Chapter 1

CHAPTER

ONE

CAL

“Damn it.” The curse flew out as the plane hit a patch of turbulence, and my elbow crashed into the small vanity next to me, sending pain through my arm and causing my hand to squeeze convulsively, and uncomfortably, around my dick.

Even flying private, jerking off in an airplane bathroom was tricky at best and hazardous at worst.

“You okay in there?” Jack’s stupid voice was too clear through the thin walls, and for a moment, I wondered if maybe he’d heard exactly what I was trying—and failing—to do.

“I’m fine.” The pain had caused my cock to deflate. Not that I thought that would last long. Not with Jack waiting for me in the plush cabin with his goddamn smirk and sexy-as-fuck body.

A body I’d wanted the second I saw it while I was on a job in Colombia.

And still wanted as I watched him leave the hotel room where we’d spent the night fucking to steal my contract hit while I was zip-tied to the headboard and cursing his name.

That I wanted even though I honestly kind of hated him.

Fine. Maybe hate was a little strong. Let’s just say he pissed me off. A lot. Almost all the time.

Unless I was under him…

Ignoring the shudder that raced down my spine, attempting to get my cock back in the game, I stood and zipped up, turning to wash my hands in the small sink. My attention snagged on the dark patch of skin on my neck. Concealed by my collar was one more reason this mission my brother had sent me on with Jack freaking Grayson was fucked.

He was my goddamn fated mate.

Pushing my T-shirt aside, I stared at my reflection and the swirl at the edge of my saddle patch that indicated I’d met my mate.

When I’d arrived in Cartagena, everything had been fine. Then I’d met Jack, and everything had gone to shit. I’d lost out on the hit, which landed me in hot water with my boss, but that paled in comparison to seeing the mate mark on my skin when I’d finally freed myself from Jack’s zip ties.

He’d unknowingly upended my life, and I’d barely been able to get it up for anyone else since. Not that I hadn’t tried. Because I had. Over and over and over again. With absolutely zero luck. My dick had imprinted on Jack, and now he was apparently the only one worthy of a hard-on.

Which explained my airplane bathroom predicament.

The only saving grace was that Jack had no clue about our connection. I wasn’t even sure great white shark shifters believed in fated mates.

To be honest, even though my grandparents and parents had been fated, and my brother had met his fated mate in a sea otter shifter named Felix, I wasn’t sure I believed it.

Even though the proof was staring back at me, was marked right there on my skin.

“You sure you don’t need help in there, sweetheart?” Jack drawled from the cabin.

Or maybe I just didn’t want to believe Jack was supposed to be mine. Fate sure had one fucked-up sense of humor.

Shoving open the door, I emerged into the tiny corridor that let out into the main cabin. “I said I was fucking fine.”

Jack was lounging in a soft leather seat, his leg hanging out into the aisle so I had to shove it out of the way to get back to where I’d been sitting. He whistled and pushed himself up. “Someone’s a little grumpy. You’d better turn that frown upside down, or this is going to be one hell of a long assignment.”

“It already is.” I scowled in his direction, hating that my brother had thrown us together—not that this was the first time we’d seen each other since we’d first met in Colombia, but to be fair, it was the first time we were working “together” and not competing for the same gig. For the last year and a half, every time I saw Jack, we fucked, fought, or both. Hell, we’d almost killed each other in Budapest. I had a scar on my left side from the blade of his knife, and he had a matching one on his right from mine.

At least all our weapons were safely stowed.

Eh, almost all.

I had a penknife in my backpack, a perk of flying private instead of commercial.

We had another ten hours on a plane together before I’d get any space from him, and I might need to do something drastic before then. In the small confines of the plane, his scent was everywhere. Every breath I took was full of cypress, sea salt, and the barest hint of warm honey. Every lungful made me long for crystal blue water and a warm beach I was sure I’d never visited but that felt like home anyway.

But pining over a man I didn’t even particularly like was absolutely not going to be my MO on this mission.

Abso-fucking-lutely not.

“Now, now, sweetheart. No need to get grouchy.” A slow and slightly evil grin spread across Jack’s face, and before he even opened his mouth, I knew I wasn’t going to like whatever he said next. “I could help you take the edge off a bit.”

“No edge to take off unless you’re going to stop being an epic douchebag.”

He slapped a hand over his heart. “You wound me.”

“Been there, done that. Pretty sure you still have the scar.”

Jack’s eyes went hot. “So do you.”

I tried to hide the shudder that raced down my spine, but my cock didn’t get the memo, twitching to life behind the zipper of my jeans. Again.

Jack’s gaze dropped to my crotch like he knew exactly what I was thinking.

Luckily, the plane hit another patch of turbulence just as Jack licked his lips and my resolve threatened to crumble, and the jerking of the plane caused him to bite his tongue.

“Fuck.” He looked away quickly, fumbling for his seat belt.

As a general rule, aquatic shifters weren’t all that comfortable in the air, and Jack’s white-knuckled grip on the armrests told me he definitely wasn’t happy.

“Please fasten your seat belts. I anticipate a bit of a bumpy ride for the next hour. I’m going to try to get us above it, but I assure you it’s nothing to worry about.” The pilot’s lightly accented voice did nothing to calm Jack’s nerves despite her assurances that everything would be fine.

It took all my willpower not to reach out a hand for him to hold, but I knew if I opened that door, I’d give him the power to break my heart, and there was no way in hell I wanted Jack Grayson to have that kind of hold on me.

Instead, I tried to focus his attention on our destination. “Tell me about Reuben.” We’d talked to him on the phone after we’d figured out what was in the file Felix had been kidnapped over, and he’d agreed with Nero that it would be best to share any intel he had with Jack and me directly and in person. Which was how we’d ended up on a plane bound for Australia.

“What?” He shook his head, then processing my question, he looked my way. “What do you want to know?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. What’s he like? I only met him once, I think. A long time ago. I was, like, ten, maybe. He came to visit my grandmother. I remember him being pretty… colorful.”

Jack smirked. “That’s one way to say it. I think Reuben lives by the idea that overt is covert.”

That tracked with what I remembered of the jaguar shifter. “Which is why it’s so weird to me that he wouldn’t tell us what he knows via a video conference. Hopefully, whatever information he has is worth flying halfway around the world.”

It was Jack’s turn to shrug. “He’s gotten a little paranoid in his old age. He doesn’t trust technology. I told you he barely, if ever, leaves his compound. But so far, all his intel has been good. If anyone is going to have a lead on the painting, it’s Reuben.”

“I really thought my grandmother would know more.” Nero had called her when we saw documents with her name all over them in Felix’s file. Despite The Evolution of Man , the most controversial and stolen piece of shifter art in the world, being her holy grail, she’d been unhelpfully tight-lipped, rushing Nero off the phone because she was going on a monthlong glaciers-and-volcanoes cruise with a group of her friends, and they’d been about to board the ship. While she’d been less than helpful, at least we knew she’d be safe for the next month if shit hit the fan, and something in my gut told me that was exactly what was going to happen. It felt inevitable. Felix’s kidnapping had been the very tip of the iceberg.

Hopefully, meeting with Reuben would give us a little more to go on.

The plane bounced again, and Jack clenched his jaw tight, the muscles in his neck tense.

“You need to relax.”

“Yeah, right.” His words were ground out through clenched teeth.

“I’m serious. You’re going to crack a molar if you keep tensing up like that every time we hit a little bump.”

“I don’t love flying.”

“You don’t say.” Then, because I was a little bit of an asshole and I couldn’t resist needling him, I continued. “Kind of odd in our line of work since world travel is kind of the name of the game.”

Jack unclenched his fingers from around the armrest just enough to shoot a middle finger in my direction, and something in my chest loosened. I didn’t like seeing him scared. In fact, his reaction to a little mild turbulence was the first time I’d seen him anything less than one hundred percent confident and in control since we’d met. Unless he was buried balls-deep in my ass, then all bets were off.

“I’m just saying. You have to have been on a thousand planes in your life.”

Jack growled. “Not if I can help it.”

“What do you mean?”

His head swiveled my way. “There are boats, trains, cars. I only fly if I absolutely have to.”

That was surprising. Planes weren’t my favorite way to travel either, but I did it. It was the fastest way to get from point A to point B.

The plane shuddered, and Jack closed his eyes, his face losing a shade of color.

In a second, propelled by some unknown force, I had my seat belt unfastened, and I was up and across the aisle. Jack had chosen the aisle seat, so I tapped his leg, asking him to move. His eyes popped open. The plane was still bouncing, and I grabbed onto the back of his seat so I didn’t go flying or land in his lap. “Are you fucking crazy? Sit down!”

“I’m trying to. Move your damn legs.”

Jack did as I asked, his expression confused and a little wary as I slid into the window seat and buckled my seat belt.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re going to Australia, right?”

He barely nodded. “You already know that.”

“And we still have the better part of ten hours until we get there, right?”

Jack closed his eyes again. “Don’t remind me.”

I popped the remote for the television mounted to the bulkhead wall from the spot between our seats and started scrolling the movie options, smiling when I landed on exactly what I wanted. “Then we have plenty of time to make a serious dent in the series.”

Jack cracked an eye open. “What series?”

“ The Lord of the Rings .”

“No.”

I had a feeling he wasn’t going to be a fan of my plan to distract him, but I pushed anyway. “Aww, why not? The films were made in Australia. Makes sense for us to watch them on our way.”

“You’re an idiot. Those movies were filmed in New Zealand.”

“Eh, potato, potahto.”

Jack shook his head. “Not even close.”

“A little close.” I held up my thumb and forefinger with just a little space between.

He shook his head again, but I noticed he no longer had the armrests in a death grip. “I hate all that fantasy shit.”

I faked surprise. “No, really? But you’re such a whimsical kind of guy. I’m honestly shocked.”

He glared at me. “You can’t possibly tell me you like it.”

“Maybe hobbits do it for me.”

Jack scoffed. “Like hell.”

“You know, it’s rude to yuck someone else’s yum. I could totally be into short guys with hairy feet.”

“Yeah, sure you could. But you’re not.”

He turned his head and met my gaze. There was heat there and something else. It was like he knew a secret but wasn’t about to tell me, and he knew I wouldn’t ask. A beat of heavy silence passed between us until it felt like you could cut the tension with a dull butter knife.

I cleared my throat, breaking the weird stare down. “To answer your earlier question, I don’t hate fantasy movies. They’re more my brother Quin’s thing, so I’ve seen them before.”

“So why do you want to watch them again?”

“Because spending the next ten hours watching Orlando Bloom at peak elfin hotness seems like a much better way to pass the time than watching you try not to spiral into a massive panic attack.”

“You are such a fucking dick.”

“Yep.” But I hit the button to start The Fellowship of the Ring anyway, smiling to myself as Jack relaxed little by little despite continued turbulence.

Admittedly, I was only half paying attention to the movie. Mostly, I was watching Jack from the corner of my eye. Even though he’d said fantasy flicks weren’t his thing, he hadn’t taken his eyes off the screen since Cate Blanchett started narrating the history of the rings.

A large portion of my energy was being spent trying to keep myself from leaning even closer to Jack and inhaling his scent. When the credits rolled, I was wired, but Jack seemed more relaxed than I’d seen him since we’d boarded Reuben’s private plane in Seattle.

“Should we start the second one?” Jack held out his hand for the remote.

“Sure, but I thought these movies weren’t your thing?”

“Shut up.” When I didn’t pass him the controller, he reached into my seat where the remote had fallen, the back of his hand skimming over my thigh, and once again, I had to literally bite my tongue to stop my dick from reacting to his touch. Jack’s fingers stilled against my leg, and his eyes met mine. Barely banked fire burned there, but I’d promised myself the second Nero had thrown us together that I wouldn’t fall into bed with Jack again. Being this close to him for this long had the small tank of self-control I had flashing an E for empty, and telling myself I wasn’t going to fuck Jack had never worked before.

Why did I think it would now?

Because this time, I was treating it like part of my penance for getting Nero’s mate, Felix, kidnapped. Even though we’d rescued Felix and Nero and his mate had both forgiven me, I still felt like I had to make up for the mistake somehow. Working with Jack while wading through the sexual chemistry that burned between us without doing anything about it felt like a good way to atone. Especially since the only time we ever really saw eye to eye was in the bedroom. Everywhere else, I thought Jack’s need to strategize and control everything was annoying, and he hated my inclination to go off half-cocked with only the barest hint of a plan in mind. In the bedroom, though, his control was an epic turn-on, and he always came up with the best plans that usually ended with both of us covered in cum and completely wrung out.

He looked away first, and I took that for the small victory it was while he hit the Play button to start The Two Towers .

I nodded off somewhere near the middle and woke up to find the credits rolling on The Return of the King . To my horror, I was also leaning on Jack’s shoulder. Jolting upright, I put as much distance between us as I could.

“Good morning, sweetheart. Sleep well? Pretty sure you drooled on me. Gross, by the way.” He mimed wiping something nasty off his shoulder and flicking it away. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes as I undid my seat belt and stood, intent on getting as far from Jack as I could. This time, I didn’t wait for him to move his long legs out of the way. I just pushed past them, tripping into the aisle.

Whatever weirdness had compelled me to show him kindness hours before was long gone, and I needed as much space as I could get.

“Where are you going? You know I don’t bite. Unless you want me to.” Jack’s voice followed me to the last row of plush leather seats.

I didn’t have a good answer, and running away on a small private plane was futile anyway, so I said nothing.

“Oh, the silent treatment. Very mature, Calig?—”

“If you utter another syllable, I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

Jack had stood and was staring at me over the back of his chair. “I like my chances.”

“Whatever.” As far as comebacks went, it was ridiculous, but at least I’d kept him from saying my full name.

Anytime it was uttered in its entirety, it was usually followed up by some dumbass quip about whether I was crazy enough to appoint my horse to the Senate or some equally asinine comparison of my own impulsivity to that of my namesake.

Yet for some stupid reason—see aforementioned impulsivity—I had given Jack my full name the night we’d met.

And like Beetlejuice, whenever Jack said my name, my full name, it had the power to make me come—albeit in a much different way—and like he knew what hearing those four syllables roll off his tongue did to me, he had taken every opportunity he could to taunt me with it.

We continued to square off across the rows of seats that separated us, neither of us willing to back down, until the pilot announced we were beginning our final descent onto the private airstrip outside Reuben’s house at the edge of Queensland.

This time when I saw Jack grip the armrest, his knuckles going white as the plane dipped lower, I didn’t do anything to help, even though watching him tense made me feel like I’d been punched in the gut, like his fear of flying was in some small part my own.

It was official—having a fated mate sucked.