Guts & Glory: Hunter (In the Shadows Security Book 3)

by Jeanne St. James

  His gaze slid to Steel who was concentrating on his boots, wearing an unmistakable grin.

  “Are you two talking about Taz?” she asked, making him wonder how much she heard.

  “Yeah,” Steel said, lifting his head, his grin wiped away, his expression back to being all business.

  “Still nothing?”

  Hunter wasn’t sure how much he should tell her. He shook his head. “We think he went underground. Came up with nothing in Lancaster.”

  “He might come out for me.”

  She said it so softly, Hunter thought he misheard her.

  “What?” Steel asked, his eyes meeting Hunter’s. He wondered if he looked as surprised as Steel.

  “He might come out of hiding for me,” Frankie repeated, louder this time. “Especially if he finds out about Leo.”

  “Frankie—” Hunter started.

  She lifted a hand and turned to face him. “No. Don’t shut that idea down. I want this whole thing over. I wanted this whole thing over with him before I found out I was pregnant. I worry every damn day, Hunter. Every day. I don’t want to live like this anymore. I know having a PFA is a joke. It won’t stop someone determined to cause me or Leo harm. Especially someone who isn’t afraid of doing time. If this is the only way to flush him out, then we need to do this. I’ll say it again...” She took a deep breath, then said slowly, “I want this over.”

  Hunter wanted this whole thing over, too. But not at the risk of putting Frankie and her son in harm’s way.

  “I think it could work,” Steel said. “I know you don’t like it, brother, but maybe if we get the local cops involved, it’ll help. You said they know the background, right?”

  “They know everything that happened,” Frankie said before Hunter could. “I trust them and would feel better if they were involved, too. Because...” She looked from Steel to Hunter. “No offense, but besides you both wearing dog tags, I know nothing about your backgrounds. All I know is what you’ve told me, the name of the business you both work for. But I don’t know what you actually do. Are you even capable of handling a man like Taz? And if you find him, then what? You turn him over to the police? I need more than what you’ve given me. But, even with that said, I’m willing to be used to draw him out so Max and his officers can take him into custody.”

  “Frankie, if they take him into custody, he won’t be there long. Eventually he’ll be free again and you’ll be back to where you are now,” Hunter admitted.

  “Then what’s the solution?”

  It was a valid question. One Hunter didn’t want to answer. And by judging the look on Steel’s face, he didn’t either.

  Because what they planned to do could land any of them in the cell next to Rocky. Just that thought made Hunter’s heart beat more rapidly. The last thing he wanted to do was follow in his own father’s footsteps by finding a way out of a cell on a gurney with a sheet knotted around his neck.

  “We could see if the local PD is willing to partner with us to draw him out. Let them think we’re helping them take him into custody.”

  “And then what?” she asked.

  “We do what we do best.”

  “Which is?”

  Hunter could push her off, not tell her the truth, or he could be completely upfront about it.

  “What do you want to see happen to the father of your child, Frankie?” Before she could answer, he continued so she knew the magnitude of any decision she made. “Think carefully, this is a decision you’ll have to live with the rest of your life if it comes to fruition. This is something you may have to lie to your son about each and every time he asks about his biological father.”

  He grabbed her arm again and drew her to him, turning her to face him. Her face was tipped up and even in the dim light he could see she was actually thinking first before acting. Before making a very important decision.

  “I want this over. How ever that has to happen, needs to happen.”

  Hunter had no doubt with her cold, flat tone she was serious about what she just said. This woman was no wilting flower. Steel was right, she would defend her son like a ferocious lioness.

  Even if it meant her son’s father had to die.

  Chapter Eleven

  Hunter’s eyelids lifted and he had no clue where the fuck he was. His heart was racing, his skin covered in sweat, every muscle in his body had turned to stone. He blinked and blinked again. He couldn’t see shit. Nothing but darkness.

  A heavy weight crushed his chest. His lungs wouldn’t expand to let in any oxygen, his mouth wouldn’t open to suck in air.

  He was suffocating. Dying.

  And when that final and permanent sleep came, he’d do it alone.

  Not only from bleeding from his gunshot wounds, but from slowly being crushed to death by what seemed like tons of rubble.

  He’d never escape. He’d never be found. He’d never be rescued. Because no one knew where the fuck he was. No one but the insurgent who shot him, if that motherfucker was even still alive.

  Most likely he wasn’t. Not after an airstrike ripped through that part of Baghdad. After being shot, Hunter took cover in the remains of a bombed-out apartment building. The best place he could hide ended up being the worst.

  When he heard the aircraft’s engines coming closer, he ducked into a corner, hunkered down, covered his head, and kissed his ass goodbye, not expecting to ever see the light of day again.

  He did. But during those hours, the two days afterward, until the time he was found and unburied, starving and dehydrated, completely out of his mind, there had been many times he wished he hadn’t.

  Being buried alive could break even the strongest man.

  Hunter was no exception.

  He wanted to think he was invincible. That short window of time in his life proved him wrong. It humbled him when he discovered he was breakable.

  He survived, yes. But left undamaged? No.

  Operation Enduring Freedom.

  Fuck him.

  That operation trapped him and a lot of his military brothers for the rest of their lives. They’d never truly be “free” again. They paid the price. Sometimes the ultimate one. Either while still over there or after they returned home.

  Nobody escaped that “operation” unscathed.

  He slid his hand down his sweat-drenched body, and, without needing to look, he found the circular, puckered scar near his hip. He slid it lower, finding the one on his thigh.

  He was one of the lucky ones. He managed to come home with all his limbs, and also on his two feet.

  He only came home with scars.

  And a bad case of claustrophobia due to being buried for two days under the crumpled remains of a building.

  Later, he’d been taught what to do when everything collapsed around him, dragging him unwilling back to those days. He was supposed to picture a place that made him feel “safe.” Or count backward from ten. Or work on his breathing.

  But, for fuck’s sake, it was hard to picture a safe place when he was in a room not much bigger than a closet. He closed his eyes again and pictured Frankie in a bikini on the beach with him in the Caribbean. Surrounded by endless blue sky and vast turquoise water. The soft, white sand between her toes. The lapping of the surf against the shore. And her throaty laughter as she turned her head toward him, her smile bigger than life, her eyes holding a gleam and a promise.

  Then her smile disappeared as she glanced up, shaded her eyes from the sun with her hand, and he heard it.

  The droning of the plane’s engine, the dropping of a bomb, the blasts that made his ears ring and cause a pressure so strong in his head he thought it would explode like a melon struck with a sledgehammer.

  He jackknifed up and out of bed, then fell to his knees on the floor with a pained grunt. With his tunneled vision, he still couldn’t see shit. He reached out and worked his way across the small expanse of floor by touch alone until he found the door, turning the knob and yanking it open.

  The cooler
air from the hallway finally filled his lungs and he wheezed in relief. After crawling his way down the few feet to the bathroom, he used the door jamb to pull himself to his feet, felt around blindly until he found the switch and flipped it. The room flooded with light, but his thoughts were still clouded, so he tried to focus his narrowed vision on one thing... the shower.

  He stumbled the couple feet to the tub, ripped open the curtain and turned the faucet all the way to the right. He climbed in, not even bothering to remove his boxers first, pressed both palms to the shower wall and let the frigid water run over him as he dropped his head forward and closed his eyes.

  The cold seeped into his skin, shaking memories loose, washing away the sweat, the proof of his weakness. Goosebumps rose and shivers swept through him, validation he was still alive.

  He was going to stay under that cold water until he couldn’t endure any more, until those memories were washed down the drain. At least for now, until they returned once more. Because they would return. They always did.

  He could never escape.

  He’d always be trapped.

  But he could do his best not to let it win, let it rule his life.

  He opened his eyes and turned his head as he heard a noise above the shower. With the curtain wide open, water fell over the edge of the tub onto the floor, soaking the little oval rug Frankie kept in front of the shower, which also sat in front of the toilet because the bathroom was so small.

  But it was Frankie he now focused on, standing in the doorway.

  Her long dark hair fell around bare shoulders, her pink tank top was loose but hid none of her curves, but it was the concern in her eyes that caught his attention.

  He didn’t mean to wake her. And he cursed silently that she witnessed him in the state he was currently in.

  Vulnerable and weak.

  How could he protect her from Taz when he couldn’t even protect himself from his own past?

  Without a word, she moved to the shower and shut off the water. He could do nothing but stare at her, his teeth chattering and his body shaking from the cold.

  She lifted her hand and, after a few moments, he took it, letting her guide him out of the tub until they stood toe to toe, water pooling at his feet.

  She remained silent as she grabbed a towel off the rack and wiped the water from his face and his eyes.

  Suddenly he could see more clearly. The darkness that ringed his vision was gone. His thoughts were quiet.

  His memories tucked back where they belonged.

  He was there in the now. The present. In a bathroom in a town called Manning Grove. With a woman who was beautiful inside and out. One with spirit and a temper to match. One who could be his everything.

  If he allowed it.

  Which he wouldn’t.

  He knew better than to even try.

  He loved his freedom, and the knowledge he could just pick up and go helped keep him sane.

  The woman pushing his soaked boxers down and toweling the beads of water off him, rubbing the circulation back into his skin needed roots. She needed steady.

  He was far from that.

  He had struggled to sign the mortgage papers on his condo. He had struggled to commit to Diesel. But he did it and now he had his team and, luckily, D gave him a lot of freedom, as if the man knew what Hunter needed.

  Hunter would never be able to work in a cubicle or a nine-to-five, so he was happy to find his place in Shadow Valley. But hunting, his preference, kept him on the move.

  It was what he needed. He was more like a potted Ficus tree rather than a rooted oak. He could be moved anywhere.

  And knowing that helped keep him on an even path.

  It wasn’t until Frankie hung the towel back on the rack, did he realize she had finished drying him off. That he still stood in the center of her tiny bathroom unmoving.

  She’d asked nothing of him.

  He’d provided nothing in return.

  Then he moved, grasping her face with both of his hands, crushing their lips together, backing her out of the bathroom, into the hallway to the top of the steps. There were only two bedrooms upstairs, Leo’s and hers. Leo’s was too small and hers was occupied.

  They not only needed to be quiet, he also needed a condom. He released her mouth and pressed their foreheads together.

  “I need to listen for Leo,” she whispered.

  Right. He wasn’t sure how scarred a three-year-old would end up if he climbed out of bed and found his mother being fucked against a wall in the hallway.

  He’d like to avoid being the reason for the boy’s future nightmares.

  “Yeah. And I need to grab a condom.” He pulled away but kept a grip on her face, holding her gaze. “How often does he wake up in the middle of the night?”

  “He doesn’t unless he’s sick.”

  “What time does he normally climb into bed with you in the morning?”

  “Depends. No earlier than five usually.”

  “What time is it now?”

  “Almost three.”

  “If I move him back to his bed, will I wake him?”

  Frankie shook her head. “No, he’s a heavy sleeper. But—”

  “I’ll be out of your bed before five.”

  Her eyes widened and then she nodded.

  “I can’t stay in that room, Frankie. It’s like a coffin.”

  As she opened her mouth, he cut her off. “Not now. Let’s get him back in his room and I can grab my duffle.”

  Within minutes, Frankie had Leo tucked back into his bed and was coming back into her own room, where Hunter waited while she had gotten her son settled. He had placed a strip of condoms on the nightstand and he let his gaze rake over her as she closed the door softly behind her. She leaned back against the door as she regarded him in her bed, waiting.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” He was now. Some panic attacks lasted longer than others, but once they passed, he was fine. Until the next time.

  “What happened?”

  “We only have a couple hours. I don’t want those hours to be about me. I want them to be about you.” And that was true. Any stolen moments he had with Frankie while he was up here, he was going to take advantage of them. “Time’s wasting, loquilla, the longer you stand there dressed.”

  With a smile, she pushed off the door and approached the bed. “Must be in a rush.”

  “The point is, I don’t want to rush this time. We’ve got two hours, let’s use our time wisely. You lock the door?”

  She went back and turned the lock on the knob, then approached the nightstand, pulling open the drawer, grabbing a baby monitor, turning it on and setting it next to the condoms.

  She placed a knee on the bed, and he shook his head. “Clothes off before you get on this bed, Frankie. And take your time doing it.”

  She put her foot back on the floor, stared at him for a second, tilted her head, shot him a smile and grabbed the bottom of her tank top. Slowly, oh so fucking slowly, as if she had music playing in her head, she worked that top up her body, over her tits, and pulled it off her head. Once she was free of it, her hair spilled back around her shoulders and she shook it out.

  Fuck yeah, that just made her tits shake and her nipples bead tight.

  “I want my dick between them.”

  Her eyelids lowered and her lips parted as she cupped her tits and pushed them together. Her voice caught when she asked, “Now?”

  He shook his head. “No, show isn’t over yet.”

  She slid her hands from her tits down her stomach and then hooked her thumbs in the elastic waistband of her pajama shorts.

  “Slow, Frankie. Really fucking slow,” he whispered.

  Her head was dropped forward, but she tipped her dark eyes up to his. “Shorts and panties together?”

  “Fuck no. Separate.”

  She took her time shimmying out of the pajama shorts until they dropped to her feet and she stood there in only a pair of panties. Pink, like
her pussy.

  “You wet?” His question came out rough and raw.

  “Maybe.”

  Now she was just teasing him. “Check.”

  She slipped one hand into her panties and he watched her hand move under the fabric as she slipped a finger, maybe even two, between her plump lips.

  Fuck.

  He could taste her already. He could feel that wet heat squeezing his dick and milking him dry.

  His cock twitched against his hip, catching her attention. A puff of breath escaped her parted lips and a flush rose up her chest.

  “Well?”

  Her fingers were still moving. He knew damn well it didn’t take that long to tell.

  She nodded.

  “Lick your fingers clean,” he ordered, even knowing that might be the death of him.

  He stopped breathing as she slipped her hand from her panties, tucked two fingers in her mouth, circled her lips around them and closed her eyes as if she was savoring an expensive gourmet meal.

  A string of precum dripped off the tip of his cock and landed on his hip. He captured it with the pad of his thumb, moved on his knees to the edge of the bed and offered it to her.

  She leaned forward, took his thumb into her mouth, the tip of her tongue running along his digit and, fuck, if he didn’t almost blow his load right there and then.

  Her unfocused eyes, her soft expression, her tits, her wet pussy, that ass... Everything about her turned him on.

  He pulled his thumb from her mouth and struggled to say, “Panties off slow, Frankie. Turn around while you do it. Show me your ass.”

  She turned until her back was to him, hooking her fingers in her cotton panties and wiggling her hips back and forth as she worked them down over her ass that he wanted to lose himself in, to eat, to slap, to fuck.

  When the pink fabric was gathered at the top of her thighs, he demanded, “Bend over as you take them the rest of the way off.”

  He realized right then and there, as she did as she was told, the woman, during sex, always did anything he asked or demanded. Not once had she argued.

  During sex, she’d give up control. Other times, not so much.