Of course, she’s not okay. She just had a blade to her neck, watched me kill Wes, and now heard me tell Tag what I fantasize about doing to him.
“I’m alive,” she says. “I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of fabulous considering all that’s happened.”
My jaw clenches with anger over that blade and how easily it ended up at her throat. She grabs my hands. “Don’t go down the blame rabbit hole, Rick,” she orders, “or the ‘save me by leaving me’ rabbit hole, either. You’re not leaving me. We just had this conversation before all of this happened.”
“You’re right, baby,” I say, hating how easily she believes I’ll leave again, and I have no one to blame but me. “We’re past that kind of doubt. I’m not leaving you. I’m not even thinking about leaving you. What I am going to do is kill Tag and every motherfucking bastard who works for him. There will be no mercy. Not after me seeing that blade at your throat.”
CHAPTER TWO
Savage
I pull the Porsche to the door of Hotel Emma, where several doormen await, and quickly scan my face for blood. I’m out of the car on the driver’s side before either of them can get to me. Further inspection of my arms, hands, and clothes, tell me that I killed that dipwad without wearing a drop of his blood. If Candace didn’t know how efficient a killer I am, or how well-trained I am at killing and getting away with it, she does now. I’ve told her that I’m not the surgeon she was once going to marry. The problem is that being told such a thing, and saying you understand it, versus having the truth shoved in your face, is like comparing peanut butter and jelly. They aren’t the same. And like peanut butter and jelly, Candace and I are not the same, but we are underrated as a team. I underrated us as a team. I just hope like hell she didn’t overrate us in her mind. Because I love the fuck out of this woman.
By the time a doorman is helping Candace out of the car, I’m by her side. I have my arm around her when I palm my keys and some cash to a guy who looks about twelve, and can’t take his eyes off the car. “Don’t wreck it,” I tell him. “I need it in working order.”
His eyes jerk to mine and like most people, his gaze lands on the scar down my cheek. “Oh no,” he stammers. “No, sir. I’ll be gentle with it.”
“I’m never gentle,” I promise him, and he pales whiter than the white that appears to be his normal state.
I turn away from him and guide Candace toward the hotel entrance. “You scared him,” she whispers urgently.
“Good.”
“Rick!” she scolds.
“Relax, baby. I gave him a hundred-dollar tip. He’ll get over it.” I hurry us to the elevator and inside the open car. Once I’ve keyed in the code for the upper level, I pull her close and hold her, my face buried in her hair, inhaling the sweet floral scent. “I could have lost you tonight,” I whisper, my lips at her ear. “I wasn’t going to let that happen.” Some part of me knows this might sound like a defense for my actions, but it isn’t. It’s simply how it is and will be, which is why I catch her face and tilt her stare to mine. “I won’t let that happen.”
Her arms slide around me and she steps closer. “I know,” she says and just that easily she’s said it all, she’s given me everything. She’s offered me her trust.
We stand there, staring at each other, heat and emotion waving between us. One floor after another dings in passing, but life and future years will not pass us by, not ever again. The elevator halts with our destination, and I cup her face, my lips brushing hers.
We reach the door of the suite and Adam opens it before I can. “All clear?” he asks.
“So far so good,” I say, pulling Candace in front of me, and urging her forward.
She steps inside the foyer, and I follow her, shutting the door behind us to find Adam giving Candace a scowling inspection, his eyes fixated on her neck. My gaze follows his and holy fuck. How did I not see the blood marking her delicate skin? What kind of asshole wouldn’t inspect her for injury after what just happened?
“He cut your damn neck.”
“I’m fine, Rick,” she says, touching the wound. “It’s not even painful.”
“You’re not fine.” I tilt her head and now I’m scowling. “You’re cut. You’re bleeding.” I catch her to me and hurry her with me down the hallway, away from Adam.
“I’m fine, Rick,” she insists. “Stop acting like I’m delicate. I’m not delicate.”
Reaching the bathroom, I flip on the light, and pull her inside with me, before kicking the door shut. I settle her back against the door, catching her legs with mine and shoving her hair aside to inspect the seep of blood down her throat. Anger is a hard bite that I direct at myself. I let this happen to her and I was too busy kissing her to consider the killer who held a blade to her neck might have actually cut her. “You’re not fucking fine.” I grab a washcloth, wet it, and wipe her neck to inspect the wound, which is thank fuck, a surface wound.
Her fingers close around my shirt, and she leans into me, tiny and perfect, the only damn thing in this world that matters to me and I almost lost her tonight. “You saved my life.”
“I should have swatted that fly a long ass time ago,” I murmur, my hand going to the door beside her head. “I hate I let this happen to you.”
“You didn’t let this happen to me. This happened because you tried to save a young boy’s life. Had you not have done what you did that day, you wouldn’t be the man I love. I’m in this with you. Rick. All the way. No matter how hellish it gets.”
I catch the back of her neck, my hand gliding higher into the strands of her hair. “It won’t be like this forever. I’m going to get rid of Tag and his lapdogs. Then I’ll choose what jobs I take, for us, for you—to protect you.”
“You were put on this earth to save lives. You chose your work to keep saving lives. And no, I’m not talking about in an operating room. I know that’s not where you belong.”
But she didn’t know when I left. I didn’t make sure she knew, and then I left before I gave her a chance to handle the reality of who, and what, I am. “Candace—”
There’s a knock on the door and I squeeze my eyes shut, cursing at the interruption.
Candace is suddenly on her toes, her lips a breath from mine. “I always knew you were dangerous, Rick Savage,” she says, proving her ability to read my thoughts, even when I don’t turn them into words. “Perhaps it even turned me on.”
My hands come down on her waist. “Now you’re just trying to distract me.”
“Is it working?” Her hand slides under my shirt as she adds, “Because the funny thing about almost dying is how much it leaves you wanting what you want. Right now, in this moment.”
“Oh hell,” I murmur, my tongue sweeping deeply against hers, and when she moans, I’m hard and hot, and ready to take her right here, in this hall bathroom. That is until there’s another knock on the door.
“We need you, Savage!” Adam calls through the door.
I grunt and pull my mouth from Candace’s. “This better be good!” I shout out irritably, but I don’t get a reply.
I kiss Candace one more time, hard on the mouth, and then lift her off the door, to angle her under the light, and give that slice on her neck another inspection. “No telling whose neck that bastard’s knife had been inside. When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?”
“Well, Dr. Savage, I cut my hand last year. And since you weren’t here to stitch it up, I went to the ER where I got four stitches and a tetanus shot.”
She’s being playful, I know, but every time I hear something I’ve missed with her, it guts me. “I’ll be here next time—every next time.”
Her lips curve. “I know. I’m not letting you run away again.”
I rotate her to face the door, and step behind her, my lips finding her ear. “I don’t run baby, but we’ll discuss that in more detail, later. When we’re alone and naked. And after I lick you into oblivion and back.”
The soft little gasp that escapes her li
ps has me opening the door before I stop giving a fuck what Adam wants, and don’t open the door. At least not until she’s gasping like that a few more times.
She turns to face me as we exit the bathroom, pointing a finger a me. “You’re bad,” she accuses.
My arm slides around her but I don’t dispute that statement. I am bad. The question is, can she handle my many shades of bad? I’m not sure she can answer that question until this is over and the wait is going to kill me.
CHAPTER THREE
Candace
With Rick’s hand settled low and possessive on my back, we enter the dining room to find Adam, Adrian, Asher, and Smith sitting at the rectangular table. Men that feel more like his family than his father ever has. They are brothers to Rick and those brothers, every last one of them, stand up when I enter the room.
“I’m fine,” I assure them quickly before I’m suffocated with protective, testosterone-driven worry that will only magnify the worry Rick feels right now. I need these men, all of them as Rick’s brothers, to trust in my backbone, to know that I’m not going to meltdown, so Rick might trust me as well.
My stomach knots with this understanding I’m coming to terms with. An understanding that Rick really does fear that I can’t handle this life when what I can’t handle is life without him.
Determined to show everyone in this room that I’m here, I’m fine, I’m ready to fight, I pull away from Rick and walk to the end of the table to stand opposite the Walker team. It’s time for me to speak for me, to ask my own questions.
“How does this end?” I ask. “That’s all I care about right now. Actually, most importantly, where are we on my father’s extraction?” Everyone is still on their feet and I motion to their seats. “Please, everyone, sit down. Thank you for worrying, but I’m fine.” They don’t sit. They all just stand there and blink at me until Rick steps to my side. “Are you all finally standing up to salute my greatness, or what?” They sit. All of them. Rick and I remain on our feet.
“We’re making extraction plans for your father with our man on the ground,” Adam says.
“He’s not extracting alone,” Rick says. “Where’s his help? Or rather, who’s his help? Because before I’ll let an asswipe help Reynolds we’ll delay the extraction.”
“We can’t delay,” I argue, grabbing his arm. “Tag wants him dead. Gabriel might, too.”
“Tag wants Gabriel dead, baby,” he says. “Tag has your father as leverage to make sure I kill Gabriel.”
“Obviously he’s running out of patience,” I argue. “What if he sent Wes to attack us tonight because he decided to handle Gabriel himself?”
“Then he failed.” His hands settle on his hips. “And he didn’t send Wes. He’s fucked without me.”
“You called Adam and warned him that Tag might come after him,” I remind him.
“Because you never underestimate a snake in the grass,” he counters. “And I needed to make sure the body got moved.”
“Which it did by the way,” Adam chimes in. “Our man in the field watched Tag’s men pick up Wes.”
Rick arches a brow my direction. “See, baby? There’s a reason for my madness.”
Smith snorts. Rick, ignores the intended jab, and remains focused on me. “Proof that Tag has an agenda. He doesn’t want me in jail. He doesn’t want me or you dead, not yet. He even called me right before Wes showed up. He warned me about Wes but Tag didn’t believe for a minute that I wouldn’t wipe the ground with Wes.” He pauses a hard second as if he’s going to say something and then seems to shift gears, or I sense he shifts gears, before he adds, “Wes had a vendetta. He’s dead. That problem is over.”
“Tag has an army of mercenaries,” I remind him. “What if he warned you in case Wes failed, just to stay on your good side?”
His jaw sets hard. “That dickhead knows there’s no good side with me.”
“He has an army of mercenaries,” I repeat.
“Not an army,” Rick says. “And not for long.”
“She’s making sense, Savage,” Adam dares. “You’re not listening because you just saw a man hold a blade to her neck.”
He rotates hard on Adam. “And you, dickhead, aren’t helping me right now.”
“She’s making sense,” he repeats.
“I swear, Adam,” Rick seethes, “you Navy SEALs have fins, not brains. I know Tag. I know his ways.” He turns to face me. “I believe that he used Wes tonight to send a message. I believe he did whatever it took to set Wes off and make him come at me, come at you, baby. He was sending a message.”
Realization pokes into my mind, and not gently. I know now why he changed gears and didn’t say what he was thinking even before he says it now, “This was just another way to threaten you. He was telling me one wrong move means you’re dead. I warned Adam because, despite his fin for brains, I thought Tag might decide to kill off someone, anyone, just to be sure I knew how serious he is.”
Adam curses, clearly aware now that Rick stayed silent for a reason: to protect me.
And I don’t mean to do it, I really don’t, but my hand instinctively goes to my throat. Wes did want me dead tonight. I haven’t really let myself linger on that fact.
Rick grabs me and pulls me to him. “You weren’t even close to death tonight.”
My anger comes hard and fast. No matter how he says otherwise, every time he fluffs up the truth and turns it into a lie, he’s telling me I’m not good enough or tough enough to be by his side. I jerk my hand from my neck and shove aside thoughts of the blade that might well have sliced my throat. “Stop hiding things from me, Rick. I almost died. Wes could have moved right when you moved and I’d be gone. It’s over. I can handle the truth.”
I twist away from him and face the table again. “Who’s with Reynolds in Iraq?”
Rick steps to my side again and Adam flicks a look between us before he says, “Neal and Brody.” He focuses on Rick. “You and I both know Brody.”
“And I know Neal,” Adrian interjects, “and no, you don’t know me well, but Adam does. I wouldn’t say Neal was good if he was an asswipe.”
“Neal’s ex-FBI,” Adam adds. “Blake’s wife, Kara, who is also ex-FBI, holds him in high opinion. And Candace, so you know what we know, Brody’s ex-Special Forces, and part of a covert operation of badasses.”
Satisfied we have a good team, especially since my father is a warrior himself, I fix Rick in a stare, compelling him to look at me and act on my father’s extraction. When he does, when those blue eyes burn into mine, I say, “No one is an asswipe. I want my father out of there.”
“I know what you want, baby, and so do I, but I also want him out there alive. That’s all this is. Me making sure he gets back to you in one piece.” He doesn’t wait for my understanding. He turns back to the team. “Where are we on the plan?”
“Timing’s our biggest issue,” Smith says. “If the goal here is to take out Tag and his team at the same time, we extract the general the night of the party, we have a couple of factors to discuss. One being the time difference between here and Iraq.”
“I’ll deal with Tag while you’re extracting her father,” Rick says. “We’ve talked about this. It has to be the exact same time.”
“The party is at eight o’clock Saturday night,” Adam interjects. “Our team will need to hit before dawn. Tag will expect Savage to take out Gabriel at the party.”
“Just to be clear,” Adrian says, “are we killing Tag and Gabriel or just having them arrested? There are some mixed signals going on here.”
Rick flicks him an irritated look. “I’m dealing with Tag. Walker’s staying out of it.”
“We’re in it to win it,” Adam corrects. “All of us, in all things.”
“Walker isn’t going to play in my dirty sandbox,” I say. “That’s my privilege and right.”
“We have morals, man,” Asher snaps. “That doesn’t mean we turn into pussies.” He eyes me. “Sorry, Candace.”
“She�
�s a military brat,” Smith interjects. “Believe me, she can handle it.”
Adrian moves past my non-existent sensibilities. “Don’t be a selfish prick, Savage. I like a good dirty sandbox. I want to come and play.”
“Tag isn’t a fool,” Adam says. “He knows we’re involved. He found you to pull you into this while you were sitting at a poker table with us.”
“He’s right,” Asher says. “We’re in it and after meeting that prick, I’m all about a second chance to take out the trash.”
“Nope,” Adam says. “Not happening. I’m going with Savage. You, Asher, need to run the tech side of things.” He waves his hand between Adrian and Smith. “You’ll protect Candace who’s, unfortunately, going to be at the party, on Gabriel’s arm.” He points at Adrian. “She needs a monster like you to fight a monster like Gabriel.”
“What the fuck kind of monster are you?” Rick demands.
Adrian’s lips quirk. “The kind who’ll slice and dice Honest Gabe, and never feel remorse.”
Rick points at him. “You just better make sure you’re not the kind to touch her.”
“I’ll shoot him,” I promise, which earns me several barks of laughter, but not from Adrian.
Adrian is looking at Rick. “Not that stupid or that kind of monster, man.”
“Are we in agreement that this is a team effort, Savage?” Rick asks. “Or are we going outside to fight? Because I can stand up and we can go outside. Or fuck it. We can fight right here.”
Rick gives Adam a deadpan look. “You know what they say about big ass guys like you with tiny feet?”
Adam smirks. “My feet aren’t tiny.”
“But your brains are,” Rick says, pulling the data drive from his pocket and slides it across the table to Asher. “I had an epiphany,” Rick says, as Asher snatches it up. “I hid that at my mother’s grave. It’s loaded with Tag’s business.”
“Which,” Asher concludes, “we now know ties to good ole’ Honest Gabe.”
“And now you, Asher,” Rick says, “can be a real hero. If you find what we need, and Candace doesn’t have to go to the party, you save at least one life. Because I swear to God if I have to watch Gabriel touch her, I’ll kill him on the spot.”
Savage Love Page 2
