I shrug slightly and sigh, aggrieved—or pretending to be at least—as he lights up a cigar and throws me one, motioning me over. Once we’re both puffing away at them, he turns and walks into his own room, leaving the door open.
I follow, stifling a grin, and click it closed softly before taking a seat as he reclines on the bed, his blue eyes patient and deadly.
“You didn’t think I’d expose my woman, and all your women for that matter, to Shadow without a back-up plan, did you?”
The ass grins and just looks over at me silently, waiting for me to answer his many unasked questions. That’s one of the things I respect about my old friend, the man doesn’t need to say a word and you know where he stands. Right now…
“You’re a piece of work, Gun, no joke. First you screw us all over, make us mourn you, and then it turns out that you pimped your own woman out to your best friend.”
“Jericho—”
“You know the worst part about that shit, man? We would have helped you with whatever you needed if you’d trusted us enough to tell us.”
I know, I think sadly, puffing on the expensive cigar as I watch Jericho watch me. He was always a favorite of mine, even though Blaze, Lex, and even King were more my friends.
Those days were wild and gave me a freedom that I cherished because I knew it wouldn’t last. A freedom I have bled and worked for. Now that it’s within my grasp, I find myself balancing on the knife’s edge and hesitant to reveal myself fully, just in case it doesn’t work out.
Shit.
“I was recruited before I even joined with you guys, and the truth is that I don’t regret it, not even with all the shit that’s gone down so far. I’ve done some bad shit in the name of good ol’ Sam, but I’ve done good too.”
I say this almost in my own defense, as if telling myself that the good outweighs the bad. It doesn’t, but as unconscionable as I am, I still need at least some sleep, and I get it by telling myself these things.
Jericho snorts, his otherworldly blue eyes shrewd as he grins at me, letting me know he’s onto me and not likely to eat a drop of my shit.
“Does that help you sleep at night? Whatever, dickhead. I’m talking about what’s right and true here, and you know you fucked up. Admit that, and let’s move on to things that are more important. Like the fact that you pimped your girl to your pal to justify your idiocy. Man oh man, if it had been my woman, I’d have killed anyone who so much as looked her way. You let Jess—Rachel, whoever she was then—get into a relationship with a man who’s a brother to you, and you walked away—”
“Walked away? You think I just walked away? I was screwed after that IED. So fucked that it just made it easier to give me this face because mine wasn’t ever going to look the same again no matter what they did. And my leg? I spent my time getting over the facial surgery by rehabilitating my leg because the fucking thing was so damaged they pinned me together like a machine. I set off goddamn metal detectors everywhere I go. Don’t talk to me about just walking away,” I grit out, feeling my teeth ache against the clenching I can’t stop.
He quirks one brow at me and smirks, and just like that I feel a chuckle bubble up and invade my throat.
“Fuck you, Jericho.”
“Eh, not my type and besides, my Boo would be devastated to lose all this hotness,” he jokes before turning serious again. “Don’t fuck it up with her. She was always playing at strength, but Jess is a softie at heart.”
“I know, man. And I won’t. You think I’ve spent all this time setting up my out because I want to barbecue with you fucks on the weekends and play poker? This is all her. I’ve spent a long time telling myself I shouldn’t want her, but the truth is she’s all I want. No missions or glory or whatever the hell I told myself I wanted is worth living my life without her. I finally got to the point where I couldn’t lie to myself about it anymore.”
That sucks because it brings up feelings I won’t examine. Like want and need and that “L” emotion that makes my balls shrink in fear.
“Good, then that means I won’t have to let Lex kill you and help him bury you under the porch back home. I like Jess. I wanted to hate her for Nick’s sake for a while, but I still like her enough that I will kill you if you mess with her. Change of subject. When are you gonna tell the others that Fazir isn’t with the living anymore, because honestly, I’m starting to get annoyed by your cloak and dagger shit already?”
I’m not terribly shocked by his statement, in fact I’m somewhat relieved that I’ve been outed here because for some idiotic reason, I feel bad about a few of my duplicities.
The fact that I’m no longer walking that tightrope…
“Wait. How’d you know?”
Jericho smirks like the ass he is and shrugs before reaching into his jeans pocket and pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He lights one up and tosses me the packet, waiting for me to join him before shaking his head with a resigned, smug sigh.
“Son, I still got game no matter how old I get or how far away I am from the action. I’ve known that rat was dead since he took his last breath. I also had my suspicions about who took him out. A little birdie told me that it was Fazir and his men who actually screwed Echo and that he was there for Jess’s torture.”
Shit.
“Jericho—”
“Nuh-uh, stop trying to lie to me because you know I’m not as uninformed as the others are. Storm may not want to know about the dark stuff we left behind in the desert, and the others are just too settled and happy to care, but me? I always keep my ear to the ground, especially now that I’ve got my girl and we’re walking the road to parenthood.”
That startles me, and I watch him grin so wide his face contorts. A bolt of pure jealousy hits me. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him how outrageously I hate him and Storm for having it all, everything I want, when I hear cursing a second before a bleary-eyed Jess falls into the room.
“Dude, we gotta go. Nick just got the SOS from Lenny, and the Vagina Meltdowns are a go! Haul ass, soldiers, I do not want to miss popcorn and movie night at the ‘Tear me a new one theatre’ when his mammoth baby digs its way out of her.”
For someone so tired looking, Jess is almost buzzing with glee. I find myself laughing along with Jericho seconds later when the man in question runs past the door, murmuring soothingly into his phone as screeches and the most unholy curses blare out of it in a voice that sounds like Lenny after a demon has possessed her.
And, just like that, I know, as I look at Jess hopping around excitedly, I am going to have it all, just as they do. I’ll have love and family and one day if I’m a lucky bastard, I’ll have my own kid coming out of her while she curses me to hell.
***
Jess
The sound of screaming and cursing makes me smile a little as I lean back into the hard-plastic seat that’s been my perch for the last hour and watch the others all wince and swallow. Lenny’s been cussing poor Nick out since we landed our asses here just over an hour ago, and from the sounds of things, it’s either gonna be a long night or it’s gonna be a loooong night when the police arrive to arrest her for murdering her husband.
“You no good sonofabitch rat bastard! I hate you. Why-y-y?!!!”
I don’t mean to giggle, I really don’t, because after spending time listening to Nick’s detailed description of that birth video, I am so horrified that my own muffin is shrinking with every yell.
Lex though, damn, leave it to that Boy Wonder to try and lighten the mood, even though we ladies are just about ready to bolt with the proof of our stupidity when it comes to sex.
“Bet he’s having an ‘I hate my dick’ moment, huh?”
“Not funny!” Jericho yells, his face so white as he hangs on to his Cleo’s hand. It takes me all of ten seconds to realize what his problem is. “It’s okay, baby. It’ll be okay.”
“You virile dog! You and Cleo?” I gasp, feeling my barriers shudder a little.
Jericho just grin
s along with his blushing wife. I watch as everyone starts talking all at once while trying to keep my shit together. Babies and everything associated with them still make me feel like shattering, even years after losing my own and it just…
Dammit! Don’t go there, Jess.
I do though, as my friends all chat and chuckle while paling as Lenny continues to verbally abuse Nick. I go right where I haven’t let myself go for too long and almost screech my head off when Trace sits down beside me and takes my hand in his, silently giving me comfort.
I take it, even knowing I shouldn’t and squeeze back as the memory rushes me, taking me down to a darkness that almost killed me. Honestly…
No one knew that I was pregnant. Hell, I didn’t know I was pregnant until one of my torturers punched me in the stomach so hard it felt like he’d actually ruptured my uterus. When I started bleeding though, that’s when I started thinking and putting things together. You’re asking me how I could mourn something like that. How I could feel as if my world was shaken apart when I realized I hadn’t had my period in three months, the spotting of the first included.
I’ll just say that for someone like me, a woman who loved and had to watch her man die, losing that last piece of him, even if I didn’t know until the end, almost killed me. Of course, Nick and the boys never knew. I told them all the blood was from what the doctors told me would have been a uterine tear if the force hadn’t been absorbed by the baby instead, and they believed me.
It hurt though, for a long time after, and I honestly don’t know that I would have survived it all so close on top of each other if not for Nick, hence my undying devotion and loyalty to the man. He literally saved me—from grief, from me. Most of all, he saved me from crumbling when I finally hit rock bottom.
“You okay?” Trace whispers.
“Yeah, uh-ooh shit!” I moan as a piercing wail floods the room.
It’s not at all a good sound, I can tell you that, but the little mewling wail that follows is so welcome that I freeze in place and then start laughing. I can’t help it, and it seems neither can Trace when an elated Nick runs into the room, hands covered in—
“Eww.”
“He’s huge! He’s a freaking huge little guy with all ten…everythings!” Nick yells before running around in a circle and then taking off back down the corridor.
My lips twitch again, and I look over at Trace who’s holding onto his laughter with difficulty. Our eyes meet, hold, connect, merge, or something and just like that I feel…something.
Connection. Peace. Determination. And so much need that if not for the memory of Nick’s gore-covered mitts, I’d probably jump the man like a sex-starved deviant.
I want it all. Just like he said—the whole nine yards. The Bruce Willis-Amanda Peet weird love story where two unlikely souls meet and just click. I want to clean my guns at the breakfast table while he tries to show me the “right way” and argue with him.
I want to have hot sex and sweet lovemaking—whatever that is. I’m sure I’ll figure it out at some point, no matter how unsuited the two of us are to that kind of thing.
I want marriage. Yeah, MARRIAGE. I’m still a girl even if I can kill a man using nothing but a paper clip and the right amount of force. And I want babies. Little boys and girls who look like him but have my fabulous hair because, let’s face it, the man has some screwed up wild hair when he lets it grow out.
And no, it’s not like I’m gonna go all soft here because his old wrinkled ass will not be sitting on the porch with me when we reach our twilight years, that’s just yuck sappy. Nope, he’ll be mixing the margaritas in nothing but an apron because, honestly, the man will probably still have a nice ass even when his balls are sagging.
But yeah. I want all that—not dating and hot sex—well, I do want hot sex, but I want more than just hot sex like we used to have. I want the love part too, and you know what, he’d better give it to me and—
“Jess? You okay?” he asks, and I realize I’ve been glaring at him for the last minute or two, my mind at once plotting his seduction and demise if he should be unlucky enough not to do what I want and fall for me.
Just the thought makes me feel homicidal, like I will cut strategic body parts homicidal, but I shove the urge to slap him as far back as I can and smile softly instead, my mind racing a mile a minute.
“I’m great.”
And I will be, just as soon as I kill me some terrorists, bamboozle Trace into building me a great big house while also doing what should be impossible.
I need the man to love me, and I know just how to get what I want.
Chapter Twelve
Trace
She’s driving me crazy. Absolutely nuts, and the more I try to out think her and get her to react the way I want her to, the more she blocks me and just keeps going her own way.
“Stop sulking and hold Oscar for a second,” Nick grunts, shoving his adorable, tiny, drooling son my way as he grabs the bottle of breast milk out of the water on the stove and checks the temperature.
The kid has been home a week and already Nick’s turned into Mr. Mom to the point where I have never seen such a well-rested new mom like Lenny before. According to Jess—when she bothers to acknowledge or speak to me—the man practically sleeps with an eye and ear open so that he can get to the kid before he peeps and wakes Mommy.
Lenny got so mad last night when she finally caught Nick feeding their son—with her boob, while she still slept—that she threatened to drug the poor guy and paint his nuts with honey, toss him outside for the ants, and watch while they devoured his balls.
Apparently, she sees it as a creepy invasion of her rights or some shit. Poor Nick kept trying to explain that he just wanted her to get some rest, but that he wasn’t sure he could use the pump on her without waking her. That made it worse, and I swear I was this close to having to physically protect the man from his own wife until she started giggling, snorting, and finally just laughed her ass off, resigned to the fact that her husband is insane.
Yeah, when Jess has our babies, I am slipping her a sedative. No one told me chicks are crazier with hormones after the birth, and from the shit poor Nick Storm puts up with, I will be stunned if he manages to plant another seed in his wife. Ever.
The baby coos at me as the man keeps puttering around the kitchen, haggard but so happy he almost floats, or glows, or some nasty shit like that, and I look down at his little face and feel my heart clench.
The kid is Nick, from his stubborn little scowling mouth all the way to his piercing gray eyes and hair that’s already thick enough to stand straight up on his little head. Right now, he’s staring at me accusingly, just the way his dad seems to be doing lately, and for some reason I feel guilty. Me. The guy who feels nothing he doesn’t want to.
“Stop.”
The kid keeps glaring, and I swear to God he adds a little lip curl and raises his tiny fist threateningly.
“Shit.”
“Hey! No swearing around the kid. Lenny will chop off my nuts if his first word isn’t Mama,” Nick growls, falling into a chair at the table and holding his arms out for the kid.
“Let me feed him.”
Okay. Weird, but for some reason I do not want to give the kid up just yet. Nick, however, gives me the same look he gave an insurgent in Afghanistan and just silently waits for me to obey him. I ain’t scared or nothing, but the man is not quite sane, and for that reason only, I finally relent and hand him his son, scowling darkly.
“Goddamn baby hog.”
“My sperm, my title deed, asshole,” he grunts, cooing like an ass as he gently coaxes the bottle into Oscar’s mouth and patiently waits for him to start feeding.
“You’re a pig,” I mutter, looking away as the kid turns that hairy eyeball my way again and just stares as he sucks at the nipple, his eyes so hard I feel my spine tingle.
Goddammit, I swear that kid isn’t normal—
“Fazir is dead,” I burst out, baring my teeth when the little
shit coos at me and seems to smile around the bottle, as if to say “good job” or some nonsense.
It sounds crazy, but I wouldn’t put it past these two people to create some sort of weird super-baby, and right now I am pretty convinced that kid is no normal newborn. Little shit has eerie eyes.
“You’re such a bastard,” Nick sighs, making me drag my eyes away from his spawn to meet his gaze, though he’s not even angry or glaring, something that for some reason makes me feel worse.
More tense.
“Listen—”
“Jericho told me the day after Oscar was born, so you can cool your jets, man. I’m not pissed, so slow down and stop whatever bullshit you’re thinking of spouting at me. To tell you the truth, I’m relieved. With little man here coming a tad early before Daddy could kill all the bad guys, I’m just happy to have one less thing to worry about. I am curious, though, very curious,” he says pointedly, giving me a look.
Running a hand through my hair, I lean back in my seat and shake my head, grinning a little at the mess I’ve purposely managed to make of things. Not my plans, oh no, that shit is still on, but with the whole secrecy thing. It’s real telling that I’ve just let things “slip” that I never would have told anyone before a mission was complete.
It tells me that the part of me that was cold is heating up. Feelings are…coming back, and that maybe I might just want my family to help me with shit instead of just controlling everything. I can’t say I like it. I’m the guy who always controls everything, but hell, with Jess leading me a merry chase and what with my nuts being two Smurfs in a sack of pain, crying out for my cooperation, I reckon it’s about time I delegated and just let the guys help.
Whatever.
That house down the road from Jericho’s still needs renovating, and I have yet to get my woman back into bed. I don’t have time for cloak-and-dagger shit anymore, and I don’t want to spend even another week thinking about what I should be doing to kill my superiors and get my ass out of the outfit. I want sex, marriage, babies. And maybe some, ya know, love or something.
THE WATCHERS: 6 Military Romance Bundle Page 85
