High Reward

  High Reward

  A Point of No Return Novel

  Brenna Aubrey

  For Tessa, fellow dweller of the Lair of Brilliance 2.0

  From USA Today Bestselling author Brenna Aubrey: Don’t miss this emotional conclusion to Ryan & Gray’s stunning duet, lauded as “sharp, sensitive” and “pretty wonderful” by the New York Times book review.

  He was looking for redemption. Instead, he found her.

  After a rocky start, former Navy SEAL-turned-astronaut Ryan “Ty” Tyler and nerdy flight psychologist Gray Barrett found they worked well together. Ty managed to tame his playboy reputation, and cautious Gray got her first taste of adventure. They had a good thing going. Until a good thing turned into a smoking hot thing...and that turned into a falling-in-love thing.

  Now Ty’s facing an impossible choice. Shake the demons of his past, or give up a future with the only woman he could ever love.

  The Point of No Return series

  High Risk (click to purchase)

  High Reward (this book)

  The Gaming The System series

  Girl Geek (prequel) (click to purchase)

  At Any Price (Adam & Mia part 1) (free download)

  At Any Turn (Adam & Mia part 2) (click to purchase)

  At Any Moment (Adam & Mia part 3) (click to purchase)

  For The Win (Jordan & April) (click to purchase)

  For The One (William & Jenna) (click to purchase)

  Worth Any Cost (Adam & Mia part 4) (click to purchase)

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Ryan

  Puffy head, bird legs. That’s what we call it. In weightlessness, your blood doesn’t flow the same way as it does while under the influence of gravity. All bodily fluids pool differently. On orbit, you live six months of your life with your head stuffed up like you have a bad head cold and skinny legs hanging out the bottom of your shorts.

  I run a hand over the soft tips of my crew cut. I always get my head shaved before working on station because I hate the way my hair sticks up in zero-g. It’s lunch time, and I can feel my stomach rumbling. I’ve been running a complex science experiment all morning, and my head hurts from the deep concentration and the built-up fluids.

  When I hit the Harmony module and the table where we eat our meals, Xander is already there, munching on a sandwich made with a tortilla, of course. We don’t use conventional bread up here because it makes too many crumbs that float around, get stuck in machinery, and generally make a mess.

  As I enter, I glance over at the only other occupant in the module—medium height, strong build, light brown hair. My best friend, Xander, is chewing thoughtfully on his folded tortilla—no doubt filled with his favorite, peanut butter and grape jelly—and staring at the chessboard fastened to the wall above our general workstation.

  “Did Marshall send you a new move?” I ask as I fix myself a quick burrito made of reconstituted beans and rice folded inside my own tortilla. I make sure to add lots of hot sauce. It’s the most popular condiment up here since our sense of taste is muted from the excess fluid in our heads. Spicy food and other strong flavors are at a premium on station.

  Xander doesn’t answer my question. His schedule included some maintenance work on the water recovery system this morning. Last time I had to work on that, it was an exercise in frustration. But Xander is a much more patient person than I am.

  “What’s the word from home today?” I follow up with another question when he doesn’t answer the first one.

  He’s peering at the board, cocking his head to study the new move. “Payday today. Haven’t heard from Karen yet.”

  “She’s probably out shopping,” I smirk. Karen has sent him something every single day—sometimes twice a day—since he’s been up here. Pictures of the kiddo, notes. Little videos, funny memes. Xander is downright spoiled. I might be just a tiny bit jealous.

  So, she’s a little late today. Is that why he’s so down? He checks at lunchtime every day and usually is quick to share whatever it is she’s sent him. But today, nothing.

  I finish the last bite of my burrito and push off from our dining table—a workbench, really, covered with straps and patches of Velcro to hold everything down. Bouncing off the ceiling above Xander’s head, I grab the nearest strap to hold myself there, reorienting so that the ceiling is now my floor. It took time to get used to all of that the first time I was up here over a year ago, but now I’m a pro at it.

  Xander never had much of a problem with it. Maybe it’s his honed pilot’s skills. I stare at the board for a moment, calculating his possible moves. This chess set is magnetic, so the pieces won’t float away unless pulled off the board.

  “They’re going to have you in checkmate in five moves,” I say.

  Xander throws me an annoyed glance. “I’m playing against the pooled resources of the entire Marshal Flight Center. All that nerdy engineering power versus just me.”

  I shrug. “You’re the one who challenged them…”

  Xander huffs, his eyes drifting back to the board. He seems off today. Could he be that bothered by the fact that Karen’s email hasn’t come through yet?

  He changes the subject by picking the old one back up again. “And I suppose your entire check is going right into your bank account for a rainy day or for that Harley you’ve been eyeing.”

  I push away from the ceiling and go to the bag on the wall where our “bonus” food is located. Pulling out a thick rope of licorice, I break it in half, floating a piece over to him. He catches it and begins chewing along with me.

  “Naw. This month I thought I’d spend mine on hookers and blow.” I chuckle, and Xander responds with a scowl. “Don’t be jealous, just because the little wife has already spent all yours.”

  “Don’t think you’ll find any hookers or much blow up here.”

  I shrug. “The cosmonauts might have a stash of cognac over on their side.” I nod toward the Zvedza module of the station, and we share a knowing look. Officially, there’s no liquor on station. But NASA has zero control over what the cosmonauts can—and do—bring with them.

  I watch him again for a moment, noting the unusual silence, the muted mannerisms. The spacewalk tomorrow has got to be what’s weighing on Xander’s mind. After our group dinner tonight on the other side with the cosmonauts, where we’ll share food and stories, Xander and I will get ready for our sleep period and spend the night in the airlock. There, the pressure will be reduced, and we’ll breathe pure oxygen to prepare our bodies for the harsh environment of space.

  But Xander has never done a spacewalk before. I’ve done three. Apparently, that makes me enough of a veteran to be the EV1 for this one.

  The added stress is that this extravehicular activity wasn’t planned. The ammonia coolant leak was only detected three days ago. It took Mission Control a full day to examine the problem and another day to devise a plan and walk us through it. And after lunch, we’re going to go through a co
mplete dry run again for the next few hours.

  “It’ll be a piece of cake, you know. We’re just going out there to do that one thing. Normally an EVA takes six or eight hours. We’ll be out there ninety minutes, max. Not even long enough to wet your MAG.”

  He rolls his eyes. “God, Karen has been teasing me about ‘astronaut diapers’ ever since she found out about the EVA.”

  “She teases you about everything. I hope the sex is hot enough to be worth it.”

  Xander smirks. “It’s definitely worth it.”

  I grin and wink. “I still prefer the single life and all the variety I get.”

  Xander laughs. “Not if Karen has anything to say about it. She’s still determined to find you a wife. I give you six months max after we get home before you’re tied down somehow.”

  Making a face at him, I reach for my water pouch, adjusting the valve on the straw. “Thanks for the warning to stay the hell away from Karen when we get home.”

  I squeeze a globe of water out of my drink pouch and catch it with a wash cloth as it floats away. Rubbing the damp towel over my hands, I eliminate the sticky residue of the candy we just shared. The wet towel gets clipped on my personal peg so that as it dries, the moisture will be reabsorbed into the recycled water supply.

  I push away from the wall and glide toward the exit that leads to Node 1, where we’ll run through our rehearsal of tomorrow’s big feat. “Let’s go, bro. Back to the salt mines.”

  With a laugh, he follows me.

  I jolted awake, my heart pounding and my head splitting open with pain. Nope, no puffy head, no extra fluids. And I could very distinctly feel earth’s gravity pulling down every cell in my body against the surface of my own bed in my Southern California home.

  Blinking, I waited for the world to come into focus. I hadn’t awakened with a headache in a long time, but last night had been a shitty night. I stared up at the ceiling, still startled by the aching reality of the dream.

  Xander, as real as if he’d been sitting beside me and laughing with me seconds before. Rubbing my eyes through my eyelids, I try to shake the spooked feeling and calm the racing of my heart. Fuck.

  I glanced at the clock to confirm my suspicion that it was late—almost ten a.m. And the bed beside me was empty. I ran my hand over the sheets, perceiving that they were cold. Gray had been up a while already.

  And with the thought of her, all the background tension came rushing back to pile on the fresh hurts of having seen Xander for that brief snippet of time. In timeless slumbering moments, I’d relived a portion of the last full day of his life in such vivid, realistic memory—almost exactly as it had actually happened.

  Some details had changed but those particulars had blurred with time…and with my desire to push that day, and the days that followed, into the furthest reaches of my memory.

  My palms came up to rub my forehead as I willed myself—and failed, at first—to get out of bed. The memory of those moments with Xander was fading fast—too fast. I wanted to grasp those feelings and keep them close while simultaneously willing them to evaporate into a mist like liquid nitrogen at room temperature.

  I hadn’t dreamed of Xander in months, long months…not since the memorial. Why now?

  I pressed my open palms to my face, then dropped them, forcing myself to rise from the bed at last. A good hot shower would drive the spooked mood away, the shaky feeling deep in my bones.

  But behind this fresh pain was the ache that remained from the day before. I had held Gray in my arms the entire night. While I listened to her light breathing and her clicking heartbeat, I’d buried my face in her soft hair. The entire night my mind raced, and I only slipped into sleep at dawn with the question and no answers flitting through my mind.

  Gray’s father, the illustrious Conrad Barrett, had dumped a pile of shit in my lap yesterday, though it felt like weeks ago, now. What on earth gives you the arrogance to assume you even deserve her? And in that moment, I’d felt like the lowest, filthiest heap of dirt, knowing with every beat of my heart the truth of those words. Then, Barrett had given me the ultimatum—end this thing between his daughter and me, or suffer the consequences.

  I’d willingly suffer those consequences. Without a second thought. I squinted and let the steaming spray of my morning shower cleanse my face and massage my stiff muscles. But it couldn’t relieve the tension. Because deep down, in the not-so-back of my mind, I knew that it wouldn’t just be me suffering those consequences.

  And I still hadn’t figured out yet what the fuck I was going to do.

  But there was one thing I knew I wasn’t going to do. I wasn’t going to let that bastard win. I would not lose her. It wasn’t even an option.

  Minutes later, I was back in the bedroom, dried off and slipping into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, wondering what she was up to. I could hear the distant sound of an appliance being used in the kitchen. My blender, maybe? No… it sounded different from my blender. A higher pitch.

  When I entered the kitchen, it looked like a major malfunction had transpired in my home. Empty bowls, mixing spoons, measuring cups piled in and around the sink…all lined up like ancient, befallen monoliths.

  There were pools of flour on the counters and on the floor. Cracked and empty egg shells were scattered around. Jeez. It looked like she’d mugged a baker at knife point in there.

  “What the hell happened in here?” I asked before modifying my tone. She jolted where she stood before an unfamiliar kitchen appliance—a gigantic stand mixer that did not belong to me. I never baked, so why would I even have something like that?

  Maybe she really had mugged a baker?

  The mixer switched off, and she put a hand to her chest. “You scared the crap out of me. I didn’t wake you, did I? I waited till I thought I heard the shower to start mixing the frosting.”

  But the frosting was everywhere, all over the counter and the backsplash in giant pink-red splotches like baker’s blood. I almost laughed at the thought. Were I not already deeply melancholy from that recent dream—and not a little annoyed by the disaster that was now my kitchen—I might have laughed.

  Her eyes widened, following my gaze across the countertops. “I’m going to clean every bit of this up, I swear!”

  My mouth quirked as I looked back at her, cute, sweet and that clicking heartbeat racing a mile a minute. She was adorable as ever, and I was already itching to pull her into my arms again.

  But she was also a sticky mess.

  “Where did that come from?” I pointed at the huge mixer.

  “It’s mine. I grabbed it from my place on the way back from having dinner with Pari last night. I’ve been feeling the itch to bake, and since it’s Pari’s birthday this week, I’m making angel food cupcakes for her.”

  A smile tugged at my mouth despite my best effort to remain stern. She had pink frosting on her cheek and mixed in her blond hair. With powdered sugar dusting the thin halter top that clung to her breasts, I was finding it hard to look away.

  She raised her brows up at me imploringly. “Are you mad?”

  I moved up beside her and dipped a finger into the bowl and tasted the frosting. “Mmm. Strawberries.”

  She smiled tremulously. “Strawberry buttercream frosting. You like?”

  I ran another finger over her soft cheek, collecting another bit of frosting there. “I love the taste of strawberry.”

  We held a long gaze. Her eyes widened, and she visibly swallowed.

  “I haven’t frosted the cupcakes yet, but I’ll definitely save you some. You want coffee? I made a pot.”

  I could definitely smell the coffee, but glancing in the general direction of the pot, I could only see more stacked dirty bowls in front of it. “Exactly how many mixing bowls does it take to make a batch of cupcakes? And exactly what army are you baking them for?”

  The timer on the oven chimed, and she hurried to it, burying her hands into brand new oven mitts that I was sure I’d only ever used once or twice. Sh
e bent to pull a cupcake tin—presumably also a transplant from her place—out of the oven.

  Of course, from this angle, I got a terrific view of her ass in sweat shorts, and my eyes slid down her smooth, long legs. The cupcakes graced the air with the heady scent of vanilla, but my mouth was now watering for her instead. Already, in her sunny presence, the gloom of the morning was starting to fade away to a distant, dim echo. But I could still hear it. If only in the very back of my mind.

  Drowning it out while burying myself in her? Win-win.

  Gray slid a new cupcake tray full of batter into the oven and set the other one atop a trivet. As she fussed with pulling the mostly rather-lopsided-looking cupcakes out of the tray and setting them on a cooling rack, I moved up behind her and placed my hands on her hips.

  “You have demolished my kitchen, young lady.”

  She flicked a glance over her shoulder at me before resuming her task. “Promise it will look good as new. It won’t bother you if you go spend some time in your office. Go relax with a cup of coffee. When you come out, you’ll never know this disaster was here.”

  I ran a hand over her round, tempting ass, lowered my mouth to her neck, and wasn’t surprised when I tasted more frosting off her salty skin. Her hands faltered in their task, and her posture wavered as I sucked at her neck.

  When I brought my mouth up to her ear, I said “I think I’m owed some compensation for the use of my premises.”

  Her head tilted up, but she didn’t turn to face me. My hands wandered, sliding across her waist to her front. There I cupped her breasts, teasing her nipples to hard, tight points in seconds.

  “Pancakes?” she asked with a wide smile, as if I wasn’t currently rubbing her up in preparation for some good clean—and dirty—fun. “I suck at baking and my cupcakes are lopsided, but I make killer pancakes. I’ll make you pancakes for breakfast tomorrow.”

  My hands slipped inside her tank top. And—surprise—she wasn’t wearing a bra.

  When my palms connected with her soft skin there, she let out an involuntary gasp, wavering against me. I bit her ear. “And if I don’t want to wait that long?”