The Colonel's Man

by Mina Carter, J. William Mitchell

  Jason’s scowl was even more murderous this time. “You can try, then you’ll know what it’s like to have all your internal organs outside your body. You like that?”

  “This from a man not in love? She must be a great fuck.”

  Jason seethed as he couldn’t think of anything to say so he went with the classic and shoved Drew’s hand from his wrist. “Fuck you,” he growled and stalked towards the shuttle doors, hoping that it was his turn. He never wanted to get a medical check more than he did at that moment or he’d be tempted to break Drew’s stupid neck.

  * * *

  Arita watched as Jason climbed into the shuttle, his face like thunder, and submitted with ill grace to the medical check-up. Tired, and slightly spaced from the sedatives and inoculations the medics had given her, no doubt on Hurst’s orders, she rested her temple against the padded side of her seat and watched him.

  He was young, well…younger than her…and cute as hell. All that bad boy edge she liked, but found was fake in most of the men she’d been drawn to in bars and clubs. In Jason it wasn’t false, far from it. Given a few years and he’d be as good an operative as any she’d seen.

  Better even than she was.

  “You look ready to kill someone,” she commented as he stomped over to her when the medics were done, and re-arranged her so she rested in his lap. Quite why she let him, she didn’t know, but she couldn’t seem to bring herself to care that Drew and the others could see her leaning on him.

  His cloudy expression dissipated at her words and a wry smile took over his face. “I don’t really like medicals. I hate being poked and prodded and its worse when their hands are cold enough to freeze my balls off.”

  She shivered slightly. Jason grabbed a fatigue jacket nearby and draped her with it as he rubbed the warmth into her arms. “Are you cold?”

  “A little,” she admitted in a low voice, something he’d have had to drag out of her mere days ago. Now though, he’d seen her at her worst. Sighing, she rested her head back against his shoulder. “Not now though, you’re really warm.”

  She paused for a moment, struggling with how to phrase her words. “Thank you. For everything.”

  His voice was meant for her ears alone and his words were like a soothing balm to her troubled soul as he whispered. “You never have to thank me. What I have, what I am, I give to you freely.”

  She smiled, sleep already catching up with her as her eyelids drifted shut.

  The next time she woke, she was being carried, safe and secure in a pair of strong arms.

  “Huh?” She fought her way to semi-awake, to realize Jason was carrying her from the shuttle bay. “Jason, put me down. I can walk,” she insisted, her cheeks beginning to color as she looked around. The corridor was deserted but there was always the chance that someone would see them. Then the gossip would start.

  “No dice ma’am.” He smiled at her, seemingly pleased with himself as he shook his head. “This marine is taking you to your quarters and to bed so you can sleep.”

  She struggled but he had her tightly and whatever she’d been given had sapped her energy.

  “Damn you, and bloody Hurst. You’re in it together, I’m sure you are.” Her grouch was light as she gave up the fight and rested her head on his shoulder. Being carried, being looked after felt…nice. “I could order you to put me down.”

  “Now now, paranoia is the product of a mind deprived of rest. You’re not thinking straight so I’m overruling you ma’am.”

  He chuckled as they walked into a lift that was miraculously empty of occupants. He gave the computer their destination and with an imperceptible lurch, the lift was in motion.

  “Besides you should be grateful I’m carrying you. Since I have a bad back, I’m going well above and beyond the call of duty here.”

  “Bad back?” Worry threaded through her and she wriggled again. “No, seriously Jason, put me down. I don’t want you hurting yourself and I’m way too heavy.”

  “No you’re not. You barely register.” He assured her then grinned. “And I’m sure the bad back is temporary. Probably from all the sexual calisthenics we’ve been doing for the past two days. I’m not a contortionist like you.”

  She flushed to the roots of her hair as the lift pinged and the door slid open. “I’m sorry about that. Hurst’s given me something to take the edge off, so you’re safe now. I promise.”

  He looked disappointed as they stepped out of the lift and onto their deck. “Damn. And here I was hoping to see you unleashed again. Hurst’s a jackass.”

  She looked at him sharply. “It’s not fun for me, Jason. Imagine having no control over it, needing it so much that…” She closed her eyes and shuddered. “Normally I leave the ship, go to one of the trade outposts. I can pass it off as a one night stand, no questions asked. But it’s still damn embarrassing.”

  She felt him stiffen as they neared her quarters. “So that’s all I was then? Just a warm willing body?”

  “Huh? No…no!” Her voice was sharper than she’d meant as they reached her quarters and the door slid open in front of them. “If you’ll recall, I was trying to stay away from you!”

  Jason said nothing other than ordering the computer to turn on the lamps until they reached her bed. When he deposited her into the giving mattress, he pushed her back down as he hovered over her.

  “And now I took advantage of a woman in distress? Bullshit Arita. All that what we did down there? All we said? You’re trying to tell me you’d have done that with just any man who was stuck with you?” He ground out. “That had that branch gone through my side of the windscreen instead, you’d have let Mendes hold you in the drop-shuttle on the ride back? Carry you to your quarters? Try something else, I’m not buying it.”

  He was furious, his eyes glittering as he threw each accusation at her. Anger combined with frustration and the hard edge of need as her emotional state ate away at whatever Hurst had given her.

  “No! Not any man, you bloody great idiot. Just you! Anyone else I could have controlled it, hunting until exhaustion then I would have collapsed.” He still loomed over her, his nearness doing things to her body that should be illegal. Desperation filled her. She needed him to understand.

  “You don’t get it, do you? I’ve wanted you since you cut me down from that bloody pipe but I had a handle on it. Then we crashed and I was…you were…fuck,” she ended miserably, closing her eyes to escape his piercing gaze. Nothing she said was going to make this any better. She was just making it worse.

  His rough hand brushed softly against her cheek, fingers caressing her face and tilting her chin towards him. It was a silent command. She opened her eyes and gazed into his face.

  “You still want me.” It wasn’t a question. “You’re still mine… and I’m still all yours.”

  And just like that, she lost the battle. Turning her head, she kissed his fingers. “I’ll always want you.”

  Chapter Ten

  A half a second after he pulled the trigger of his rifle, Jason had the satisfaction of watching through his scope as his target’s head exploded. The satisfaction was short lived as the enemy forces responded with several well placed shots at his position, forcing him to duck and take cover.

  The mission had gone to hell in a hand basket not long after they landed. Intel had gotten it wrong again and this time the enemy seemed to know they were coming. The drop-shuttle had taken a direct hit from a surface to air missile not long after they disembarked. What was left of their escape plan was now in a thousand pieces scattered all over the desert.

  The entire situation had turned from bad to worse when the damned weather changed and a sandstorm blew in making sure that any further support from the ship would be impossible. He checked his comms and the static that greeted him reminded him that the fuckers had set up a jamming array; a pretty big one too since it managed to defeat the Alliance comms systems. Somewhat easy since the atmospheric distortion field made communication hard enough already. Ther
e went calling for evac or for an orbital strike.

  The sandstorm had managed to help them a little bit though. The city streets had been a death trap and they managed to navigate their way to a decently defensible two storey building atop a low hill. Unfortunately it didn’t count for much since they got the short end of the stick again on numbers and firepower.

  They were surrounded. No way out.

  “Will you bastards just fuck off.” Arita snarled from the other side of the room as she laid down a quick barrage of automatic fire. Jason spared her a glance. She was cut, bleeding from the left side of her lip from when a stray bullet had chipped the wall next to her, and a hastily wrapped field dressing covered her left thigh. Just a glancing wound but the sight of her injured still made his guts churn.

  At least the comms for the team were still working. “Drew, how’s it going at the north side?”

  “Bad. At least a dozen foot-mobiles setting up a perimeter. Thermals show they’re digging in for the long haul. I don’t think they’re going away anytime soon.”

  Fuck. “What are they packing?”

  “Standard assault rifles, a light machine gun, at least one of them with a grenade launcher. These guys mean business.”

  “Wow I’m flattered. Normally they usually reserve the grenade launchers for when they’re really scared.” He chuckled over the comms.

  The north was blocked off; the south and east were houses and by now pretty much garrisoned. The west was open desert but in this storm, they wouldn’t last out there. They’d get swamped or just as easily get lost along the way and end up right in the middle of the enemy stronghold. Not a good idea.

  He saw movement outside and easily picked off the sneaky bastard with well placed rounds to the chest. The high velocity of the bullets sent his quarry twirling like a little tornado before collapsing to the ground. The thermal scope showed no more movement.

  “One down, south.” He called out.

  Jason caught Arita’s gaze as if it were planned. He laughed in spite of their situation. “You know we should be reasonable and at least give them a chance to surrender.”

  She lifted an eyebrow, but broke the look to fire off another volley. Screams rent the air. “It would be only fair. After all, there aren’t that many of them. It hardly seems sporting, now does it?”

  “Yeah. We’re professional soldiers. It’ll be like a courtesy. And then we wouldn’t need to waste any more ammo.” He caught two more flankers and put them in the ground with precise fire.

  The sandstorm wasn’t going to last forever. Those bastards wouldn’t be able to get reinforcements until it was over and they wouldn’t be able advance either. Unfortunately the same could be said for the three of them. They were covered on the three sides that mattered and once the storm blew over, the bad guys outside would have enough visibility and manpower to storm the building and take them out. Or worse…

  He had been captured before. Three months in a hell hole being tortured for information with all means possible used against him. The physical part had been pretty bad but the psychological had been worse. Alone, cut off and disavowed…a man couldn’t be any more vulnerable at any other time.

  But he remembered the moment he first laid eyes on Arita. She was a fighter and he knew she would take down as many of them as she could if it ever came to that. But she could still be taken. What had happened to her in the warehouse that first day they met could have gotten a lot worse had things gone differently. He had been on some rescue missions himself. He’d seen what could happen. He didn’t want that happening to her.

  It was a stupid thing to be thinking about considering that she was a professional soldier and one of the best but…she was more to him than that. He looked at her as she opened fire with her rifle. They had fought together. He had seen her at her most vulnerable and he wanted to be nowhere else but at her side, holding her, making it all better. His better judgment always went out the window where she was concerned. Drew saw it and he knew it but Jason didn’t care. Arita had become as important to him as breathing, as important to him as living.

  He loved her.

  The realization stunned him. Rocked him to his core. He was in love. Him, Jason Scott, player extraordinaire. Master of the quick chat up and one night stand. But as soon as he’d seen her, tied to that pipe in a filthy warehouse and covered in blood and bruises, that had been it. He’d been hers and ever would be.

  “Jason… Jason. Snap out of it!” she yelled, motioning to the window. Jason shook his head and lined up the two hostiles trying to storm the building. Two sharp retorts from his rifle and they hit the ground, scarlet staining the dirt.

  “Shit, I’m low on ammo.” The comm crackled in his ear as she spoke to him and Drew. “Round count, how much have you two got?”

  “One and a half mags.” Jason heard Drew pause followed by two shots before he spoke again. “Still full load for my sidearm, three mags.Two grenades.”

  Jason shrugged carelessly. “Last mag. Three for the sidearm. One grenade and all our demo charges.”

  Saying it was bad was like saying the sun was a little toasty.

  “Shit,” she muttered, looking out at the surroundings speculatively. He knew what she was thinking. Could almost see her mind turning over as she tried to work a plan to get them out of here. There wasn’t one. He knew that and she did. But she tried anyway.

  “We drop to the ground floor, shoot our way out and make a break for it—”

  “Even with the storm, they’d still spot us with all the fire we’d be dishing out. We’d be dead before we make it past their perimeter.”

  Jason unslung his rifle from his shoulder and pulled out his sidearm. “South and east are buildings crawling with foot-mobiles. That’s a death trap if I’ve ever seen one. West is open desert and plain suicide. North’s pretty much the only way to go. They’re not fully entrenched yet and mostly in the open themselves.”

  He sighed as he leaned against the wall. “Problem is that if they do get reinforcements, they will be coming from that side and that machine gun and grenade launcher is a cause for concern.”

  Arita shook her head, checking her pistol. Her full lips were compressed, the look in her eyes hard.

  “It’s the only option. We’re more mobile and more motivated. We need to punch through the north side if we have any chance of getting out of here.” Alive. She didn’t add the last word. Didn’t need to. They were both thinking it.

  Shoving the sidearm back into her holster, she checked the knife the other side, making sure it pulled free cleanly. The hallmarks of a soldier about to run the gauntlet. His gut twisted with fear for her as she looked up. Her gaze was clear and direct. Honest.

  “Jason…about us.”

  He managed a tired smile. “We know it’s a really bad situation when we finally talk about the white elephant in the room isn’t it?” With a remarkably upbeat voice, he called over the comms to Drew. “Hey buddy, you’ve got the north well covered there?”

  “All good. I’ve got a bead on anyone coming this way.”

  “Sounds good man.”

  His gaze turned to Arita and his eyes lowered to the crude dressing on her thigh. “You’ve got excellent timing you know that? Right when it’s most inconvenient…”

  Irritation flared in her eyes for a second. “We can not talk about it, if you prefer.”

  “You know I do Arita.” He sobered, amusement gone. “For a long time I’ve been thinking of what I’d be able to say, maybe something smart and witty but romantic. Unfortunately that part of my brain seems to take a vacation every time I try to do that. There was so much I wanted to tell you but words failed me. Then it was never the right time until this damned mission came up.”

  Her eyes sparkled with suspicious moisture but he held her gaze anyway, trying to put everything he couldn’t say into his eyes.

  “I’m not good at this stuff either,” she admitted, her voice soft. Time slowed, an eternity from one moment to the
next as he just looked at her, knowing full well that this could be their last conversation. Dropping her gaze, she twisted the bracelet off her wrist, one she’d worn in and out of uniform since he’d known her, and held it out.

  Jason appreciated the rustic appeal of the beautiful bracelet as he took it in his hands. It was old and was probably an heirloom as he took note of the intricate painstaking engravings in the coppery brown metal. There were words engraved in a script that he didn’t quite understand but as he touched them, the way it seemed to matter to her, he was struck by the meaning of this gift. He slipped the bracelet over his wrist and then he felt as if the courage to say the words he wanted to say came over him. He had known what to say all along.

  “I love you.”

  “You’ll make me cry,” she accused, dashing at her eyes with the back of a hand. Even that simple movement fascinated him, as he stored everything, every little detail and imprinted it on his memory.

  He was looking at her intently, lovingly trying to memorize everything about her. From the way her eyes sparkled and her whole face lit up when she smiled to the gentle ridges on her face that she didn’t care for but he thought were delicately beautiful. She looked like she meant business now, a warrior at home on the battlefield but he also tried to remember the way she had been when it had just been the two of them. He remembered the way she gave him everything and held nothing back.

  “Come on, we need to get out of here.”

  She stood up, holding her hand out to help him up. The softness in her eyes, and the resignation almost did him in. She hauled him to his feet, and he responded by pulling her into his arms.

  It wasn’t the most romantic of embraces, not with them both holding weaponry, but he didn’t care. Gently he rubbed his nose against hers, not caring that they were in the middle of a war zone. Her gaze locked with his and she smiled softly.

  “I love you too.”

  “Aww… I love you too guys. Does this mean I get a kiss too?” Drew tried not to laugh over the comms.

  “Sure buddy. You can kiss my ass later.” Jason retorted but the smile wouldn’t leave his face.