by Aubrey Irons
“Relax, honey,” Javier says with another lecherous grin; “But hey, if you’re into the mercenary type and you wanna try something new,” He winks and grabs his crotch, and I sneer at him in disgust; “Maybe you’d like a guy who doesn’t get his ass kicked so much?” He turns and chuckles down at the bleeding and enraged looking Logan pinned to the floor; “You know, I taught this fucking pendejo everything he fuckin knows back in Africa, and this is the kind of thanks I get!” He sighs dramatically and shakes his head; “Always gotta play the game his way, even when I tell you not to, huh Logan? Always gotta be on top instead of just knowing your fuckin place.”
I frown; Mercenary? Africa? What’s this guy even talking about?
Javier’s eyes light up as soon as he sees the look of confusion on my face; “Oh shit; he still hasn’t told you has he!” He starts to laugh out this grating, horrible chuckle; “Man, Irish, only a guy like you could get away with hittin a cutie like this and still not telling her where you came from. Shit, I’m almost impressed!” He chuckles before he turns his gaze on me, a glint in his eye; “And you’re his daughter! You’re William Archer’s kid, and you still don’t know!”
His laugh curls into an evil looking grin as my face betrays my shock; “Oh I know who you are, honey,” He says quietly; “I know exactly who you are, and I also know where to find you and those pretty little sisters of yours.” He grins; “So how about we keep tonight just between us friends, comprendes?” He shoots me a last, lingering wink that has every muscle in my body tensing before he shrugs and turns; “Well, looks like my work here is done!” He nudges Logan with the toe of his boot; “See you next time, Irish.”
I’m frozen in my place, trying to will my heartbeat to calm down enough to even think until the front door slams shut. And then I’m racing over to Logan and dropping to my knees beside him; “Jesus, are you-“
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” He growls out, turning away from me and wiping the trickle of blood at his lip with the back of his hand.
“What the fuck, Logan!”
He forces out a laugh; “And a good evening to you too, sweet-cheeks.” He turns back and reaches out to grab my hands in his; “Look, I’ll be fine, Quinn.”
But before I can help it, I can feel the sting of tears in my eyes; “Get out, Logan.” I whisper.
“What?” He frowns.
“Of whatever you’re involved in, please just get out!”
His face darkens; “I told you, it’s not that simpl-“
“Why, because of Africa?”
He stiffens and starts to open his mouth but I grab him my the shirt and lean in close to him; “Look, I don’t care, Logan! I don’t care what happened there, ok? I know my Dad was involved in certain things, but I don’t care; I just want you to get out of it.” The tears run down my cheeks then as I look pleadingly into his eyes; “Please.”
I whimper as his lips crash into mine, and then I’m clutching at him like time or the world or even a strong wind might tear us apart. Then we’re tearing at each other’s clothes, and I’m gasping and clutching at him with the pure and undiluted need for him; the need to touch him and feel him. He pulls my t-shirt over my head and runs his hand down over my skin, and I’m shivering as my hands find the hardness pressing against the front of his gym-shorts. He growls as he flips us around and lays me on my back on the floor, his biceps and his chest rippling as he leans in to kiss me with fire and heat and growling, raging lust.
There’s no foreplay this time; no teasing and no slow build because we’re both desperate for each other in that moment. He’s skimming my panties down my legs, tearing at the foil packet in his hands with his teeth, and slipping between my legs as I rake my fingernails down over his shoulders and kiss him with everything I have.
I whimper as he runs the head of his cock over my entrance, looking up into his eyes to see them flashing green and gold at me; “You want this?” I bite my lip as I nod, and his grin only deepens as he leans down to nip at the lobe of my ear; “Beg me for it.”
Oh fuck.
“Please,” I breath out, my chest rising and falling with my gasping breaths as he sucks at that tender spot where my neck meets my collarbone as he runs his thickness over my wet folds; “Fuck me and never stop fucking me!”
We both cry out as he plunges in to the hilt in one stroke, filling me up so tightly and so perfectly. It’s like sweet release and relief as he grinds into me as I wrap my legs around him and draw him in deep. And when he starts to fuck me like that, right against the floor with deep, powerful strokes, it’s raw, and primal, and animalistic, and he’s got me moaning his name and scratching at his back as he nails me to the floor with that perfect cock of his.
“This is mine,” He growls out, rocking into me and making me moan out loud as he shifts his angle to hit that perfect, secret spot just inside; “You’re mine,” He says thickly and dominantly as his lips crash against mine, and I know I’m lost in him as his words push me over the edge. We come screaming together, a release of everything that’s been pent up, everything that we’ve held back.
“You know, I’m only yours if you can promise me about the fights.”
I’m laying against his chest, listening to his heartbeat thudding against my ear through his skin, and I can feel him grinning; “Oh?” He says with some amusement.
I turn my head to look into his eyes; “I’m serious, Logan. We really could just get aw-“
“Ok, fine.”
I arch my eyebrows; “Fine?”
“Yeah, fine, lets get away.”
I’m grinning but still looking at him skeptically; “Just like that?”
He shrugs; “I do own a private jet, darlin; might as well use it.”
“No, I mean, you’re saying I just convinced you? Just like that?” I’m looking at him like I’m skeptical about how easy this was.
He smirks, “Well, the hot sex and the fact that your hand is still on my cock makes a convincing argument, darlin.”
“You pig.” I say giggling.
“So, lets go somewhere.”
“No Peyton?”
He laughs and rolls his eyes; “No Peyton; just you and me.” He sits up a little and winks at me; “Actually, there’s a place I’ve been meaning to take you.”
“Well, I think it’s a fantastic idea,” Bryce nods slowly at me from across the conference table; “Not bad, Logan; really.”
“I do have my moments, you know.” I frown, watching him grin at me.
“What’s your timeline?”
“The sooner the better, man. I’m going to ram this down the board’s throat until they either sign off on it or choke on it.”
Bryce gives me a look; “We really gotta work on your bedside manner, pal.”
I laugh; “I won’t even pretend to give a shit about diplomacy; that’s your area.” It works out well with Bryce and I; he’s the carrot, and I’m the stick.
…The stick with chip on his shoulder, a mean right hook, and no patience for petty boardroom bullshit, I might add.
“It’ll get through, don’t worry.” Bryce looks up and studies my face in that strange, quiet way he does sometime that always makes me feel like he’s the oldest of us, even though it’s the opposite.
“What?”
“This is because of Akazi, isn’t it.”
My jaw tenses and I meet his eyes for moment before I look away. Even the name of that fucking place just-
“Look, sorry, I shouldn’t have ask-”
“Of course it’s because of Akazi,” I mutter, shaking my head looking at my hands in my lap.
*****
When you look back on life, there are things that stick out as turning points; places where the road split and you made a decision. And when I think over my own journey, there’s one single place and one single fucking moment in time that ends up defining the course of my entire life from there on out.
And that moment is Akazi, Afghanistan.
War sucks, and I don
’t mean that in the slang sense of the word. I mean it in the sense that it sucks just about every single part of your soul out of you like some sort of vortex of pain and suffering and hardening of the spirit. And it’s when you’re there, amongst the flames and the heat and the death and senselessness of it all that you truly understand that war is literally hell.
We’re listening to Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf” that day in the second Humvee when the ambush hits. You’d wonder with all the shit that happened immediately following that how I’d have possibly remembered that little detail, but it’s one of those bizarre things that’ll stick with me long after I manage to forget the rest of it. Evans, our driver, is cracking some sort of crude joke about someone’s sister while Simon Le Bon belts out a chorus through the speakers when the first Humvee in front of us just erupts into liquid fire. It fucking blooms into flame, and then it’s just gone. The chaos of the moment hits like a shot of something strong right to the head, and there’s screaming and shouting as Evans tears us off the road as metal rakes the side of the truck.
The actual sequence of events are blurry, but I can remember the sound of peppering bullets plunking like hail on the other side of the building I’m crouched behind. There are people everywhere - and I don’t mean soldiers or guerrillas either, I mean fuckin PEOPLE. There are civilians and fucking children running right through the firefight and all I can think is how Goddamn UNFAIR of a world it is because of that. How in any rational, sane universe, no kid should have to cover his fucking head and run between two ideologies hurling metal at each other that he doesn’t give a fuck about.
Guys who’s names I knew but have now forgotten are getting shot - they’re dying around me, and through it all, the guys from Duran Duran just keep on playing from the open door of the shot-up Hummer behind me.
“Mark target!” Our ranking Sargent is screaming at me, his face tight as he pops around the corner to squeeze off a few shots; “Drone strike inbound, Irish! I need a target, NOW.”
I glance over the wall, wincing at the spray of rock that scatters across my face as I eyeball the enemy position. There’s a three story building at the end of the road with Taliban on the roof with mortars and two gun placements.
“Sir!” I yell, ducking back behind the wall; “Tall building, end of the street; tallest one in town!”
He’s radioing it in, but there’s something lingering from my quick look at the building that’s nagging at me, and I chance one more peep over the wall.
Oh, fuck.
It’s hits me like a slug to the gut; the tallest building in town, with the empty flag pole, and the Taliban on the roof….
…And the playground right outside the front door.
Jesus fucking Christ.
“Call it off!” I’m running, heedless of the metal flying past my head and exploding across the ground by my feet as I sprint towards the Sargent across the road on the radio; “It’s a school! It’s a fucking school!” I’m waving my arms at him, screaming. He must suddenly hear me, because he squints and looks up as he puts his radio down; just in time for the bullet to catch him right through the ear and drop him like bag of cement on the ground.
Drones are noiseless, but missiles turning the school at the end of the street along with half the other buildings in town into pillars of fire are not.
And neither are my screams.
When it’s over, I hear true and absolute silence. Everyone in our squad besides the three of us is dead, the pieces of shit using the school as a shield are dead, and I’m pretty sure anyone left in the town is dead as well.
It’s in that very moment where I make my decision, and it’s in that same moment where I convince Bryce and Hudson to come with me. It’s then that we desert and just walk away from all of it. We’re already dead, as far as intel is concerned, and from there it’s over the border to China, and then to the Mediterranean, and then Africa and the mercenary work; and later, to William Archer.
And from that moment on, our whole lives change.
*****
“Wait, where are we?”
I grin to myself in my seat across the cabin from Quinn, watching her lips curl into one of those sexy, intriguing and curious smiles of hers. Apparently, keeping secrets from this girl can be fun after all.
“Why do you ask?” I say as casually as possible, trying to hide my grin as she turns back to me with that questioning smile on her face.
“Uh, because I’m not looking at a map, but I’m one-hundred percent positive that’s not Seattle down there.”
I frown and shake my head as nonchalantly as possible; “It isn’t?”
“Unless Seattle has suddenly found itself a white sandy beach with palm trees?” She arches her brow at me, her eyes sparkling, and I find myself wondering if I have time to tear her clothes off before we land.
“Huh, did I say Seattle?”
She laughs; “Um, yeah, you did.”
“Huh, weird.”
“OK, I give up! Where are we, Logan?” She says, giggling as she saunters over and slips into my lap; “Mexico?”
“Nope.” I say, dropping my eyes to the swell of her breasts in her tank top and enjoying watching her blush and roll her eyes.
Just then a bell chimes as my pilot’s voice crackles over the intercom; “Mr. Dempsey? Sir, we’ll be touching down at Jose Marti International in fifteen, if you folks want to get buckled in back there.”
I can’t help but grin as her eyes go wide as she whirls to look at me with her jaw dropped; “We’re in Cuba?” She shakes her head; “How’d you get vacation entry into Cuba?” She rolls her eyes; “Oh, wait, let me guess; money,” She says with a smirk.
“Cute, but no. We’re actually here as a medical aid relief mission.” Her eyebrows shoot up in this adorable way and I flash her a grin; “Grab your med bag, Doc; we’ve got work to do.”
*****
The hospital in the village is something I had built after the first time I was here. Back then I was here with money; just learning how to live with with being newly rich after starting with Archer Holdings. Back then, I was drinking rum and just looking for trouble, but there was something about this village stuck with me.
Something like the school, sitting at the end of the only street in town.
And just like that, maybe for the first time really, I started to get the Old Man’s whole thing about “giving back to the world.”
I’m helping a couple of guys from the village frame out a new wing of the care center; pounding nails and using my hands in a way that I love instead of sitting idle or using them to hit people. But I keep catching myself just staring off at Quinn on the other side of of the Med Center compound, working with the other doctors to immunize the cluster of kids crowding around apprehensively with their sleeves rolled up. I had a pretty good hunch Quinn would jump at the chance to help out here, but damn if she doesn’t fucking shine at it. Seeing her like this is just incredible. This isn’t “hide in the research lab and let people walk all over her” Quinn. This is the bold, confident, and fearless Quinn I knew she was from the moment I met her. She’s just instantly on point, and instantly organizing and showing people what do do and where to go. The whole fucking med team from the hospital in Havana just stares at her and jumps to do what she says; not because she’s bossy or bitchy, but because she just exudes this confidence and poise. And besides that, it’s just obvious that she loves this. She’s on the ground, getting her hands dirty and helping people like I know she wants to do.
“You’re gonna put a nail through your hand if you keep looking at the seniorita over there,” Raul, the project manager, grins at me as he nods towards Quinn. He chuckles; “Then you’ll be in some real trouble.”
