Fighting For Valor

by Patricia D. Eddy

  Cara’s kiss brings me back. Her warmth all along my body. Her hands in my hair. And when her tongue traces the seam of my lips, I let her in. She tastes of my tears, and for a second, I want to pull away, but then my arms are around her, and I’m holding on like she’s the only thing tethering me to this world.

  Rolling her onto her side, I let my hand skim her breast, and when I find her nipple, I pinch lightly, and the noise she makes…it sends my dick rocketing to attention. Deft fingers slide under my t-shirt, her warmth traveling up my back, over my scars. “Off,” she demands, and the first rays of the morning sun stream through the window as I strip off my shirt.

  Cara lets her gaze rove over my chest, over the scars, the muscles that are just now, with semi-regular meals, starting to look like they used to. Rising up on an elbow, she kisses one of the round welts from the scorpions. “You survived,” she whispers.

  For the first time since Ryker pulled me out of that well, I think maybe I did. Tugging at the hem of Cara’s shirt, I expose her breasts. She’s perfect. Soft, yet strong. With real curves, a pink blush spreading from her neck almost down to her waist. Dipping my head, I fasten my lips around one dusky nipple, laving my tongue over the pebbled nub until she’s practically panting.

  I can smell her arousal, and when I dip my fingers under her waistband, I find lace, then slick heat, and Cara whimpers, her hips thrusting against my hand.

  “Turnabout,” I manage as I help her out of her shirt, then drag the shorts down her hips. A flash of embarrassment darkens her eyes, but once I press my lips to her lace-covered mound, she shudders.

  “Oh God, Ripper. Please…”

  “I want to taste you.” Her panties land next to the shorts, and I cup her cheek and meet her hooded gaze. “Tell me you want this? You’re not just…this isn’t…”

  “A pity fuck?” Her huff might be my new favorite sound. “I want you, Ripper. I want the man who refused to let me limp home on a sprained ankle. The man who brought me to his apartment and offered me his bed because it was the best way to keep me safe. I want the man who trusted me enough to tell me his secrets.” Cara arches a brow as she takes my free hand and presses it to her mound. “I’m naked. And about ready to beg. You going to do something about that?”

  Hell, yes.

  When I spread her thighs, the scent of her shoots straight to my dick. Her brown curls glisten in the morning light, and my first taste…fuck. Tracing patterns with my tongue, I savor each mewl, her little gasps, the way her hips thrust against me when I score my teeth along her clit.

  “Ripper...” Cara claws at the sheets, her breath coming in short pants as I slide a finger inside her. “Please. I need to come…”

  Adding another finger, I twist and find her G-spot as I suck at her clit. Cara’s entire body bucks, and she cries out, flying over the edge with my name on her lips. I drink her in, my salty tears mixing with her taste.

  This moment—this perfect, beautiful moment—heals a part of me I thought was too broken to ever see the light of day again.

  As she comes down from her release, our breaths the only sounds in the quiet room, my head starts to swim. My vision tunnels. The sensation of her hands on my skin and the sound of her voice in my ears fades, and I hear that name.

  Isaad.

  I try to hold on. To stay with Cara. With this woman who understands me. But I can’t. I slide down, so far that I can’t feel the soft sheets or see the freshly minted sun. There’s nothing but darkness, sand, and desperation.

  Warm hands cup my cheeks, and I brace for whatever they’re going to do to me next. For the humiliation. For losing my tenuous hold on reality. For Faruk to take whatever of me is left.

  “Ripper. Come back to me, handsome.”

  Cara’s face swims into focus, and I expect to find horror—or pity at the very least—because she sees everything. Every memory. Every inch of my shame. Before I can push her away, she coaxes me closer with her soft gaze.

  And then she’s under me, her palms still molding to my face. Her hips tilt, and my tip grazes slick heat. As if she knows I can’t take this last step without help, she presses her mouth to mine.

  “It’s okay,” she whispers against my lips. “You’re okay.”

  “Protection,” I manage. “I don’t have—”

  Another kiss and she cups my jaw, her thumb tracing my cheek. “Are you clean?”

  “Y-yes. I made them run every test under the sun when I got back.” And then had to relive every moment of my humiliation in front of the medical staff treating me.

  “I’m on birth control. And it’s been years for me. I…I want you, Ripper. Any way I can have you.”

  My eyes burn, but I won’t let myself break down. Not now. Not when I have this amazing, beautiful, perfect woman in my bed, and she’s mending my broken soul one piece at a time. “You’re sure?”

  “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

  My breath catches in my chest as my crown slips between her folds. The memories flare, but just for a second. Then, it’s nothing but her. Her hands on my skin. Her kisses. Her soft reassurances. Redemption lives in her eyes, and I lock on, desperate to feel like me again. Like I’m not a failure, not afraid, not…broken.

  With each thrust, I heal a little more, and fuck. She feels like heaven. “I won’t last,” I whisper as my need builds.

  “I’m right here, Ripper. With you.” Cara cups the back of my neck, and I reach down and find her clit. Her keening cry sends me closer to the edge, and when I feel her inner walls clench around my dick, I shout her name and let go.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Ripper

  An hour later, after taking Charlie out to do his business, I let myself back into the apartment. Cara’s sitting at my breakfast bar, meticulously counting out pills. Charlie heads right for his water dish, and the choppy sounds he makes as he slurps make me smile. It’s getting easier—smiling.

  And then I turn my focus to Cara. She’s wearing another one of my shirts, and under the shorts I lent her…well, her underwear’s in my hamper, and the ideas floating through my head of what I’d like to do with her? They’re getting easier too.

  “Hemp milk latte with vanilla?” I say as I slide the cup in front of her. She beams up at me like I just gave her the moon and rests light fingers on my cheek as she leans in to brush her lips to mine.

  “What is all this?” I ask as I grab an anti-depressant and a single anxiety pill and wash them down with my own drip. She has six pills arranged in precise order in front of her, along with a little notebook with checkboxes on the page. Taking a seat next to her, I try to figure out how not to offend her. “You don’t seem…”

  “Sick? Someone who needs all these meds?” She arches a brow, but there’s a small smile curving her lips.

  “Yeah.”

  “These,” she points to two orange capsules, “are for ADHD. If I forget these, you probably won’t notice much change in me until mid-afternoon. Then, I’ll be extra tired, but I’ll also start forgetting things and I probably won’t make eye contact regularly. If I don’t take them a second day, you’ll swear I have a hearing problem.”

  “Why? There was a kid with ADHD in grade school with me. He could never sit still. But that’s literally all I know about it.”

  “Women have different symptoms, usually.” She takes the two orange pills, then checks off the boxes in her notebook. After another sip of coffee, her shoulders slump a little, and she fiddles with a lock of her hair. “I was okay until I got to culinary school. Or, I thought I was, anyway. Then I started feeling stupid. Like I couldn’t learn anything. If I had to carry on a conversation with anyone in a room that wasn’t completely silent, I’d miss stuff. I thought my hearing was going. But at the same time, I could hear someone chewing in the next room and it would drive me batty. Still does. Turns out, it wasn’t that I couldn’t hear the person talking. I’d get distracted halfway through their sentence by something else, and my brain just c
ouldn’t keep up.”

  “When were you diagnosed?” I rub small, slow circles on her lower back. Touching her grounds me, and even though it’s daylight, I’m still a little on edge being inside.

  “Four years ago. It was like suddenly, my entire life made sense. And after a couple of days on my meds, I…” Her cheeks flush red and she looks down at the remaining pills. “I called my best friend at the time and asked her if this was what it was like to feel like a person. I’d never felt it before.”

  “What?” She’s so open about her challenges that she makes me want to be better. With her and with Dax and Ry.

  “Like I could keep up. I remember riding the subway to work the second day and pulling up a news article on my phone. I always scanned the headlines. But that day, I read the whole article. When I got to the comments section, I almost dropped the phone I was so surprised.” Her smile widens, and she shakes her head. “Reading that stupid article about landing a satellite on a comet? It made me happier than I’d been in ages.”

  After another sip of coffee, she points to the other three pills. “The yellow ones are for anxiety. And the last one is a beta blocker. I was born with a genetic condition that produces a really high heart rate. It was manageable before I started treating my ADHD, but now, without the beta blocker, my blood pressure spikes and I’m in legitimate danger of having a heart attack. I need one of these in the morning and one at night.”

  Checking them all off as she takes them, Cara taps her pen on her notebook, double-checks the list, and then carefully packs everything back up in her purse. “And that’s just the start of my crazy, Ripper. We…we need to talk about last night.”

  Shame crawls up the back of my neck, and I can feel myself shutting down until she cups my cheek. “Not this morning, handsome. Not the sex. Or anything you told me. The guy last night. And why—”

  Someone pounds on my door, and Cara yelps and clutches her purse to her chest. But I know that knock. “It’s all right, sunshine. It’s just a friend of mine. And whatever you have to tell me, you should probably tell him too.”

  Cara

  I don’t share Ripper’s confidence. The more people who know my secret, the more danger I’m in. But I gave him a part of me I didn’t think I’d ever share again, and I trust him.

  Until he opens the door and a massive bear of a man ducks his bald head in order to enter the room. He’s followed by a second man, shorter, maybe six-foot-four, wearing a pair of tinted glasses and carrying a white cane.

  As the taller man focuses on me, his multi-hued eyes narrow. “Fucking hell,” he mutters. “Caroline Phillips.”

  My heart leaps into my throat and I jump up. “How do you know that name?”

  Ripper looks back and forth between me and the giant. “Ry, what’s going on?”

  “Those two spooks trying to get a hold of us? Asking about you? Trevor finally tracked one of them back to Fort Bragg. He can’t be sure, but he thinks the guy worked out of JSOC.” After pinning me with a hard stare, the big guy continues, “And Caroline Phillips was a chef at JSOC for three years. Until she disappeared twenty-two months ago.”

  “Cara?” Ripper turns to me, his blue eyes full of confusion. “What’s going on?”

  “Have you told anyone I’m here in Seattle?” I ask as I take a step closer to the door. Not that I’ll be able to go anywhere with these two men blocking my way. “Anyone?”

  “Not yet. Want to give me a reason I shouldn’t?” Ry says.

  Drawing up to his full height, Ripper places himself between me and the Neanderthal with more scars than I’ve ever seen. “Because she doesn’t want you to. Now take a step back. We’re all going to calm the fuck down and figure this shit out.”

  I can’t decide if I should run or cling to Ripper like my life depends on it. But he doesn’t give me much choice when he puts his arm around my waist and leads me back to the stool. “Sit down, sunshine. Ryker and Dax are on our side, and you’re safe here with me.”

  Glancing over my shoulder, I fight for a steady breath. “Not if the two spooks he’s talking about are Francis Jessup and Bill Parr. Jessup tried to kill me the night I disappeared from Fort Bragg, and again eighteen months ago in Tulsa.”

  “What does he want with you?” Ryker crosses his arms over his chest. Crap, the man looks like he could bench press a semi-truck, and even though Dax is obviously blind, his shirt strains over impressive muscles, and he’s holding onto that cane like he could easily use it as a weapon.

  And then it hits me. These are the other two members of Ripper’s Special Forces team. The two who escaped Hell.

  “Caro?” Ryker asks again.

  “Cara,” I say defiantly. “I’m Cara Barrett now.”

  Dax snorts. “Not the most effective alias.”

  “Give me a break. I had a broken arm and a concussion at the time. I’m lucky I got out of Tulsa alive.” Despite Ripper’s warmth at my back and his arm around my waist, I’m terrified.

  “Give us a minute,” Ripper says. He stalks out to the balcony, my hand held tight in his, but I skid to a stop at the threshold. “Cara?”

  “I-I can’t.” My voice cracks, and I grab the door jamb, swaying slightly.

  Ripper slides his hand to the back of my neck. “Tell me. Just me.”

  I have to. The man who shared the worst of his life with me just hours ago won’t hurt me. I can confess my secrets to him.

  “It was late when I left work that night. Well after eleven. We had this big retirement party planned the next day for one of the analysts, and I’d stayed to make sure the cake was perfect. I was in the garage when I heard them. Jessup and Parr. Jessup, I knew. He always used to leer at me when he’d come in to the dining hall. But Parr…I had no idea who he was. They were talking about a ‘friend’ in Afghanistan. How they needed to pressure him to cut them in on some of the bigger deals. They never said his name. But they said the guy had an American working for him, a traitor, and all they had to do was threaten to release the American’s name, and…” Horror washes over me, and I think I’m going to be sick.

  “And…?”

  “And the Special Forces would go in and blow the guy off the map…” Pressing my hand to my stomach, I try to force air into my lungs.

  Oh my God.

  “Cara?” Ripper tries to pull me closer, but I duck out of his hold.

  “What’s your name? Your real name. Ripper…that’s your nickname. What’s your name?” My voice rises half an octave, and my heart races, so fast it feels like I’m running sprints.

  “Jackson Richards.”

  “J.T. Richards. The American, J.T. Richards.” I cover my mouth with both hands, trying to stop the sound of my heart and soul shattering into a million pieces. “It was you. They were talking about you.”

  Ripper backs up until he hits the railing, then sinks down onto the ground. Within two seconds, Charlie’s in his lap, licking his cheek, but Ripper doesn’t move or react at all.

  Tears stream down my cheeks, and Ryker and Dax burst past me out onto the balcony. “What the hell is going on?” Ryker asks. “Rip? Say something! And you—” Ryker points at me, “—what the fuck did you tell him?”

  “They knew. Oh God. They knew. For years.” Huge, hiccupping sobs escape around the words, and I can’t do this. I can’t face this man I think I’m falling for, knowing I could have saved him if I’d just been braver. “I didn’t know. I tried to go to my security contact, tell him everything I overheard, but then he died, and I…I just ran.”

  “What?” Ryker grabs my arms, but I can’t stop crying and staring at Ripper, who’s gone glassy-eyed, his face devoid of all emotion. “Cara! What. Happened?”

  I meet Ryker’s gaze, and the anger I find there sobers me enough to choke out the truth. “Jessup and Parr knew Ripper was alive. For years. But they didn’t care. They used him as leverage against the guy who had him. For money.”

  Ryker lets loose with a string of obscenities, and his fingers tighten to
the point of pain. When I cry out, he releases me with a jerk, as if he forgot I was still there. My legs don’t want to support me, and I stagger back, my hands on my knees.

  A loud crack impacts the glass right above my head, Charlie barks, then growls, and someone shoves me inside. A barrage of bullets hits the windows, and then two large forms barrel towards me. I have to blink hard to understand what I’m seeing. Ryker’s dragging Ripper with Charlie at his heels, and Dax is holding on to Ryker’s arm.

  “Move!” Ryker barks at me. “Out the door. To the right. Down the stairs. We’re getting the fuck out of here.”

  “How’d they find us?” Dax asks.

  “My guess? Her.” Ryker shoots me a glare over his shoulder as he carries Ripper into the hall, and I lunge for my bag, hugging it to my chest as I follow them.

  But when we reach the garage, Dax and Ryker head for a big, black truck, and I turn on my heel and run as fast as I can in the other direction. I have to get as far away from Ripper as I can. He just got his life back. I won’t be the reason Jessup and Parr kill him.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Cara

  Charlie keeps pace at my side. At the far end of the garage, another set of steps lead out into an alley. It’s how Ripper brought me here last night. Wedging open the door, I lean down and cup his muzzle. “Go to Ripper.”

  He whines, and I swear the damn dog shakes his head. “I can’t wait, Charlie. I have to go. And you can’t come with me.”

  “Cara? Caroline? Where the fuck are you?” Ryker’s booming voice echoes through the garage, and I sling my bag over my shoulder and try to force Charlie back through the door, but he won’t go.

  “Fine. Keep up.” Tears burn my eyes. If anything happens to Charlie, I’ll never forgive myself. My heart won’t let me run all out, but I manage a fast jog up Latona until my lungs feel like they’re going to burst. Down Fiftieth, across the freeway, and over to Roosevelt Way, and I find a bus stop with a bench and collapse, wheezing.