“No worries,” Jangles said, and when he was within reaching distance, he tagged Hope around the waist and pulled her to his side. “We were just discussing the state of my shitty pots and pans and the fundamental need to junk them before we die of polymer fume fever.”
Hope jerked and Jangles smiled. She wanted to pull away but she wouldn’t, not while they had an audience.
“Well, we wouldn’t want that.” Merlin chuckled. “You guys wanna hit the range first?”
“It’s my weekly lesson.” Gwen rolled her eyes and feigned annoyance but she wasn’t fooling anyone. She loved Merlin, loved spending time with him, whether it was at the shooting range, at her bookstore, or at home.
“Um…” Hope started, but Jangles talked over her.
“Let us get showered and we’ll meet you there.”
Hope went solid and he knew he’d pay for that comment after Gwen and Merlin left, but his point was made.
“Right. We’ll let you get to it then. See ya in a bit,” Merlin said.
“Hey, I know! After I dazzle everyone with my perfect shot placement, we should go to lunch,” Gwen announced and looked at Hope. “Do you work tonight?”
“No, it’s my day off.”
Oh, yeah, Hope was pissed and doing her best to cover it. Jangles would definitely catch shit when his friends left.
“Great. Shooting and lunch.” Gwen smiled.
Jangles liked Gwen, always had, but right then, he liked her even more. She was doing her part to make Hope feel welcomed and he appreciated it.
“Come on, princess, let’s let them get ready.”
Jangles remained where he was as the couple let themselves out. The second the door closed, Hope turned on him.
“That was—”
Jangles didn’t let her finish. His head tipped down, his mouth brushed hers, and before she could protest, his tongue darted out and tasted her lips. That was all the coaxing Hope needed to let him in. Hope’s hands clutched his shoulders, and his moved to capture her face.
Her fingers curled in and pulled him closer and Jangles tilted his head, making a soft, wet kiss deep and demanding. He kept at her until she moaned into his mouth and his hard cock twitched at the sound. Then he reminded himself they needed to get a move on. He needed her showered, dressed, and in his truck in quick order before she had a chance to pull away and run.
He slowly broke the kiss and loved her mew in protest.
But today wasn’t about what he could do for her in bed—he was well-acquainted with every part of her body, knew how to make it sing in pleasure. Hands down, Hope was the best he’d ever had. What she lacked in experience, she made up with enthusiasm. The woman drove him wild. It didn’t matter if she was using her hand, her mouth, or he was balls-deep in her tight pussy, she had him on edge from the first stroke. She pushed him to the brink of his control—every time.
“Babe.”
“Huh?”
“We gotta get goin’.”
She was soft and pliant in his arms, but the moment he spoke, she turned to stone.
“Beau—”
“Get dressed. We’ll hit the range, have lunch, then go shopping. Tonight I’m taking you to dinner. So if you need to stop at your place to get clothes, we’ll do that.”
“I don’t think—”
“No more thinking.”
“Stop interrupting me,” Hope grunted. “It’s rude and annoying.”
“I’ll stop if you promise me you won’t say something that’s gonna piss me off, like, this isn’t who we are. Or, you don’t think it’s a good idea to hang out with my friends. Or something equally as jacked, like you don’t want them knowing we’re together.”
Hope stared at him scowling, irritation sparking in her eyes, and Jangles smiled.
“I’m glad to see something is amusing you,” she snapped.
“Baby, you’re standing in my dining room, wearing my tee. Your hair’s still tangled from last night, you smell good, you taste good, last night you passed out in my arms, I woke up with your head on my chest, your knee hitched up resting on my thigh. I’m gonna take my woman shooting, we’re gonna go buy new pans so we’re not courting death every time I cook you breakfast. Then I’m gonna take you to dinner, and after that, we’ll come back here and the night will end the same way it did yesterday. I’m not amused, Hope, I’m happy.”
He heard her suck in a breath. Then he lost her eyes because she lowered her lids before she did another faceplant.
“I’m scared.”
Jangles’ muscles seized.
“Scared? Of me?”
“Yes.”
What the fuck?
“I would never hurt you.”
“I know you’d never physically hurt me, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have the power to crush me. When I’m with you and you say stuff like that, you make me forget. But more than that, you make me want more.”
He didn’t have time to recover from the blow her words caused before she continued to rock his world. “You make me believe I could love you and we could be happy. You make me believe there’s a possibility I could be forgiven for what I’ve done. All of that scares me so badly, I want to run far and fast so you’ll never catch me.”
“I’d catch you.”
“I know you would. And that’s why I’m so scared.”
Fucking finally.
Finally, she’d admitted her feelings.
“I’d never hurt you,” he repeated. “I’m not an asshole. Nor am I stupid, I know what we have, I know what I feel. And I know I’m not letting you go.”
“Please don’t hurt me.” Her plea sizzled down Jangles’ spine and heated his insides.
Finally.
“I won’t, baby.”
Hope had cracked the door open. Now he was blowing the motherfucker off its hinges so she could never close it.
Chapter 11
“So…” Gwen smiled. “How long have you two been sneakin’ around?”
Hope was startled by Gwen’s question and it must’ve shown because the other woman’s giggle rang out in the empty office.
They’d finished shooting and Jangles and Merlin were cleaning up the empty brass from the lanes and Gwen and Hope had gone to her office to retrieve their purses.
“Sorry, too personal?” Gwen asked, but if the wide smile was anything to go by, she wasn’t sorry.
Of course, Hope knew Gwen. She was with Merlin so she’d been to the Ugly Mug plenty of times, and she and Merlin had been to the range while Hope had been working there, too. But Hope didn’t know her, know her. It wasn’t like they had weekly mani-pedis or anything.
Hope liked Gwen. If she was being honest, she liked Nori, Destiny, and Ivy, too. But she’d always kept her distance and never allowed herself more than a brief chat with the women. She didn’t want to get attached. Actually, she didn’t think it was her place to become friends with the women who belonged to Jangles’ teammates.
They were together but not like that. Their lives didn’t cross outside of his house.
Until now.
And Hope was at a loss for how to handle the situation.
Damn Jangles.
“Um…”
“Forget it.” Gwen shook her head. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Hope blurted.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t have girlfriends,” Hope sighed, and Gwen’s eyes widened before they went soft. She didn’t want to process what Gwen’s look meant so she rushed on. “I also don’t know what Beau would want me to say. But since he’s the one that thought this would be a good idea…not that I didn’t want to hang out with you and Merlin…just that…gah. I’m screwing this up so bad.”
“I get it.” Gwen laughed.
“Months,” Hope admitted. “Since right after he moved to Killeen.”
“That long?” Gwen gasped.
“Yeah. But we weren’t really together, together. You know, more like�
�friends who had sex.”
Gwen’s face turned beet-red before she busted out laughing.
“TMI?”
“No. Not at all. I just can’t believe I didn’t see it. Geez, I need to pay more attention to what’s going on around me.”
Gwen was still smiling and Hope was struggling with what to make of the friendliness that was rolling off Gwen.
Then Gwen shocked the hell out of her and said, “But now that the cat’s out of the bag, you have to come to one of our girls’ nights.”
“I don’t think the cat’s out of the bag, Gwen. I think you just happened to show up at Beau’s house while I was there and he’s too nice of a guy to make me hide.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Not even a little bit.”
Gwen stopped smiling and started studying her. The scrutiny made Hope want to squirm. She didn’t like attention and something told her Gwen saw way more than she wanted her to.
“I agree with you, Jangles is a nice guy. But, Hope, if he didn’t want you here, he wouldn’t have invited you. And he went out of his way to point out not only had he cooked you breakfast before, but he also planned to in the future.”
Hope hated how insecure she felt, hated that she was in an unknown situation, where she didn’t know what to say or how to act. This was why she didn’t have girlfriends, or any friends actually. The men she surrounded herself with were grumpy, old, and would never dream of talking to her about anything remotely personal, like who was making her breakfast.
“May I be honest with you?” Hope found herself asking Gwen.
“Of course.”
Gwen was back to grinning so she hoped that meant the woman didn’t think she was a total basket case. Or maybe she was grinning because she thought Hope was a little loopy.
Whatever.
She couldn’t think about that now.
“I’m scared. I don’t know what to do, and I don’t have anyone to talk to. BF’s my only friend, if you could call him that, and he’d run me over with his chair if I tried to talk to him about Beau.”
Gwen giggled again and it hit her why Merlin was so smitten. It wasn’t because she was positively beautiful, which she was, but she was genuine, friendly, and so damn sweet, Hope didn’t know what to do with her. She wasn’t used to anyone being kind to her. Sure, people were polite, and both Lefty’s and Jangles’ teams were nice to her in a bartender-patron kind of way. And Beau was…Beau. But that was different, they were…doing whatever it was they were doing. But on the regular, people were not kind and sweet to Hope. And Gwen barely knew her and she was being both.
“How about this?” Gwen started. “Since we only have a few minutes until Merlin and Jangles come looking for us, I’ll give you my number and we’ll make plans, just the two of us. But I’ll say this now; love’s scary. It’s hard. But so worth it.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t mind?”
“Girl…” Gwen bumped her shoulder and continued, “I’d mind if you didn’t. Us girls need to stick together.”
Welp, it seemed that after living in Killeen for eight years, Hope had made her first girlfriend. She was sure that made her pathetic, but she was floating on a cloud of goodness so she shoved the self-pity aside and decided to focus on the fact that she now had someone to talk to.
Hope didn’t know what woke her, but when she opened her eyes, she was alone in Beau’s bed. A quick glance at the clock told her it was four in the morning, and a touch to Beau’s cold pillow told her he’d been up a while.
She tossed her legs over the side of the bed, got up, and rooted around in the dark until she found the tee she’d torn off Beau earlier. Once she pulled it over her head, she went in search of her man.
Her man.
That’s what he’d called himself earlier. Or actually, he’d called her his woman. So, if that was the case, then the reverse was true. And sometime over the last week since the flood gates had opened and he’d wormed his way deeper into her life, she tentatively decided to try this ‘more’ stuff on for size. It was scary as hell, but she found she liked it, which was a new kind of scary. The big kind that would tear her apart when Beau figured out she wasn’t worthy of a man like him, or her constant fear of moving forward would get old.
The hallway was dark as she made her way to the dining room, but when she looked left, there he was in the living room sitting on the couch with only a dim lamp and his laptop to illuminate his form. His head came up as she approached but he didn’t say anything.
Apprehension started to tickle the back of her throat. Something felt off. In all the months she’d stayed over, never had she woken up alone in the middle of the night.
“Everything all right?” she whispered.
Beau closed his laptop and set it aside before he answered, “Everything’s fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, baby, come here.”
She didn’t go there. Instead, she stood rooted in place thinking over their day. After the shooting range, they’d gone to lunch. Hope thought it went well, but now she wasn’t so sure. The four of them had joked and laughed, the conversation was light and fun, mostly poking fun at Merlin and his demand that Gwen continued to practice shooting even after she’d demonstrated she was a damn good shot and was totally safe with her gun. No one had brought up why Hope was at Jangles’ house, wearing his shirt, so she figured that was good.
They shopped for new pots and pans. That was easy because neither of them liked to shop so they walked in, grabbed the first set that looked decent, and left.
During their quick trip to Hope’s RV so she could pick up clothes, there was a small hiccup when Beau told her to grab a few days’ worth and she didn’t think that was necessary. They’d argued, but Beau had gotten his way, mainly because he was bossy and packed her a bag. She bitched loudly, then mentally scratched ‘bossy’ onto the top of the list of things Beau did that annoyed the shit out of her, even though secretly, she loved that he wanted her to pack a bag.
See? Basket case.
Dinner had been great. They’d always had a good time together though they’d never done it in public before. But Hope couldn’t imagine that was what would be bothering him.
They’d come home, torn each other’s clothes off, and had fantastic sex. That was not new, they did that all the time.
So the harder she thought, the more confused she became. Unless he’d changed his mind. And he’d gotten out of bed because he was trying to find a way to let her down easy.
“Something’s wrong, Beau. Something bad enough that it took you from your bed and now you’re sitting out here alone. Just tell me if you’ve—”
“Hope.” Her name was a warning.
“Seriously, stop cutting me off.”
“How ’bout this—I’ll stop when you stop thinking the worst. I swear to you, I’ll never do it again when you stop saying shit that pisses me off. And, Hope, it pisses me off, because I’ve given you no indication I’ve changed my mind.”
God, it was annoying when he knew what she was going to say.
“Please come here.”
It was the please that made her feet move. Beau reached out, tagged her hand, and pulled her forward. Hope’s hands went to his shoulders, his went to her hips, and he yanked her down so she was straddling his lap.
“Nothing’s wrong, baby. At least nothing worth you worrying about.”
That didn’t make her feel better.
“But it’s worth you worrying about?”
Beau was quiet for a long time. So long, it started to freak her out. But she didn’t break the silence because as freaked out as Hope was, she liked the way he was looking at her. It was mostly dark, so she couldn’t see the blue of his eyes, but she saw they were gentle, introspective. His hands on her hips started moving, slow glides of his palms, featherlight. His touches were so different from their normal frenzied rush.
Hope felt some of the tension recede and she whispered, “What’s wrong, han
dsome?”
“I’m trying to go slow. Give you time to adjust. But I’m not sure I can do it.”
Hope’s teeth sank into her bottom lip in an effort not to say what she was thinking, but it was hard. So difficult, she bit down harder to keep her runaway thoughts to herself. He told her to stop thinking the worst, but it was damn impossible when he said stuff like that.
Beau’s hand left her hip and went to her jaw. His thumb grazed her lip and pulled the abused flesh free. “Thank you, baby.”
“For what?”
“For keeping your thoughts in check. For trusting me.” His palm slid across her cheek, then down until he cupped the back of her neck. “You are so beautiful. All of you, Hope. You have no idea how hard it is for me to control my need to protect you. To pack up that RV and move you in here. Don’t twist that into something ugly. I know you’re strong, I know you can take care of yourself, and you’ve made that RV into a home. But it’s still an RV. You’ve lived there eight years. You deserve someplace better. I want to give you better. I want to move you in here, so I know you’re safe. I want you here so I know you’re coming home to me after work. I want you here so when I’m out on an assignment, I know you’re in our bed. I want more, so much more, but I’m trying to have a mind to what you need.
“So, you see, I’m at war with myself. Half of me wants to push hard, completely take over, force you to see how special you are. I don’t want us to hide from my team, their women, BF, or his cronies. I want them to know you’re mine. I want to walk into the bar and not have to pretend you’re just the bartender and not who you really are, the woman I love.
“But the other half of me knows I need to go gentle, handle you with care. Ease you into my life. I’m torn. And after the day we had today, I don’t know if I can go back to hiding who we are. Hell, baby, I don’t think we should. You’re not a secret, and it feels like shit we’ve been hiding as long as we have.”
Hope sat perched on Beau’s lap and struggled to get enough oxygen. The air around her felt thin, her head was fuzzy, and her vision went blurry. Her eyes hadn’t left his, but she couldn’t make out more than a shadowy figure.
Hope's Delta (Special Forces: Operation Alpha) (Delta Team Three Book 5) Page 6
