by Jillian Neal
“Maybe so, but we’re still nowhere near even.”
“What?” Even? What the hell did that mean?
“You remember that night about three months after I got sprung from Walter Reed when I showed up at your apartment the first time after I’d moved in with…into the house?”
His omission of my brother’s name spoke volumes. He was still determined to keep us in separate worlds. That would never work. “I remember.” His eyes closed sealing off my cipher to him. “Griff, what’s wrong?”
A harsh breath escaped his lungs. “I was losing my fucking mind that night. Couldn’t think about anything but you. Fuck. I needed you so bad my entire body burned like I’d been doused in lighter fluid and your brother had struck a match. I was…” His jaw clenched.
“Scared,” I supplied readily though that didn’t quite cover it. When he’d beaten on my door at two o’clock that morning, he’d been terrified.
He nodded. “Yeah. ’Cause I wasn’t sure…everything was going to work the way they kept saying it would. I couldn’t imagine what kind of a life I would even have if I couldn’t feel the way it feels deep inside of you. I’d lose my mind if I couldn’t see the look on your face when we’re together, hear the sounds you make for me, feel the way you love me. I’d buried seven of my brothers and still couldn’t breathe. It was like I’d run out of emotion before I was even close to running out of pain. I couldn’t even see until you let me in your apartment. Then I just…”
“Stop.” I wrapped my arms around his chest. “You didn’t do anything wrong. What we did that night…it was exactly what I wanted you to do.”
“I used you,” scraped from the depths of his throat where his admission must’ve been mired in shame. How had we never talked about that night? “I’m sorry, Hannah.”
“Stop it. Right now. This has to stop. Don’t you see what we keep doing? We keep swallowing these lies because we’re so hungry for each other.”
“Smith.” The single word escaped his tongue. He stared me down. Weary caution darkened the golden flecks in his eyes until they almost disappeared.
I knew this particular mountain in our relationship would take an endless amount of time for us to traverse. I was fine with that. Patience was something I’d acquired in the last several years. “Yeah, we need to talk about him and a lot of other things. We’re not going to keep ly…”
“Do you really think…?” he cut me off. I sealed my lips shut already knowing what he was likely to ask. “You really think this will work?”
“By this do you mean do I think we can spend a week here without Smith finding out?” He was so not getting where I was going. Men.
“Yeah. That.”
“I don’t care if he finds out anymore as long as you’re okay with that, but I will never come between The Sevens. I think we could stay down here for a long time, and he’d never know, though. He’s aware you’re supposed to be on vacation for a week.”
“I’m an asshole for doing this to him.”
“No, you’re not. You’re an amazing friend to him for not wanting to hurt him. I know he’s just as much your brother as he is mine. Maybe even more so, but this is sounding kind of incestuous so you get where I’m going. I don’t want to hurt him either, but I’m getting tired of hurting us, too.”
His arms circled around me tighter, crushing me to his chest. “I can never hurt you.”
I dammed back the fact that every single time he insisted we couldn’t be together it hurt me. Now, wasn’t the time. I had to walk this mine field with extreme care. I was the general’s daughter and the Green Beret’s baby sister. I knew how to follow a plan even if I did occasionally get ahead of myself. “You never told me what moment you were talking about.”
He tucked my head under his chin. “T said you wanted to surprise me in the ballroom tonight, all dressed up for me or whatever. I’m sorry I ruined that.”
Another flash of heat bloomed across my cheeks. “I did want that, but this was way better.”
“I wasn’t going to come in there tonight,” he confessed.
My mouth dropped open as I lifted my head. “You were going to ditch me?”
“I didn’t know I was ditching you. Every freaking time I thought about spending a week with some woman who wasn’t you it made me sick,” he confessed earnestly.
It was by nature of their positions and their careers that Berets often heard confessions. Smith had explained this late one night when I sat in the hospital room with him after one of his surgeries. Watching men die often elicited a seemingly insignificant story they wanted to share one last time. Being a savior brought on the same effect. People tell them things because they seem like gods in armor, unstoppable, unbreakable, and without remorse. But they weren’t gods, and their armor could be lifted from their bodies. They were mere men and those men needed someone to shoulder every single one of the confessions thrust upon them often at their weakest moments. T had readily agreed when I asked him if he was sure I was the person meant to help Griff carry the lockbox of confessions he housed in his soul. I was thankful he’d shared that one.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“I love you, too, so fucking much.”
“Then let me go get ready for my big moment. I get to spend the week with a man I love so much it hurts.”
He stared at me as I cemented the truth between us. It hurt every time we chose to inflict the pain on ourselves instead of bringing the scars out into the light and allowing them to heal. Somehow, I would convince him of that.
“You never told me about your agenda.”
“I’ll tell you tonight after the auction when I get to order you around.” I joked and laughed instead of cried. It was often the role of the army wife. I’d learned from the best.
“I do not mind being ordered around by you at all, but I meant to ask if you need some cash, baby. I don’t want you spending your money on me.”
I gave him another one of my signature eye rolls. “It’s for charity, and I have plenty to give. Besides, I have to do this on my own.” I traced my short fingernails along his collarbone loving the way his body shuddered at my touch. “If I don’t, then I can’t make you do my bidding for a whole entire week.”
His left eyebrow raised, and I earned myself another one of those cocky grins. “I take it I’m not going to be doing your laundry or cleaning out your suitcases for you.”
“Definitely not. I’m hoping we get extremely dirty this week. Cleaning is off the table altogether.”
“Oh honey, believe me, if you need someone to get you dirty, I’m reporting for duty.”
“I was hoping you’d say that, but I really am sorry if any of this put you in a bad place or if I caused you to be mad at T.”
“I’m not mad at T or at my girl. I’m…fucking thrilled, honestly.”
“Me, too.”
15
Griff
One of the last conversations I’d ever had with Chris replayed in my head as I helped Hannah escape my suite without Ms. Mallory, high queen of the bachelor auction, discovering her. We’d been in Iraq for eight months and every day I lost a tiny fragment of my own sanity. Chris called me out, told me to take a walk with him. He knew I was coming apart at the seams.
Nothing made sense anymore. I’d gotten an email from Hannah from the hidden address she’d set up so her brother would never know who they were coming from. She’d poured out her heart to a screen, and I had no way to answer her, to reassure her, to promise her I’d figure out some way to hold her in my arms again.
The demon who’d taken up residence in the chip on my shoulder kept tempting me to tell Smith and then to inform him that as soon as we got home I was marrying her and the general could just deal. I couldn’t remember why I’d ever wanted to join the army, or to be a Beret. I couldn’t remember enough of the things I’d needed to run from to figure out who I was running to. I couldn’t remember why we kept fighting a snake with more heads than we could ever sever f
rom the body.
If I closed my eyes, I swear I could still hear the muted puff of our footfalls in that godforsaken dust that would cake inside our boots and clog every damned weapon I was in charge of. There were days when the dust storms would blot out the sun. You couldn’t tell which way was up. Like drowning in air and shooting into a cloud that occasionally shot back. If I concentrated, I could still feel the permanent grit in the air that whipped your skin with every lash of the wind.
Chris had asked who I was missing so badly. I’d told him no one. He called me a flat out liar and for once I didn’t argue.
“You’ve been missing someone since the first mission we went on. Since you’ve never said a word about her, I took that to mean I shouldn’t ask. She pretty?” His smile said he was willing to let me spill everything gnawing me in two from the inside out, and that he’d keep his mouth shut.
“Fucking gorgeous.” I couldn’t do it anymore, and Chris would never have asked for her name.
“When’s the last time you heard from her?”
I shook my head. He’d understood. Sometimes hearing from them made it better, made it bearable. Sometimes it made it so much worse it was like inhaling fire. The thing was you never knew if it would help or if it would hurt until the phone call was over.
“Might could get you a sat. phone. You could try to call her,” he’d offered. We hadn’t seen a satellite phone in ten weeks, and even if he could’ve located one it was him that needed to call home. He had a six-week-old baby he’d only been able to see in a few grainy pictures Smith had managed to get downloaded with his old Toughbook, a classified internet network, several unclassified servers, and most likely two cans and a string. Besides, my calls always had to be made far away from my brothers.
“Fuck off, man,” I’d supplied which was Special Ops speak for thanks for trying.
He’d chuckled. “S’posed to be another sand storm today according to the illustrious army theater weather predictors.”
“Guess I’ll clean out the guns again tonight. Can’t fucking wait.” I could still hear the disdain in my own voice.
“Day in the life…” he’d supplied expectantly. I was supposed to fill the wind drenched silence.
“You ever get so sick of looking at all of us you want to quit?” I’d finally asked.
“Every damned day of my life. And if T doesn’t quit snoring I’m gonna shoot him,” he’d joked.
“Like I said, I’ll have you a clean gun tonight.”
His laughter was whipped away in the incessant breeze. “I just try to make the weeks at home heaven, so I can endure hell with you losers. For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t want to walk through it with anyone else. You all know that, right?”
“Yeah, we know.”
“I figure the days at home in bed with Maddie where I bring her coffee and she orders pizza that we eat on for days so neither of us has to get up are so good I can’t complain about the fucking moon sand in my sleeping bag.” He kicked the fine dust with the toe of his boot. The ensuing cloud choked out what was left of my patience. “You can’t know heaven until you’ve seen hell kind of thing,” he’d concluded just before we were greeted with mortar fire in the distance.
Shaking off the memories, I knew he was right. If I could have this one week of heaven with Hannah, I could go back to living in hell, which was pretty much anywhere she wasn’t. I wasn’t an idiot. I knew she wanted me to agree to tell Smith about us. If she went as far as to lie to her father about a made-up boyfriend, then he was still a fixture in her life she kept dusted. She had no idea what a confession would detonate, the people we would hurt, the people we would infuriate. I would never allow her to be caught in the crossfire, and I could never look either of them in the eye and tell them what the general had done to keep me away from her.
Digging deep in my duffle, I located the survival kit I still carried with me everywhere. Fetching a roll of electrical tape, I placed two pieces over the peep hole and then viewed my suite in a whole new light. Everywhere my vision landed, it conjured up images of Hannah splayed out all for my taking. The warm pink flesh she kept hidden from everyone but me, soaked and ruined at the force of my hands and my cock.
Every horizontal and a few vertical locations in the suite beckoned. Places where I could turn her into a limp pile of pure satisfaction over and over again.
Tossing my bags in the bedroom, I flipped on the shower. She wanted a moment. She wanted to make me drool, to make me ache with need, to make me fucking burn with it. And I was going to give her every single thing she wanted that week if it was the last thing I ever did.
16
Griff
“Damn.” I halted my progress half way to the ballroom. I’d forgotten that badge thing I was supposed to wear. Reminding myself of the prize that came at the end of this ridiculous auction, I turned back to rescue the badge. I was so fucking anxious to see her I’d left a half hour before cocktails were set to be served. Couldn’t give her the moment she was after if I wasn’t there when she arrived though, right?
I’d seen movies. I knew what I was supposed to do. She walks in. I struggle to breathe much less speak. None of that would have to be forced. That was my reaction most every time I saw her. I march in, tell her how beautiful she is, sweep her off her feet, cue the montage where I either let her run to me and I lift her up in the air, or I hold onto her hands and spin her around in Central Park while the seasons change in the course of one song, and then whisk her off to my room.
“Back so soon, Sergeant?” Fred smiled.
“Forgot that badge thing with my number on it.” I allowed him to open the suite door for me this time.
“Then how would Ms. Hagen know whom to bid on?” Mischief glimmered in his eyes, and I narrowed mine.
“Who?” I never missed a beat.
Fred chuckled. “She’s a doll. I learned her name while she was here with her design team but didn’t get to speak with her. Beautiful girl and quite the talent. Since she did march into your suite, sir, I have to assume you two know each other well. I have no idea how she arranged all of this, but that woman with all of the rules seemed rather insistent that she find Ms. Hagen. I didn’t care for her urgency. Tread carefully and remember, I’m happy to help if I can.”
Okay, so he had me, but that didn’t mean I had to give anything else away. “Just bear in mind that she’s mine, and I’d kill for her. Wouldn’t even tax me honestly.”
“American soldiers.” He allowed his deep British accent to free flow now. “I assure you I will keep that in mind. Perhaps while you’re here you could lay down your arms so to speak. Indulge in her. Might make her happy.”
“I’ll keep her happy, Fred. But thanks for the advice.” Stalking back into the room, I located the paperwork for me to be freaking sold and headed back to the ballroom.
It was still twenty minutes before the event was set to start when I arrived. The band was tuning their instruments. The metallic peal of an electric guitar split through the thick expectation that hung in the air. There were a few other victims standing around with bewildered expressions they were trying to conceal with bravado and might. It was the way of the military from the Marine Corps Devil Dogs all the way to the Special Forces Snake Eaters. None of us were sure what was going to happen and that was never a comfortable feeling.
“Hey, I thought you weren’t in on this?”
It took me a minute to remember his face and then another to recall his name. Ryder Mathis from the airport made his way over.
“Never said that,” I reminded him.
Genuine humor played in his features. “You are awfully unapproachable.”
“And yet here you are.” I grinned at him. Now, I was making small talk with relative strangers. Hannah made me a better person. There was no denying that. “I’m just giving you a hard time, man. You know anything about how this all works?” I gestured to a long row of tables with black cloths draped over them. There were twenty cardboard boxes w
rapped with white butcher paper lined up along the table. Odd decor for a military event. The boxes reminded me of those Valentine holders the teachers used to want us to make back in grade school.
The lights weren’t low enough for the candles scattered around the room to give the desired romantic glow I assumed they were going for. Vintage recruitment posters from all of the branches blended into the bland walls. One thing was certain, my baby hadn’t been in charge of decor. The room held none of her class and none of the polish she put on every project she worked on. There were gift bags stacked on one of the back tables. Clearly, someone had stuffed them while she was in my suite.
“Yeah, so apparently, we all have a box. Our pictures are on them.” He pointed across the room. Narrowing my eyes, I couldn’t quite make out which box had my picture from across the long ballroom. If T had been in charge of supplying a pic, it was likely one of me looking like a dumbass passed out with an oxygen mask strapped to my face or one of me burrowed down in mud like a pig with a rifle and a helmet. I started to pray that it wasn’t my bootcamp picture but then remembered it didn’t matter. Hannah had seen all of the pictures of me like that. She knew a few of the things I’d accomplished and what I’d had to do to get the job done. She loved me anyway. T was right. I was one lucky motherfucker just to have that. I didn’t deserve to have her for my whole life anyway. The thing was, she deserved a whole life.
Mathis marched on jerking my attention back to the table. “The chicks will fill out their bids and drop them in the cut-out slot. Ms. Mallory announces the highest bidders at the end of the night.” He shrugged. “Should be fun, right?”
Oh, I would be having fun in a few hours when this thing was over, and I whisked my baby back to that suite and kept her there for a week. As for him, I couldn’t answer that. “Guess that depends on the bidders doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. Guess so.”
