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The air whooshed out of Aidan’s lungs as his back slammed into the ground, and he fought the radiating pain from the back of his head as it smacked against the dirt. Another blow, this one against his head, came from Sean, and Aidan had to shake himself quickly out of his stunned daze. With an angry grunt, he smacked at the next attack and shoved Sean’s follow-up away. He wasn’t in the best position to keep up the fight, but he could buy himself time.

Sean cocked his head, smirking. “You look good on your back, Sergeant. You should keep it up.”

Aidan almost laughed. Was Sean finally loosening up and talking shit?

Aidan grunted, knocking the next couple of blows away again. “What can I say? Not often I get a big, strong man like you on top of me. Make it hurt, Daddy.”

Sean’s eyes widened, and Aidan took advantage of the hesitation to shove his palms into Sean’s chest. The startled expression on Sean’s face disappeared, and Aidan used theman’s hips to push himself away and yank his legs free from beneath him.

Sean tried to catch Aidan before he could make good his escape. Shoving his chest against Aidan’s feet, he bent Aidan’s legs back toward his chest and used his weight to hold him down. Considering their last few comments, Aidan couldn’t help but laugh at their position.

Aidan twisted his body, repositioning. “Staff Sergeant, I’m going to have to ask you to take me to dinner first.”

“Christ, shut up!” Sean snarled.

“Fine, then get offme,” Aidan shot back, placing his feet into Sean’s chest and, using the ground beneath him as leverage, gave a huge shove.

Sean flew back, arms flailing as he tried to catch himself before he was the one who ended up on his back. Not content to let the other man get his balance, Aidan quickly scrambled up. Shoving against the ground, he kept his eyes on Sean and leaped forward.

That was when a thick arm wrapped around his chest and yanked him back.

“That’s enough,” Ricardo said, his voice rumbling with a warning.

Aidan looked up, having forgotten the rest of the team was even there. The quiet man wasn’t looking at him, though, even as he kept his grip on Aidan. Instead, Ricardo looked at Sean, his lips thin as he watched him.

Sean pushed himself up with a grunt. “I didn’t say we were done.”

“And our rules say anyone can end it to keep it from going too far,” Ricardo said, holding Sean’s gaze.

“It wasn’t going too far.”

“That was...a little rough,” Matt said from behind Aidan.

“Yeah, man,” Nick agreed.

Sean jerked his eyes away from Ricardo, glaring at Aidan as though it were his fault. “Fine. I guess I’ve seen enough.”

There was no assessment given, but Aidan hadn’t expected one. If he’d done badly, Aidan had no doubt Sean would have been more than happy to point it out. That he kept his silence and said nothing told Aidan he’d done just fine and had probably made an impression.

Though if the looks on the faces of the rest of the team as Sean stomped off were any indication, it might not have been the best impression to make.

Sean turned to face them before disappearing. “Be back here tomorrow. I need to see you all in action as a team.”

Somehow, Aidan thought he wasn’t talking about the team but him.

AIDAN

After days upon days of different training sessions, Aidan was beginning to suspect Sean was trying to kill him. First came their sparring session, during which Sean had gone too far in his attempts to beat Aidan. Then came a series of exercises, day after day. Then, the first day on the Gauntlet a few days before, Sean had continued to run them ragged.

The thing was, just as with the first day and the couple that followed it at the Gauntlet, Sean had been a little too focused on Aidan. While Aidan could forgive him to an extent, as he was still an unknown factor, he knew damn well it wasn’t just that. Aidan could tolerate Sean being hard on him because he needed to make sure Aidan could keep up, but after days of having everything he did nitpicked, made to repeat the course more often than the rest, and every little comment on Sean’s part, Aidan’s patience was running thin.

“Thirsty?” Ricardo asked, holding out a bottle of water.

Aidan took it, cracked it open, and downed the entire bottle. “A bit.”

Ricardo snorted. “Guess so.”

Aidan glanced over toward the rest of the team huddled together. Nick and Matt were chatting away, managing to havea conversation without an argument. Sean, however, was gazing off into the distance, absently chewing his bottom lip.