He stares up at the ceiling in the center of the room, the half-rotten shingles looking like they might not survive another night of this storm. But we’re tucked in the back of this old building, and here…it’s safe and warm and just the two of us.
“Tell me.” I press a kiss to his chest, right over his heart. “Tell me or touch me. Because everything hurts, it’s cold, and I need you. Therealyou. Or…at leastmoreof you.”
Chapter Twelve
Austin
Mikayla looks so small and frightened huddled against me, but God, having her in my arms, her soft skin and curves starting to warm…I don’t know that I’ll ever get enough of her. I play with her hair, the short strands now dry, slipping over my fingers as I try for a gentle scalp massage, being careful to avoid the swollen bump at the crown of her head.
“I left my post.” Even now, eight months after I stood in Clarke’s office for my dressing down, I hunch my shoulders at the memory. “My sister and one of my closest friends were in trouble back in January, and they needed me. But you just don’t go AWOL in the military. Especially not when you’re the commander of Joint Special Operations Command. You do what you’re told. What your country needs you to do.”
“But…your sister. Anyone should understand that,” Mik says, her voice soft and tinged with exhaustion. Maybe she’ll fall asleep and I won’t have to tell her the rest. But she peers up at me, her eyes half-lidded, and though I could urge her to close them and probably get out of this…I want her to know. Ineedher to know.
“Not in my world. No. Each branch of the military is slightly different. In the Marines, it’s ‘God, Country, Corps.’ In the Air Force, we say—they say—‘integrity first, service before self, and excellence in all we do.’ I’m trained to stay on post no matter what. I chose to disobey orders, and what was even worse, to engage in unauthorized combat on foreign soil. Other than killing a man in cold blood or committing outright treason, that’s about the worst thing I could have done.” Shifting onto my back to relieve some pressure on my shoulder, I stare up at the ceiling, focusing on a rotting beam halfway across the room. “My commanding officer could have had me court-martialed.”
“No. He wouldn’t have…”
Shit, she’s so naive. Then again, so are most civilians. They don’t understand the rigidity. The absolute need for it. The unwavering commitment to following orders at all cost. “He would have…if there’d been any evidence of me going to Venezuela to help Dani. Luckily, the group I went with—a K&R firm out of Seattle—has one of the best hackers on the planet working for them. She covered my tracks.”
Mikayla traces her fingers over the scar from one of the bullets I took in Pakistan. “K&R?”
“Kidnap and ransom. Trev…he was in a Venezuelan prison. One you donotescape from. Not even when you’re a former CIA agent who’s deadlier than I am by half. Trev works for a security firm in Boston called Second Sight, and between them and Hidden Agenda—that’s the K&R group—it took five of us on the ground and another five online to get them out.”
“That’s where you were hurt?” she asks. “Your shoulder?”
My scoff sounds so much louder than I intend in the small space. “No. I came out of that mission with nothing more than a few bruises. Dani and Trev were the only ones…” My sister’s face flashes behind my eyelids. She’ll wear that scar along her cheekbone for the rest of her life. And Trevor…his scars aren’t physical, but that might make them even worse.
“Austin?” Mik cups my cheek, and I cover her hand with mine. “You were somewhere else again. Somewhere…dark.”
“Yeah.” Touching my forehead to hers, I blow out a long, slow breath. “Dani and Trevor went through hell down there. I’m not sure they’ll ever recover from it. Not fully. I should have…” Fuck. I don’t know what I should have done. “Dani asked me to go with her. To Venezuela. But I couldn’t, because I was on this fucking political song and dance tour across half a dozen countries. So Trev went. And his history with Venezuela…it’s a lot worse than mine.”
Mik settles closer to me. “So what happened to your shoulder?”
“When I came back, my CO—“ I swallow hard, ill prepared to admit I was basically fired and sent halfway around the world as punishment for my actions, “—he sent me to Pakistan.”
“Oh.” Ifeelher reply more than hear it, and I close my eyes. We need to sleep soon. Mikayla has to regain her strength before we hike back to the Land Rover.
Say it. Just…spit it out and move past it.
“Austin?” Mikayla whispers with her lips against my ear. “What happened to you?”
“I…” A barrage of gunfire echoes in my memories. I can smell the smoke. Feel the blowback from the grenade. Hear Griff’s shouted warning, then his scream as that stone wall collapsed, crushing his arm. “I can’t.”
The words escape hoarse and full of emotion, and I bury my face against Mikayla’s neck. Fuck. She smells so good. Even here, dirty, bedraggled, left to die on a cliff in a storm. Like home. Like everything I never thought I wanted but now…don’t want to be without.
“Five people died,” I say against her soft skin. “Only one of my security detail survived. Lost his arm. His hearing. Most of it, anyway. He saved my life. But I still took three shots. The one to my shoulder…”
Mik threads her fingers into my hair and guides me back just enough to kiss me. Her lips are chapped from all those hours in the rain and wind, but there’s no hesitation, no holding back, and I roll her on top of me, needing more. I almost lost her. Almost didn’t find her in time. We could have missed out on our tomorrow. On all the tomorrows I want to have with her.
Her wince stops me, tames my dick jutting against her stomach, hard and eager for more than she’s ready to give. Fuck. How can I be thinking about sex when she’s injured? I didn’t even examine her properly after I got her into the sleeping bag.
“What hurts?” I ask. She doesn’t answer, and I cup her cheek and hold her gaze. “Mik. Tell me.”
With a sigh, she shakes her head, then groans softly. “My head. Hip. Back. Shoulder. Ankle. I was thrown off a cliff, Austin. Everything hurts.”
“Thrown?”The word explodes from my lips, and Mik squeezes her eyes shut. “Fuck. I’m sorry, sweetheart. But goddammit, if I ever find those shitstains, I’m going to turn them inside out.”
It’s clearly the wrong thing to say, because Mikayla’s brown eyes fill with tears, and she swallows a sob. “I tried to run,” she whimpers. “But the rocks were so slippery, and I’d just had an asthma attack. The meds…I get shaky.”
