Chapter 1:

With my arms crossed over my chest and the most vicious look on my face, I should have had these ladies squirming in their seats. Betty was on her box in plain view. That alone should have let these ladies know just how much trouble they were in.

“Leaving OPS without telling a single person,” I ticked off on one finger, taking a step away from my desk as I began to pace.

“Breaking into a client’s home,” I added to the list.

“Befriending said client.” I spun on my heel and glared at the four ladies still sitting in their seats as if they weren’t in a world of hurt. “Do you have any idea how serious this is? Eva, I expected more of you.”

She snorted slightly. “Since when have I ever listened to you?”

The answer was easy, and she knew it. The fact was, Eva never listened to me. Since the day I met her, she fought back against doing things my way, and it was clear now that wasn’t about to change. Still, as the boss’s fiancé, I had hoped she would play by the rules just a little bit. 

“And Zoe, you just had a baby.”

Her head moved slowly in a cocked position, as if she was examining me like a bug. How was it possible these women could make me feel like I’d done something wrong when they were the ones that left OPS without telling anyone, broke into a client’s house, then hid out there without any of us knowing! And frankly, that was the biggest issue. How did we have four women hiding out without a single one of us catching on? We cleared the house every time we left. The cameras and sensors showed absolutely nothing. It was baffling to say the least.

But that was beside the point at the moment. I got a little off track with my thoughts, and didn’t pick up on the fact that all four women were now plotting my demise. Based on their looks alone, I was already dead and they were trying to decide where to dump my body. I swallowed hard and tried my best to hold my ground. I was the owner of this company, and I would not falter.

Zoe very slowly got to her feet and sashayed closer to me. “I’m sorry, I must have heard you wrong because I could have sworn you said I just had a baby.”

Yep, there was a threat in there somewhere. It was undeniable. Very slowly, I looked behind me at the line of men who belonged to these women. They held their ground just like me, but obviously, they knew better than me. Red gave a minute shake of his head, telling me to back off. But I was the boss around here, and I wouldn’t be dictated to by people that didn’t even work at this company.

“That’s right. You have a baby,” I said firmly. “You should have been at home, not off gallivanting across the countryside.”

“Gallivanting,” she grinned. “I had no idea that’s what I was doing.”

“I’m not the bad guy here,” I said, finding my balls buried deep inside my body. “We were on an operation. I don’t care if you’re bored or in need of adventure, none of you have the right to leave this property without expressed permission, and you definitely can’t show up at a client’s house. You got lucky that Jane enjoyed your little adventure. That wouldn’t be the case in every situation.”

“I wasn’t aware that having a baby excluded me from having any fun,” Zoe quipped.

“Fun? No, but interfering in a job? Absolutely.”

“We never interfered at any time,” she shot back. “Maybe you should take a lesson from us in stealth.”

“Yeah, for a security company, you somehow managed to miss five women wandering around the house the entire time you were there,” Eva said mockingly.

This was going nowhere fast. If I had any hope of regaining control, I was going to have to put my foot down hard. “This is not a debate!” I shouted. “Yes, you were fine this time, but any other job, you could have found yourselves dead. We do not work under these circumstances. Your husbands have jobs to do, and they can’t be distracted by their wives suddenly going missing! Not to mention, that you could have been in danger and we wouldn’t have known it—”

“Because you didn’t know we were there,” Eva interrupted. “I think that says more about you than us.”

I was fuming, partly because she was right. We somehow missed all of them and I couldn’t figure out how it was done. But I was also pissed as hell because I didn’t like to reprimand them when they clearly got the drop on us. We should be working with them to find out what they did to infiltrate our system.

“This will not happen again. Am I making myself clear?”

Anna raised her hand ever so slowly. I bit my tongue, because frankly, I didn’t want Fox getting pissed at me for mistreating his woman. “Yes, Anna?”

“Say it’s necessary for us to tag along.”

“If it was necessary, we would already know about it.”

“Yes, but what if you were…say, kidnapped. Would you want us to sneak in and get you out?”

“And why would a group of highly intelligent, extremely well trained men get kidnapped?”

“For every one of you out there, there’s someone faster and smarter than you,” Quinn noted. 

She had a point, but that didn’t mean I wanted them sneaking in to rescue us. 

“Boss,” Fox stepped forward, keeping his voice low. “She has a point. Just one small distraction, and we could find ourselves in a predicament.”

“Since when would you ever admit to being distracted to the point that you’d allow yourself to get kidnapped?” I hissed.

“Say one of us is vomiting,” Scottie stepped forward. “You know, on a plane after a very intense flight.”

“Yeah, and maybe Kavanaugh freaked out because there were mummies on board and we had to detain him,” Red added.

“It could happen to the best of us, boss,” Scottie nodded. 

I stared at them all incredulously. “You’re professionals!”

“Yes, but we’re only human,” Red pointed out.

“You’re human,” Scottie muttered. “Fox is a special breed.”

“Thanks,” Fox grinned. “There’s no one quite like me.”

“And why isn’t IRIS here?” Red asked. “It was his woman that allowed these shenanigans to go on. Why isn’t she getting the speech on what not to do?”

“She was the client,” I bit out.

“All the more reason for her to understand what she did was wrong,” Fox said. “But seriously, you have to admit, our women were awesome. If it weren’t for them getting drunk and making all that noise, we might never have known they were there.”

“And what’s your point?” I bit out.

Fox frowned at me. “Um…I thought it was pretty self-explanatory. We should use them.”

“Are you insane?” I snapped. “An actress, a geologist, a screenwriter, and—”

“Careful, boss,” Scottie cut in. “This is Eva we’re talking about. She’s almost as crazy as Fox now.”

I slammed my eyes shut and took a deep breath. I would not lose my shit right now. “The point is, despite the fact that they somehow outsmarted us this time, they have no place in our operations. They got lucky, but they may not next time. I’m not willing to risk my woman’s life for five seconds of pleasure.”

“Five seconds?” Fox grunted. “Boss, you need to step up your game if all you’re getting is five seconds.”

“I’m not talking about sex,” I snapped. “I’m talking about them getting five seconds of pleasure.”

“That’s even worse. She’s your woman. You should be giving seventy percent of the pleasure.”

“Really?” Scottie asked. “You think seventy percent is the number to go with.”

“Were you thinking higher or lower?”

“Equal shares,” Scottie shrugged. “I don’t mind putting in the hard work, but why should I only get thirty percent?”

“Because you’re the man,” Red interrupted. “You have to keep her happy if you don’t want her wandering off to someone else.”

“And the same could be said for us. A displeased man won’t stick around for thirty percent.”

“Unless it’s a very good thirty percent,” Fox said. A dirty grin crossed his face in a way that made me shiver in disgust. “Thirty percent in my bed goes a long way.”

“Enough!” I cut them off. “Christ, I don’t even remember what we were talking about anymore.”

“Sex,” Fox said, pulling a stick of beef jerky from his pocket. He tore it open and ripped a piece off in his mouth.

“What are you doing?” I asked incredulously.

“Eating. I thought that was pretty clear.”

I wasn’t about to get into this further. If he wanted to switch from Funyuns to beef jerky, that was his business. “We were talking about the fact that our girlfriends and wives decided to tag along on a mission, regardless of the risks they were taking on. We can’t allow this to happen again. All it takes is one time and we’ll be paying for the rest of our lives. Are we all in agreement on that?”

They nodded reluctantly, and just as I was about to turn around, Fox grabbed me by the arm. “Maybe we should have a contingency. Like…if we do get kidnapped, they’re allowed to help, but only if the risk is minimal.”

“Yeah, or…one of them could learn to fly a plane. That way if said pilot gets…oh, I don’t know…nauseous, there’s a backup person.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Red agreed. “Flights are starting to make me nauseous, and it has nothing to do with the flight. It’s the smell.”

“Fine,” I bit out. “We can have a contingency plan, but we’ll create it and hide it somewhere that they’ll only find in case of an emergency. Deal?”

“That sounds fair,” Scottie nodded.

“We can not at any time allow them to think we condone this behavior. It’ll only come back to bite us in the ass.”

They all nodded as I turned back around and faced the women that recently caused me way too many headaches. “Alright—”

“Who wants to learn to be a pilot?” Fox cut me off. All the ladies raised their hands, completely ruining my entire plan. I glared at Fox, which was pointless. He wasn’t intimidated by me in any way. “Training begins tomorrow! Dismissed!”

The ladies got up, chattering amongst themselves excitedly. Everyone filtered out of the room, leaving me standing there staring at empty chairs. When had I gone from the boss to just another guy in the room?

“It was bound to happen,” Red sighed. “None of those women were going to become housewives.”

“I would have settled for them listening to directions.”

Red snorted out a laugh. “Yeah, that was never going to happen either.” He clapped me on the shoulder and walked away. “It was a good speech, though.”