, is there anywhere you don’t have a weapon stashed around here?”

Probably not . . . 
Asher tucked the gun into the waistband of his jeans and headed for the living room to silence the alarm. “I live thirty miles from the closest town and have a half-mile-long driveway. No one comes here by mistake.”

He glanced out the picture window and saw the plume of driveway dust heading toward them. Instinct told him whoever was on their way wasn’t a threat. Anyone who’d come here with ill intentions wouldn’t be dumb enough to announce their arrival, but one could never be too careful. Asher had made plenty of enemies during his career in the Special Forces—foreign and domestic.

His dad’s truck came into view and pulled to a stop in the turnaround. What was he doing here? This time of day, he’d be at The Rabbit Hole. It had always been his dad’s dream to own a little dive bar, and last year he’d checked it off his bucket list. Funny, the things people coveted. Asher’s mind began to spin with reasons for this impromptu visit and a knot of dread fisted in his gut. Was something wrong with Mom, or Fisher? His little brother was in PBR nationals this week—had a bull finally kicked his ass?

Asher rushed to the door. As he broke out onto the porch, his feet skidded to a halt at the sight of the most gorgeous woman’s ass bent toward him—long legs, dark-wash skinny jeans, calf-high black boots . . . That was all he could see of her leaning over the driver’s window, talking to his dad.
What the fuck?
Jayce rushed out behind him, no doubt alarmed by Asher’s hasty dash, but was a little late on the
Whoa,
because he ran into him, nudging Asher farther onto the porch.

“Holy shit . . .” The appreciative curse was whispered behind him.

Asher shot his friend a scowl over his shoulder, not that the guy would notice. His eyes were fixed on the woman’s rear end. Without breaking gaze, Jayce lifted his beer and took a long swig. As she straightened, Asher got his first glimpse of pale blonde hair and was hit with a disconcerting memory blasting him back to Nikko’s wedding.

Quinn Summers was a piece of work. Gorgeous beyond words, but not even close to being worth the effort it would take to tame that shrew. It was odd, her disdain toward him. Women usually liked him. Fuck, who was he kidding? They loved him, especially when he was in uniform. Maybe they thought it was their patriotic duty, or maybe it was a big coup to bang a Marine Special Forces officer. Well, ex-officer now, not that it really mattered.

But Asher had never come across a female as prickly as Quinn before, and he’d be lying if he said she didn’t amuse the hell out of him. She hadn’t been a fan of his since the day they met, but today the woman had become downright nasty. Too bad he couldn’t remember what the hell happened last night to piss her off so much. And it wasn’t for lack of trying, but he’d been lit as shit and whiskey had an amnesic effect on him. It was a blessing and a curse, because most times he drank to forget, but there were those rare moments, like now, when he was pretty sure something significant had happened and he had no fucking clue what it was.

Quinn walked down the aisle beside him with the regal elegance of a queen—an ice queen. And she looked like one too, with her pale blonde hair piled on top of her head in a fancy twist. Quinn’s bone structure was defined and delicate, her lips full and lush with that Angelina Jolie look that automatically made a man imagine what they’d feel like wrapped around his . . . Yeah, not going there . . .

Quinn was hot. No doubt about it. But her resting bitch face was enough to make a man’s dick want to crawl up his own ass. Were Asher a lesser man, he might have let the holier-than-thou midge get to him. But he wasn’t any ordinary man. He’d stared death in the eye more times than he cared to count, and the last thing he was going to let intimidate him was an ornery female, half his size, who walked around with some skewed perception that he actually gave a shit what she thought of him.

He wasn’t here to impress some chick. He was here to stand up for his friend, see him married, and then be on his way. Unfortunately, the maid of honor was a royal pain in the ass. He’d decided early on that if he was going to be forced to spend the day with her, he was going to at least enjoy himself, which meant pissing her off at every opportunity. Was it childish? Perhaps, but he didn’t really give a fuck. So then why did it please him so much to discover she didn’t have a boyfriend?

When it was time to separate, he didn’t let her go until he absolutely had to, enjoying her discreet attempts to get free as she pulled, once—twice—third time was a charm, and she stumbled a little when he abruptly released her.

“Stop it, you two,” Nikko growled.

Asher gave his friend a teasing wink and a supportive shoulder squeeze as he walked past him, taking his place at Nikko’s right. As happy as he was for Nikko, and honored as he felt to be standing here as his best man, the thought he couldn’t seem to get out of his head, the thought that had been plaguing him since he’d stepped off that plane three days ago, was that he didn’t belong here. This should be Remmy’s job—Remmy’s honor . . . and as hard as he’d tried to distract himself with pussy and booze, the gut-wrenching knowledge never left him.

Shoving aside the memories that were always too close to the surface, his gaze strayed to the woman across from him while the piano played on and they waited for Violet to make her appearance. Quinn was whispering something to Raven. The smile gracing her beautiful face was genuine and unguarded, giving him the first glimpse of the woman beneath the mask. He’d never seen her look so free, and the sight of her hit him like a palm strike to the chest. His heart actually stuttered. Holy hell . . .

The ceremony flew by with a lot of promises and “I do’s.” Before he knew it, he was watching his friend kiss his bride and the room erupted into cheers. The traditional parting music began to play, and the bride and groom headed down the aisle together. When it was Asher’s turn to follow, he stepped toward Quinn. Her eyes were moist with unshed tears, and for the briefest moment something deep inside him, something he didn’t even know existed, stirred.