Damaged Desires: A Frenemy, Military Romance

by LJ Evans

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  We fell into a pattern over the next week. While I worked in the mornings for Brady, Nash surprised me by going with Carson to the company offices. He and Carson would return to the manor house in the early afternoon, and Nash and I would meet in the gym to workout. We did workouts that stretched my body to another level of muscle as well as self-defense training. I was getting pretty good at bringing him down, and he wasn’t holding back as much as he had at first. After, if the weather wasn’t too cold, we’d swim or walk around the fields of flowers with him telling me about them. He knew far more than I would have guessed. As the late afternoon sun dappled the earth, we’d go inside to shower and change for dinner which Maribelle always made no matter how many times we protested we could help.

  Nash wasn’t big on talking, but he’d said enough for me to know he and Carson had had a heart-to-heart much like the one he and I had had. Whatever had been said, it had gone a long way to healing a wound Nash had been carrying around bleeding for decades.

  It hadn’t made the wound vanish. Nash still snipped at Carson, and Carson still returned the snip with an expected silence, but they weren’t quite glowering at each other anymore. In fact, Nash wasn’t really glowering at all. There was an almost permanent curl to the corner of his lips.

  Whatever had been said between them, it had done enough for Nash to take the seat I’d been using to play chess. The first night he’d switched the board and taken the first move, Carson had stilled, staring at Nash and the board for a long moment before making a return volley. Neither spoke of the years it had been since Nash had stopped playing with him, but they both dove into the game with a zealousness that screamed how much they’d both missed it. I learned more from watching their moves than in any of the games I’d played myself. Their games lasted hours, even crossing into the next night on occasion.

  Whenever Nash and I said goodnight to Maribelle and Carson, our bodies collided together as if we’d been apart days instead of hours. I’d never had this kind of desire before. I’d had moments of longing. Moments of wanting a man’s body tucked up against mine, but maybe because Nash knew what I craved without me telling him, it made me greedy for all of it.

  As our final days drew to a close, I found myself reluctant to leave the world we’d built. I was at peace here. Nash was at peace here. The dream we were living would end, and we’d go back to reality. Problem was, I hadn’t given any further thought about what that reality would look like. Would I go back to my childhood home? Would he go back to Tristan’s basement? Would we turn our days spent together into hours stolen here and there? What would happen once he was cleared by the psychologist to go back to the SEAL teams?

  On our last day, I spent part of my time looking up flower meanings. I knew my color meanings like the back of my hand, but flowers were new to me. After doing some initial investigation online, I went in search of Maribelle.

  She wasn’t in the kitchen but in a small parlor where she sat watching TV while she was knitting. Other than at night, while the men played chess, I hadn’t seen her sit still for long, so it was strange to see her in such a relaxed setting. She smiled at seeing me, waving me farther into the room.

  “What are you watching?” I asked.

  “Lucy reruns,” she said with a smile. “She still makes me laugh.”

  “I was hoping you might be able to help me.”

  “Of course, what do you need?”

  I felt slightly ridiculous now that I was standing before her with my list. “I was wondering if there were any of these flowers on the property.”

  I handed it to her, and her eyes went wide. She turned off the TV, dropped her knitting, and stood. “Let me call Marsha. She maintains the list of all the different varieties, where they grow on-site, the whole shebang.”

  “Shebang?”

  She laughed at herself. She made a call and then said Marsha would meet us at the greenhouses.

  “You don’t have to go,” I told her as we stepped out into the wind. The weather had gotten colder each day we’d been there. Like summer was a distant memory.

  “Nonsense. I want to go. It’s been a long time since I helped anyone pick out a bouquet that sent a message.”

  When we met up with Marsha—a small woman dressed in jeans and a Wellsley Place polo shirt—she smiled as I told her what I was doing. The three of us spent an hour together until I had the perfect bouquet.

  When we got back to the house, Maribelle loaned me a beautiful blue vase I was sure had been part of the household for at least a century. The glass was imperfect, hand-blown, and completely delightful, and it made the reds, blues, purples, and whites of the bouquet stand out.

  I retreated to Nash’s room. After our third night together, I’d abandoned the green room because it had been ridiculous for me to continue carting my things back and forth. He hadn’t objected to my invasion.

  I put the vase on Nash’s side of the bed. The fact I considered it his side at all spoke to how far gone I was. Lost. I was hopelessly lost in a world of Nash. With each day we spent together, the closer I came to letting the words spill out of me.

  The flowers would do it better than I could.

  I stepped into the shower to rinse away the dirt and pollen of the greenhouses. I was just about finished when the shower door opened, giving me a little start before I smiled up into his face. It wasn’t smiling in return. It was back to the glower he hadn’t worn in almost a week. I turned off the nozzle, and Nash wrapped me in the towel I’d had hanging on the hook. He wrapped me so tight I could barely move my arms before picking me up and carrying me to the bed.

  I laughed. “There’s no reason to imprison me.”

  He sat down on the mattress with me on his lap.

  I worked my hands free and put them on his cheeks. “What’s wrong?”

  “You weren’t in the gym,” he started.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I forgot to send you a text. I was busy―”

  “I see,” he interrupted, and his gaze traveled to the beautiful flowers I’d left for him.

  The striking, long-stemmed gladioli were blue blooms, symbolizing generosity, strength of character, faithfulness, and honor. The honor part had hit me particularly hard. I’d added anemones in red and white for the pure love I felt for him. There were also peonies for luck and good fortune as well as white daffodils for new beginnings. Nash and I were starting something new with this relationship. Red was always a dubious color because it could be a harsh angry tone as much as it could be the color of love. But with the blue and white flowers tinted with hints of yellow so bright they could be gold, the whole bouquet was not only filled with meaning, but it mirrored the colors in his room and in his life as a SEAL: service, honor, love. I was incredibly grateful to Maribelle and Marsha for helping me make it for him.

  “No one has made me a bouquet since…” He drifted away, and I was immediately chagrinned, but he kissed me tenderly, and I realized he wasn’t upset as much as thoughtful. “She gave me flowers the day she died.”

  I turned so I could wrap both my arms around him, straddling his waist like a bear cub, with my towel drifting apart at the back and not caring. I kissed his forehead and his cheeks and finally placed a soft kiss on his lips which he returned with a gentle one of his own.

  “She’d been telling me goodbye, and I didn’t understand it. I didn’t know she was the one who had sent me to military school. I’ve held it against Carson all these years, thinking he sent me away after she was buried. I thought he didn’t want me here. I was angry that I hadn’t had time to grieve for her, but now, looking back, I can see she’d planned it all. The school. The goodbyes. The pond… I wasn’t enough to keep her here.”

  I squeezed him as hard as I could, burying my face in his neck.

  “Mine was definitely not a goodbye bouquet,” I said.

  He nodded, placing a kiss on the back of my neck, trailing hands along my bare s
kin. “No, I can see that. It’s beautiful. It’s full of honor and love and new beginnings.”

  I lifted my face to look into his eyes.

  “I wasn’t sure I had the strength to say it to your face. But I do…I love you,” I said quietly, waiting to see what his reaction would be, and instead of words, I got hard, passionate kisses. Ones that melted my skin into his. Ones that led to my towel disappearing, and his clothes falling away, and our bodies riding out the wave of emotion until we fell asleep tangled together as one.

  Nash

  AMAZING

  “It's amazing,

  With the blink of an eye, you finally see the light.

  It's amazing,

  When the moment arrives that you know you'll be alright.”

  Performed by Aerosmith

  Written by Supa / Tyler

  When the grandfather clock chimed eleven, Dani covered yet another yawn. We were still in the library because Carson and I were trying to finish a game we’d started the night before. It was slow-going because we’d gotten back in the habit of reading each other’s tactics as if they were our own. Regret filled me because I’d denied him this simple pleasure, childishly and stupidly, for too long. I’d hurt myself as much as him by the rejection, because strategizing with him was what had cut me into the mold of a SEAL long before I’d ever enrolled in the academy. He’d shaped me more than my father had.

  Maribelle broke our silence. “Nash and Dani have to be up early to catch their flight to L.A. Might I suggest you pick up the game the next time he’s here?”

  It had been three years since I’d come back this last time. While I hadn’t committed anything to Carson in my time at the offices, I knew I’d raised his hopes by simply being there. Worse, I’d done more than just soak in information. Instead, I’d asked questions and offered opinions. I’d acted like I belonged.

  Going back to the SEALs had seemed like the only route for so long that it had actually become a burden I hadn’t realized I was carrying. But in a matter of two weeks, doors and windows had begun to open around me. Possibilities. But just like the strategies on the chessboard in front of us, I had to spend some time considering them before I made a sudden move that I’d regret in years to come. Before I took the straight path and got lost again.

  Regardless of my decisions about my future, I knew it would not be three years before I came home again. The part of me which had loved running through the fields and running up the grand staircase shimmering with color had finally been reawakened.

  Tristan’s basement was not my only home.

  “I was thinking I might be back for Thanksgiving.” I said the words without having considered them, but the moment they were out, I knew them for the truth they were. It would mean coming home in a few weeks instead of a few years, and I suddenly wanted that more than I’d ever thought I would.

  Carson grinned, Maribelle smiled, and when I looked at Dani, she was practically glowing. My regrets and burdens lifted ever so slightly, reminding me of the vase of flowers Dani had given me. The ones sending me a message of love.

  It hit me so hard in my chest I wasn’t sure I could breathe.

  I was loved.

  I’d been blind to it for years. The love Darren and Tristan had given me as a brother and a friend. The love Maribelle had for me as a grandson. Even the love Carson had wanted to give to me that I’d rejected.

  I didn’t want to cast it off any longer.

  I wanted to soak in every uttered word and touch, but I also wanted to give it back. To show it. To say the words to Dani. I just wasn’t sure what would happen once I did. She had cut open my chest and shoved a new heart inside. One that wasn’t charred. One that was red and pink and shiny and new. It would bleed out if anything happened to it.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  Driving the rental car back to Tallahassee broke the dreamworld I’d been living in with Dani at Wellsley Place. Suddenly, I was forced back to being on high alert. Noises were overloading me, requiring me to filter through them for the biggest threats, as I guided her through the busy airport security, using the pre-approved TSA lines with my military ID.

  Walking through the airport with Dani was like walking with a celebrity. She was gorgeous, drawing looks with her confident stride and the glow that seemed to emanate from around her.

  “I should have made you put on a bag and a mask,” I said with a growl after shooting daggers at yet another man who was staring at her, even with my hand tangled in hers.

  “What? Why?” she said with a laugh.

  I stopped in the middle of the walkway, not giving a shit about the comments people made as they were forced to go around us. I pulled her face to mine and kissed her until she was breathless just to make sure I could still do it. To prove it hadn’t been a dream which I’d lived alone. She returned my kiss with ferocity, and I comforted myself with the thought that she needed the reassurance as much as I did.

  “I might lose my control if another person looks at you,” I told her truthfully.

  She laughed. “It’s you they’re looking at, Otter. Remember, you’re the calendar model for the SEALs.”

  I couldn’t help the snort that left my body. “I should never have told you that.”

  “Too late. I even have some feelers out to get my own personal copy. You can sign it for me.”

  My snort turned to a full-on laugh, and we made our way to the gate.

  Once we were seated in the first-class seats Alice had booked for us, the mixed sense of reluctance and anticipation which had been pooling inside my stomach returned. I was back on a mission—the most important mission I’d ever been on, because the person being protected was Dani.

  Malone and Garner had been sending me daily updates on the plans for the awards ceremony. It had included the floor plans to the theater where the ceremony was taking place and the five-star hotel next door where we would be staying. I’d memorized every possible detail of the terrain, and every time I’d found another possible opening for Fiona, I’d sent it to them.

  Malone, Garner, and Tanner had started protesting, stating there was no way Fiona was going to get the equipment required to scale the hotel from the outside, but I’d insisted on snipers being placed on adjacent rooftops anyway. The cost of the operation had quickly spun out of control in a way that had me handing over my credit card, because neither the government nor Garner were willing to foot the bill for some of my outrageous ideas. The sane part of me knew the ideas were outlandish, but the part that was tangled with Dani didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was her safety.

  I went through the document stored in my brain on Fiona Ross. Malone’s team had done a deeper dive than Garner’s group had been able to do. When the FBI had talked to some of the employees at the other companies she’d worked for, there’d been some mumblings about things which had gone missing, but nothing had been proven. She’d supposedly gone on a drunken rant one night about the inordinate wealth of the people she worked for, but that was from an unreliable ex-boyfriend. She’d obviously wanted Brady’s money but had also been romantically attached to him if she’d ended up in his bed. It meant she saw gorgeous, confident Dani as a threat in more than one way.

  Because the incident in Tallahassee still reeked of someone inside, I’d asked Malone to investigate everyone in the restaurant with us. He’d insisted that there was nothing that tied any of them to Fiona before she’d worked with Brady’s team, but if there was someone involved, it put every plan we made at risk. That was why I’d made sure each person only knew their part and not the whole. Garner, Lee, Tanner, Malone, and I were the only ones with the entire picture.

  My brain flipped through the layout, the plans, and our strategies on the flight while Dani worked on speeches and press releases assuming Brady won or lost in the five categories he’d been nominated. As we started our descent, Dani put everything away and curled into me, head resting on my shoulder, hand rubbing my arm.
<
br />   “It feels weird,” she said quietly.

  “What?”

  “Returning to normal life.”

  My heart thudded at her words. The normal life she’d said she wanted the day we’d first met with Malone. What was normal for us? We hadn’t discussed it. We’d just barely acknowledged what was happening between us was something we both wanted to continue. She’d said she loved me, and I hadn’t had the ability to say it back. Not yet.

  I just needed this entire event to be over, with Fiona behind bars, before I could completely turn my brain to what I wanted for myself and Dani. For us. Then, I’d be able to find the right words. The words she deserved.

  “I’m not sure this can be considered normal,” I said dryly. She stilled, and I kissed the top of her head in case she’d taken my words the wrong way. I continued, “Living with a threat directed at you isn’t normal, Dani.”

  She nodded, tilting her head to look up into my face. “I keep forgetting she might be gunning for me instead of Brady. I keep forgetting her entirely.”

  This only built the wariness inside me. “You can’t do that. You have to stay alert.”

  “I have you hovering around me. I feel completely safe.”

  While I was glad I brought her comfort, I needed her to be on her toes as well. My voice was gruffer and harder than I intended when I said, “I’m not enough. You have to be continually looking and thinking about where the threat can come from. Promise me.”

  Dani met my stare with her own, looking inside me in a way only she had ever done, seeing the pieces of me I’d held behind a wall for so long I hadn’t been sure I’d be able to come out from behind it. And yet, she was slowly guiding me over and around it, back to being a person and not just a SEAL. Being more than the Trident that had been pounded into me.