Guts & Glory: Mercy (In the Shadows Security Book 1)

by Jeanne St. James

  She lifted her gaze to his, her sky-blue eyes once again way too warm, too curious.

  The woman was persistent. That was easy to see. Because if she wasn’t persistent, then they wouldn’t both be naked on the couch, her legs tucked between his, his arm wrapped around her to keep her from tumbling to the floor and, more importantly, her pussy full of his cum.

  Two broken rules now.

  He fucked her more than once.

  He didn’t use a condom.

  He was on a fucking roll.

  And if he told her the story of how he got his scars, he might as well crack open his little pink diary, the one he wrote in with purple ink and made little hearts over the i’s.

  “Combat,” slipped past his lips. That wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t know. The dog tags he still wore, which he considered his lucky rabbit’s foot, made it obvious he was former military, even if they hadn’t discussed it while playing poker. So, that was no secret and his simple answer might satisfy her curiosity.

  Or not.

  “Hand-to-hand combat,” he clarified, not that he needed to.

  Her warm fingers trailed down his throat, dipped into the hollow at the base then continued following the path of the metal chain. She found his tags which had been sandwiched between his chest and her tits and lifted them. “What were you fighting over?”

  She didn’t study them; she didn’t read them. Her thumb brushed back and forth absently over the raised lettering. Why was that getting him hard again?

  Possibly because those tags were a part of him. They were who he used to be. They were what made him who he was now.

  They were also a reminder.

  With zero interest in college, from eighteen on, the Army had been his life, his focus. It gave him a structure and purpose he longed for which had been missing during his childhood.

  He ended up living for that shit. He also would have died for that shit. But not willingly.

  It was in his blood and when he was forced out due to his injuries, and for his mental state at the time, he had nothing.

  Absolutely fucking nothing.

  He’d never felt so fucking lost.

  He no longer had a purpose.

  Nothing to live for.

  He was not wired to live a normal civilian life. He wasn’t going to find a good woman, put a ring on her finger, and give her babies. Buy a house, work a nine to five, save for retirement so him and the missus could travel.

  Fuck that.

  After his discharge, he’d been courted by a private military company and after some negotiation, he was about to accept the offer and go back to the locations he knew best, where he knew the people and cultures inside and out, when Hunter approached him. Fresh out of the Army himself, restless and looking for action, he’d stumbled across a small town in Pennsylvania named Shadow Valley. A town full of a motorcycle club called the Dirty Angels. It just so happened that their enforcer, Diesel, was looking for some heavy hitters to work for him. Men who weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. Men who were skilled enough to take out threats in any manner necessary without getting caught.

  Men who also had no problem taking out a rival MC because of the heinous shit they’d done and the threats to the DAMC women. And now children.

  Mercy instantly liked Diesel the first time he met him. The man didn’t give two shits about what was in Mercy’s file. He didn’t give a shit what Mercy did in his past. He didn’t chit-chat like a couple of women sitting around drinking tea. He was direct, to the point, and took no bullshit.

  He also didn’t mind getting his own hands dirty when needed.

  And he had no qualms when giving the order to take a life in order to save another’s.

  Diesel was fiercely loyal to his brotherhood and Mercy respected that.

  By working for D, he wouldn’t be working under any bullshit rules that went along with a contracted military company. He’d answer to no one except D. No one would be sitting in a bullshit boardroom somewhere safe in the States while he was putting his ass on the line out in some desert, sweating his balls off and trying not to eat a bullet.

  It was a no-brainer. The money was good, and with the team D built after weeding out some pussies he’d previously hired for bullshit work—like being bouncers at bars—his reputation grew. And grew rapidly simply by word-of-mouth. His “security” business became known to the people who needed the job done quickly and efficiently without blowback. His clients had money and paid well for what they needed.

  Even so, there were always jobs D turned down. He usually didn’t discuss them. Sometimes if it was questionable, he’d call a meeting and run it past the Shadows first. They all had a line they wouldn’t cross. D knew what those were, for the most part, for each of them. But he still respected his crew enough to run it past them if he was on the fence.

  That’s when he noticed Rissa’s eyebrows were furrowed.

  Fuck. She had asked a question again and he never answered.

  He wasn’t used to this shit. This question and answer kind of thing with a woman. Normally, the less they talked, the better.

  What was the damn question again?

  Oh, right. She wanted to know what he was fighting about when he was almost fatally injured. Hell, that answer was simple. “My life. Asshole wanted to take it and I wanted to keep it.”

  Her brow stayed wrinkled. “Well, you apparently won.”

  Mercy grunted. “That I did.”

  Her eyes traced his scar again slowly, then paused on his lips. “Does he look worse than you?”

  Does he look worse than you?

  Maybe the scar bothered her more than he originally thought.

  “By now, I’d say so.” He left it at that. He didn’t think it was wise to tell her that he unarmed him by taking the man’s own knife and sinking it deep into his soft belly, sawing it upward until he was filleted like a fish. No, he’d keep that to himself.

  Especially since a lot of females were squeamish.

  He also wouldn’t tell her how his own face looked filleted open. How he attempted to sew the two halves together himself with a dirty needle and some thread he normally carried on missions until he could get medical attention, which wasn’t for another eight hours. Or so he’d been told. He hadn’t stayed conscious long enough to watch the time.

  Fuck no, telling her all of that would be completely unnecessary.

  “Does it bother you?” Goddamn it. Why the fuck did he even care?

  “What?”

  “The scar.”

  “No, not at all. It tells a story.”

  Yeah, not a pleasant one. And that story was the beginning of the end for him. A story he had what if’d to death.

  “You need to talk about it.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Ryan,” she began.

  His jaw tightened and he frowned. “Past is the past.” Unless you couldn’t let it go.

  “The past shapes your future. Your past is holding you back.”

  Her words reminded him of what he told Jazz. “What we experience throughout our life makes us who we are. Good or bad. It shapes us. No one needs to be fixed. We just need to embrace who we are and how we ended up that way. Every situation we survive makes us stronger. It teaches us how to deal with the next one.”

  “I’m doing just fine.”

  She pressed a palm over his heart. “On the surface. At least, you want people to believe that. You have an expensive SUV on steroids, but what else do you have? Family? Friends?”

  “Got brothers.”

  “You mean your team? The men you work with?”

  “They’re more than that.”

  “Are they?”

  Yeah, they were. His fellow Shadows, along with Diesel... There wasn’t a group of men he trusted more to be at his back. It was the way it should be with any kind of true brotherhood.

  “Are you done?” he asked.

  No, she wasn’t done. She wouldn’t be done until she cracke
d him open and poked around inside. If she was wise, she’d stop trying to do that, because she might regret what she finds.

  “Yes, I’m done.”

  He lifted his gaze from where her hand was over his heart. From where her tits were pressed against his chest.

  She was done? His eyes narrowed. Was this a trick?

  “As much as I enjoyed having sex on this couch, I’d prefer it in a bed where I’m not worried about crashing to the floor and getting a concussion.”

  “It’s the middle of the night, you don’t want to go upstairs and get some sleep?”

  She pursed her lips and tilted her head. “Mmm, no. I’d rather go upstairs and have sex again. It’s not like I have anything pressing tomorrow—unless Michael calls and says it’s safe for me to come back home—so I can sleep in. You’ll just have to deal with the cook making you a late breakfast.”

  “Of steak and eggs.” He had spotted some fat steaks in the fridge.

  She bit her bottom lip and the corners of her eyes crinkled. He wanted to bite that bottom lip for her.

  “Of steak and eggs. No ketchup allowed, though, or you’ll insult the cook.”

  “Gotta have ketchup. It’s the American way.”

  She mmm’d with a look of disgust. “And you are a patriot, right?”

  “You mean the missile? Yeah, I got a missile.”

  She rolled her eyes and laughed. “Well, let’s go launch that missile.”

  And didn’t he follow her naked ass up those steps and have sex with her for the fourth and fifth time?

  Amazingly enough, not once did he have a failure to launch.

  Chapter Eleven

  Parris’s eyes popped open and it took her a few seconds to figure out where she was. She rolled to her side and stared at the empty side of the bed.

  Of course. Because one, the man didn’t sleep regularly. And two, she couldn’t imagine he’d sleep all night, or even a partial night, with any woman.

  No, that would go against his grain.

  She didn’t even bother to look for a note. Since he answered to no one, leaving a message about where he went would be a completely foreign idea to him.

  The sneakers she had noticed when they had come upstairs hours ago—because they had been tucked too neatly in the corner of the room and lined up against the wall—were missing, but his perfectly aligned black boots remained.

  Which meant he’d probably went for a run. She sat up with a groan, because although the sex had been freaking awesome, they’d had a lot of it and her body wasn’t used to it, even if it had been sweet or gentle. Which it wasn’t.

  She was sore in places she hadn’t been sore in for a very long time.

  That made her smile, but it quickly turned upside down when she wondered what time it was.

  Scrambling out of bed, she hurried over to the window, peeked between the drawn curtains and saw the sun was up. Since it wasn’t too high in the sky, that was a good sign it was probably late morning.

  She wondered how long she had before he returned, which got her wheels turning. She dashed naked down the hall to get dressed and was thankful nobody had witnessed that maneuver.

  If she was ever going to get a message to her sister, now was the time. Even if Londyn was being bugged, Parris could at least send a text from a borrowed phone, just to let her younger sister know she was okay. As well as check on her well-being.

  If she was lucky, she may be able to send Michael a quick text to get an update on the status of her coming home.

  Not that she minded a few more nights like the one she had last night, but she had patients she was ignoring. A business to run. A life to live.

  She couldn’t be just lollygagging around a house in Shadow Valley, Pennsylvania, having sex with a man she hardly knew.

  A man she was sure most other people didn’t know much about, either.

  But that was neither here nor there, right now. Now, she had to get her ass in gear, find an occupied home nearby and borrow a cell phone from, hopefully, a kind neighbor who wouldn’t look at her like she was some mental hospital escapee.

  She just hoped whatever house she picked wasn’t that Diesel’s house. She didn’t think it would go over well when the door opened, and she ended up face to face with Mercy’s boss. That could get awkward.

  Plus, he’d probably not only drag her back to this house—most likely by her hair, grunting all the way—he’d tattle-tale on her.

  And Mercy probably wouldn’t find a lot of joy with her actions.

  In fact, none at all.

  After that, she could kiss any more of the freaking awesome sex they could potentially have goodbye.

  Which might make her shed a tear. Maybe even two.

  So, she had to be careful and smart about it.

  She pulled on her pair of black yoga pants, some slip-on sneakers (did the person who packed for her think she did anything that actually entailed wearing sneakers? Fsst), a bra, and dug in her bag until she found a casual top. She rushed into the hall bathroom, quickly pulled her hair back in a neat ponytail—since she was going for the “Oh yes, of course I power walk on a regular basis,” and not the “Hi, stranger, I’m a complete loon” look.

  Forget makeup or anything like that. Time was of the essence. And since she was rushing around, she was probably going to get sweaty anyway. With a quick sniff to her pits (no, they wouldn’t kill anybody, thankfully) she hurried out of the bathroom.

  Parris jogged down the steps, took a quick glance at the alarm system by the front door to make sure it wasn’t set, then moved toward the kitchen and out of the back sliders. Standing on the deck she glanced in both directions. The neighborhood wasn’t fully developed yet, but she could see a house in what looked like a cul-de-sac a few lots down.

  And was that...

  Yes, someone was out on the back deck of that house. Bingo!

  She leaped (sort of) from the deck to the dirt—since no grass had been planted yet—like a pole vaulter (sort of) and then sprinted (sort of) toward a woman who was sitting outside playing a guitar.

  In fact, the closer she got she could hear the music over her wheezing. She really needed to start doing more than swimming. Point taken.

  When she got close enough and caught the woman’s attention, she flapped a hand around in the air in a sort-of greeting. Unfortunately, she was struggling to find enough oxygen to shout a “hello.”

  By the time she got to the steps of that woman’s deck, she leaned over and pushed a hand into the stitch in her side. She finally gasped a “Hi!” because that was all she could manage without too much effort.

  The woman’s fingers had stilled on the strings of the guitar and she only blinked at Parris. Was that shock? Horror? Surprise?

  She hadn’t split her yoga pants during that Olympic-worthy athletic leap, had she? She peered down. No, all her important bits were covered. Phew.

  “Hi,” she attempted again, trying to actually form words. She sucked some air and tried again. “I was just out exercising and heard your beautiful guitar playing.”

  The petite blonde woman with great big green eyes just continued to stare at her.

  So much for not looking like a loon on her part. Obviously that was a major failure.

  “Uh,” the younger woman started. “How did you get into the compound?”

  Parris straightened since she’d been bent over trying to catch her breath and slow her runaway locomotive heartbeat. She waved a hand absently in the direction of the other house. “I’m staying down there.”

  The woman’s head twisted in that direction, then quickly back to her. “With Nash?”

  It was Parris’s turn to blink. “Nash?”

  “Yeah, that’s Nash’s house. I didn’t think he moved in yet.”

  “Oh, uh, yes, in Nash’s house. But not with Nash.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. Are you the woman who Mercy is babysitting?”

  Oh shit. “Well, I’m kind of old to need a babysitt
er... but, yes, I’m staying with Mercy.”

  “You’re his current job. The package he picked up in Vegas.”

  Sigh.

  “Uh... sure,” Parris said slowly. She climbed the three steps from the yard (they actually had grass) and approached the woman who couldn’t be older than her upper twenties. Parris wondered if she still lived with her parents. When she got close enough to where the woman was sitting, she offered her hand. The other woman stared at her outstretched hand, then after a few seconds, took it, giving it a firm shake. “I’m Parris.”

  After releasing her hand, the woman pulled the wide guitar strap over her long, blonde hair and propped the instrument against a small table. “Jazz.”

  Parris pasted on a smile. “Oh, how fun. Do you play jazz?”

  “No.”

  “Oh... Well... I...”

  “Are you supposed to be out of the house?”

  Parris sucked in a breath and tried not to curse. “Um... like I said, I was out exercising.”

  “Why isn’t Mercy with you?”

  “Because I can’t keep up with him, so I go at my own pace.” Right. He probably ran like a rabid cheetah next to her snail crawl.

  “So, he knows you’re not in the house right now?”

  “Of course.” Holy crap, she hated lying. “I, uh, just have a favor to ask. My cell phone got lost at the airport and Mercy’s isn’t charged. I really need to get a message to my sister. Just a simple text. So I was wondering if I could borrow yours? She’s... She’s having surgery in a couple hours and I want to wish her good luck. I... um... am worried. And she’ll never forgive me if she doesn’t hear from me.”

  Jazz’s cell phone was sitting on the little table next to where she had been playing guitar. It was right there.

  She could dive for it, grab it and run away. But that would involve running again. And that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

  “Are you supposed to be contacting anyone?”

  Damn this woman and her blasted questions! Had someone given her the heads up?

  Parris swatted a hand nonchalantly in the air. “Oh, yes. I was told just no phone calls in case... I can text, though. No problem.”