by Rie Warren
His eyes turned owlish and his skin flushed beneath the dark stubble carefully shaped on his jaw and cheeks.
Jesus Christ. Making fun of him later would be worth the earlier beat down from Blaize.
“Sure, Mizz Cahmichael,” he drawled, his L’isiana Cajun boy accent lazily spinning through his words.
It was the funniest damn thing I’d ever witnessed. The big, hard, black-haired operative half-rising from his seat as if he was bowing to his ladylove.
Fucking mating rituals if I ever did see them. Even better? Blaize seemed impervious to the way she affected Storm.
I’d seen the man turn heads without even trying, and when he did turn on that slow heat and southern charm the chicks went all melty and dropped their panties before he even had to ask.
The boss lady, on the other hand, hardly batted an eyelash.
Oh, he’d definitely met his match in Blaize, and she didn’t even know it yet.
I kinda wanted to stay put and watch the sparks fly, but Walker prodded me in the back. “C’mon, pretty boy.”
“Shut it, Injun.”
“You know, that shit’s discriminatory and I could take offense.”
I snorted through my nose. “Remember that the next time you call one of us gringo or cracker or thug or—”
“Kemosabe,” Bane supplied.
“Yeah,” I added.
Up the three levels of stairs, past the motion sensors, out onto the street, we filed.
“So. You’re joking around again, Jus. Feeling better about Tilly now?” Walker asked.
The sunlight gave his dark braid midnight blue hues.
I kicked the toe of my boot against the sidewalk, shoving my hands into my pockets. “Yeah. Fucking peachy.” I grimaced more than smiled. “Can’t you tell?”
“You know, a good friend of mine once told me you can’t fight love.”
“And who the hell was that? The Dali Lama? Or let me guess . . . Madge?”
“No. Hunter.”
I snorted again. “Good for him and that chick he married. JB.” I popped him lightly on the chest. “And good for you and Jade too. But that ain’t happening.”
Bane stood by the side of us, lighting a cigarette.
I thought about heading up to New York and my sad-ass studio where I didn’t even have a fucking dog to keep me company. “Anyone wanna get a drink?”
“Flight to catch,” Walker said.
“Shit to do.” Bane used up his last three words of the day.
“Well, fuck you both then.” I kicked the pavement one final time. “See you on the killing fields.”
****
I returned to my warehouse in Hell’s Kitchen. It did look like hell after Walker’s little escapade—you know, since it’d been a fucking federal crime scene T-Zone had somehow got swept under the rug. I didn’t have the heart to set shit to rights.
I visited my folks and spent an evening with them in their swanky penthouse apartment. Something hit me—hard and fast—as I watched them sneak a kiss while they loaded the dishwasher together: thirty years after they’d fallen in love they were still going strong.
It wasn’t about money or lavish belongings, social standing or their careers. They were successful together.
They never asked directly what my job was because they knew, after I separated from the Marines, it was strictly off limits—just as love was to me now.
I knew all they wanted was my happiness however it happened. It wasn’t their disappointment that curdled my stomach, but my own.
I’d thought—hoped—maybe it was just the intensity of the situation in Sana’a, and once back stateside I’d get over Tilly.
I’d forget about how close she’d almost come to dying and how the pain had engulfed me, more terrifying than any I’d ever known.
I’d stop dreaming about her fingers on my skin and her mouth pressed against my lips and her hair teasing down my chest before she made me feel like my body would combust with one more touch of her lips, fingers, mouth, tongue.
But I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
I wouldn’t.
Even the mindless sex I had . . . Christ. I tuned out. I was turned off. It was as pointless as jerking off into my hand. I closed my eyes and saw Tilly instead of whatever woman I’d picked up. I touched naked skin and remembered all the freckles I’d memorized. Sometimes I worried I wouldn’t be able to get it up. The equipment didn’t fail, but I had no moves, and I didn’t want something fleeting and fake and forgettable.
In the end, I kept tabs on Tilly instead.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Helmet in Hand
SAVANNAH COLLEGE OF ART and Design, Georgia. Late July. Five and a half weeks since the first time I’d seen Tilly Lawless. One long motherfucking month since I’d said goodbye to her.
I followed waves of coeds, not nearly blending in with my huge shoulders and great height and nothing about me shouting art student.
For once I didn’t carry a gun, though. That had to count for something.
The campus wasn’t anything like a military compound. It stretched throughout the streets of Savannah with historic buildings for student life and higher learning allocated here and there amid the small antebellum city.
No checkpoints.
No gates.
No guards.
Easy come. Easy go.
I’d never been to Savannah before. The savannas of Africa, yes. Deserts and desperately poor Third World countries, roger that.
Somehow, this land of peach trees and glossy magnolias, of long southern drawls and slow movements suited Tilly perfectly.
I’d booked into a hotel room, shaved, showered, dressed, and checked out again. The T-shirt I wore felt like a second skin sucked to my chest by the time I entered a theater-style auditorium to sit in on a class at Bergen Hall.
I had no sketchbook. No camera. I’d shoved my phone in the back pocket of my faded jeans after shutting it off. I didn’t have a straggly goatee or piercings through my nose or died purple hair layered in spikes around my head.
Remaining up high and in the back, I squeezed into a seat and spread my thighs. A girl with blonde braids hopped over me, a pencil end gnawed between perfectly polished lips.
“’Scuse me.” She adjusted an iPad and exchanged the end of her pencil for the end of her braid she twined around her fingertip. “Miss Lawless is so awesome.” She bent forward, eyes glued to the small lectern below. “We were so worried when she got caught up in Yemen last month. We had a vigil for her.”
The girlish woman spoke a mile a minute.
“Are you new?” She cut deep brown eyes to mine.
“Yeah. I’m new.”
“Just you wait. Lawless will set your heart on fire.”
When Tilly appeared after her TA—a very male and very eager and attentive TA who very helpfully hooked up her tablet to the projection screen—I bent forward, too.
Tilly stole my breath. Blew my fucking mind. Excitement tinged her cheeks as she started her lecture. She spoke about the Civil War as the birth of photojournalism, snapping through pictures from the 1800s that captured the brutality and the humanity. The two polar opposites of human conflict.
She spoke passionately about the duty of the photographer to bring not just images to life but also the stories of the people in the photos.
Two words into her lecture, I knew I was still as hopelessly, helplessly in love as before.
Her voice strove over the auditorium as she flicked through photographs ranging from the late 19th century all the way through the Great Depression and the Golden Age of the 1930s.
“Her photos have been in the New York Times, did you know that?” my seatmate asked.
I did. I’d done my research.
“And she has a spread in Rolling Stone next week.”
I knew. I had contacts.
“She’s one of the best photojournalists working today. She tells us no fear. Not even when a gun is raised on you.” The girl with the
braids shuffled closer. “She’s Calamity Jane with a camera. I’m writing about her for the SCAN, and that’s gonna be the headline. That’s what she is, don’t you think?”
I agreed, my throat chugging. I was the one who’d feared . . . scared of feeling with every sense Tilly fired inside me.
It coursed through me now, that love that had made me unbearable with its lack.
I was held in thrall for the next forty minutes, completely focused on Tilly.
Her voice shot through me. Her words compelled me. Good God, her appearance ratcheted my pulse.
She wore a slim skirt that showed her curvy legs, high heels that popped with distinct beats on the stage, a silky looking sleeveless blouse with a small bow between her breasts, and glasses.
Glasses.
She even made those look sexy.
But it wasn’t just the sexy.
It was the redheaded sassy.
The total brainiac smart.
The whole goddamn package.
When the lecture ended, the hall emptied slowly. My seatmate excused herself, and I sat spellbound.
Tilly shuffled through papers and flicked through photos with her back to the room while coeds filtered out.
I sat, fucking fidgeting, waiting. The overeager TA, with coal-dark hair and hungry eyes aimed at Tilly way too fucking often for my liking, finally departed.
Rising from the chair, my knees felt like they were made of jelly.
“Well, well, well. Professor Lawless.” I walked down the aisle.
Like a bird struck by an arrow, Tilly swiveled. “Justice!”
Her hand fluttered to her neck, and my nerves tightened with a calamity of emotions.
I pounced down the aisle, taking in her shock, her hair that framed her face, her eyes that pinpointed on me before they swerved away and she got that distinctly determined edge to her jaw.
“Glasses?” I stopped directly in front of her, my heart knocking around my chest like a rogue bullet.
Tilly crossed her arms over her chest. One hand lifted, and she pushed up the spunky little cobalt blue frames on her nose where freckles sparkled, some of which I still hadn’t kissed.
“I just wear them to look older and more formidable.” Her voice was cold, her posture unapproachable.
I chewed on my lip for a moment, hooking my thumbs in my pockets. “I think they’re sexy. Not formidable at all.”
Unwillingly, her eyes darted to me.
She gave me a quick once over, and her tone softened, “You still look formidable.”
“Come on now. In jeans and a T-shirt? I’m not even carrying a weapon this time.” I grinned, trying to tease some warmth from her before I completely bombed out.
She didn’t say anything, and her face shuttered, masking any feelings she might have.
“I’m very impressed.” I motioned around the auditorium. “You’re an incredible teacher.”
Leaning forward, I tried to clasp her hand, but she took two quick steps back and whirled away from me.
“How did you find me?”
Her perfume wafted toward me, sending sudden want crashing through me.
“That was easy, Tilly.” My voice dropped.
“I think you should go back to calling me Matilda.” Her shoulders stiffened. “Or nothing at all.”
I moved to her side, trying to engage her. “Can’t do that.”
“What do you want?” In profile she was fine-edged, her hair fanning out in golden-red flames behind her.
“You.” I felt as nervous as a boy asking a girl on a date for the first time, but I tried for calm and confident.
“Don’t do this to me again, Justice. I’m just about over it, and I told you I wasn’t going to cry for you.” She moved another step away.
Her aloof words slammed into me.
“I’m sorry for that. For everything.” I rubbed my hand over the back of my neck. “I’ve been fucking miserable.”
“Good. So have I.”
My heart took another hit, but I had it coming.
I strolled up behind her again. I didn’t touch her, though my palms itched and—fucking hell—I had to wipe them on my thighs.
“Nothing works without you.” I studied her downcast head.
“But we don’t work together. You said that.” Finally she turned her face, and a pink tinge splashed the crest of her cheek.
“Maybe I was wrong.” I stood behind her, near enough my breath rustled the hair on her neck. “No. I was definitely wrong. I tried to drink you away, fuck into forgetfulness—”
“You were with other women?” Her chin bent to her chest, and her arms crossed in front of her.
“I didn’t want them.”
“It doesn’t matter. It still hurts me.”
I turned on my heels, swinging my fists out, looking for something to punch. “That seems about all I’m capable of doing!”
“I didn’t look at another man. I couldn’t.” Her voice from behind had me spinning around.
“Oh, Christ, Tilly. Just look at me. Please.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you, goddammit, and you know it!” I took her hand in mine. “And I was a real bastard. I’m sorry.”
“You’ve said all this before.” She shook her head. “What’s different now?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Heart on My Sleeve
“TILLY, I DIDN’T KNOW what I was doing, whether I was coming or going after the rescue mission. I almost fucking lost you because I messed up so badly—”
“It wasn’t your fault. How can you think that?” Her eyes softened for a moment. “The only thing you’re to blame for is leaving me the way you did.”
Pulling her hand to my cheek, I drew her closer. “I didn’t think I was good enough for you.”
“What about now?”
“I’m fighting for you, aren’t I?” I let her go to pace back and forth. “I want to give you everything I have. Everything I’ve never given to another woman.” Coming to a stop, I cupped my hands over her shoulders. “I want you like no one else. I will love you like no one else. And I don’t care when or how or where it happens—although a real bed would be nice for us for a change—but I’ll come back here, sit in your class, and I’ll learn from you and make you love me as much as I do you.”
“But I already do!”
All the pain and misery melted the moment I crushed her against me. “Thank God. Say it again, Tilly.”
I kissed her upturned face, holding her molded against me.
“I love you, Justice. So much.” She plucked out between kisses that grew deep and lush. “I couldn’t sleep. Teaching was the only thing that took my mind off you. I’d lay in bed and remember your smile, and your body, and the way you moved, the way you felt.”
Drawing my hands down her back, I flattened her against me. My cock dug into her belly, the feel of it making her breath hiss and mine roll out in a groan.
Just the feel of her was enough to ignite me in ways no other woman could.
Christ, even the sound of her voice turned me on.
“But you can’t stray.” She pulled her suckling lips from mine.
“Fuck. As if I would. Hell, you, Tilly girl, are the most sensuous woman I’ve ever met.” My tongue stroked across her mouth before I angled my head.
The kiss was deeper, wider, wetter, and I rubbed my erection hard against her. She circled her hips, too, and if there’d been no clothes between us we’d have been fucking full-tilt already.
I brought her hand down my front and settled it against the stiff rod of my cock. I stroked into her palm when she curled it against me. She bit my bottom lip, moaning, feeling my heat and heft.
Before I got any more out of control, I pulled her hand up to my lips, kissing her palm, watching her eyelids slide down to cover the dilated green irises.
“You are beautiful, Mizz Lawless.” I skimmed my knuckles over her cheek. “I bet half the boys in here are taking your class just so they
can stare at you.”
“They’re not boys. They’re young men.” Her eyes held a wicked delight, teasing me.
“I am well aware of that.” And I didn’t like it one little bit. I frowned down at her.
“But you don’t need to worry about that, because no one sets me on fire like you do, Jus.”
I kissed her again, in relief and wonder, wanting the inevitable to happen—to make love to her—but wanting to draw out the seduction until we were both too primed to wait. Until I could fuck into her and the first long stroke would make her explode.
“What happens now?” she asked breathlessly. “I won’t have you leaving me again.”
“Bossy thing, aren’t you?” I laughed loudly.
She slapped at my chest. “Justice. I’m being serious.”
“Yes. You are.” Grinning down at her, I tipped her head back and drew a soft outline around her softer lips. “Just what are you saying to me, Tilly Lawless?”
“Stop grinning at me!”
“Yes, ma’am.” I adopted a suitably serious look.
“Ohhh. You’re as irritatin’ as a blow fly in July.” She squeezed my forearm then ran her hand up to my shoulder.
“I know.” Although she didn’t seem too put out, standing against me, teasing her fingers through the short hair at the back of my neck. “Bet your grandma used to say that too.”
“You jackass. I love you so much, I think about you and my heart stops for a beat. But I don’t know why.”
“Ah reckon you do.” I hooked her even closer.
“Why?” She leaned back against the support of my arm.
“Because I’m gonna be so damn good for you, Tilly Lawless.”
“Is that so?”
I kissed her very gently on her lips, following the bowed shape with my tongue before pulling back. “That’s so. But I think there’s something else I should tell you.”
“What?” She wet her lips, peering up at me.
“Do you know what my favorite color is?”
“What?”
“Do you?” I tapped a tanned finger against the tip of her nose.
Her eyelashes fluttered shyly before she braved, “Green.”
“Why?” I kissed the humming little pulse point in her neck, holding her in the ring of my arms.
