Page 35 of The Wild Charge

And a trio of drunk guys crashed into them from the side.

This time, instinct overrode everything else. Reese took one large, corrective sidestep, tightened his core, and pivoted, feet braced apart, hands up in a ready stance. Someone tripped over his leg, and might have even fallen, if the resulting gasp was anything to go by. He was aware of a scuffle behind him, the voices involved feminine and outraged – but not a threat. He scanned the dance floor ahead of him, and spotted the boys who’d toppled into him: there were three, one slight, one beefy, one big, but soft in the middle, all with ruddy cheeks and glassy eyes. All drunk, all harmless.

But then he spotted Tenny, crouched low, one booted foot braced beneath him, the other stretched out to the side, a counterbalance. He held his phone in one hand, and as Reese watched, he lifted his head, and met his gaze. A sharp, nasty smirk stretched his mouth, and Reese’s belly clenched automatically. That smirk had pissed him off, when they’d first met. But now, he knew it meant that things were about to get violent, and, in this moment, it sent a pleasant thrill through him.

Tenny nodded, once, eyes cutting toward the staggering frat boys.

Fox wanted a distraction.

Reese could have argued that assaulting civilians was beneath their capabilities, but, right now, he just wanted Tenny to keep smirking at him.

He nodded back, and moved.

~*~

Showtime, Fox’s text read, andthank fuck, because Tenny was more than ready for some action.

Reese was, too, if his return nod was anything to go by. Tenny wondered if the idiot knew he was grinning, just a little. He would try to say that he was good at what he did, but that it wasn’t pleasurable for him – but he was full of shit. No one could do what they did, as well as they did, and not love it.

Tenny slipped his phone in his pocket, stood, turned, and threw a smooth right hook at the first of the frat boys he could reach. It was the little one, and his unfocused eyes flew wide in the last second before Tenny’s knuckles struck his nose. There was acrunch, a spark of pain up Tenny’s hand, and then a fountain of blood that looked black under the twirling club lights.

The boy went down hard, legs giving out, arms flailing as he grabbed at his bleeding and broken nose. One of his friends, the biggest one, caught him under the arms and kept him upright.

The third, the one with the tank top and gym-honed muscles on display, turned to Tenny with righteous indignation. “Dude, what the fuck?” he shouted over the music.

Tenny dropped, and swept his legs.

A collectiveooohwent up from the crowd when the boy landed like a bag of bricks, flat on his back, the rush of his expelled breath audible even in the loud club. His eyes popped wide, white-rimmed and wild as they rolled toward Tenny; his chest gave a few panicked flutters as he tried and failed to draw in another breath.

The crowd around them had stopped dancing, and turned to watch; Tenny glimpsed girls grabbing at their friends and pointing. A few of the guys pushed forward to get a better look.

The big one set his bleeding friend down, and bulled forward into Tenny’s space, red-faced and huffing, half-furious, half-drunk. “What the fuck’s your problem?” He shoved in close, spit flecking Tenny’s cheeks. “Huh? Answer me –ack!” The rest of his sentence ended in a spluttering, garbled mess – because Reese had stepped in and karate-chopped him in the side of the throat.

Tenny tripped him, while he was struggling and clutching at his throat, and he collapsed overtop his still-wheezing friend.

Shouts rang out all around them, some alarmed, some excited: everyone loved a good fight.

Though calling this onegoodwould have been too generous.

Tenny was breathing hard, but not from exertion, as he turned and caught Reese’s gaze. The light was just bright enough to reveal that Reese was flushed, a little, smudges of deepened color marking his sharp cheekbones. It was warm in here, and tendrils of long hair clung to the sweat on his neck. His tank top had ridden up, somehow, or his jeans had ridden lower, something, but there was so much skin on display, strong, tensed abs, and that tempting V-groove of his Adonis lines.

Tenny couldn’t hold back the grin that split his face; he knew without looking that it was feral, sharp-edged and eager. “Well, that was painfully easy.”

“Yeah,” Reese said. His gaze looked a little glassy, too, though he hadn’t had a drop to drink. He licked the sweat off his upper lip – an absent gesture, Tenny knew, and not one meant to be enticing; Reese didn’tdoenticing, not consciously – and it sent a bolt of heat straight to Tenny’s dick.

Shit, what was wrong with him?

(You’re in love,you worthless tit, an unhelpful inner voice chimed, one that he shoved down.)

Behind Tenny, the crowd parted, and two bouncers with thick biceps straining the sleeves of their t-shirts shoved their way through.

Pleasant tension stole through him as he watched them get closer, closer. “On your six,” he murmured, because, somehow, without having realized it, he and Reese had shifted in closer, until Tenny could feel the heat of his breath.

“I know,” Reese murmured, blinking once, slow – his lashes fluttered, and maybe he was feeling it, too, that overwhelming twist of want that had been plaguing Tenny’s gut ever since he stepped out of the bathroom back at the hotel.

The bouncers were nearly on top of them.

Reese stepped back, and his lips twitched, strangely – a smirk, Tenny realized, even if small and unpracticed.

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