“It’s not like I wanted it.” Her face flushed bright red and she dropped her chopsticks, looking away from me.
“He put his fingers in you,” I stated. “You let him violate you on the stage in front of all those other men. Why didn’t you stop him? You could have called Storm over and he would have thrown his ass out.”
“Because I wanted to find my daughter,” she snapped, her face swiveling sharply to face me. I didn’t see any shame or embarrassment on her face anymore. The only thing I saw now was resolve, but then tears started slipping down her cheeks as reality caught up with her. “He was obviously powerful and I thought…Don’t judge me,” she said as she swiped the tears from her face. “I know that I shouldn’t have allowed it, but I was desperate. I’m still desperate and if he wanted me in exchange for my daughter being free, I would do it in a heartbeat.”
“But you don’t know that he even knows anything about your daughter. You’re assuming that he’s involved, but the truth is, we have no idea if he just would have had information or if he was part of her kidnapping.”
I was trying to hold in my anger. I knew she was looking at this from a mother’s perspective, but we needed to do this logically, not with our emotions.
“I can’t keep doing this,” she said quietly. “I need to get my daughter back. She’s only four. I have no idea what’s happening with her and that’s killing me. Every day that she’s gone, she’s losing a little piece of herself and becoming someone that someone else wants her to be. It’s been six months!”
She stood and walked over to the window, staring out into the darkness. I didn’t even think twice as I walked over to her and wrapped my arms around her. “Just hold onto your hope. Without that, you have nothing.”
She leaned her head back against my chest with a sigh, holding my arms tight to her. “I’m trying.”
“Hey,” I turned her around to face me and held her jaw, forcing her to look at me. “We’re not giving up, but we have to be careful. I don’t want you running off on your own. If The Broker is really wanting you for himself, we have to keep you safe and hidden. He can’t know where you are and you can’t go out looking for your daughter. If he takes you, what would your daughter come home to?”
She sighed, but nodded slightly. “I can try to stay hidden, but I can’t promise that I won’t look for my daughter. Please, don’t ask me to.”
The pleading look in her eyes was one that I understood all too well. It was the same look that a soldier gave when he was about to die and had one last request, something he needed to be at peace with before he died. We came to an understanding of sorts that night, one that involved a little give and take on both our parts. Nothing was set in stone, but at least there was some common ground between us now.
“Are you going to sleep on the floor again tonight?”
“I was planning to,” I said hesitantly.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Why did you flip out this morning?” I raised an eyebrow in question. She thought I was flipping out, but I was pretty sure she was the one that had lost her mind.
“Okay, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’ve made yourself awfully at home in my house. It was just a little too much.”
“In what way?”
“Well, with the whole grocery shopping thing and the laundry. This isn’t your house and we’re not in a relationship. I don’t want you to start thinking that since you’re staying here a few days that you can have run of my house. This is all temporary and the sex is just sex. I won’t ever want more with you and I’m not going to change my mind on that.”
Her lips were twitching and there was a twinkle in her eyes that was confusing me. It seemed like she was trying not to laugh at me.
“What? Why is that funny?”
She burst out laughing, doubling over and holding her stomach. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be laughing, but you’re just so serious and-”
“You’re damn right I’m serious. I’m not joking around here, Morgan. This is my house and I’m not gonna tolerate any bullshit.”
She laughed even harder, and the more she laughed, the more pissed I became. I hated women that couldn’t take my lack of relationships seriously. Like they could change me or make me a man that would see the light and suddenly want it all.
“I’m sorry, it’s just that…you think I want a relationship….with you,” she said, laughing between her words. She calmed herself enough to speak and bit her lip to stop any residual giggles. I was actually a little offended how she stated that she didn’t want a relationship with me, like the idea that I could make her happy was laughable. “I don’t want a relationship, Chance. I like sex with you, but that’s all I want. As for this morning, I just wanted to thank you for giving me a place to stay and for looking out for me. I wasn’t trying to make something between us.”
“But…you offered to fold my laundry. That’s domestic bullshit.”
“I only offered because you looked at me strangely. I figured you were thinking that I should fold it if I washed it.”
“So…you really weren’t trying to move in and…”
“Become a housewife? No, I have bigger ambitions in life than to wait on a man and make sure his socks are ironed.”
“I don’t actually iron my socks,” I said in irritation.
“So, you’re good with having sex while I’m here? Cuz, I liked the sex last night, but the floor was uncomfortable.”
“Who are you kidding? You were laying on me all night like I was a pillow. I was the one with my back on the hard floor all night.”
“Aw, would you like me to kiss it and make it better?”
I bent over and threw her over my shoulder. She squealed and I smacked her ass as I headed to the bedroom. “You bet your ass you’re gonna kiss something, but it ain’t gonna be my ass.”
✯✯✯✯✯
“I like fucking you,” Morgan said as we laid in postcoital bliss.
She was laying on her side of the bed and I was on mine. It felt like there was an ocean between us, even though this was what we both wanted. Except, she looked like she was perfectly happy and for some reason, I was wishing she had laid on top of me like she had last night. I didn’t want the whole package, but feeling her pressed against me was nice. But I had thrown down the gauntlet, making it perfectly clear that there never would be anything between us. I couldn’t tell her I wanted her in my arms after the fight I put up.
“Same here, sweet cheeks.”
What else was I supposed to say? I looked over at her, thinking maybe she was just hiding the need to be in my arms, but she had her eyes closed and a smile on her face. I rolled my eyes, crossing my arms over my chest with a manly pout. This shit wasn’t right. She was supposed to want me to hold her. She was the one that was supposed to be tripping over herself to get just a small piece of me. Yet, here I was, sulking because she was content on her side of the bed. It didn’t even make any fucking sense. I really didn’t want a girlfriend. I didn’t want a commitment or someone even thinking she had some say in my life. I never wanted to feel like I was being used again. And Morgan was making it perfectly clear that the only way she was using me was for her own pleasure. And that actually kind of hurt.
“So, what’s the plan for tomorrow?”
She wanted to talk about tomorrow? We’d just gotten done screwing and she was already thinking about tomorrow. Talk about a kick to the nuts.
“We’ll meet up with Becky and see if she can verify anything Arnold told you.”
She turned to me, propped up on her elbow and rested her head in her hand. “And if what he said is true? Where do we go from there?”
“We have to figure out if we can link The Broker to the other cases. If so, we need to get our hands on him, which won’t be easy. He’s got tighter security than the President.”
I stared at her breasts as they hung heavily to the side. They were perfect, full with large nip
ples that I wanted to suck into my mouth. I could very easily get attached to this woman’s body. Everything from her creamy skin that was so smooth to her sexy curves that made her ass sway as she walked gave me a hard on.
“-just the guy with information.”
I shook my head, trying to regain my focus. I hadn’t heard most of what she said and she could tell by my lack of response. “Sorry, say that again.”
“I said that even if he is connected, he’s probably not the guy that we really want. He’s rich and has too much to lose to actually be involved in anything that could get him in trouble with the law. He’s just the guy with information.”
“A guy with information can be very useful, but you’re probably right. He probably just gathers information from around the city and turns it over to whoever’s in charge. I would guess that he very rarely finds out who the targets are or how they’re sold. That would make him an accomplice. Everything else would be hard to prove in a court of law.”
“You know, if the sex trafficking ring is related at all to the ring that takes the children, we could send someone undercover to find out more information. I could-”
“No,” I said forcefully, sitting up and turning away from her. The thought of her ever being in a sex trafficking ring made my stomach churn. “Don’t even think of offering yourself up as bait. There’s no way to communicate with us. Every woman would be searched first and after that, most of the women are drugged to keep them under control. We wouldn’t even have a very good chance of getting a trained person out of a situation like that.”
“Then how do we find out who’s behind this?”
I didn’t have an answer for her. I hadn’t dealt with something like this before and I would have to rely on others to help guide me. I was a killer. I gained intel by watching and waiting. I didn’t think that would work in this situation.
I sat back down on the bed and looked into her desperate eyes. “I don’t know,” I said quietly. “We wait until morning and see what Becky has. That’s all we can do. There’s no point in trying to figure it out until we have more information to go on.”
Her face fell and she plopped down on her back, staring up at the ceiling. I laid down beside her and pulled her into my chest. I told myself it was to comfort her, but it was really to get what had been missing after we had sex. We laid in silence for the longest time, just staring at the ceiling, her resting her head against my chest and listening to my heart thump. It was the most at peace I had ever felt.
“Why did your wife leave you?”
I was taken aback by her question. I had been expecting more talk of getting her daughter back and my wife rarely entered my mind anymore. “She didn’t like me being gone all the time. She said she couldn’t handle it.”
“Is that really the reason she left?” It was like she could read my mind, like she knew that it was just an excuse that I made up to get through the day. I found that for once, I didn’t want to lie about it. I didn’t want to give the whole, my job is too dangerous speech.
“She was using me,” I admitted quietly. “She saw me as a meal ticket. One that she wouldn’t have to actually deal with. Every penny that I earned, she took for keeping up the house. She said she couldn’t work while I was away, that she was too depressed to hold down a job. And I believed her. I kept telling myself that I would get out and make something real with her. When I told her that I was coming home, she made me believe that she really was excited. But when I walked through the door, she was already packed. It wasn’t more than six months later that we were divorced and she was living with another guy.”
“How can you be sure that she was lying?”
“After she left, I found a letter from my commander. He was asking me to reconsider re-enlisting. See, you can’t just get out of a contract. I served my full contract and then requested to be discharged, which is pretty damn difficult to achieve. With how much money is spent training a SEAL, they really don’t approve that many people to be discharged unless it’s for medical reasons or misconduct. I had to fight tooth and nail, and I hated every damn minute of it. I didn’t want to leave The Teams and I sure as hell didn’t want to leave the men I served with. But I fought for her, and in the end, she was already gone.”
“If she wanted to leave, why didn’t you just re-enlist?”
That was a good question, one I still wasn’t quite sure I had the answer to. “Embarrassment maybe? I think I was so ashamed that I had pushed to leave The Teams and then she left me. I had given up on my brothers for nothing. I guess I didn’t want to be seen as a fool.”
“Is that really how you see it? That you were a fool for trying to make her happy?”
She looked at me skeptically, but she had hit the nail on the head. That was exactly how I felt.
“Have you ever given everything to someone and they just walked away like you never really meant anything?”
“Yeah,” she said after a minute. “I spent years with Matt, Payton’s father. When he found out I was pregnant, he was gone the very same night I told him. There was no thinking it over. He didn’t stay in contact with me. He didn’t even call to see if we had a boy or a girl. I sent him a letter saying that I had the baby and he could come visit if he wanted. I never heard from him. Yeah, I can say I felt like a fool for believing that what we had was strong enough to make it through anything.”
“He was an asshole for walking away.”
“She was a bitch for walking out after begging you to be with her.”
We sat in silence, holding each other and comforting each other for what our loved ones did to us. It was strange to think that I could talk to a woman that I was fucking and feel more commiseration with her than the men I worked with that had fought for our country and understood the horrors we saw. Knowing that she not only lost the man she loved, but was raising her child on her own seemed like a low blow. Her child being kidnapped and losing the one thing that made her life whole was something I couldn’t even begin to comprehend. I got over leaving the Navy. I didn’t think she would ever get over it if she didn’t find Payton.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Morgan
FOR THE FIRST time in six months, I slept through the night and actually felt refreshed when I woke up. It was because of Chance. The way we talked last night made me feel like I wasn’t completely alone, like what happened to us shaped us into untrusting shells of who we once were, and we both understood the feeling. I fell asleep on his chest with his arm wrapped around me. His body warmed me all night, making me feel like there was a safety net surrounding me. The steady beat of his heart lulled me to sleep and was the first thing I felt when I woke in the morning.
Chance’s phone dinged a few minutes after I woke up and I felt him come awake beneath me. He pulled the phone off his nightstand and then set it back down.
“We’re supposed to meet at Reed Security this afternoon. They’re still looking into a few things.”
I nodded against his chest, but didn’t move. It was probably wrong of me, but I didn’t want to leave the cocoon of his arms just yet. For a fuck buddy, he was doing a really good job of holding me together when I felt like I might lose it.
“Tell me something about Payton,” he said quietly.
A million memories ran through my mind all at once. It was hard to think of which one to share. “She’s got blonde hair that is really thick and wavy. It looks like I actually curl her hair every morning. And her eyes are the most beautiful, vibrant shade of blue with a dark ring on the outside of her irises. Everyone always said her eyes were captivating.”
I fell quiet, wondering if he wanted to hear more or if he was just trying to be nice.
“What’s she like?”
“She’s very outgoing. She loves to make new friends and she would help anyone that needed it. She’s the sweetest little girl you’ve ever met, but has an attitude that could rival a teenager’s when she gets in a mood.” I laughed, thinking about her sassier moments. “Wh
en she was three, she was all about being a little girl and playing dress up. Being a princess was the ultimate at playtime. But when she turned four, her attitude came out more and more. She would cock her hip and put a hand on her hip. She could pose like she was a model without having any lessons and her hair always had to be done in a cute hairdo that made her look and feel like a princess. She always wanted her nails painted so that she could look just like me.”
He picked up my hand and studied my fingers. “You don’t wear nail polish.”
“Not anymore. I used to like to go for manicures when I got the chance, but I just didn’t have the desire to do it once I lost her. On the day she turned four, I took her for a manicure and pedicure at my favorite salon to make her feel like a big girl. All the ladies in the shop were saying how beautiful she was. I even got a call a few months back asking when I would be bringing her in again. All the ladies wanted to see how big she had gotten. That was an awkward conversation. They hadn’t heard about her disappearance.”
“How did they not hear? Amber alerts go out for every missing child.”
“I’m not sure. I guess not everyone pays attention.” We both fell into silence for a moment, but now I had a burning question. “Do you think there was ever a possibility that someone would have been able to save her? Or do you think this was a well orchestrated kidnapping?”
He swiveled his head so he could see me better. “I think there’s nothing you could have done. You can’t keep someone in a box to keep them safe. You have to live life, and unfortunately, there are bad people in this world that prey on those that are weaker. It was a terrible twist of fate, but none of that is your fault.”
It was kind of scary how well he could read my thoughts. Yes, I did blame myself for her disappearance. I had chosen to take her to a daycare provider that I didn’t know, and because of that, she was put in danger she might not have been in otherwise.
“What do you think you’ll do when you get her back?”
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