He claps a hand on Gabe’s back. “Make sure to drop by the station when you’re feeling up to it.”
Gabe jerks his chin in acknowledgment.
When we’re alone again, he runs his hand over my hair. “Look, I’m exhausted, you’re exhausted. I’ve never been good at the emotional crap. The only thing I know is I don’t want you to leave yet. I’d like to get to know you more, spend some time with you when we aren’t getting shot at.”
My smile builds slowly. “Boring, you mean.”
“I could use a little boring,” he says.
“Are you sure you aren’t going to get tired of it after a while?”
He kisses me again, this time it’s all languid strokes and softness. When he pulls away, he’s breathing hard and he’s anchored to me as much as I am to him. “Look, I can’t see the future. Just…stay. Stay with me.”
My heart swells at his request. I’m momentarily rendered speechless, so I do the only thing I can think of which doesn’t need words. I lean toward him, a smile sitting on my lips, and kiss him.
One Year Later
Gabriel
Weekends used to be my favorite time. I liked to spend them with Emily, teaching her how to fish on her Grandpa’s old boat with Rudy happily scaring all of the fish in the near vicinity away, taking her to the beach to build sand castles taller than she was, or sleeping in and vegging on the couch with cartoons.
I don’t know if I’m getting older, or the clocks in my house have all spontaneously sped up, but it seems as though the weekends grow shorter and shorter as time passes. This one felt like I blinked and it was gone.
Light filters through the window and spills across the beautiful woman sprawled naked on the bed next to me. It feels like she just got here and now it’s already Sunday and time for her to go.
For the past year, Chloe had seamlessly become a part of my weekend routine with Emily—who couldn’t have been more overjoyed. If you asked her, she was ecstatic about having another girl in the house to recruit in her campaigns against me. I almost think Chloe comes each weekend to spend time with Emily as much as with me.
I can’t find it in my heart to be jealous. I suppose it’s my lot in life to be surrounded by beautiful women.
My alarm starts to blare, but I silence it with a swipe of my finger. Chloe stirs, but doesn’t wake, and I spend the next half hour tracing her beautiful tanned skin with the backs of my fingers and the lightest pressure from my nails.
After a while, when her skin is covered in goose bumps, she comes awake with a languorous stretch. She blinks sleepily up at me and smiles. My fingers still in their quest across her skin and I zero in on her mouth.
“What is it?” she says and covers her lips with a hand as she yawns. I put a hand to her hip and pull her close. She squeals and pulls away, leaping from the bed still naked to back away from me. “Not before I brush my teeth!”
I smile and feel quite pleased with myself as she stalks across the room. Because in her hurry, she forgot to put clothes on, leaving all of my favorite parts visible. Water splashes in the bathroom and she hums. If that didn’t cement my decision, I don’t know what the hell would.
She comes out, still gloriously naked, and rests one hip on the edge of the bed. I frown at the distance between us and jerk her back with one smooth flex of my arm. She squawks and then her body is pressed against mine.
“What’s gotten into you?” she asks, her voice muffled by a swift exhalation as I nip her throat.
“Let’s stay in bed for a while,” I say against her skin.
At my words, she softens beneath me, her arms coming around my waist, one staying on my back to soothe and the other diving into my hair. Her legs tangle with mine and she sighs contentedly in my ear.
“I really should go. I’ll be back next weekend. I’m even going to see if I can get Friday off. Sienna still feels guilty even though it’s been over a year. I can talk her into pretty much anything these days since I’ve mostly taken over the business.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to work for me,” I say as I wedge myself between her sweet thighs. Her legs go around my waist almost automatically, her feet digging into the backs of my legs. Color paints her cheeks a bright pink. I lean forward to kiss both of them in turn and then follow the flush down her neck to her chest. Her breathing grows more labored, then she gasps and grabs my hair with both hands just when things are getting interesting.
I frown up at her. “What?”
“What do you mean that’s not going to work for you?” she asks.
Hitching my hips up, teasing her, I smirk when her hands ball into fists against me. “What do you think I mean?”
She can’t talk for a second, and even when she does her voice is hoarse. “Don’t, Gabe, it’s too early. I need coffee before we start arguing.”
“I’ve got what you need,” I say, before I take one flushed nipple in my mouth.
I never get tired of her body, the way she responds to me. When I line myself up to her entrance and drive in with one thrust, her eyes widen and her mouth parts on a soundless scream. Her hands grapple for a hold on my shoulders, but I don’t give her a second to adjust.
It takes me a few seconds to work through the searing pleasure that she isn’t trying to hold onto me—she’s hitting me.
I pause my thrusts, my cock swelling as I take in the flushing, seething mad female writhing beneath me. “What the hell are you doing?”
“How dare you?”
I catch her wrists in one hand and hold them above her head, far away from my vulnerable parts. Her hips jerk against me, but I’ve got her pinned to the bed so her movements only serve to drive us both completely insane.
“How dare I what?” I ask, my voice husky.
“You’re breaking up with me during sex?” she asks incredulously.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
She gestures wildly with her head and rolls her eyes. “This isn’t going to work for you?”
Words fail me, so I laugh against her throat.
“Oh, I’m glad you think this is so funny,” she says.
I leverage up on one hand so I can use the other to brush away the hair from her face. Her eyes are glittering and her full lips are pressed into a line.
Using my thumb, I draw across her lower lip and then take it into my mouth, leaving it glistening from my attention. “I’m not breaking up with you, baby.”
I take my finger now and swipe it across her lip to gather the moisture, then I trail it down her stomach. Her breath hitches in her chest when my hand reaches between us to stroke her.
“T-then what did you mean?”
“I want you,” I say.
Her lips twitch. “Yeah, I think I got the message.”
“No,” I say, trying to concentrate on the right words, which is hard when she clenches around me like she’s trying to make us two parts of one whole. “I mean I don’t want you to leave.”
Her expression softens and she leans up to kiss me with pouty lips. “I don’t want to leave, either.”
My pace quickens and her breath catches. “Then don’t.”
She arches, baring her neck to me and I lave kisses along the line of her throat. “God, if you don’t get to the point, I’m going to go crazy here.”
I take her face in my hands and capture her gaze with mine as she wraps her now free arms around me. We’re connected in every possible way, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
“Marry me,” I say.
“What?” she asks.
“Marry me,” I say again.
“Oh, God, Gabe,” she moans.
Her fingers dig into my sides and she constricts around me without warning. Throaty moans fill the air around me and I lose focus as everything goes white-hot.
A few minutes—or hours—later, when I manage to catch my breath, I say, “I’m going to take that as a yes.”
Part 1
Ben
“
I’m glad you were able to take some time to come see your momma before you took off again.”
I wrap her into a bear hug, the kind I used to use to piss her off with as a kid because she’d always been so much smaller than me. “You saw me a few months ago.” I kiss her hair and inhale the scent of her perfume. Something inside me hitches, but I shove it away. “Besides, I remember you yelling at me to get the hell out when I was eighteen. So, really, you’re the reason I joined the Marines in the first place.”
She laughs, but it’s watery. I don’t know what to do other than squeeze her a little tighter. She takes a deep breath and then pushes me away. We both ignore the fact that her eyes are still rimmed with red. “Get out of here. Jack’s been calling all afternoon. I swear it’s like the two of you are sixteen again.”
I kiss her once more. “Save me some of the ribs and rice, woman.”
“I’ll fix you a plate before your father eats it all. Now go.”
The creaky front door slams behind her and I hear her yelling at my dad about anything that will distract her from the fact that I am deploying in just a few days.
Ah, home sweet home.
My shoulders slump and I wipe off the smile I’d slapped on when the plane touched down in Jacksonville. A shrink would have a field day with my mental state, but it’s nothing I haven’t been through before, so I drown out those thoughts with our homegrown country station. The sooner I get to Jack’s, the better. The last thing I need is to be alone in my head right now.
Driving around my hometown is a surreal experience. I clearly remember growing up here, going to school here, but the person I was then and the man I’ve become couldn’t be more different.
I pull up to the lake house and momentarily contemplate passing on his offer to hang out when my eyes fall on movement in the doorway. My breath catches in my throat when I realize it’s Jack’s younger sister, Olivia. Her eyes meet mine and I realize I’m not the only one who’s done some changing over the years I’ve been away. Was she always such a knockout?
My hands clench on the steering wheel until Jack appears in the doorway behind her as a much needed reminder that I should keep my distance. I hop out of the truck and make my way over to them. Olivia stays back with her arms wrapped around her waist as Jack walks over and gives me a one-armed hug.
“Good to see you, man,” he says. “It’s been way too long.”
“Yeah,” I say, my eyes still on Olivia. “It has.”
“Do you mind helping Olivia with the food? I’ll pull out the chairs and shit. Logan should be here soon.”
“Sure, man. Whatever you need.” I make it a point not to look at Olivia until Jack leaves the room.
She bites her lip and smiles. “C’mon, I’m making bacon wrapped shrimp. It’s pretty awesome, I’m not gonna lie.”
I chuckle. “I’m sure it is.” I follow her in and immediately feel at ease. “God, this place hasn’t changed at all.”
Constructed just about entirely of wood, the house is really more of an expanded cabin with floor to ceiling windows that look out over the pristine surface of McCormick Lake. Through them I can see Jack wrestling with the patio furniture. I squint my eyes at the dark figure beside him.
“Holy shit, is Sofie out there, too?”
Olivia turns from the fridge, a package of bacon in her hands. “Yeah, she didn’t want to miss your big homecoming and I managed to convince Jack to be on his best behavior.”
I glance back at them and note their hostile postures. “Yeah, I’m not sure how long that’s going to last.”
She places a bunch of ingredients on the counter and looks out the window only to shrug them off. “Who knows with those two? Here, will you rinse these off for me?”
I move across the kitchen to her side at the sink. The dress she’s wearing brushes my leg and my body warms. She smiles up at me and all I can think is, Oh, shit.
We’re interrupted by the sound of the back door to the patio slamming. “I’m going to strangle that girl, Liv,” Jack says, grabbing a beer from the fridge. He motions toward me and I nod.
“Relax. You can control yourself for a couple hours,” she tells him.
“I doubt it,” he replies cryptically. And fuck if I don’t have the same thought.
When Jack leaves again, I should put a careful distance between us, but I don’t. Instead I move to her side and lean against the counter. “So how have you been?” I ask, knocking my shoulder into hers playfully.
“Oh you know, busy as hell. How about you?”
“Same.”
“Well, I’m glad you were able to make it. I don’t think I’ve seen you since before you left for boot camp.” She flicks a glance up at me and the memory of our one and only kiss feels like a physical presence. She blushes and then looks back down.
“My mom was about to kill me for staying away for so long. War I can handle, but that woman is terrifying.”
“Mrs. Hart?” she says. “She makes apple pie for goodness’ sake. She’s like five feet tall. How can she possibly terrify you, someone who is essentially an American Jedi?”
“Has she ever chased you around the kitchen with a barbecue fork because you broke her T.V.?”
Olivia gasps. “She did not do that.”
I hold up my hands. “Swear to God.”
“I’ll have to ask her the next time I see her because I just can’t picture that.”
“You’d be surprised.”
She narrows her eyes at me as if she’s still not fully convinced. “Can you grab some more paper towels for me? They’re just up there in the cabinet.” She indicates the one above her head and holds up her dirty hands.
I stretch over her and my chest brushes against her back. She turns to me and our eyes lock. I find myself leaning toward her when Jack bursts in through the back door again. We spring apart like a couple of guilty teenagers.
It’s going to be a long night.
Her laugh sounds, and even across the distance that separates us, I can feel it in my stomach like a sucker-punch. My gaze lifts from the bottle of beer I had grabbed from the cooler and I find her in the center of the group, her eyes shining and cheeks pink with laughter. I pop the top and chug—both to ease the heat building in my chest and to stop any inclinations I may have about finding out if she still tastes as good as she looks. Bad idea.
The first swallow is smooth, but does little to erase the imprint of her smile. I lean against the deck as I watch the crowd gathered by the gently lapping water. Their voices and the soft crackle of the bonfire creates a soundtrack I commit to memory. Friends, simplicity, home. The simple shit normal people take for granted.
Those are the things I miss the most.
When the constant attacks seem endless, when I haven’t showered or slept in days, it’s nights like these I remember. That I want to come back to, even though I never seem to be a part of them. I’m more of an outsider looking in. But unless there’s a gun in my hand or bullets flying by, I can never quite relax enough to enjoy them.
The irony isn’t lost on me.
I’ll admit, I’m not one to wax poetic about women—in the past, they’d been nothing more than a distraction between assignments—but there had always been something special about Olivia.
Special in an untouchable kind of way.
Her brother Jack nudges me with his shoulder and leans against the deck railing next to me. “Gonna nurse that beer all night, Monica?”
I tear my eyes away from my unabashed appraisal of his sister. “What’s Livvie doing here? Isn’t she supposed to be at school?”
“She finished, man. Starts teaching in August.”
Nodding, I turn my attention back to her. To the summer sundress that’s just a little too low-cut, a little too tight, and a whole helluva lotta tempting. From what I’ve heard from Jack, when his parents adopted her, she gave up the rebellious ways that bounced her from home to home, and tried to tame her wild side. But the little spitfire inside of her often
makes an appearance when she’s either pissed off or three sheets to the wind. I have little will to resist the way her eyes snap or the sexy as hell way she cocks her hip when she’s throwing sass. She bites off a comment to her brother and I stifle a groan.
As I think about how much I’m gonna miss her, the firelight catches the red-gold of her hair and turns it into a halo of flames. I can’t help but wonder how it would look spread across my bed with her generous curves steeped in shadows. Her brother chatters on about my upcoming deployment, but I tune him out when Olivia shucks her cardigan and even more of her gorgeous milky skin comes into view.
Silence falls, and I see Jack watching me from the corner of my eye. “I’m sorry, man. What’d you say?”
Jack shakes his head, a knowing look in his eye. “I’m telling you from experience, dude. Love her to death, but you’re about to leave. Not a good idea to go there.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Good.” He stares at me intently for a moment before turning away. “She’s got a good thing going at that fancy art school. Got her life together. The both of you have shit timing, I swear.”
“I’m not the only one.” I nod toward Sofie. If Olivia and I had shit timing, Jack and Sofie have it ten times worse. Even now, they could barely stand to talk to each other. They only gave each other cow eyes when they were certain the other wasn’t looking. Otherwise they spent every interaction sparring.
“When do you leave, exactly?”
I clear my throat and shake my head a little to dispel the image. “Ah, next Monday.”
“Well, I’m glad you could make it out here before you had to ship out.”
“Thanks for inviting me.”
Jack slaps me on the shoulder as he heads toward the group. “Keep eyeing my sister like that and I’m going to start regretting it.”
“Fuck you,” I reply.
After dumping my now empty beer in the trash, I grab another and reluctantly follow Jack down to the beach. Night has fallen completely, and the only light comes from the small flickering bonfire and the few rooms still lit up. Memories of hundreds of similar nights gone by wash over me.
First to Fight Box Set: Books 1-5 Page 16
