by James, Ella
“It would be harder with someone else,” I say after a minute. “I couldn’t fight another Operator. Not most of them.”
She laughs lightly. “So I’m an easy target, is that what I’m hearing?”
I reach a finger out to trace her cheekbone, smiling softly at her. “Still harder than most,” I tell her, aiming to appease.
Gwen leans over, smooths my left eyelid shut, then feathers a kiss over it.
“I’m not sure when I’ll stop being impressed with you. I hope you don’t think I’m being patronizing. It’s just like…you always hear about these badass vets, like Michael Stokes guys, and I’ve never actually known one.” Her eyes shine with kind sincerity.
I smirk. “Michael Stokes.”
“You should pose for him. People would go crazy.”
I chuckle, shaking my head. I want to tell her that I’m at my fucking worst. That I’m embarrassed by myself. By how I’ve changed. I can’t even get a bullet through a target. I can’t shoot a gun or bow, although I’m trying to relearn. But I look at Gwenna in the darkness, and I know that shit holds no weight with her.
I take her hand and bring it to my cheek, and then I press a kiss into her palm. I search her eyes for…something.
She’s not afraid to hold my gaze. Her mouth is soft and thoughtful. After a long moment, her free hand tucks a curl behind my ear.
“Who are you?” I rasp.
She smiles, and there is something bared in it. It’s like the absence of pretense. It’s like she’s smiling all for me.
I cradle her hand, bringing it back to my cheek. “You make me feel almost good,” I whisper.
“Only almost?” She strokes under my chin, and like a fucking tiger, I have to struggle not to purr.
I don’t know what to say to that, so I don’t even try.
“That’s a sad smile you’ve got there, B.”
I’m smiling? I move her hand off my face, but don’t let go of it. Her fingers curl around my wrist, around my hand, until she’s squeezing gently.
Fuck me.
“I’m ‘B’ now?”
She nods, smiling. “I need to shorten Barrett. I’m too lazy to use it all the time.”
“No Bear?” I give her a teasing smile.
Her own smile falters. “I didn’t know if…you’d want that.” She looks worried. I think back to why. Maybe I said something about it? That it reminded me of my time in ACE? Of Breck?
I shrug. “It works.”
She swings my hand, still wrapped in hers. “So I can call you Bear? I have my very own Bear?” I swear, she fucking giggles.
Fuck. I think I get all red like she does sometimes. I can’t help giving her a lopsided smile.
“And on that note…” She reaches behind her and holds a plate out to me, grinning like she knows she’s crazy but she doesn’t care. The plate is stacked with tacos, made in a variety of ways.
“Which ones are yours?” I can’t help laughing at the big, unruly pile.
“The ones that aren’t yours. I like literally any kind of taco. So good choice, by the way.”
We eat right there in her bed, under the twinkle of the lights. Gwen avoids the tacos with the jalapenos. I have a couple different ones, after I ask which she prefers and she answers with a poker face.
The room is filled with crunching, with the sounds of chewing. By the time we’re finished, Gwen’s area is littered with lettuce, tomato, and little bits of taco shell. Mine is spotless.
She gapes at me.
I smirk.
“Aloof and reserved! I just looked up your Myers-Briggs while I was finishing the food. Want me to read it to you?”
I watch her navigate to a web site, and when the letters INTJ appear at the top, I grab the iPad from the bottom, sliding it right out of her hands before she even knows what happened.
She shoves me. “Sneaky ass.”
I turn away from her and skim the description, shooting incredulous looks over my shoulder at her as I start reading them aloud: “‘Values intelligence, knowledge, and competence. Lives in a world of ideas.’” I widen my eyes, shaking my head. “Aloof and reserved. That’s what you think of me?” I ask with mock fury.
She giggles.
“‘INTJs spend a lot of time in their own minds, and may have little interest in other people’s thoughts or feelings.’” I turn toward her. “Little interest? Self-centered? Difficulty expressing themselves?” I arch an eyebrow. “Gwenna, this is very telling. What you think of me…”
She swats my arm. “It doesn’t say self-centered. I don’t think it says that other stuff either.”
I’m only teasing, but her cheeks are red.
I give her a pointed look. “What’s yours, mmm?”
I can’t help it: I enjoy watching her squirm. She doesn’t want to tell me her type, which I find fucking hilarious.
“Let me see if I can put my finger on it… Hmmm.” I look at her with arched brows, then glance through the site index as I tap my chin. “I’m going to go with…The INFJ Advocate.”
Her eyes widen, and I grin because I know I’m right. I skim the first few paragraphs of this personality’s description, then fix my eyes on hers and recite what I just read.
“The INFJ is very rare, making up less than one percent of the population. INFJs see helping others as their life’s work, but while people with this personality type can be found involved in rescue and charity work—” I arch a brow— “their real passion is to get to the heart of the issue so people need not be rescued at all.”
I blink back down at the iPad screen, stricken for a moment by a feeling of unease.
“INFJs need time alone to decompress and recharge, and at times may suddenly withdraw. They take great care of others’ feelings, and they expect the favor to be returned.”
I reach out and ruffle her hair, and Gwen snatches the tablet from me. “You’re making fun of me. I can so tell.”
I grin so wide, my cheeks hurt. I pull her close so I can kiss her, and I look into her brown eyes. “I wasn’t, but I am now. Kind of fun. You get all flustered.” I press my forehead against hers, and she tugs at my hair.
“Maybe you just don’t care about my feelings,” she teases.
“What are they?” I narrow my eyes in mock scrutiny. “Are you trying to save me, Gwenna?”
I watch her throat move as she swallows, watch her face and eyes—because despite my joking tone, her answer to the question feels important.
She stares at me without expression for a few long seconds, and then speaks slowly, thoughtfully. “I don’t think you need to be saved. Maybe just fed and occasionally cuddled.” She finds her smile again, and she looks confident and beautiful. “I don’t expect you to confess to that, of course. Not Mr. Secret Agent GI Joe.”
I arch my brows and give her a damning stare—100 percent jest, not that she can likely tell. “Now whose feelings are being stomped on?”
“Fine.” She laughs. “I guess GI Joe does seem a little…tacky and stereotypical when you really think about the name. We’ll shorten that to Mr. Secret Agent.”
“Not so secret.”
“True,” she murmurs, smiling her cute, lopsided smile.
“You haven’t asked me more about it.”
She winks. “All in good time, soldier boy.”
I can’t help wondering if she’s avoiding all talk of my past because she knows I’m so fucked in the head.
That gnaws on me as she gets our plate and slides down off the bed. “You want to make something, or watch me? Or maybe skip the baking and watch TV?” I bring my eyes up to meet hers. “I bet you’re behind on a lot of shows.”
I nod. “I’ve seen some from start to finish and others not at all. Like Game of Thrones. Never seen, but I’ve read the books.”
“We have to fix that, then. If I’m up to reliving the soul-crushing angst.”
I slide down off the bed behind her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as we shuffle toward the kitchen. �
��You pick the show. I’ll watch anything but the Kardashians.” I give her a sideways smile.
“No reality TV for you?”
I shake my head.
“It’s not my thing so much either. Would you eat cake if I wanted to make one?”
“I guess if I had to,” I sigh, and Gwenna bumps my shoulder. More my arm, really, given our height difference.
“I was thinking you could get another hour of sleep before we really go to sleep. For me, if I’m less tired, I snap out of it quicker.” It meaning nightmares, I assume.
“Been thinking on it?”
“Yeah.” Her cheeks flush as we walk behind the couch. “You can tell me to shut up. You heard the Myers-Briggs. I’m the…advocating type.” She winces, and I chuckle.
“What does this have to do with cake?”
She slides me a guilty look. “I thought the sugar might make you sleepy.”
I can’t help a low hoot. “Gwenna…” I laugh as she hangs her head.
“Go on,” she says, looking rueful. “Tell me to bug off.”
I wrap my hands around her waist and pull her back against me, kissing her neck. I groan as my cock swells against her lower back. “Please don’t.”
I shut my eyes as I hold her to me. The sweet scent of her shampoo seems to fuzz my senses. Somewhere very far away, I hear my conscience urging me to get away from her, but it’s too late now. Those stern words are whispered. Her body is so soft and warm. Her hands are careful, gentle, reaching back around to stroke from my hips down my thighs. Illogically, they seem to know me. What I need and what I like.
“Gwen…” Her fingers reach for my dick.
“Yes?” The word soft and sinuous.
I blink at her coppery hair as words rise up within me. They float to the bottom of my throat, and I can’t seem to let them out. My mind is racing. Pulse is racing. Gwenna’s hands are smooth on my pants. My cock is squeezed between our bodies. How do I tell her? And I realize that I can’t. I can tell her nothing, so I whisper, “That feels good.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Barrett
On the kitchen floor, with the lights on and the TV droning in the background, I come faster than I ever have, and she is right behind me, laughing. I laugh too. I don’t know why. It doesn’t matter.
Afterward, I wash our dinner plate as Gwen lines up bowls and utensils for making something she calls Guinness cake.
I arch my brows, skeptical, and she tells me all about the beer-based layered cake and how to make it, pulling ingredients from the pantry and the refrigerator and assembling them on the counter like a little army.
I can’t help admiring her from every angle. The way her hair shines like a penny when she turns her head. The awkward way she lifts her shoulder to try to scratch her cheek while her hands are flour-covered. I watch her hands bend as she cracks eggs into a bowl. I think about her fingers on my face.
I think about us in her bed. Me in her bed.
I think about my bedroom at my last spec ops base. Maybe because it was about the same size as her little kitchen. I used to always wonder why the ceilings and the walls in that place were so fucking ugly, this gray-brown color that made you feel like you were in a file cabinet drawer. My bed there was too small. I remember turning on my side and covering my head and curling up and wanting to feel…real. No one knew how dead I was.
I look at Gwenna, and I try to remember how her hands feel on me. Did she really ever touch me, though? I’m just a watcher; almost never touched. I look at my left hand and it’s shaking. All the fingers. They can’t move, but they can all still shake.
Gwenna pours the batter into a pan. As soon as she’s finished, she turns and takes my hands. She squeezes them and looks into my eyes. Hers are dark and knowing. A small notch forms between her eyebrows as she tilts her head, her face impassive in her quiet assessment, her hands still holding mine firmly.
“Can you finish this for me?” Her eyes gesture to the cake over her shoulder. “One of the egg shells cut my hand.”
* * *
Gwenna
His moods remind me of an ocean. It’s a pattern I remember from my own PTSD and I still know sometimes: crest then trough, crest then trough…
I’m good at feeling his. Maybe only good at troughs. His crests are smooth and sometimes small: like when he wrapped his arms around me from behind, before we ended up tangled on the floor.
I can feel the trough over my shoulder as I pour the cake batter. It’s like a disappearance, even though he’s still right here. I can tell for sure I’m right—he’s gone away somewhere—because when I cut my eyes at him, his don’t meet mine. His face is vacant and his body seems too still.
It’s like our traumas are swirled together, because every time I sense this happening to him, I start sweating and my heart pounds. As soon as I can sit the batter bowl down, I turn around and take his hands and squeeze them tightly, tight enough so his gaze lifts to mine.
“Can you finish this for me? One of the egg shells cut my hand.” It’s true. I turn my hand so he can see the small cut on the outside.
He blinks slowly at me. “Yeah.”
God, I love his voice—that low, sweet voice.
I wash my hands and lean against the counter as I tell him how to pour the batter for the other layers of the cake. It makes me glad to see his eyes on his hands, his body moving steady in the present.
I pre-heat the oven and we slide the round pans in.
“Now for the icing.” I turn a slow circle, trying to think of where I put my big bag of sugar. “Sugar, sugar… Laundry room.” I hold a finger up, but Barrett moves past me.
“I’ve got it,” he says quietly.
I’m holding my breath as he opens the door.
I watch as he stops in the doorway. He turns to me.
“Gwenna.” His voice is very soft. He turns back to the laundry room.
“I moved them into the garage. No biggie.”
He looks back at me, and he reminds me of these horses from the stables where I rode when I was younger. His eyes are kind of wide and leery, like he might buck and run. I move slowly over to him.
I take his wrists in my hands. Turn his palms over. I trace his fingers and his palms and look into his pretty eyes.
“Have you ever had your palm read?”
He smiles, small and slightly pained. “In Hindi.”
“Sit down.”
He does, and I sit in the chair beside his. I take one of his hands and trace my fingers gently over his palm. “You have big hands.”
I look up to find him smirking.
I smile and roll my eyes. “Pervert.”
His brows arch. He chuckles. “I’m the pervert?”
My face flushes. “Yes. You were thinking something like that.”
“Something like what?” His hand squeezes mine as he gives me a small, dimpled smile.
“I’m not going to spell it out.”
“I don’t even know what you would spell.” He makes this little “o” with his mouth and arches his brows, looking like a surprised owl.
“Shut up.” I smack his hand gently. “You let me do my thing now.” I trace a fingertip over his warm palm. “Glad to say, your lines look pretty good. Your life line is nice and long. Looks like your health’s not perfect, but it doesn’t suck. Maybe kind of what I’d think. Couple bumps in the road. Probably most of the stuff already happened. And this one…” I trace the children lines and give him what I hope is not a sad smile. “Two kids.”
His brows draw downward. “Not sure about that.”
He turns my hand over. “What do your lines say?”
“Mine suck.”
His sharp brows scrunch as he strokes my palm. “Why’s that?”
“Short life, no kids, meh health.”
His eyes widen. I note the way he draws my hand a faction closer to his chest as he murmurs, “That’s not true.”
I smile and shrug. He doesn’t know how true it is—and
I don’t want him to.
“Gwenna…” He gives me a funny little smirk, which morphs into a Cheshire Cat grin. “I wanted you to give a reading for me, but now I have to let you know, you’re doing it all wrong. Trust me—I learned palmistry in India.”
He taps the long, vertical line that starts at the side of my palm, above my thumb, and arcs down toward my wrist. “You’re right that this is the life line, but I don’t see an early death. Just a lot of chaos and disruption.” He raises his brows. “And a lot of what they call vigor.” His face lights up with silly humor.
I can’t help laughing.
He touches the line that starts just under my index finger and stretches across my palm. “This is the head line.” He grins. “This—” he taps— “is a little off. And this—” he touches a line that starts under my pinkie and flows toward my thumb— “this is your heart line. Black as soot.”
His face is so grave, my stomach dips before he breaks into a dimpled grin. “Your heart line is what they call chained.” He leans in and kisses my lips. He squeezes my hand. “Passionate.”
I smile and feel my cheeks sting with self-conscious heat.
“Says you wear your heart on your sleeve.”
I nod slowly. His hand smooths my hair back.
“You read your marriage and children lines wrong, I think.”
“Did I?” I give him a poker face.
He nods. He traces my palm underneath my pinkie finger, along the outer edge. “Your marriage line right here is long and straight. That’s good. And these vertical streaks right above it—they’re some of the hardest ones to read—but they’re definitely there. I see at least two.”
I sit back, grinning. “You’re making this up. You said you had yours read in Hindi.”
Barrett winks. “I’m fluent in Hindi.”
* * *
Barrett
