Hot as Hell (Deep Six 0.5)(45)

“Christ, this is gonna come back to bite me on the ass,” he muttered before turning to Mason. “You want me to lead the way?”

“Now where’s the fun in that?” Mason said, and Maddy knew from the emails she’d exchanged with Bran that the phrase was their old SEAL Team motto.

“Then be my guest.” Bran motioned toward the door before turning back to Maddy. “You stick to my six like a bad rash, you hear me?”

“You got it.” She threaded her fingers through his belt loop when he followed Mason out the door. With a “six” as fine as Bran’s, sticking to it wasn’t a hardship.

*

7:41 p.m.…

“Well, here’s another fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into,” Bran whispered to Mason, trying to forget that Maddy’s little fingers were still twisted around his belt loop. Her knuckles had brushed against his lower back with each step they’d taken to their current position, which was hiding behind a bramble bush a few yards from the spot where the body of that teeth-sucking shit-for-brains lay cooling on the sand.

The imposing redbrick walls of Fort Jefferson filled their vision. Ninety percent of Bran was already second-guessing bringing Maddy along. It was the ninety percent that, in the cold light of the moon, considered her a liability, not to mention a goddamned distraction. As for the remaining ten percent? Well, that part of him growled with feral approval every time she as much as breathed. So just for the record, that ten percent part of him was a complete and utter imbecile.

“This sucks,” Mason muttered, scanning the bridge over the seawater moat.

“Roger that.” The heat of the night pressed down on Bran’s shoulders like a pair of strong hands, making him feel like he was carrying more of a load than just his weapon. He gritted his teeth when Maddy pushed up on tiptoe behind him to see over his shoulder. Her warm breath fanned his ear and raised the hairs along the back of his neck. He swatted at his ear and turned to scowl at her.

“I can’t see,” she whispered. “You’re blockin’ my view.”

And because he didn’t want her to know how shaken he was by her nearness, by her touch, he decided to play it cool. Play it smart. Give her exactly what she’d come to expect from him. “Babe”—he turned and flashed her an exaggerated wink—“I am the view.”

Even in the low glow of the spotlights on the seawall and the occasional flash of the lighthouse, he could see her roll her eyes and fight a grin. “And there’s the Bran I’ve come to know and love. Hi there. I’ve been missin’ you tonight.”

Hearing the word love on her lips in reference to him had him swallowing hard and searching frantically for some pithy reply. He couldn’t come up with one, so he went with the decidedly unpithy reply of a silent scowl.

Maddy considered him for a second before shaking her head and releasing his belt buckle. He heaved a sigh of relief when her knuckles were no longer pressing against his back. “He always like this?” she whispered to Mason.

“Like what?” Mason asked.

“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

“Pretty much.”

“I think they make meds for that.”

“Mmmph.”

“You two realize I’m standing right here, right?” Bran demanded in an incredulous whisper.

“Right,” Mason said. “So how do you want to handle the fatal funnel?”

“That sounds ominous.” Maddy curled her lip. “What’s a fatal funnel?”

“It’s when you enter through a narrow space, like a hallway or an alley or a damned bridge through an archway, and you’re silhouetted against the entry point to the defenders inside,” Bran explained. “That’s the funnel part, anyway. I suspect the fatal part is self-explanatory.”

He heard her gulp. Yeah. You got it, babe.

“And considering no one took any shots at us as we were making our way here,” he whispered to Mason, “that probably means the dickheads are holed up inside with a defensible position, biding their time and just waiting for us to go on the offensive. Makes sense. Considering they’re in a goddamned fort, which was built for exactly that strategy.”

“Wish there was another way in,” Mason muttered. “Maybe we could swim around back and try to scale the seawall and then the curtain wall. Get in that way.”

“Maybe,” Bran mused, turning to Maddy and looking her up and down. He frowned when he did some quick muscle-mass to body-weight calculations.

“What?” she demanded. “What’s with the face?”

“I was born with it,” he said drolly. Yeah. He was definitely Jekyll and Hyde. “And I was once again asking myself why I decided to let you come along, because no way are those scrawny arms of yours”—he dipped his chin toward the set of lithely muscled biceps under discussion—“strong enough to get you up that curtain wall. Not unless you get bitten by an irradiated spider between here and there and suddenly turn into Spider-Woman.”

“How awesome would that be?” Maddy feigned wonder. “And just so you know,” she continued, “you agreed to let me come along because I know another way into the fort.” She batted her lashes so fervently he was surprised he didn’t feel a breeze.

He and Mason exchanged a look. Mason was the one to say, “Do tell, Miss Powers.”