by Anthology
Flashing images filled my head like frames from a porno flick, and even with my disgust over what went down, I started to get aroused again. But with the thickening of my cock came the rapidly escalating heartbeat that warned the pictures in my head were also bringing one of those uncontainable, often illogical panic attacks I’d battled since I’d left the military.
Oh fuck. I didn’t want to flip out on a crowded plane. I started to do the bio-feedback tricks I’d learned—fixing on my mental focus image, slowly clenching and unclenching my hands, breathing in deeply and out completely—to bring myself back from the edge.
I needed to stop thinking about Shyla. There was no point worrying about the consequences. It already went down. I can’t undo it, and I’m safely on a plane away from Alan and the insanity of the road. It was time to stop thinking about how much I’d fucked up before I left.
Through the music blasting from my earbuds, I heard the pilot announce on the intercom, “We’ll be landing in Sacramento in forty minutes. It is 1:15 p.m. California time and the temperature outside is fifty-seven degrees.”
A second later the flight attendant tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to find that blond, built goddess staring at me expectantly. I’d been toying with the idea of hitting on her all through the flight since she was a luscious creature and I didn’t have anything lined up for tonight. But I never found the motivation to launch an assault.
Now with her staring at me and surrounded by the scent of her, my cock reminded me it was now or never if I wanted to get my dick wet there tonight—I ran my eyes up and down the length of her—and, oh yeah, I did. She would definitely work better than my bio-feedback tricks to push my worries over Shyla from my head.
“Are you done with your drink, sir?” she asked.
I grabbed my cocktail and downed the remainder of my JD before holding the glass up to her. “I am now. What are the chances of getting another one before we land?”
She smiled. “Sorry. Nonexistent. That one is just going to have to hold you over for a while.”
I gave her my perfect white teeth grin. “It would hold me over a lot better if you agreed to have dinner with me tonight.”
That earned me a pretty flush on her cheeks, even though she said, “Sorry, sir, no can do. I’m on a fast turnaround to Chicago.”
“Then we can skip dinner,” I countered, my voice deliberately husky.
Her eyes locked on mine and I realized that fast turnaround comment was a line and she was debating if she was going to brush me off again. She took her plump lower lip in her teeth and my cock jumped.
“Something tells me what you’ve got in mind wouldn’t be quick enough for me to make my next hop,” she warned coyly.
“Definitely not quick.”
She made a pretty pout. “Then the schedule won’t work.”
“Change the schedule.”
She slowly caressed me with her gaze and then the line of her mouth softened in that I’ve enjoyed flirting with you way and my mood sank again.
“I wish I could,” she assured me softly, “but like I said, I’m on a fast turnaround to Chicago.”
Even shot down, I was feeling OK about how this went until she looked at Graham, because that’s when her eyes got all sparkly and shit. “I hope you’re the designated driver. I think your friend here has had more than his share of drinks.”
“I’m the designated everything, sweetheart,” Graham purred in that irritating, obvious alpha-gay man voice that women just lap up.
She laughed. “I bet you are, sir.” And then she leaned forward, giving him a clever view of those sumptuous breasts as she clicked his tray table back in place before she wandered away.
“Asshole,” I jeered at him under my breath once we were alone since we both knew I’d lose with the women every time if he wasn’t gay.
He shrugged. “What can I say?”
“Fucking prick, you were pretending to be straight and making the moves on her while I was sleeping. You set me up to get turned down.”
The humor left his eyes and, out of nowhere, Graham my former CO was staring at me. “Something tells me you needed to get turned down. Are you finally going to tell me what the fuck happened to you last week?”
I tensed. “Nothing you haven’t done.”
Slowly he arched a brow. “I’m pretty fucking sure it’s something I’ve never done.”
I sighed, rolling my eyes. “I don’t believe that crap about you having never fucked a woman.”
“Believe it or not, it’s true. And we’re not talking about me here. We’re talking about you. Is that it? You hooked up with a woman and that’s why you went MIA the last five days of the work schedule?”
“We were off the road,” I countered hotly. “In the US. In Manhattan. Tour break about to commence. Just waiting around with our cocks in our hands for our flight to the west coast. Don’t make it fucking sound like I went AWOL in a warzone. You overreact to everything.”
Graham’s piercing gray eyes studied me in a quick, all-seeing way. “Overreacting, huh? Then why do you look like shit, as if you’re about to become unglued? Why are you anxious and suddenly sweating? Where the hell did you disappear to? What has you so freaked out and edgy? If it’s something I don’t need to worry about, now is the time to tell me. But if we’ve got an issue to fix it’s past time to tell me everything. I’ll help you if I can. But I can’t help you if you don’t start talking.”
I exhaled loudly, wanting to ignore him and knowing I couldn’t. He’d been my commanding officer in the field and was my boss on the road. He could read me like a book and I had no off-limit boundaries with him. Besides, he knew about my PTSD—and other shit—and his one requirement of me before he signed off on my joining the security team was that any question, any time, about any subject I had to answer him.
I gave him my word, but I fucking didn’t want to talk about my lost hours of incredibly hot sex because in this instant staring at Graham was a moment of inescapable reality that fucking Shyla was possibly career ending.
Of all the ways to fuck up my cushy gig, I hadn’t expected it to be this: losing control over my dick with my employer’s ex-wife.
Those panic attacks ruining everything—that wouldn’t have surprised me.
My uncontainable, uncheckable flashes of rage—nope, that hadn’t reared its ugly head for five years.
My overly aggressive libido had pistol-whipped me. Yep, I’d just destroyed my career for my dick and the way Graham was staring at me told me he already had a pretty clear picture of where this discussion was heading.
Patiently he waited, then slowly lifted a brow. “You going to tell me what the fuck is going on with you? Or do I call Alan and tell him he needs to terminate you? If you’re having those old problems again I can’t let you go out on the road working security—”
“It’s not fucking that,” I snapped, and I could hear I’d let anxiousness and regret slip into my voice.
“Then what?”
Fuck, this was hideous and degrading.
“I screwed the pooch,” I said slowly, succinctly.
Graham frowned for a moment, then his eyes widened. “Oh fuck. Shyla? You didn’t?”
I leaned my head back onto the rest and closed my eyes. “Alan is going to fire me, isn’t he?”
I waited for what felt like an eternity and then Graham said, “We’ve got forty minutes until we land. Tell me everything, Dillon. If I can smooth this over I will, but right now you’re pretty much shit out of luck here.”
Chapter Two
Manhattan, six days earlier…
“WHAT THE FUCK are we supposed to do now?” I grumbled, twisting off the cap from my beer and then tossing it toward the coffee table.
“This is it until further notice,” Graham replied, a slightly clipped edge in his voice. His steely gray gaze peeked around his book and locked on the shiny top from the bottle lying on Alan’s seven-figure antique rug. “Pick that up.”
I rolled my eyes. Graham was such a tidy asshole and he treated Alan’s Manhattan penthouse like a museum, with respect and rigid care. However, the place gave me the creeps. It was like a mausoleum, so spotless and quiet as if no one ever lived here. And the last place I wanted to be held up for days was a sterile, silent space that oddly felt like I was trapped in a vault. We’d been there less than two days and already the walls were closing in.
This was the part of my job I didn’t like: waiting on Alan with nothing to do. The bastard disappeared without any of us in Tokyo and instead of cutting us loose he kept his security detail on standby. For all we knew, he’d forgotten that he’d done it and we would just sit around cooling our heels until he remembered and sent us home for the tour break.
Thoughtless prick.
“You doing OK, Dillon?”
I raked a hand through my messy blond waves, took in a deep breath, and then lifted my gaze from my beer. Graham was studying me with a furrow in his brow.
I took a long swallow of my drink. “I’m OK. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Then you can get up and retrieve that cap,” Graham replied, quirking one brow higher than the other.
I gave him the finger, but I got up, snatched the cap from the rug, and gingerly laid it on the table.
“Happy now?” I smirked.
Fuck. He answered me with a full grin and dimples. Shit was about to come my way.
“Of course. You still follow orders, babe. Why wouldn’t I be happy? And we’re getting paid three grand a week to sit in a New York penthouse and do nothing. The least you can do is not trash the joint while we’re here.”
Grimacing, I sank back down on the couch.
Babe—what an asshole.
For some reason Graham wanted to yank my chain tonight. And he did make me sound idiotic for complaining because we were getting paid very well to do nothing, but doing nothing was the last thing I wanted.
Doing nothing always led to remembering things I didn’t want to relive and the eventual unsealing of all those things I didn’t want to feel. Doing nothing, for me, was dangerous because it was the only time those flashing images in my head took sharper form and if I wasn’t careful, if I didn’t stop it, they’d form a clear picture of what was lost inside my PTSD fog. And the raw emotion that flooded me whenever a fuzzy image became clear was enough to tell me I didn’t want my memory ever to completely return.
“How many days are we stuck here?” I asked, annoyed.
Graham shrugged calmly. “I don’t know. One. Five. Seven. Who cares? It’s not like you have anything to go home to.”
I narrowed my gaze on him. “Don’t start on that.”
Graham calmly turned a page in the book he was reading. “You used to know how to wait for orders better.”
I stared at him, exasperated. “Orders? We’re not in the fucking military. You are not my commanding officer. And this isn’t a combat mission. We are two jerks sitting around in Manhattan with nothing to do, indulging the whims of someone with money.”
Another slowly turned page. “If you don’t like the job then quit.”
Not that again. “I’m just saying my time has value, too.”
Graham checked his watch. “Value, huh? We’ve been here twenty-eight hours and just made two grand for sitting, shitting, showering, and sleeping.” He arched a brow. “I would call that overvalued, but if you think your skill set is worth more elsewhere then there’s the door, babe.”
Babe.
Fucking babe again. Roger that, Graham. You’re still pissed at me. He’d been a grouchy bitch since we left Japan. He was deliberately trying to instigate confrontation. Yep, the signs were clear to me, though why he had to do drive-by swipes instead of just having it out with me was anyone’s guess.
He tossed his book onto a table. “You were never good at staying in a holding pattern even when the holding pattern and timing things right are what wins a battle. In combat you were a top man. But the strategic moments of inaction, well, you fucking never understood why they were important and sucked at it. You still do. Civilian life isn’t bringing improvement. Why is it the second you stop running full steam you start climbing the walls?”
Oh fuck, why was he going there? If he was willing to talk to me straight I’d listen to that. But the covert mental manipulations, nope, I wasn’t sticking around for that.
I downed the remainder of my beer, stood, and grabbed my jacket from a chair. “I’m going for a walk. I’m assuming that’s OK? When last I checked, being on standby didn’t mean being inert.”
Graham’s gaze sharpened. “Walk if you think it will help. Talking would probably work better.”
I pulled on my jacket and then rummaged through my pockets to make sure I had my keys and my phone. “I don’t have anything to talk about. I just want to get some air. Why the fuck do you act as if there is some profound buried clue that will explain what’s wrong with me inside every trivial thing I do?”
He lifted his chin in that austere, challenging way. “Because there is. You just don’t know it, Dillon.”
“No. Wrong. Sometimes going for a walk is just going for a walk,” I countered a little more hotly than I wanted to.
“I covered your ass in Tokyo, Dillon. Don’t make me do it again.”
I flushed. “I’ve already told you. I caught a virus or something. I wasn’t able to get out of bed let alone answer your repeated calls and texts. That’s why I missed those days—”
“That’s bullshit and we both know it. Do you think I don’t keep tabs on you?”
The color on my face became a burn. Tabs. What a slick euphemism for I fucking invade your privacy by monitoring you 24/7 with high-tech surveillance shit. And yes, I knew why he did it. And yes, I agreed to it. But after all these years wasn’t it time for him to release a bit on his caution since my lapses in performance had been at most routine errors of judgement and nothing more?
I hadn’t flipped out, hurt anyone, lost giant clumps of time—well, none significant, but Graham didn’t need to know that one—since I signed on to work with him.
Tokyo was a setback.
It wasn’t catastrophic.
I got drunk. Blacked out. Lost a few days. And returned to work before anyone missed me—well, anyone but Graham.
“One minute you’re at a party and the next MIA for three days,” he stated, sounding more worried than was comfortable for me. “Maybe if you sat and we talked it through we might recover what triggered this latest incident.”
“It wasn’t an incident,” I snapped, pushed beyond the limits of my iron control by his artful calmness. “There was fucking floor-to-ceiling beautiful pussy everywhere. I hooked up. Took off. Enjoyed myself with a woman. I was behaving irresponsibly not crazy.”
At least, that was what I thought happened because the truth is I woke up with no memory of anything, in my empty hotel room with my clothes off and the smell of sex in the sheets.
“If that’s all there is to it—”
“I’ve already told you. That’s all that happened, Graham.”
I squared off with him with my eyes and then he let out a slow, heavy sigh and retrieved his book, a clear indication he was tired of dealing with me.
“Leave your phone on in case I need to contact you,” he ordered.
“Fine. Phone on. Track me with an app and I’ll come back and fucking beat the crap out of you.”
“On your best day you couldn’t take me.”
The room was tense, the situation hot, he was my best friend, and we both needed to bring it down a notch, so I countered, “Kick the crap out of you? Oh yeah, don’t doubt I can do it. Take you? Only in your dreams, you sick cocksucker.”
He chuckled as I headed toward the door, aggravating me more with his relentless good humor that I’d just stroked as a peace offering, and making me feel like an ass, which I pretty much had been since we hit the States. Sometimes I wondered where Graham got the stamina and patience to continue trying to help m
e.
Inside the elevator, I lit a cigarette even though there was a large sign posted ordering me not to. It was Alan’s private elevator and I knew damn well he smoked in it, so anyone who complained could go complain to him. It was a childish sort of fuck you thing to do, and I wasn’t sure why I was puffing away except that conversation with Graham was bugging the hell out of me and I was too tightly wound.
I stomped my smoke out on the sidewalk and tugged my jacket high around my neck. It was freezing in New York and this California boy would never get used to east coast winters. Why the fuck were there so many people crowding the streets when it couldn’t be more than twenty-five degrees out? The crush of bodies was suffocating and made it impossible to move with any briskness.
My muscles were tight from hours of sitting—that’s why I fucking wanted to walk, babe—since immobility had a tendency to make every combat injury something I felt too severely. But my limbs loosened up the more I walked, my internal jumpiness settled down some as well, and an hour later I was still roaming the pavement with no destination in mind.
Not wanting to go back, when I rounded a corner and spotted a bar—a small, dark, locals-type hole-in-the-wall—inside me screamed hooah. The interior was exactly what I’d hoped for. Hushed sounds, dimly lit space, and only a smattering of patrons.
I levered myself onto a barstool and waited for service. I was on my third drink when my phone started to vibrate.
Oh fuck.
I retrieved it from my pocket and the name on the caller ID made me grimace. Not Graham, but Shyla and she was hardly an improvement. I couldn’t imagine what the fuck she wanted with me.
I hit answer. “This is Dillon.”
“I’ve been trying to call Alan,” she said hurriedly. “Do you know where he is?”
Well, hello to you, too, Shyla. So much for expecting pleasantries for the help. I slowly exhaled, motioned the bartender for another drink, and said, “No, I don’t know where he is. I’m just an employee.”
“You don’t have to cover and lie for him. We’re not married anymore.”
