Damaged Desires: A Frenemy, Military Romance

by LJ Evans

“We negotiated a settlement. She returned a portion of the money she’d stolen, deleted the pictures, and we let her go with our nondisclosure agreement in place,” Lee finished the story.

  “I guess she didn’t like your terms,” Nash said dryly right as the police showed up.

  “She’s lucky you didn’t have her arrested,” I said, indignant on the behalf of my friend but silently hoping someone would arrest her now.

  The number one thing the police wanted to know was how she’d gotten past our security, and I could read Nash’s face clear as day, even though most in the room probably couldn’t. She’d gotten past him, and he was pissed as hell about it. He felt responsible. He felt like he failed—and SEALs never fail.

  But there was no way this was his fault. He’d been with Brady, who we’d all thought was the main target. It was impossible to secure every door and every access point in a venue this size without an entire Secret Service team at your disposal. He couldn’t have known, and there was even less likelihood he could have stopped it. I didn’t think it would matter to him, though. A fail was a fail in his eyes.

  Nash

  STOP CRYING YOUR HEART OUT

  “Hold on.

  Don't be scared.

  You'll never change what's been and gone.”

  Performed by Oasis

  Written by Noel Gallagher

  The entire security at the arena had been a clusterfuck from the get-go. Far too few untrained assholes to cover everything that needed to be protected. I’d sent off a string of angry texts to Garner, and he’d come back with something about the economics of running a for-profit business and a reminder that he’d never lost a client. And I’d responded with, “Not yet.”

  What had made my mood even worse was the fact that I didn’t have eyes on Dani the entire concert. I’d been stuck at the side of the stage, watching Brady as he plucked his guitar, waggled his butt, and sang to the nearly fifty thousand people who’d filled the arena to hear him. It had been eye-opening in a way it shouldn’t have been. But it had me adding to the list of strategies and items we’d need to bring this team up to par with the scope of the events and the possible attack points.

  Then, Dani had found the jacket.

  I was full of fury. At myself. At the team. How the hell had Fiona slipped through? Even though I was cussing us all out in my head, I also knew this hadn’t been a presidential gathering. There hadn’t been background checks done. There hadn’t been an extra set of metal detectors placed at the door of the VIP lounge in addition to the ones people had passed through to get into the stadium.

  In many ways, I wasn’t sure the situation could be controlled. There were too many gaps that, without a boatload of more resources, couldn’t be fixed. Which had me wanting to convince Dani to drop what she was doing and run. There wasn’t shame in retreating. There were times when you had to be smart enough to know you’d been outmaneuvered, outmanned, and out-strategized.

  The police asked a whole host of questions about Fiona, the previous attack in Miami, and the night’s events. A CSI tech collected evidence, and then we were finally able to roll. We moved in a bounding overwatch formation out of the lounge, down to the first floor, and then into the tunnel at the end of which the SUVs waited. The only reason we had the bulletproof Range Rovers was because Alice, Brady’s road manager, and I had gone several rounds about the vehicles, the booked hotels, and the scheduled venues.

  After I’d personally cleared the SUV and the area, I led first Dani and then Brady into the car before getting in myself. Our driver hit the gas, and we headed back to the hotel, the others taking the remaining vehicles.

  As we drove through the streets of Jacksonville, Dani stared out the window in silence as she processed the entire night. I wanted to ask her if she was okay. I wanted to reassure her I wouldn’t let anyone harm her, but I knew it was a lie. If someone really had it out for her, they would find a way. I was living proof of it. I was a sniper. I got in where no one thought it was possible. It was my job.

  I was pretty sure this Fiona woman wasn’t military trained, but I also knew insane could out-trump prepared almost any day of the week.

  The only way Dani would truly be safe was if she left the tour, and I knew that wasn’t going to happen. She’d already told me she wouldn’t quit. How could I fault that? I wouldn’t quit either. It wasn’t in my makeup. But after everything that had happened in D.C., Dani would be even more determined to prove she wouldn’t back down.

  When we reached the hotel, we waited for the full team to reassemble. Marco and Trevor cleared the lobby and the elevator, and we staggered our move from the SUV to the elevators. Brady, Lee, and the two men I’d nicknamed the super twins went first, taking Brady up to the penthouse where we’d left a man on watch while we’d been at the venue. After the first wave cleared, I left the SUV, shielding Dani as we entered the hotel.

  Tanner had waited in the lobby, and he’d already pushed the elevator button as we approached. It dinged open, and Dani and I entered. When Tanner started to get in as well, I put a hand up. “Make sure the lobby is clear before you come up.”

  He hated me telling him what to do, and he was stupid enough to let it reflect on his face. Our eyes remained locked together until the doors slid shut.

  I turned my attention to Dani and found her pulling stuff from her bag that went flying everywhere. Her hands were trembling, and as the elevator started to move, she steadied herself against the wall, closing her eyes.

  I touched her arm. “Dani?”

  She jumped and then looked at me with wild eyes. “I just need my earbuds. I can’t find them.”

  “Hey, you’re safe. I’ve got you,” I said softly and went to pull her into my arms, but as soon as my arms went around her, she slapped at me, hitting my chest.

  “Get off.” She shoved at me with a violence that was unnatural.

  She was trembling from head to toe, and all I wanted to do was hold her, but I didn’t dare touch her again as she went through a range of emotions I didn’t understand. The elevator dinged open, and she flew out, leaving half the shit from her bag on the elevator floor. I put a foot in the door to stop it from shutting, scooped up her belongings, and took off down the hall after her.

  She’d stopped at her room with her forehead against the door, eyes closed. She was trying to get a hold of herself, breathing in and out in long breaths.

  “I’m sorry,” she said without looking at me.

  “You have nothing to be sorry about. It’s been a hard night.”

  She shook her head without removing it from where it rested. “It wasn’t that. I mean, it was, but it was more what happened combined with the elevator.”

  It hit me like a wave of bricks. I was a fucking moron. The asshole, Fenway, had attacked her in an elevator. Her nerves, which were already fried from the incident at the arena, had gone off the charts when stuck in an elevator with my dumb ass who’d backed her into the corner and then tried to hold her.

  “I was so dumb,” she said quietly.

  I made a sound of protest, but she cut me off.

  “I was. I was stupid and full of ego and pride. That night at The Oriental, I knew Russell wouldn’t be at the rooftop bar, because we never met there. But I was in denial about him not showing up, even after my texts and calls went unanswered. So, when I left the bar and got to the elevator, that was all I was thinking. How dare he stand me up.”

  “Dani, that’s normal.”

  “But that ego. That stupidity. It’s why he caught me off guard. I didn’t realize it was him when he first got in, and even when I did, my warning bells still didn’t go off. I’d never felt physically threatened by him before, even though he was a big man. When he turned and stepped toward me, I was even more foolish because I took a step back to get out of his circle of influence, and it put me in the corner. I knew better. Dad taught me enough…”

  She choked on her thoughts, and my whole being l
urched. I didn’t want her to have to talk about it. I didn’t want her to have to relive it. I hated every damn moment when I relived the worst day of my life. The nightmares. The jumping at sharp sounds. I hated that she was going through it, too.

  “Don’t do that to yourself,” I grunted out, and she acted as if I hadn’t even spoken.

  “The worst part isn’t the shit that went down inside the elevator. It isn’t feeling his hands on my body, or the disgusting words he spoke, or remembering the pain from every part of me that he hurt. The worst part is the fear that comes from thoughts of what would have happened if I hadn’t been able to get the elevator door opened.”

  My heart clenched tighter than it had ever been before. Visions of Dani like I never wanted to see her, with that goddamn excuse of a man hovering over her. I wasn’t sure I could take it, and it wasn’t even me reliving it.

  When she finally looked up at me, her eyes were full of self-condemnation. It made me want to kill Fenway, and the unknown Fiona, and anyone else who could take this smart, sassy, confident woman and make her crack a little.

  “I’m no Navy SEAL,” she said, her voice harsh with the hate she normally directed at me being directed at herself instead. “I wouldn’t have lasted a day at BUD/S. One little confrontation in an elevator, and I fall apart for the rest of my life.”

  I was shaking my head. “No. It’s different.”

  “What? You didn’t get tortured? Or almost drowned? Or slammed with impossible task after impossible task? Please, I don’t even know half of what you guys go through, and it doesn’t break you.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said. “It does. It breaks us, but we do it anyway. We go through it because we’re willing to sacrifice parts of ourselves to become what our country needs. The rips…the wounds our training makes…they’re irreversible. They’re scars we keep forever.”

  Her eyes filled with tears, and she closed her lids to prevent them from falling, scrubbing at them as if she could wipe it all away. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I pulled her against my chest, wrapped my arms around her, and she let me this time.

  I didn’t want her to have scars written on her inner walls as I did. I didn’t want her to have lost pieces of herself she’d never get back, and yet, it was already too late. It had happened before I’d been able to keep her safe, but I vowed I would do just that from here on out. Screw Brady O’Neil. My eyes were going to be on Dani.

  She pulled away and opened the door with a wave of her key.

  “Do you want me to come in?” I asked. It was a dangerous proposition because I wasn’t sure I could prevent myself from holding her in an embrace that would be much more intimate than the sex we’d engaged in before.

  She shook her head. “No. I’m okay. Really.”

  I stopped her with a hand on her arm.

  “You’re not. But you will be,” I said. It was a promise I wanted to be true, even though I wasn’t sure I believed it myself. I didn’t know if the traumas we’d lived through would ever ease their hold on us.

  She slipped into the room with a quiet goodnight. I stared at the closed door for too long before I made my way back to my room with a new fire burning through me.

  I sent Lee and Garner a text and demanded the full file on Fiona. What they sent me didn’t make any sense. There was still a piece I was struggling with that my sixth sense was telling me I had to find—and find fast. Fiona Ross was from a small Oklahoma town. A blue-collar family who’d struggled to make ends meet, but she’d put herself through college with grants and student loans before winding up in Nashville. She’d worked for several management companies. Nothing had been flagged in her records anywhere.

  She looked, on paper, to be perfectly normal.

  But someone didn’t just flip a switch one day and become obsessed and unhinged. She’d let herself into Brady’s room and crept into his bed. Taken pictures as if she were going to blackmail him. Maybe she would have if she hadn’t gotten caught stealing first. All I knew was there was something still missing.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  I was outside Dani’s door at four-thirty in the morning when it cracked open. She put a hand on her heart when she saw me. “Holy hell. You really have to stop doing that. What are you doing here?”

  I was in my workout gear just like she was in hers. It was pretty obvious why I was there. I’d had a feeling she wouldn’t be sleeping in, wallowing in her misery from the night before. It wasn’t Dani’s style. The self-reproach she’d felt after losing it with me in the elevator was about the closest she’d get to letting it stop her.

  “Yesterday, you said you weren’t the one who needed protection. Things have changed. You shouldn’t be doing anything without at least one of the detail.”

  She rolled her eyes, and I stopped her with a hand on her arm. “I’m serious, Athena. Goddess or not, you need someone looking after you.”

  She snorted. When we got to the elevator doors, she stopped, but I kept going.

  “You really want to take that rattle trap again?” I asked over my shoulder.

  She caught up to me. “Where are we going?”

  “Stairs.”

  “We can’t take the emergency exit. It’ll set off the alarms.”

  “It really won’t. Most hotels just have cameras and not alarms. They get a security alert when a door is opened so they can check on whoever entered the stairwell and let them back in when they lock themselves out. But, in this case, I’ve let them know we’ll be using them for the rest of the day.”

  I waved a keycard at her.

  She smiled at me, the first smile I’d seen since the day before, and I was damn sure I wanted to keep it on her face. We raced down the stairs, her trying to beat me, even though she hadn’t stated the challenge. It was still there in the determination on her face.

  I was damn glad to see it. The smile. The determination. The Dani I knew.

  I almost wanted to give in and let her win, but it wasn’t part of who I was, so I reached the mezzanine first, opening the door and clearing the hallway before letting her out.

  When we got to the fitness center, she went automatically to the bike in the corner—the one she’d been on when I’d shown up the morning before. But I wanted to see more of what I’d seen yesterday. I wanted to push her again and see what else she could do. It wasn’t merely because it was a turn-on, which it was; I also wanted her to realize she was strong. Both physically and mentally.

  “You going to do that wimpy-ass bike ride again?” I taunted. She bristled, and I couldn’t help the grin I had by the time she turned to me.

  “It’s hardly wimpy.”

  “I bet I could give you a much better workout,” I said, and when the color hit her cheeks, I realized what I’d said. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Athena.”

  I pulled out the battling ropes Marco and I had discovered the day before. “Ever use one of these?”

  She shook her head.

  Thirty minutes later, we were both covered with sweat from using the ropes, the exercise balls, and the weight machines. I downed some water and then asked, “How much can you bench press?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never used a regular bench press. I’ve always used the machines.

  “Well, let’s find out.”

  She went to the bench and lay down while I loaded two ten-pound weights on each end. She rolled her eyes at me. “I think I can do more than that!”

  I smiled at her. “Probably, but humor me. The bar itself is forty-five pounds, so let’s start here and work up to more.”

  I stood behind the press, spotting her. She easily pressed the eighty-five pounds. I took off the twenties and added twenty-five and ten to each side. She lifted it with a bit more effort, did a couple of presses, and then looked up at me from her position on the bench.

  From this angle, I could see the curve of the top of each of her breasts as gravity pulled them from her top. She was sex
y and powerful, and all I wanted to do was make use of that bench in a much different way so I could make her feel just as sensual and powerful as I saw her. So she wouldn’t doubt herself when she had an episode in an elevator.

  So she’d know we all had damage we took with us.

  Hell, if she’d been in my room last night, she would have seen me fall apart as I came out of my nightmare. The dream where it had been Dani instead of Darren that I’d picked up and placed on a damn tarp, dragging it toward our evac location. It was Dani’s name I’d chanted as I’d stopped to return the fire enemy combatants were raining down on us as they appeared from nowhere. It had been Dani I’d been thinking about as I’d stood and shot round after round after round in a sea of black while Bull and Runner took the tarp and loaded it onto the helicopter.

  “Hey, are you going to stand there staring like you just saw the enemy, or are you going to add more weight?” Dani called out to me, bringing me back to the fitness room.

  “Let’s see if you’re Wonder Woman as well as Athena.” I smirked and loaded forty-five pounds on each end, bringing the total to one thirty-five. It was more than she likely weighed, but I was pretty sure she could handle it.

  I held the bar while she took it out of the rack and then pulled it down to her chest before slowly pushing it back up. Her triceps and shoulders and pecs were cut and defined as she moved. I pulled my phone out and took a picture.

  She glared. “You did not just take a picture!”

  She twisted as she said it, causing one arm to go down at a weird angle. The bar tipped off the bench toward the floor, starting to take her body with it. I swung one foot over the bench and caught her and the weight before they hit the ground. As she pulled herself back onto the bench, I hung the bar back up, and then looked down at her from where I was straddling both her and the bench.

  Shit.

  Her hands went to my hips, and I was instantly hard, pushing against the stupid workout shorts that hid nothing. She smiled as if my getting hard was the best thing to happen to her all day. I could make it the best thing. I could definitely work our bodies out in a very different, more satisfying way.