H.A.L.O. Undone (Broken HALO Book 1): A Broken HALO Novel (Broken H.A.L.O.)

by Jillian Neal

  “Can we just…not talk about the general? I’ll deal with him when I get back to Denver.”

  That earned me a nod, but I didn’t like the certainty I could now see in Griff’s features. I didn’t like it at all.

  “I have a bunch of questions about dinner tonight.” I focused on the current mission like any good soldier.

  “You can ask me anything you want, baby, but maybe wait until we’re in the suite, okay?” He unlocked the entrance to the suites. Effectively proving his point, two of the other bachelors were heading down the corridor at that very moment. Dammit why did I have to suck so bad at this?

  Fred smiled as we turned the corner and approached Griff’s suite. “I do hope Las Vegas treated you both well today.”

  “Very well, thanks.” I smiled. Griff only gave him a quick nod as he guided me into the suite.

  When he’d sealed the door shut, I scooted to the other end of the suite near the pool. “You don’t trust him do you?” I whispered.

  “Never assume people are good. They’ll almost always prove you wrong. Now, I’ve got to figure out what…”

  “The sassy senile sisters are up to,” I offered.

  Griff gave me my favorite smirk. “There is nothing sexier than a woman with strong alliteration skills.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Nothing?” As soon as he was within arm’s reach, I gripped his T-shirt and pulled him closer. “Nothing at all?”

  “Well, maybe a few things,” he allowed. He wrapped me up in the sanctuary of him. The danger and passion produced by his gunpowder scent was more apparent after he’d been on the range. And once again I was certain there was nowhere else I would ever belong. I was home. Burying my face against his T-shirt, I inhaled. I wanted his scent to permeate my skin while he permeated my body. It was the only way life made any sense at all.

  “Like your fucking beautiful ass.” He grabbed two handfuls and squeezed. A rush of wet heat gathered in my panties. “I know it’s hard to believe, but your ass is actually far sexier than your alliteration skills. And your lips. Damn, but you have pretty lips. Both sets. And hair, and eyes, and my God, have you seen your tits? And legs. Fuck me, but I love those long legs wrapped around me, baby.”

  My chuckle was breathless, the effect of his hands on me. I wiggled my hips back and forth for him. That earned me a rumbled growl. “You keep doing that and I’m going to forget to remind you that you had questions about this ridiculous dinner tonight.”

  “I wish we could forget about the dinner itself. I’d prefer to take all of my clothes off and join you in the pool.”

  “You’re killing me. You know that, right?”

  Lifting my head from his chest, I stared into his gorgeous hazel eyes. “And here I was trying to save you.”

  Tension locked in his jaw for one heartbeat, but then a little of that armor I was trying so hard to pry from his heart loosened. “You’ve been saving me since the first day I met you. I know what you want me to agree to, Hannah. I’m trying to figure out how to make that happen, okay? Just… I need some time…to figure it out. If I can. I may not be able to.”

  Holy fuck. I gnawed the inside of my lip. The pain assured me I was indeed awake and not dreaming he’d just said that. “Okay. You know we’re a pretty good team. You don’t have to figure it all out on your own.”

  “Yeah.” He choked on the word. “I know. But tonight I need to focus on this dinner. My gut says something’s coming. I need to know what it is.”

  I managed a stuttered breath. He’d agreed to the possibility of an us and even to let me help him. If he wanted to distract himself with Victoria Rutherford and the Sequinettes for the night, that was fine by me. We were getting somewhere. That was all that mattered. “About the dinner.” Just focus Hannah. Right now focus.

  He buried his face against my neck and spun his tongue in the hollow above my collarbone. Okay, that was not making focusing any easier. His lips blazed a trail of kisses up to my ear. “I want you so fucking bad.” The tiny hairs at the nape of my neck gave him a standing ovation. I sank my teeth into my bottom lip. My eyes fluttered closed.

  “Take me,” I urged.

  Much to my chagrin, he lifted his head. “I swear to you I’m going to give you everything you asked me for tonight.”

  Words escaped me. However, an embarrassingly needy sound spilled from my lips.

  “I want to hear sounds like that over and over again tonight. God, it’s all I can fucking think about. Making you moan. Making you show me what I want to see. Making you wrap those gorgeous lips around my cock and swallowing everything I give you. Taking you so hard you can’t fucking walk tomorrow. Just promise me if I get too rough, you’ll tell me to stop.” His callused hands cradled my face again. The abrasion on my cheeks sent a jolt of electricity straight to my pussy.

  “I happen to love your particular brand of rough, Griff. Thought you knew that.”

  His chest contracted with a huff. “Still trying to convince myself.”

  “I’ll figure out some way to convince you, but right now we need to talk about dinner, right?”

  “And I thought Chris used to be a slave driver.” He winked at me. I ordered my face to show no reaction. Did he realize what he’d just done? He’d joked about Chris on July 11. He’d spoken about him in the past tense without it ravaging his determination never to cry. One long blink gave me composure.

  “Are you sure I should come with you tonight?” I marched on. That moment needed to live and breathe entirely on its own without me trying to smother it away. The pain had to exist because it was real, and pretending it wasn’t just wasn’t fair to any of them. “They didn’t bid on me and then you could teach me how to break into their room, and I can do that part.”

  He shook his head, but I could tell he was impressed. “First of all, we never send a soldier in alone. Second, I don’t want to do anything without you so no. Third, I’m going to have to use my magnetic override for the deadbolt on the door. I’m not saying you couldn’t do it. I’m just saying the one I built a while back is a little shaky, and it only works on some hotel locks. If these are different, I’ll have to improvise. And last, I want you to go to dinner tonight because I’m betting they’ll say things to you they wouldn’t say to us, and there’s a decent chance you being there will frustrate them. Frustration usually leads to letting things slip. That’s what we’re going for.”

  “How are we going to get by the room attendant? Every suite has one.”

  His cocky grin was almost as sexy as his smirk. “That might be a problem if we were using the interior doors.”

  I studied our own set of exterior doors. “So, we’re coming in from outside.”

  “That’s the plan. We need to dress like we’ve been outside on our own patio. The idea will be to make anyone who sees us assume it’s our own room we’re entering. Only problem is I still don’t know which suite we need to break in to. I can’t use the same trick I used to find your suite number. I convinced the attendants I work for you. I can’t turn around and work for her.

  I grinned. “I may not know how to build whatever it is you just said you had to use to get in the suites but getting a room number I can do.” I grabbed my bag and headed toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” I hated the panic in his tone. I knew he didn’t want to be alone today.

  “I’ll be right back. I made several friends while I was up here redesigning the suites. I can call in a few favors.”

  “I’ll go with you. I can stay out of sight.”

  I brushed a kiss on his cheek. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”

  “Be careful, baby. If you see anything you don’t like, you call me.”

  “I really hate that one show they have here with the ventriloquist guy. No normal man shoves his hands up puppet-butts and makes them sing. That’s just sick. But his posters are up all over the lobby, and I’ve learned to deal with that all on my own. Also, they keep inviting YouTubers here. What is up wit
h that? You go work on your magnet thing. I’ll be right back.”

  33

  Hannah

  Smiling at Fred as I slipped out of Griff’s suite, I headed toward the lobby doors. Despite Griff’s caution, I didn’t think Fred was up to anything. He seemed sweet. Before I made the turn, I heard two women in a heated argument. My heart leapt to my throat. Holy crap that was Ms. Mallory. Slipping into an offset corridor with the Promethean marble console table I’d picked out for the space. I crammed myself between the table and the wall to listen.

  I fought not to jump for joy when I heard the grating rasp of Victoria Rutherford’s voice. “It’s not exactly like you came through on your end either, Megan.”

  “I did everything I promised you I would do. He does make a lot of money. He works for that government security firm. I still don’t understand why you were so insistent that Ashley and Karen come. They couldn’t make it. None of that even matters because your check bounced. I have to have that money, Ms. Rutherford. I need it.”

  “Perhaps you would prefer to take this discussion inside your suite, Ms. Rutherford,” a male voice urged. Dammit. That had to be their suite attendant. I didn’t need him fucking this up. There was a lengthy pause, and I prayed they wouldn’t heed his warnings.

  “I’ll have to move some money out of savings. I’ll have you another check by week’s end.” Outright fury edged in Ms. Rutherford’s tone.

  “I don’t want it by week’s end. I want it now. I have to make the down payment on his flight.”

  “There are a lot of things I want, Megan. The things I enumerated in our agreement to start with. But life’s a bitch, and we don’t always get our way.”

  I heard a door open. Not even chancing a breath, I slid along the wall and peeked down the adjacent hallway. Victoria Rutherford stalked into suite eleven and slammed the door in Megan Mallory’s face. She turned and locked eyes with me. Every curse word I knew, all of the far more creative ones Griff could make up on the fly, and the ones my brother and father favored when they were with other soldiers all staged a revolt on my tongue. I dammed them back with the might of my teeth.

  She narrowed her eyes, and I tried to think of what Griff would do. He’d play it cool. So I smiled, nodded, and then continued my trek toward the lobby doors. She couldn’t possibly have known how long I’d been standing there. Deep breaths, Hannah. You got this.

  The click of her heels on the marble flooring echoed against my skull. They disappeared as she crossed one of the inlaid carpet rugs. I picked up the pace. An attendant opened the lobby door for me, but she was a half second too late. “Just one moment, Hannah.”

  It was then that I learned that if you really try you can turn the word fuck into a seventeen-syllable expression in your head. Turning back, I tried to act like I was happy to wait and walk with her. I failed miserably. Trying to ignore the fact that she’d caught me spying on her wasn’t going to work. Maybe I could get some more info out of her. “Is Ms. Rutherford okay? She sounded angry.”

  “You failed to mention that he was a Green Beret when you entered Sergeant Haywood. Was there a reason for that?” Hate oozed from every word she spoke.

  Someone needed to send out a mayday because I was going down. I hadn’t mentioned anything at all about Griff because I wasn’t supposed to be entering him at all. What was she after? I tallied everything she clearly already knew and decided not to lie again. “The form for entering bachelors didn’t ask what they’d done in the service. It just asked for their rank. Does it matter that he was a Beret?” If you’re ever being interrogated, always answer a question with another question. Smith had taught me that. People are inclined to answer whenever they’re asked a question. It can keep them off balance.

  “Yes, it matters. You’ve ruined everything.”

  “What are you referring to, Ms. Mallory? What did I ruin?” I’d seen every single episode of the new MacGyver, and I used to watch Murder She Wrote reruns with my mom when I was little. But I couldn’t come up with some way to get her to confess whatever it was she was up to.

  “Just watch your step, Hannah. You’ve caused me enough trouble.” With that, she stalked out into the lobby and disappeared into a crowd. Holy crap. I turned back and almost walked into Fred. He reached and steadied me.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Hagen. Was that woman threatening you?”

  “Sounded that way, didn’t it?”

  “Perhaps we could move you and Sergeant Haywood to one of the suites on the upper floor. I won’t have another guest being rude to you.”

  Yeah, I liked Fred. “I’m fine. Trust me, when Griff hears about this he’ll be on the warpath. You might want to move her to another state.”

  “I do rather like him. Rough around the edges, but he clearly adores you.” Fred offered me a reassuring grin.

  “Yeah, well, I’ve loved him since I was nineteen years old. The universe just won’t cut us a break.”

  He chuckled. “In my experience, timing is everything. You never know what the universe has in store. Maybe this whole trip will end up being the break you’re wanting. Magic does happen in Las Vegas.”

  “Thanks. Hey, did you hear what they were arguing about before I came out of our suite?”

  “I did but it was largely more of what you overheard. The bank had denied a check. Mistakes made last night.” He shrugged. “Does it make any sense to you?”

  “Not really but I’ll figure it out. Thanks, Fred.”

  “If I can be of any help, Ms. Hagen, please let me know.”

  34

  Griff

  Wearing a groove in the tile, I continued to pace and called myself a weak bastard. I needed her to come back. Blinking rapidly, I lost the ability to distinguish the sand colored flooring from the sands that had robbed me of the only family I’d ever really had. I forced myself to breathe. Why the fuck did our suite suddenly smell like chopper fuel?

  I stared at the door and willed Hannah to walk back through it. I was using her again, and my own self-hatred was readily accessible. I was using her to keep the memories at bay, and I was too weak to make myself stop. Flinging open the sliding glass doors that led to the pool I stepped outside and tried to let the chlorinated air anesthetize the sounds of Aaron’s groan as he leapt in front of me after I’d taken the first shot, and the echo of the machine gun I’d taught those fuckers to shoot.

  We’d been training up a militia to fight alongside us. I’d done my job, and they’d turned on us. It was all my fault. Every single gravestone had been hand carved by me.

  “Griff?” her breathless call shattered the hellish abyss I’d hurled myself into. “You okay?”

  I shook my head because what else could I do? I was here and they weren’t and that wasn’t okay. It never would be. In two rushed steps of her long legs, her arms wrapped around me, and I clung to my own personal saving grace. “God, it just sucks so fucking much. I know it does. And it’s okay for you not to be okay. Nothing about any of this is okay. It never will be. It shouldn’t have been the way it was, but none of it was your fault.” She always knew precisely what to say. Always. “Do you hear me? Because I know you all blame yourselves and sometimes life just…sucks. It’s never fair, and it won’t ever be fair. But there was nothing you could’ve done to stop what happened. Nothing.” She was wrong. I could’ve told my brothers about her, how much I loved her. I should’ve told them because keeping things from them weakened the bond we needed to stay alive.

  “I love you.” I strangled on the single truth.

  “I love you too, baby. I found out a bunch of stuff. You want to hear about it, or I can get Fred to get us a couple six-packs and we can sit out here all night?”

  Scrubbing my hands over my face, I shook off the dust of the memories as best as I was able. That damn moon dust. You couldn’t ever really remove its choking constriction from your veins. I needed a distraction. She knew that, too. “Tell me.”

  “Let’s stay out here a few more minutes.” She t
ook my hand and guided me to one of the cushioned chairs on the lanai. As soon as I was seated, she curled up in my lap. Her touch was the only thing keeping me in the present. My baby knew that as well.

  I breathed in the scent of her. The chlorine hadn’t done shit, but she eased the chokehold. I could no longer smell the scent of fuel laced with sand and blood.

  “Want to call Smith?” she whispered.

  Yes. I told that answer to fuck off. “No. I’m better now.” I couldn’t have them both, and I didn’t deserve either of them.

  “You know, the dinner should be over before Lindsen takes the mound tonight.”

  Jesus, I’d forgotten there was a game. This day fucked me over every year. “We’re not watching the Cubs tonight, baby. I intend to keep my promises to you.”

  “We could still do that later.”

  “No. Tonight, I plan to catch Victoria Rutherford and her arachnid gang. Then I’m taking you to bed and keeping you there for the rest of our trip.”

  “I thought we weren’t sure she killed off all of her husbands.” Hannah lifted her head off of my shoulder and attempted to peek around our private cove. “I don’t think she did. She seems to be having money problems.”

  The terror that had been riding hard in my veins ebbed away in light of my need to fix something. I managed to place most of the weight on my good leg as I stood and carried her inside.

  I settled us on the bed. “Let’s hear what you found out, Nancy Drew.”

  She beamed at that. “I never read those, but I totally read all of the Babysitter’s Club Mysteries from the library when we were stationed in Arlington. I wanted to be Claudia because she was an amazing artist only it kind of annoyed me because she was usually painting fruit or her grandmother. Were those the only things she could paint? I mean, come on.”

  And just like that, the consuming fire of the desert sands melted away. She’d smothered out the smoke. I could finally breathe. “Yeah, but I don’t know any of those chicks so I can’t tease you about them. Plus, you can’t be Claudia or your whole company’s name doesn’t work.”