She looked up at him, and the control she'd held through all of it loosened a notch, just in her shoulders, just for him. "I owe you the courtesy of hearing you out. Your story is insane, but you believed in me when you had no proof. How can I do anything less?"
He looked down at her, the sparking gray of his eyes gone almost soft, and she watched something settle in his face that she didn't have a name for.
"That’s the first thing I’ve heard in a really long time that gives me a measure of hope," he said, low.
"Before you tell me everything, Jae." She breathed it against his throat. "How about you all get settled." She pointed upstairs. “There are two spare bedrooms with bunks and storage units. My armory is on this floor, behind the bookcase.” She rose and pressed a hidden button, and it opened to collective male gasps. She spared no expense when it came to weapons, explosives, and gadgets.
Twister grinned. “Damn, woman. That’s a tactical wet dream.”
She laughed softly. “Right.” She looked at the two young men she didn’t know. “You are?”
“Lieutenant Flynn Gallagher, and this is Lieutenant Nathaniel Locklear. You can just call us Fly and North.”
She nodded. “I’m sure you’re parts of the puzzle. Just…make yourselves at home. There’s a shower to each bunk room.”
“Hot damn. Dibs,” Easy said, heading for the stairs with that feline grace she couldn’t seem to unsee. The others followed.
Flash rose and she simply watched him. How did she stay away from him for so long? A flash of the hilt of a knife in her hand made her pulse stumble. She shook it off. He cupped her face with both hands. “Is that a subtle hint that I need a shower, babe?”
“Honestly, no. You smell…” She breathed him in. “Amazing.”
His stomach rumbled, and she smiled. He was human after all. “I can get to cooking, but if you want to take advantage of my hot water, be my guest.”
Twister had been carrying two packs, so she was sure the second one was his. “Better make a lot. Five men aren’t bashful about chow.”
She nodded, and as he passed her, she slapped him on the ass. He hesitated, then chuckled. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
“Go, before I lock us in the armory and take your fine ass on something lethal.”
He grabbed her around the neck and dragged her against him, his chest heaving. His mouth was fierce and quick, the kiss hot and way too brief. “Babe, everything on you is lethal.”
* * *
Flash stoodunder the hot water with his hands braced against the tile and let it pound the back of his neck. He hadn’t been kidding.
Lechuza was lethal in every sense of the word. He'd been moving for too long. His shoulders were a sheet of knots. The shower was hers, which meant the water pressure was tactical, the temperature ran hot enough to scald, and the soap on the shelf smelled like the woman he'd just been holding. He kept his eyes closed against it. He kept his forehead against the wet tile. He let himself stand inside the fact that she'd touched him,that her mouth had found his, that she'd said his name the way he'd been carrying it in his head for a year, and he let his ribs unclench one notch at a time.
She'd let him in.
She'd let him in, and she'd bitten his lip. That had been the beginning of the restraint he needed to keep his damn head on straight, not the one between his legs, although that one did need a stern talking to. His dick tightened with throbbing protest.
She'd looked at him like she was finally going to let herself break, and he'd held her steady because the alternative was getting sidetracked while the world burned down with four brothers waiting in a hangar. He'd never been so proud of his own goddamn discipline in his life.
He got soap on the mesh loofah and scrubbed it over his body, but when he reached the scar from where Herrera’s goon had sunk in his blade, her hands trying to stem the blood…the world spun, and then, it was her hands holding the knife, plunging it in, her body covered with her own blood, her face devastated, ruined, tear-streaked. Everything righted, and he caught himself against the tile.What the fuck?
The bathroom door banged open against its stop.
"You drowning in there, brother?"
Easy. Of course, it was Easy.
"Working on it." He caught his breath, recalibrated. A vision that felt like a memory. He was more fatigued than he thought. He was making up shit in his head. Then he thought about when he’d told her no downstairs, how she had reacted with such rage. What had he called her? Quri Killa? What did Quri mean? It had to be Quechua. He didn’t speak it, except for that moment in the jungle when he’d uttered,you are my heart. He shifted his shoulders. He was sure back then as he was sure now. The jungle had whispered it to him.
A shiver went over him from a wind that couldn’t possibly be there. The jungle…had the Veil given him the knowledge he needed to speak to her in her ancestral tongue? Had it recognized him even then?
Had his uneasiness in the Ecuadorian jungle when he’d been contacted by the Guardian tied to this…this strange name he shouldn’t know?
"Take your time. I'm just here to ask why Twister cooked dinner. He's a fucking medic, Flash. He doesn't even season."
