MILITARY ROMANCE: The War Within Himself (Alpha Bad Boy Marine Army Seal) (Contemporary Military Suspense & Thriller Romance)

by Claire Branson

  Then again, “anything” had never involved Tristan Jacobsen professing her love for her.

  “I fucking love you.”

  “Yeah, Tristan,” Sharee said quietly to the empty room, “I ‘fucking love you’ too. Now, if you would only return my calls…”

  The sharp, intruding sound of the buzzer nearly made her jump out of her skin. Sharee looked up at the watch that hung on the wall. It was three quarters to one in the morning. It was probably just some kids pulling a prank, but she’d better investigate anyway. She got off the couch and over to the door, and she pressed the mic’s button on the buzzer’s controls.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Tristan.”

  Sharee froze. She had not expected this. She looked around in a panic, and then down at herself, and then she realized she didn’t care that she had not mopped the floors that day or that she was wearing pajama bottoms and a tank top.

  “Come on up,” she said, reluctantly. She buzzed him in and unlocked the front door, and she waited.

  He knocked when he got to her floor, and Sharee rolled her eyes. Sure, now he was being considerate.

  “Come in,” she called.

  She picked up the remote and turned off the TV, and then she finally turned around to face him. She didn’t spot it at first, but when she did, her mind drew a blank for a few seconds. And then she spurred into action.

  “Oh my God!” she cried, all but flying over to him. “What happened?”

  Tristan gave her a tight smile. “Hunting accident.”

  “What?” Sharee stared at the blood staining his T-shirt at the height of his right shoulder.

  “It’s all right,” he reassured. “The bullet went straight through. But I need the wound to be cleaned, and…well…I would really prefer not to go to a hospital.”

  Sharee’s brain was working a mile a minute just to keep up. “Tristan, you don’t hunt,” she said, and then she mentally kicked herself. As if that was what mattered right then!

  A somewhat bitter smirk appeared on Tristan’s face. “Oh, yes, I do.”

  Sharee frowned. She decided that she would ask him about it later; right now, they had way more pressing matters to take care of.

  “You’re going to a hospital,” she decided.

  “I told you, I don’t—”

  “Well, what’s your plan?” she snapped. “Bleed out on my floor?”

  Infuriatingly enough, Tristan’s smirk widened. “No. I was hoping you could patch me up.”

  “Patch you…I don’t know the first thing about ‘patching up’ bullet wounds, Tristan!”

  “I do.”

  Sharee opened her mouth and closed it again. Just what the hell did he mean, he did? How could he possibly know? Once again, she decided to save the questions for later.

  “Please, Sharee,” he said. “I’ll guide you through the whole process. I’ll be fine, I promise.”

  Sharee watched him skeptically. He really seemed to be hell bent to avoid hospitals at all costs. She figured if she didn’t help him out, he would probably run off on her and bleed to death in some alley.

  “Fine,” she finally said, unable to believe her own words. “Guide me through it.

  It was a slow, painful process. Sharee felt like she was in a bad movie. Following Tristan’s instructions, she cleaned and bandaged the wound, while he drank from an ancient bottle of bourbon she had found hidden away in the recesses of her kitchen’s cupboards.

  “You need some painkillers,” she declared once she was done. She washed her hands in the sink and watched as water and blood went down the drain. It all felt very surreal.

  “Painkillers and alcohol don’t mix, darling,” he said.

  Sharee rolled her eyes. “Sure, now you decide to be careful.” She turned off the water, dried her hands, and guided him back to the living room and onto the couch. Surprisingly enough, he didn’t protest.

  She sat down next to him and stared at him. “What the hell happened?”

  Tristan shrugged mindlessly and instantly hissed at the movement. Sharee winced with him.

  “I told you,” he said. “Hunting accident. I got too close.”

  “Too close to what?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Never mind?” She stared at him incredulously. “You go MIA for three days, then you show up at my door in the middle of the night, bleeding. And you still have the nerve to say, ‘never mind’?”

  He cringed visibly. “Put it like that, I don’t come off too well.”

  “Geez, you think?”

  He smiled. He took a deep breath and leaned back against the couch’s cushions. “I’m sorry, Sharee,” he said after a few moments of silence. “I really am. I behaved like an ass.”

  In spite of herself, Sharee had to smile too. “You’ve been behaving like…uh…that, for a while now. I need to know what’s going on.” She waited, and when he didn’t reply she finally asked, “Do I still have a job?”

  He turned his head sharply to look at her. “What are you talking about? Of course you have a job?”

  Sharee shrugged. “You didn’t contact me for three days. I began to wonder.”

  “Well, never wonder about that. You’ll always have a job with me, if you want it.” He stared at her. “Do you still want it?”

  His eyes looked impossibly blue in the dim light of her living room. Sharee swallowed. “I want it,” she said after a moment. “But we need to set a few things straight first.”

  Tristan nodded. “Fair enough.”

  “Did you mean it? What you said the other day,” she clarified.

  This time, Tristan didn’t ask her what she was talking about. He knew. “Yes,” he said. “I meant it. I never meant to tell you, but I meant it.”

  “Why didn’t you want to tell me?”

  “Well, it kind of complicates things, doesn’t it?”

  Sharee smiled. “A little,” she admitted.

  “Can you forget I said it?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  “I can’t forget,” Sharee said, “because I love you too.”

  Tristan stared at her. He sat up straighter. “You do?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  He looked at her like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You…uh…are you sure?”

  Sharee laughed. What kind of question was that? “I’m sure,” she said.

  “Well, in that case…” he began after a moment where he visibly took in the enormity of that information, “…would you mind very much if I kissed you now?”

  Was he nuts? Sharee had been fantasizing about his lips for two years now. “I wouldn’t mind at all.”

  As it turned out, reality was a lot better than her fantasies. Tristan’s kiss was tender and yet firm, oozing quiet strength and a protective instinct Sharee knew nothing about until he cupped her nape as though she was made of glass. He scooted closer to her on the couch, and she wrapped an arm around his waist, mindful of not jolting him too much.

  Tristan’s tongue explored her mouth as though he was entering a secret world. Sharee moaned against his lips. Soon he had her pressed against the arm of the couch, their bodies so close together she could feel the heat of his skin through the thin cotton fabric of her tank top. She ran her hand on the naked skin of his back, his torn-up T-shirt having been forgotten on the bathroom floor.

  Sharee could feel fire being awakened within her.

  And then, just like that, he pulled back. His blue eyes were wide and his breathing was erratic, and she had the sinking feeling it had nothing to do with sexual desire.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She looked at him uncomprehendingly. “What are you sorry for?”

  “I can’t. I can’t do this. I’m sorry.” He disentangled from her embrace and stood on unsteady feet.

  “Tristan, where are you going?” Sharee could feel a sense of alarm coming to squeeze her stomach.

  Tristan shook his head. “I’m sorry. God…I
…I’m so sorry. I can’t. I just can’t.”

  She watched in shock as he all but ran out of her apartment. The door slammed shut behind him. Sharee sat on the couch in her now empty home and stared at the closed door, dumbfounded. What the hell just happened?

  Chapter 4: Werewolf

  After about fifteen minutes of trying to understand what had just occurred in her living room, Sharee decided that she’d had enough. She was not going to let him run away again. She was not going to let him call the shots again. She was not going to wait another three days by the phone, wondering just what the hell was going on.

  She got dressed quickly, and five minutes after her decision she was speeding through the deserted night roads of Moonville, headed for the cottage on the edge of the forest. A whirlwind of emotions swirled within her chest. Shock. Confusion. Anger. Hurt. Did he really think he could just jerk her around like that?

  Well, I’ve got news for you, mister, Sharee thought furiously. You can’t.

  The car screeched to a halt in front of Tristan’s out, and Sharee was out of the vehicle almost before she had finished hitting the brakes. She slammed the car door shut behind her and marched up to the house.

  She never made it to the front porch. There was something in the darkness, laying in the grass in front of the porch’s steps. Sharee froze. Surely she was hallucinating. She fumbled in her pocket for her cellphone and turned on the flashlight. Her blood ran cold.

  There, a few steps away from her, lay the biggest wolf she had never seen. Actually, she had never seen a wolf before, but she felt like this had to be a big one. It was gray, and he was staring at her.

  Sharee swallowed past her mounting dread. She took a step back. The wolf got up, calmly.

  Oh God. OhGodohGodohGod…

  Sharee took a deep breath. She knew if she panicked, she was dead.

  The wolf advanced upon her. Sharee willed her legs to move and take her a few further steps back, but her body wouldn’t obey her brain’s commands.

  Oh God.

  The wolf got closer, and when it was finally in front of her…it sat down. Sharee blinked. It didn’t look like the animal was about to attack her. She stared at it in wonder. She examined it in the light of the flashlight. The wolf was staring back at her…

  …and it had blue eyes.

  The phone dropped from Sharee’s suddenly nerveless fingers, landing softly on the wet grass.

  I must be going insane.

  “Tristan…?” she ventured. And then she laughed out loud, because yes, she was definitely going crazy. Fear was driving her mad.

  The wolf made a sound in the back of its throat. And then it happened. There was a shift in the air, like watching the horizon on a very hot summer day. The animal’s shape became blurry…until it wasn’t an animal anymore. Until Tristan Jacobsen was standing in front of her in all of his naked glory.

  Sharee stared at him. Her brain simply could not process what her eyes were seeing.

  “Hello, darling,” Tristan said. Sharee fainted.

  * * *

  She woke up feeling light-headed, and it was a few moments before she could find it within herself to sit up. She was terrified of what she would see, but to her relief, she found herself on the couch in the living room…

  …except that it wasn’t her living room. It was Tristan’s living room. The fire crackled away happily in the fireplace. Tristan was sitting on the armchair next to the couch, and he was watching her intently.

  Sharee looked over at him. “I…uh…I had the weirdest dream.”

  He smiled. He picked up a mug from the coffee table and handed it to her. “Here.”

  Sharee accepted it gratefully. She smiled when she saw that it was hot cocoa with little marshmallows floating in it. “Thank you,” she said.

  Tristan let her take a few sips, and then he gave her an apologetic smile. “It was no dream, darlin’.”

  Sharee stared at him. “I beg your pardon?” she said.

  “It was no dream,” he reiterated.

  She watched him, and sure enough he was wearing only his jeans, and there was a bandage on his right shoulder.

  “You mean to tell me…” Sharee licked her lips nervously. The lingering taste of the chocolate there did nothing to soothe her nerves. “You mean to tell me that you did come to my place with a bullet wound in your shoulder?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you mean to tell me that we kissed and then you ran away?”

  He had the good grace to look embarrassed. “Yes.”

  “And you mean to tell me that I drove over here, and that I ran into a wolf outside your door?”

  He cringed visibly. “Uh…yeah.”

  Sharee took a deep breath. “And you mean to tell me that wolf was you?”

  He didn’t say anything, just stared back at her. She could read the confirmation in his blue eyes.

  There were a thousand things she wanted to say. What she finally said was, “Are you shitting me?”

  Tristan laughed. He sobered up quickly. “I’m sorry, darlin’,” he said. “I wish I were.”

  Finally, he told her just what was going on with him. He turned once, for good measure, and when Sharee got over this second shock, he told her his story. He told her he was born into it, that both his parents were werewolves.

  Sharee had always pictured werewolves as more beastly, but Tristan told her that Native Americans were the one who actually got it right. Werewolves—and other were-creatures—were skinwalkers. Once a month, when the moon was full, they would leave behind their human form and take on that of the animal they shared their nature with. In Tristan’s case, a wolf.

  Tristan told her about how he was still himself, even when he turned. He told her about how were-creatures didn’t actually lose themselves and their sanity when they turned. He told her their conscience remained the same. He told her the urge to turn and run wild was becoming stronger as he grew older, and that he was having some trouble adjusting.

  All in all, it explained his weird behavior of the past couple of months. Still, Sharee still had some trouble digesting all the information.

  “What about the hunting accident?” she asked then.

  Tristan chuckled. “I was hungry. I got too close to old Smith’s farm. His dogs freaked out, alerting him. He saw me and took a shot at me. I wasn’t quick enough to run away.”

  Sharee stared at him. “That is the weirdest story I have ever heard.”

  Tristan laughed. “I bet it is.”

  They lapsed into silence then. Sharee allowed herself some time to let it all sink in.

  “Is that why you ran away from me?” she asked then.

  Tristan nodded. “I love you,” he said again, sincerely. His eyes were dark blue in the light of the flames. “But I can’t be with you.”

  “Why not?”

  He looked at her as though she had just asked him the stupidest question in the whole wide world. “You can’t be with a werewolf.”

  “Says who?”

  Tristan stared at her. “What?”

  Sharee smiled. “I may not understand your nature yet,” she said, “but I’m willing to try. I sure as hell am not scared of you.”

  He looked at her with wide eyes, like he didn’t quite dare to hope. “You’re not?”

  “I’m not,” she confirmed “I love you too, remember?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “There’s no but here, Tristan,” Sharee told him gently. “I want to be with you. If you’ll have me.”

  “Are you kidding? You’re the one who should be bolting for the door.”

  “I’m still here.”

  “Yeah.” Tristan smiled. “You are.”

  He kissed her again, a lot more passionately than before. Sharee went with that passion, letting her fire be rekindled and herself be burnt by it. There was something wild and ancestral in the way Tristan made love. He loved with all of his body, and he loved all of her. He worshiped every inch of her naked skin.
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  When he entered her, Sharee’s world exploded in a white light of pleasure. Tristan’s thrust were languid, wanting strokes. His skin was hot underneath her fingertips. Everything was fire with Tristan. Sharee arched up into him, accompanying his every movement. Tristan’s wild nature enveloped them both, and as he did things to her that she had only read about in novels, Sharee embraced it completely.

  Later, as they lay spent and sated on the rug in front of the fire, Sharee stared into the flames and listened to Tristan’s heartbeat from where her head lay upon his chest. His good arm was wrapped around her shoulders, relaxed but still protective.

  “I need you to think about this, darlin’,” he said quietly, finally breaking the blissful silence that had descended upon them.

  Sharee tilted her chin up to look at him. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t think you really know what you’re signing up for here.”

  “I don’t,” she admitted. “But you said it yourself, you’re still you, even when you’re in wolf form. That’s enough for me.”

  “How can it be enough?”

  Sharee shrugged. “Knowing that I won’t have to worry about you killing someone once a month is kind of reassuring.”

  Tristan chuckled, deep in his throat. She heard the wolf in the guttural quality of that sound. “I never killed anyone,” he reassured her again. “But I will kill something.”

  Sharee lifted herself up on one elbow and stared down at him. “How do you mean?”

  “I need to hunt, Sharee,” he explained. “Deer. Chickens. You name it.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Something tells me the chickens will be safe for a while.”

  He laughed again. “How are you taking this so well?”

  Sharee thought about it. “I don’t know,” she conceded. “I just am.”

  It was astonishingly simple to her. Sure, the knowledge that were-creatures were out there and that Tristan was one of them would take some adjusting, but for all that she tried, Sharee couldn’t bring herself to see it as a reason to walk away.