I descended two steps at a time, finding Reed coming back inside once downstairs.
“Yup,” he said while removing the M4 slung across his chest and setting it aside. “You definitely kissed her.”
I stopped in my tracks. What gave me away? The raging hard-on I was still sporting? My eyes, which were probably dark and soulless right now?
“Don’t follow me,” I warned, blowing past him while muttering a few choice words in Spanish on my way to my bedroom.
Naturally, Reed didn’t heed my order.
“You not hear me?” I snapped, turning halfway around.
“Loud and clear.” He was completely unfazed as he kept up behind me. “Ryder’s not inside yet, and I don’t owe Hollis an update for another ten minutes. That gives us time.” A flicker of a smile cut across his face.
I ignored him, continuing on my mission to get to my bedroom. He remained right on my ass, dammit.
It wasn’t lost on me that Ryder had placed me downstairs and away from his sister, and he was just fine with Reed being upstairs.
Smart man.I’d nearly had sex with his sister.Unprotected, too. Never thought to pack that kind of protection. And maybe I was being a cocky asshole to believe she wanted to have sex tonight, but the wayshe was rubbing against me, my dick still painfully hard as a result, told me it’d be a yes.
“We need to talk.”
I flicked on the light in my room just in time so I wouldn’t trip over my bag. “There are two things you suck at,” I bit out, turning my frustration on him when he didn’t deserve it. “Humor and feelings.”
“Agreed—but here I am, outside my comfort zone, and I’m trying anyway.” He leaned inside the doorway with his arms folded, signaling that he had no plans to leave.
Damn you.I dropped onto the bed, leaning forward. Elbows to my legs, I slowly lifted my head, unsure if I should let him look me in the eye or not, worried he’d see that I’d left my soul upstairs, since eyes were supposed to be the windows to it and all that ... or however the expression went.
“I can tell you’re pissed. Or, well, confused. You look like you just found out your whole deck of cards is rigged.”
“See. Right there. Humor and talking aren’t your strengths, man.”
He stepped inside, deciding to double down, not back down. “Just because you learned a thing or two from your father, living in his shadow most of your life, doesn’t mean you’re him.”
My dad?Was he really trying to psychoanalyze me right now? I didn’t have any childhood trauma. No shitty memories growing up. My parents had left the country they’d loved to escape communism so my dad could pursue his dreams here, and they’d given me an incredible life.
“Your dad’s a good guy, don’t get me wrong,” he added as if reading my confusion as to where he was going with this. “Million times better than my old man. But I know somewhere in that head of yours growing up behind that curtain onstage with him had you thinking that everyone and everything eventually disappears at some point, and that has to be—”
“Don’t do this.” I dropped my head into my hands.
Because dammit, he was right. A little bit, at least.
“You joined the military because you needed something real, right? Something solid and not built on illusions?”
His words jolted my head upright again.How the hell do you know that?
“I get that. I really do. And I can tell you’re feeling something real now, and with her. It’s impossible not to see the way you two look at each other. From the second you shook her hand at Christmas, your eyes lit the fuck up, man. And it’s been scaring the hell out of you ever since.”
“Please.” I lifted my hand. “We’re working a mission. That’s what we need to focus on.” That was rich, coming from me after I’d made out with my team leader’s sister. “I should be the least of your concerns.”
“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter,” he grumbled. “You may always put the mission before your own life, but there’s one thing you still put above everything else, and that’s the people you care about. So don’t you sit there and tell me I’m not allowed to give a damn about you right back.”
This was a side of Reed I rarely saw. I wasn’t sure how to handle Mr. Doom and Gloom being all ... well, whatever this was.
“Let’s just regroup in the morning and act like this heart-to-heart never happened, ’k?” I stood and lifted my shirt, checking the bandage there. A memory of Audrey’s hands on my skin as we kissed dropped a veil over my sight, and all I could see was her and nothing else.
“Fine, whatever you want. It’s your life.”
Shit.I was being such a dick. “Reed?”
