“I see you became a contractor like you always wanted.”
“I didn’t.” He moved deeper into the tomb of her former life.
Apparently, it was her turn to press the wrong button.
She didn’t use these clothes any more than Gannon used his hammer.
Well, that notion heated her cheeks.
“Wow! You kept this?” He held up an origami paper crown he’d made for her when she’d missed being homecoming queen in junior high.
Oh, if he knew half the stuff she’d kept over the years. In fact, he was dangerously close to some pictures he didn’t need to see. The moment the fire had been extinguished, she’d darted inside to make certain they’d survived. Of everything she owned, the house included, they were her most precious possessions.
“I’m going to donate most of what’s usable. Everything else, I’ll trash.” She shoved stacks of fabric-laden hangers to the side, separating the burned clothing from the salvageable and expecting his gaze to follow her progress. “I’ll get them out of your hair by tomorrow, for sure.”
“What’s this?”
Margo held the vain hope that he’d found her vibrator and not the photos. When she turned, she saw his mouth had pulled into an unreadable, hard line. His long lashes dropped in close inspection.
“Mar,” he whispered the nickname only he had ever used on her.
The edges of her heart expanded, threatening to crack through her sternum. He pulled her to his side and turned the film. She saw two kids on the verge of adulthood with big goofy smiles and their arms tossed around each other in total abandon and utter adoration.
“I didn’t imagine it. We were that happy.” Gannon’s breath warmed her cheek.
“We were.” Joy from all those years ago bled through the photo and his reassuring body fortifying hers. In that small space, sorrow had no room. In that closed-off part of her closet and heart, everything fit. Her. Gannon. Their happiness. Their hope.
Margo lifted her head and found his fractured blue eyes reflecting her every sentiment. His hand slid up her arm and over her shoulder. If she had any chance of escape, she needed to step away immediately. Her fingers curled into his sweat-dampened shirt. Gannon buried his hand in the hair at the base of her neck.
Her need hadn’t diminished over time. It distilled into something potent and volatile she couldn’t control.
His head lowered slowly, giving her every opportunity to escape and no means to do it. That hypnotizing gaze held her in place as surely as his hand, tugging the hair at her nape. Her mouth parted in invitation, and he answered with heavy, firm lips. He melded their breaths and sealed their fate. Whatever it would be, this kiss would play an integral part in its fruition.
For better or worse, Margo leaned into Gannon and pulled him closer. His lips broke the bond, only to stoke it to disastrous heights with long caresses and tugging nips. He parted her mouth wide and invaded her with testing strokes of his tongue. She tried to play back but greed ruled. Her lips formed a perfect O around the slick shaft of hot wet skin and sucked him deeper still.
The world shifted, and the hard wood of the built-in dresser met her back while Gannon’s equally immovable body pinned her front. Margo’s hands flattened to the ruthless heat. It siphoned from his chest through her arms and straight to her clit, forcing concussive throbs that kept measure with her racing heartbeat.
“Mar.” Gannon growled her name with carnal intent.
“Yes.” She didn’t know what she agreed to, but it didn’t matter. Whatever he wanted, she wanted it more, longer, stronger. She had to. If he’d felt this way for her all these years ago, they’d have been together before now.
Anger edged into her lust.
Gannon set the stack of pictures on the shelf above her head and hoisted her into his arms. Instinct and yearning unparalleled to any she’d ever known muted her discourse. Margo wrapped her legs around his waist and grabbed his massive shoulders with both hands. The stiff column of his beautiful cock wedged between her swollen clit and his unforgiving stomach.
“Oh, Gannon.” She tangled their lips and tried not to embarrass herself while rolling her hips against his length like a sex-starved animal.
“Margo.” One hand framed her face. The other formed a death grip on her ass, aiding in the rock and pump she’d started. He turned them around and braced his back on the built-in. His hips jutted further, giving her better access to the luxury of his harsh body. The hand cradling her face pulled her off his mouth. “Let me see you, Mar.”
The moment he broke the kiss, her eyes found the cascade of pictures he’d deposited on the shelf and locked on the second one. The scene shocked her overripe body and sent her into abort mode.
He must have sensed her sudden shift. Without a word, he set her on her feet and grabbed her hand.
“I know you’re not with Dane. If you were, you wouldn’t have been able to kiss me like that. So why’d you pull away?”
Margo looked at the shelf, and his gaze followed. “The picture after ours.”
Gannon nodded but didn’t go for the picture immediately. He released her with one hand and ran his thumb across her brow, down her cheek, and ever so gently across her lips. Her eyes shut at the tenderness.
When they opened again, he held the picture of her on her tenth birthday, sandwiched between her mother and father.
5
She might as well have punched him in the nuts. It would’ve hurt less. Physical pain had nothing on the torture Margo’s emotional pain dealt him. Gannon’s lungs stalled. His throat sizzled and popped as though he’d been force-fed bleach. He held tight to her hand. They had a mountain’s worth of shit to work through. Now, more than ever before, he wanted to shovel through it one spoonful at a time, if necessary.
He stared at her flushed cheeks, kiss-swollen lips, and sorrow-filled eyes. Wanting to face his demons and doing so were two entirely different beasts. One was a dragon, mythical and mind-warpingly intriguing. The other was a great fucking white shark with fifty rows of teeth bare, ready to rip you limb from limb and consume you while you screamed.
“I know why you left.” Margo’s jaw quivered, and tears rolled freely down her cheek. She bit her lip and steadied the quaking. “Why didn’t you ever come back?”
“There was no point. I couldn’t have you.” And he couldn’t tell her why. It was his greatest regret, his greatest shame.
“You had me.” Margo smacked at her tears so hard it echoed in the small room. “You didn’t want me.”
His chest split wide. Was that what she’d thought all these years? Of course, it was. He hadn’t given her any reason to think otherwise. Gannon pulled her closer and leaned over her.
“No words have ever been more untrue.”
She shoved him back a step. “Then explain it to me because I don’t understand.”
“Gannon?” Grif’s voice filtered in from the hallway.
Margo flinched in his grip, but he didn’t loosen his hold.
“In here.” Gannon’s voice sounded like it did right before he picked a fight. Before the military, fighting was how he coped, and until he left, Grif had dealt with the brunt of it. Deserved or not, he shouldn’t have taken his shit out on his brother.
“Hey, I gotta split.” His brother’s sunburned arm hiked toward the exit.
“You’re finished painting?” he asked even though he knew there was no way in hell the sloth-like moves of Griffin Lee had finished the entire exterior wall.
“No, but I gotta handle some business.” Grif turned and headed for the door.
Angst from his run-in with Margo and anger at his brother’s persistent flippancy at anything resembling responsibility or hard work festered into an uncontainable boil. He released Margo’s hand and stepped into the doorway, simultaneously blocking her escape and confronting his brother.
“I left my unit in a lurch to bail your ass out again,” Gannon snarled.
“They can kill plenty of people without
you.” Griffin swung his index finger toward Gannon and contracted and extended it as he spoke. “It’s not so hard these days. Just the pull of a trigger. Hell, with drones, you don’t even have to get your boots dirty.” He turned and stormed through the house, slamming the front door as he left.
Two missions. Two failures. And he still breathed. In his real world, if he failed at a mission, death would deal with him. Now, he had to face Margo after those monumental disasters.
Fucking great.
Why not lay it all out now? What the fuck else did he have to lose?
He faced Margo, his ultimate demise. “I left because after your mother killed herself, I couldn’t look at you.” She jerked away as though he’d backhanded her … and he was only getting started.
“I couldn’t look at you knowing my mother was on the road that night driving to pick up my brother from a friend’s house.” He slapped his chest. “I was supposed to pick Griffin up three hours before, but I forgot him. She was out because I didn’t do what I said I would.” His hand smacked his chest again harder. “She was out because I was too wrapped up in getting to you. I was so consumed with the need to be inside you that I fucked us and our entire families before we ever got started.”
“Gannon.” Her sob begged him to stop, but he couldn’t. The truth was flowing. No dam could stop it.
“I couldn’t saddle you with my guilt. You’d have taken it on as your own, and the love between us would have smothered with all the guilt. It would have destroyed you.”
Her head shook violently, and she bared her teeth. “More than you leaving did?”
“I thought so.” He really had.
Margo shoved past him, and he let her go. No use in fighting the fallout.
She paused at the door. “Now, we’ll never know.”
Every muscle in his body told him to go after her, but she needed space and time to process. Fuck, he did too. Those same trash-talking muscles ached as though he’d gone toe to toe with an army of enemy combatants. He walked to her bed and sat on the edge, trying to live the agony from her perspective all those years ago.
Daylight faded slowly from the room, casting multi-hued shadows on the walls and ceiling. He’d heard Margo move through the house a few times. He needed to collect his tools and then find her and convince her not to sleep here tonight. She’d likely murder him before listening to anything he had to say.
“No!” Margo’s shrill scream echoed through the house.
Gannon bolted from the room and sprinted down the hallway. At the bottom of the grand foyer and double staircases, Margo pressed her body to the front door, her hand frantically seeking the lock. A guy topping out around seven feet shoved through the ornately carved wood. The woman he loved more than his own life flew several feet. Her back met the marble floor with a sickening smack, and she slid into an oak table. An arrangement of faux flowers in a heavy vase shuddered. It teetered and fell. Glass cracked against the tabletop and scattered, raining onto the floor, onto Margo.
Behind the big guy, three more men the equivalent of barroom trash filtered into the elegant room. Dread and rage tangled in Gannon’s stomach and clawed its way up his throat.
He threw himself off the top of the stairs and focused on the railing less than halfway down. When his hand snagged the polished wood, momentum, gravity, and a shove of his legs against the steps catapulted him over the rail.
“He’s not here. Leave,” Margo wheezed.
“I don’t think so, pretty lady,” Seven-foot laughed.
Gannon absorbed the impact with a tuck and roll. The men who’d been advancing on Margo stopped mid-stride. The smallest one of them scampered back. He must have recognized the look of bloodlust in his eyes.
“You said you were alone. Now, lying isn’t very nice.” Seven-foot tsked. “Maybe he knows where Griffin is. After all, my source said he was working here with his brother, and this guy looks a little like the crook. Ballsier, though.” A fat grin spread over the guy’s mouth. “But that doesn’t matter.”
Hadn’t Gannon and his family caused Margo enough grief? Knowing his brother was mixed up with these pieces of shit proved Grif had been lying all along. No corners had been turned. No rights had been made in his screwed-up life. No fucking way would Margo pay for Grif’s mistakes.
Seven-foot rushed him while the third guy ran for Margo.
Gannon took two quick strides forward, bringing him even with her yet ten feet apart. As in battle with men who were brothers to him—more so than his own blood had ever been—he couldn’t worry about them. If he wanted to save Margo, he had to forget about her and focus on the attack.
The behemoth moved in. His shoulders rose high above Gannon’s head.
He did not pause.
Bitterness, violence, a duck, and a precisely positioned fist to the man’s throat sent Gannon’s message, not words. The tall fella’s broken inhale sucked the counterfeit courage from his friends. They stalled before reaching Margo; their eyes fixed on their failed warrior. He staggered. His hands clamped around his neck, and his knees hit the ground.
“Get him. Get out. If you touch her or my brother, I won’t stop.”
“Stop what?” the third guy asked.
Gannon stared with his blank mask of death.
“Shut the fuck up and grab him.” The little guy dragged the third one by the shirt collar to the gasping pile of meat on the floor. They heaved him to his knees and limp walked him out the door.
Enough adrenaline to massacre thirty of those assholes careened through his veins, but more than a fight, he wanted them away from Margo. Gannon waited until their blacked-out SUV rolled away to turn his gaze on her. She stood next to the table she’d smacked into with a hand braced atop it.
“Do you think they’ll come back?”
“Doesn’t matter. You won’t be here.”
6
She should hate this man. More times than the sun had set in her lifetime, she’d tried, and every time, she failed. It didn’t mean she had to like him right now or listen to him even though that would be the smartest thing to do for her safety. Well, her physical safety anyway. When he was present, her emotional safety lived in a constant state of peril.
Hell, he should hate her too. Her father had been too drunk to walk, much less operate a vehicle. Yet her dad had always been too selfish to care about the consequences of his actions.
“Yes, I will,” she countered. “I’ll just have my gun in hand next time.”
“Fine. I’m staying here.”
“Fresh out of doghouses. So you’re going to have to leave.”
That was when she saw the quiver in his hands. If she’d seen it before, she’d have never smacked him with the low blow. After all, he’d just saved her from being raped, or worse, by acquaintances of his brother, which was likely the reason for his shakes.
“I’m sorry.” She lifted her foot to close the gap he’d left between them, but a slicing sting drew her up short.
Gannon was there before she caught her breath. One thick arm held her to his chest while his hand and eyes roamed her back. It came back covered in blood.
“Oh, shit.” Margo groaned. “The edge of the table?”
“Yeah.” He wiped his hand down his pants leg, scooped her into his arms, and cradled her to his chest.
Crazy, sick in the head as it was, she’d take a cut every day to get in his arms. That couldn’t be healthy. “How bad is it?”
His jaw sawed through a layer of tooth enamel.
“Ah, I’m going to die.” She put the back of her hand to her forehead and feigned a faint.
“It’s not funny. You’re hurt,” he groused.
She snapped to attention in his grip. “I’m pissed is what I am.” Her gaze drilled his icy blues. “I’m not a wilting flower, goddammit. Maybe I was before. Maybe I had to walk through hell to become who I am, but I like the person I am. I get hurt, and I heal. I’m not going to fall apart at the drop of a hat. I’ve watched childre
n lose the parents I couldn’t save. I’ve had babies die in my arms. But you know what? I’ve also brought people back from death. I’ve witnessed miraculous things I can’t explain.”
Margo framed his stubble-covered face in her hand. “It’s time we stop saying I’m sorry and worrying about the crap life dealt us. We’re still alive.”
Gannon pressed his forehead to hers. His sigh was full of hurt and fear and, just maybe, hope. “I’ve missed you.”
The admission warmed Margo from the inside—in that dark and gloomy space where she hid all her insecurities. “For however long it lasts, I’m glad you came back.” She pressed a kiss to his forehead, and he—the strong, amazingly capable man—shivered under her lips.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.” He secured the door and headed up the stairs with her tucked to his chest.
“I can walk, you know?”
“I know.” His grimace returned.
Per usual, Gannon always shouldered more responsibility for others than he should. She needed to get his mind off the goons and his brother, if only for a little while.
“It’s good to know you don’t faint at the sight of blood anymore,” she jabbed.
“Don’t make me drop you.” He teetered left and wobbled right.
An unexpected laugh bubbled up her throat, meshing with his shocking rich laughter.
“You used to,” she defended.
“I was in first grade, and my finger was hanging by a thread.”
“It was so cool.” Her smile stretched the bounds of her skin.
“For you.” His upper lip curled. “I didn’t touch a knife or an apple for nearly six years after that.” He stalled in her bedroom door. “Where’s your first-aid kit, medic?”
“My bathroom. Once I can see the cut, I can walk you through the cleaning and bandaging.”
“I have some field training. Got to plug an artery with my finger for two hours before a HELO arrived. I’ve got you.”
Dallas Fire & Rescue: Relentlessly Mine (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Base Branch Series Book 11) Page 4