Storm (Bad Boys of X-Ops #3)

by Rie Warren

  Her ability to power through it, day by day, amazed me. Made me respect her all the more. The shit she’d accomplished and she was only thirty-one to my thirty-three years.

  The woman earned nothing but my love, and I showed it to her in everything I did. The coffee. The breakfast in bed always. Listening to her fears, making love to her, making her laugh when she least expected it.

  Probably pissing her off a fair few times, too.

  We’d always be like fire and ice. Forces that clashed together . . . then melted.

  Walking along the woodsy trail, I just enjoyed the sound of her pure laughter.

  Four days since Venom and the others had been taken into custody. Basic mission clean up in New Orleans included dealing with the whorehouse full of forced, unpapered, illegal sex-workers.

  Time for Angel to come to terms with how his dad had met his death.

  Time to start healing before Blaize and I headed back to DC.

  In the bright autumn sunlight shifting down through the forest canopy, Blaize’s hair truly did blaze. She ambled along, wearing a flannel shirt, faded jeans, and hiking boots. Much as I’d got hot when she looked like my naughty MC minx, I had total appreciation for this new side of Blaize.

  She was natural. Earthy. Sensual. She didn’t need any accouterments in order to be tantalizingly sexy, although when she was naked as a jaybird for my pleasure that was definitely a plus.

  “What happens to Shar, Nikki, the others?” I asked.

  “And Kat?” Blaize sassed.

  “Don’t be jealous now. Doesn’t suit you.” Smirking, I sidestepped her when she lunged for me.

  “You might want to take a leaf out of your own book.”

  Reaching up, I pulled a pointy maple leaf free then tickled the side of Blaize’s neck with the frond. “Like this?”

  She swatted at me again with a lusty laugh.

  And I goosed her fine ass just because, and because for once there was no need to watch our backs. Angel was the only person trailing behind us as we humped our packs deeper into bayou country where cypress knees pockmarked the ground, and huge gum trees spread their canopies above us, and swampy terrain sucked at our boot heels.

  Blaize retaliated . . . pinching my ass. Then heartily groping it.

  “Get a room. Merde,” Angel complained.

  “Teenagers.” I chuckled as Angel barged ahead of us on the trail.

  “Pic kee toi.” He sent up two middle fingers behind his back.

  Surprise.

  “About Nikki and Shar and the other women . . .” Winding her arm around my waist, Blaize laid her head on my shoulder. “WITSEC if they testify. If they want it.”

  I could live with that.

  “What about Solomon?”

  “Same. Relocation.”

  I shook my head. “Nah. We can’t do that to him, Blaize. You know it. Sure the Legion was ten kinds of fucked up, but they were his kin. We gotta think of something else.”

  The biggest question remained on my mind as we turned the last bend that led to a hollow . . .

  What about Angel?

  ****

  Angel brushed the blond curls from his eyes as he stopped at the bottom of the porch. Funny, I made the same gesture unconsciously, except my hair was coal black. In looks we were almost complete opposites—no one would ever guess we were blood-related. The only feature we had in common was the dark blue eyes.

  And I could see it in Angel’s eyes then—he was nervous. Waiting for me to make the first move after we’d tromped for a mile off the main road deep into the woods.

  The narrow channel of the bayou shushed past a few yards away—a swampy-bottomed waterway reflecting coppery green colors on the multifaceted surface. The same old silver-wooded dock I’d cannon-balled off as a boy still standing the test of time.

  The cabin had been renovated. I’d improved the foundation, rigged up better plumbing, rebuilt the fireplace inside. The porch was freshly swept. Stacks of wood sent up the smell of clean sawdust. And the same faded bleeding pelican state flag hung from one of the porch posts.

  I heard a shuffling sound inside.

  Then a holler:

  “I got a shotgun,and my grand bébé taught me how to shoot it real well!”

  Bracing a foot on the lowest step, I cupped my hands around my mouth. “I sure as hell hope he did, Mamere.”

  “Nash? That you?” I heard her fumbling with the latch on the screen door. “You tryin’ to give this old woman a heart condition?”

  “If you’d turn on that damn cell phone I gave you—”

  “The cellular phone.” Mamere swung the door wide. “Bah. What I got to do with the thing? I like to look at a person’s face when I talk to ’em.”

  I wasn’t even gonna bother to explain the whole FaceTime or Skype concept. Instead I jumped up the steps and grabbed her in my arms.

  Oh man. She smelled just the same as when I last had the chance to visit, right after Walker’s Beirut stint that almost got us all killed. Mamere. Chicory, a little cheroot smoke, rose water, and sunshine. She felt frailer in my arms, but she was still fighting fit enough to wallop me on the side of my head if she had a mind to.

  She’d been blonde, like Angel, like our mom, Joséphine. Her daughter. Now her hair was fine and silver and still long, worn tied back from her face. And her eyes danced—Savoie blue we liked to call it, after Mamere’s maiden name.

  I waltzed her around the porch in my embrace while she held onto my shoulders and laughed like it was the best damn day of her life.

  Until she spied Angel and Blaize, watching us with upturned faces from beside the unpruned fall flowering bushes in front of the porch.

  Then she flapped her hands at me. Flapped her gums too. Got all flustered and coy. “In front of guests? Grand beedé! Put me down. I look a fright!”

  I released her with a peck on her cheek while she patted at her hair and swatted at my face. She blushed like a young girl.

  “Arrete-toi!” She kept grumbling, smoothing her dress, shaking her finger at me.

  “They’re not exactly guests,” I explained.

  “Well, I’d at least a’liked to greet the new folk in somethin’ other than my housedress.”

  “Mamere. You are as beautiful as the day Papere asked you to marry him.” I laid it on thick, knowing she loved it.

  She scowled and grumbled some more, but the corners of her lips turned up.

  Keeping one arm around her shoulders—she stood just tall enough to be neatly tucked beneath my arm—I beckoned to Blaize and Angel.

  “Oh, my.” Mamere’s hand lifted to her chest. “Mon Dieu,” she said when Angel slowly took the steps.

  Her hand shaking, she reached out to him. “Joey’s baby boy?”

  Joey. Joséphine. The mom Angel had never known and I barely remembered being present. The story was she’d had a fling with Lucian, Angel’s dad. But she didn’t want to raise another child, couldn’t even raise me. After he was born, she told Lucian to take him.

  My mom may not have wanted us, but Mamere sure did.

  Tears cascaded from her eyes, and I felt them brimming in mine, too.

  Angel halted just shy of taking Mamere’s hands in his palms. “I don’t know a Joey, ma’am, but it sure is nice to meet you.”

  “See now, Nash. The boy has some manners. Très bien élevé.” Her smile beamed brighter through the tears and quaking of her voice. “I’d know you anywhere. C’mere, p’tit boug. Give your mamere some sugar.”

  He didn’t get a chance to protest because she latched onto him, touching his face, babbling in soft Cajun.

  Angel glanced at me, shrugged, then enveloped her in his hug.

  I wasn’t sure who healed more in that moment. The grandmother who’d lost her daughter to a sad, lonely, wasted death or the man who’d thought he’d lost the only family he’d ever had.

  Or me. Who’d waited a lifetime for a memory like this.

  Drawing Blaize beside me, I waited for Mamer
e to let Angel go. Wondered if she was using her famous stranglehold on him.

  He didn’t seem to mind too much.

  She finally ran her hands—strong, hardworking hands—down his arms. “I held you once. Just once, Ange.” She patted him on the cheek. “And I knew you’d become a might’ fine man, like your big brother here.” As she looked out over the burbling bayou, I knew she was saying a little prayer. “Yes, I did.”

  With a sound of appreciation, and keeping her palm resting on Angel’s arm, she turned to Blaize. “And who this be?”

  “Colette Savoie, this is Blaize Carmichael, mon amour.”

  Mamere instantly wrapped her in a warm hug. She pulled back to inspect her thoroughly, too. “Belle. Belle. And her hair, just like a mamou tree.”

  I leaned against the porch railing. “That’s what I said.”

  “She’s Storm’s boss,” Angel added.

  Mamere hooted long and loud. “Oh. He always need a woman in charge.” She opened the screen door, still chuckling. “Never did unnerstand why they call you Storm, though.”

  “Probably because he’s broody like that.” Angel took the opened door to mean make yourself at home, and he did just that. Dropping his pack in the front room.

  Following him after I guided Blaize inside, I cracked him on the back of his head.

  “I might have to agree, Angel,” said Blaize.

  Yuck yuck yuck.

  “Traitor.” Pinning my eyes on her, I twisted her into my arms. I snaked a hand to her ass. “I’ll make you eat those words later.”

  “Can’t wait,” she breathed out against my lips.

  “This house ain’t heard this much commotion since the day Nash was born. Came out, fierce and wild. Hmm. S’pose Storm makes sense after all.” Mamere whisked away into her curtained-off bedroom. “Now Angel?” She clucked her tongue loudly. “Sweet an’ gen’le as the kiss of a rainbow.”

  “Sweet and gentle.” I mouthed at Angel.

  “Broody and scowlin’.” He mouthed back.

  Man, I was about ready to take him out for a mud-wrassle, but Mamere returned and we smiled at her . . . like angels.

  In the space of two minutes, she’d transformed herself. Different dress, apron tied at the waist, hair pinned back with the family heirloom combs, and rose-colored lipstick.

  “I still get the Mary Kay out here,” she announced, sweeping back into the room.

  Could not love her more.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Family, Food, Friendship

  WE ALL ASKED MAMERE what we could do to help. We all got the receiving end of her wooden spoon. She bustled around while I felt like a dumbstick with nothing to do. Blaize watched in fascination, Angel with a contented smile on his face.

  “She lives way out here by herself?” Blaize asked quietly.

  “I bought her a place closer to town, but she likes to pretend I neglect her,” I announced loudly.

  “What I do in town?” She fussed at the old wood-burning stove. “I got this land, the Lord, and all the love a woman can take.” She laughed raucously. “But I do like to shop.”

  Still chuckling, she shooed me away. “Go’n start the big fire, Nash! We g’on feast tonight.”

  For the remainder of the afternoon, Mamere ordered everyone around just like Blaize did when she was in the war room. Those two were probably friggin’ soulmates or something. Blaize and Angel took to her easily, doing all she bid, and Mamere was totally in her element, surrounded by new folk she immediately considered her kin.

  By the time evening fell, we sat around the snapping, crackling fire pit I’d built outside. We ate from heaping, steaming platters of andouille sausage, a big bubbling pot of jambalaya, and frog legs more succulent than fried chicken.

  Angel and I drank beer and the whisky I’d brought, but Mamere swigged from her jam jar of clear—petroleum-grade—moonshine. Her own special brew.

  Blaize took one sip, and I thought smoke was gonna blow out of her ears. Her eyes growing saucer-wide, she exhaled like a fire-breathing dragon.

  Mamere whacked her on the back while Angel and I laughed our asses off.

  “You could’ve warned me!” Blaize fanned her hand in front of her mouth.

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  “And how did you know better, Angel?” she asked.

  “Any good L’isiana boy got enough brains not to drink what’s been brewed up in the backwoods.”

  Mamere hooted merrily, making a big show of taking a large gulp of the moonshine, swallowing it without so much as a blink of her eyes.

  “You skinny, honeychile.” Mamere’s silver hair shined by moonlight and firelight. “Like a chicken wid da bones et clean by a polecat, Nash.”

  “Mamere, if you call this skinny I’d hate to think what you’d call me when I weighed under two hundred pounds.”

  Blaize squeezed a hand appreciatively around my bulging bicep.

  “Why then you’d be just like this one here.” She pointed at Angel. “And he scrawny.” She cackled heartily.

  Then she placed wizened hand against Angel’s clean-shaven jaw, patting him lightly. “I am fit to explode with the happiness now you’re finally here, Ange.”

  He brought her hand down to hold between his own. “I am too, Miss Colette.”

  “Oh, you can’t be callin’ me that. None of y’all. Mamere. And proud of it.” She sat up regally, smiling.

  Blaize pecked me on the cheek, squeezing my knee.

  I turned to her, the corners of my eyes almost cracking from smiling so much.

  “I’m just going to walk off some of that jambalaya,” she said.

  “’Kay, cher. Don’t go too far?” I patted her rump when she stood up.

  Leaning away from the table, I watched her move off into the shadows of trees toward the bayou.

  Mamere caught me grinning, and then she got that wicked twinkle in her eyes.

  “Fried okra, Nash?” she asked.

  “No okra. You know I can’t stand it.” My smile turned into a full-body shudder.

  “Hmmph. Always did give you the trumpets.”

  Oh, great. Potty talk from my gran.

  The only respite came in the fact Blaize couldn’t hear Mamere heckling me.

  I sat with Angel and Mamere awhile longer—long enough for Mamere to become well lubricated and for them to start talking about Maman. I took care of the plates, cleaned up the scraps from supper, made sure the fire was banked.

  “You mind if I bunk in the lean-to tonight?” I came out of the cabin, holding Blaize’s and my packs in my hand.

  “I ’spect you’ll be all right. Stars out. Bayou’s quiet-like.” Mamere smoked her cheroot, watching me light a lantern.

  “Make sure she gets to bed, yeah?” I leaned close to Angel. “My old room’s on the left behind the kitchen. You sleep there.”

  Angel stood, placing his beer on the tree stump beside him.

  He pulled me to him and thumped my back. “Thanks, brah.” He sucked in a noisy breath. “Thank you for giving me family.”

  “Back atcha.” I eased away, meeting his eyes with a firm nod he returned.

  I swooped over my grand-mère, kissing her cheek. “”Night, ’Mere.”

  “G’night, Nash. You treat that lady right, y’here?”

  “I intend to.”

  ****

  I checked on the old lean-to. Still sturdy enough. Three sides and a solid roof. A lush carpet of moss and pinestraw to bed down on. A shelf for the lantern, too. Opening our packs, I pulled out two sleeping bags and zipped them together. For the first of October, the night was gentle, the air sweet, the moon barely cloaked by a mist of pale gray clouds.

  Bullfrogs chorused from the banks of the bayou and night birds cawed from the swamp grasses and cypress stumps. I heard the water, moving in soft susurrations, as I strode down the length of the dock.

  Ambling up behind Blaize, who sat at the end with her legs dangling over, I prodded her with the toe of my bo
ot.

  “Watch out for dem gators, girl.”

  I laughed when she reached back to grab my leg. “You watch it, or I’ll throw you into them.”

  Sitting behind her, I settled her in the V of my thighs. “C’mere, cher. You’ll get cold.”

  I drew a blanket around my shoulders and crossed it over in front of her.

  “Not with you. You’re like a living furnace.” She pressed back until her ass firmly nestled against my groin.

  Nuzzling the side of her neck, I murmured, “Mmm. That’s just ’cause I make you so hot.”

  Shifting her head against my shoulder, she kissed my jaw, working her way to my chin. Licking and softly biting the black stubble just growing back after I’d shaved off the heavier whiskers.

  “You do make me hot, Storm,” she whispered.

  That’s good to know.

  “I can make you hotter,” I growled out, my hand on the move to cup her pussy.

  “Not letting you get me naked out here where dem gators could attack me.”

  My head craned back, and I laughed from deep in my chest.

  I contented myself with holding her, enjoying the peace of the night, watching the bayou roll on in front of us.

  A night heron winged up from the low-hanging branch of a cypress, its feathers fanning out.

  “What happens to Angel?” I nuzzled the crook of Blaize’s soft neck again.

  “What do you want to happen?”

  “No WITSEC. And I don’t want him on trial, don’t want him testifying.”

  “Okay.”

  “Really?” I reared up to look at her.

  She tilted her face toward me. “Storm, you honestly still take me for such a hardass?”

  “Soft ass. Sweetest ass. Wanna fuck this ass.” My voice thundered low, and I squeezed her rump with one hand pressed between us.

  She swallowed rapidly. “We were talking about Angel?”

  “Not his ass I hope.” Hoarse growl.

  Laughing, she sputtered, “God, Storm.”

  I chuckled, too. Crossing my arms around her, I slid my lips against hers. Taking her moan, her open wet heat, her softly rolling tongue into my mouth.