The Vows We Make (The Six Series Book 4)

by Sonya Loveday

  She sighed, taking it from me. “Fine.”

  “Need my help?” Oliver asked.

  “No, I think I got it,” she answered, putting the mask on and diving into the water without a splash.

  Out of the three of us, Paige stayed down the longest. When she finally came up, there was a healthy glow on her face.

  “Work for ya?” Oliver asked, keeping his expression blank.

  Treading water, she poked her middle finger in the air at him.

  He busted out laughing.

  "I THINK WE'VE BEEN SUCKERED," I said as I sat down beside Mark on the bed.

  He grabbed hold of me, pulling me down beside him. My head rested on his chest over his heart. I listened to the steady thrum, letting it soothe me.

  “Why do you think that?” he asked, settling us deeper into the mattress.

  “Oh, come on. You have to admit it… Fiji first, and then Barbados? It’s like they added honey to the front of a trap,” I answered.

  “Honey, huh? It’s a good thing we’re not bears,” he said with a soft chuckle.

  I poked him in the ribs. “You know what I mean.”

  It was quiet for a moment. The only sound was the rustle of sheets as Mark shifted, turning on his side to face me. “You have to admit, it’s sort of exciting.”

  There was a slight smile on his face. A flicker of said excitement twinkling in his eyes.

  “I knew you were sold on it as soon as Oliver said you’d need to take your camera.”

  He brought my hand up, placing a kiss against my wedding band. “You know me too well. Just think, in two more days, we’ll be ocean side in a hut on the water. If I close my eyes, I can already see us there.”

  I leaned back a little, bringing him into focus and said, “If you close your eyes, you’ll be asleep.”

  He rolled over, trapping me underneath his dead weight, head tucked into my neck, proceeding to snore. It was so loud. Obnoxious really. And worse? It tickled. Enough to send chills all the way down to my toes. The vibration rattling my bones was more than I could stand. I heaved, trying my hardest to roll him off me.

  He slumped harder against me. Air whooshed out of my lungs, and I fought to get it back as I shoved his shoulder. “Can’t breathe,” I got out with the last of my air.

  He rolled us over, settling me on top of him along with half the sheets wrapped around us.

  “Just think, tomorrow afternoon it’ll be just you and me,” he said, gripping my hips as I straddled him.

  I couldn’t help the shudder that followed at those words. I’d like nothing more than time with just the two of us in a hut on the water. Those few days would be euphoric. Unfortunately, they were overshadowed by what would follow it up. A mission. Our first mission. One that neither one of us were ready for. And why us? We had no training. The word green came to mind. What made Oliver think to send us?

  “You’re worried,” Mark said, letting go of my hips to cup my face.

  I nodded, taking hold of his wrist. The solid pulse under my fingers gave me strength. “I am worried, Mark. You and I, we… we aren’t mercenaries. We’re not soldiers. Have you thought this through? I mean, really thought about it? What happens if something goes wrong?”

  “I will not let anything happen to you. I swear it,” he said, pulling me down to his chest.

  I pushed up, reluctant to let that be the last word about it. “I don’t need a hero. I need my husband.”

  I gasped, bracing my own hands on the solid curve of his shoulder when he grabbed my hips once more. I could feel each fingertip dig into my flesh. Could feel his need for me as my hips pressed and rolled, yielding to his guidance, loving the feel of his control snapping.

  I would never need a hero. I wanted someone who would quell the fire in me when it raged. Someone who could match me equally, or consume me as I burned. And I was burning.

  Desire crawled through me so thick that I pushed thought aside. There was nothing more important at that moment than the man straining underneath me.

  It was rough at first. Both of us fighting for what we knew the other could give. Fighting for the languid oblivion that comes along when you’d spent your energy, your body, to the point where all you had to hang onto was the slipperiness of the other’s skin. You held tight. Strained against that moment until you both shattered.

  I WOKE, BLINKING AGAINST THE light coming from the small lamp. Mark was already awake, sitting on the side of the bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  I sat up, moving until the warmth of his back was pressed tight against my breasts, and then slid my hands up his sides, over his pebbled nipples, stopping only when my hands hooked over his shoulders. Had he been sitting the other way, I would be seated on his lap with him firmly inside of me.

  I’d denied my feelings for so long when it came to Mark. When I finally admitted how I felt and let him in, I’d become a wanton. The crave of his touch, the feel of his body. I gave him everything I had. Body and soul. And asked for nothing but his love in return. We were one. No matter what happened. No matter where life took us, we’d have each other. I could live with that. I could find strength in it. He was my anchor, and I was his sea.

  “If we didn’t have to meet up with Oliver in fifteen minutes, I’d have you on your back, begging for mercy,” Mark said. His voice was rough like sandpaper, thick with sleep. I felt it slide up one side of my body and down the other.

  I shivered in response. “Well, you better get to it then.”

  OLIVER GAVE OUR RUMPLED APPEARANCE a once over with a muffled grunt. “I hope you two didn’t over exert yourselves because today might just kick your asses.”

  Mark chuckled before answering, “Don’t worry about us, Oliver. We have more stamina than you might think.”

  We both had stamina all right, or at least I had the night before. Mark might be able to go another round or two. As for myself? I was ready to curl up and catch up on all the sleep I’d missed the night before.

  “Speak for yourself. I’m worn out,” I said, uncaring that Oliver heard the innuendo.

  “Newlyweds,” Oliver grumbled.

  “Yeah, well, if you would have just shipped us off to our honeymoon, we’d get all of it out of our systems. But you didn’t, so now you get to deal with all the hormones and sexual innuendos we say, or do, in front of you,” I said, trying my hardest not to blush while I wondered what made me say that.

  “You’ll be headed out this afternoon. Think you can keep your pants on until then?” he snapped.

  “Guess we’ll just have to see,” I snapped back.

  Mark busted out laughing.

  Oliver, for the most part, ignored my snappish tone and focused on teaching us some basic defense moves. Moves I’d learned when I’d moved to New York.

  “You just have to—”

  Mark was on his back with my knee in it before Oliver could finish his instructions.

  “Well, that saves us some time. How much do you already know?” Oliver asked.

  I squared my shoulders, giving him the same pointed look he gave me. “I took classes from a retired police officer the first month I was in New York.”

  Oliver nodded with something like approval. “Okay, show me everything you learned.”

  So I did.

  Two hours later, my muscles ached from exhaustion. My movements clumsy at best, I called a halt to Oliver’s crash course in self-defense.

  “I’m done,” I said, lifting the bottom of my shirt to wipe the sweat rolling down the side of my face.

  Mark stood opposite of me, chest heaving, and said, “What sort of situation are you really putting us in, Oliver?”

  His question echoed my own thoughts.

  “I won’t say there isn’t a chance for danger. What I will say is that you need to be ready for anything,” he answered, crossing his arms over his chest as he stared us down.

  “That’s not any sort of answer at all. What the hell happens if we do run into trouble? Use the few moves
you gave us and then what?” I demanded.

  “Fight with everything you have. Incapacitate your attacker,” he answered.

  “And then?” I asked, growing more furious over his lack of explanation.

  “And then run like hell. Get somewhere there are a lot of people. Lose yourself in the crowd,” he answered.

  “That’s it?” Mark scoffed. “Just lose ourselves in a crowd?”

  “We’ll have eyes and ears on you the entire time,” Oliver answered with a slight nod of his head as if what he said justified itself.

  “Not good enough,” I fired back, crossing my arms to match his stance.

  He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, mumbling something under his breath before his arms dropped to his sides. “Do you honestly think we’d send the two of you, untrained I might add, into a situation with no back up?”

  “That’s exactly what we thought,” Mark answered as he moved to stand beside me.

  “That would be complete idiocy to send the two of you in on your own,” Oliver scoffed.

  “How were we supposed to know that? We aren’t mind readers. And no one thought to say anything otherwise to us,” I said, glaring at him.

  “You’ll have back up,” he said, lifting his hand to keep me from interrupting him as he continued. “And no, I’m not telling you who it is. If, and only if, something happened that you two couldn’t handle, then your backup would step in.”

  I turned my back on him. How easy it would be to toss my hands in the air and tell them they could keep their damn spy games and give me back my old life.

  “Say the word and you’re out. That’s what you want isn’t it? To go back to your day-to-day life? All the while living in a bubble? What we do here matters. The lives we protect, the lives we save, they matter. It’s not just one or two, but hundreds sometimes.”

  He shook his head. “So you can go back to your old life and pick up where you left off if you want. Keep going to school for another three or four years and save a handful of lives in the process. Or stay and fight for humanity. The choice is yours,” Oliver said, making me cringe that he'd so easily read my mind.

  What made me feel worse was what he said had meaning. Impact. Yet, the offer of going back to what I knew tugged hard on me.

  I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t.

  “Think about it. You have a few hours before you have to be at the airport,” he said, walking out of the living room we’d been practicing in.

  The furniture had been pushed against the walls, out of the way, as we’d learned everything Oliver could throw at us. I sank into the chair closest to me, uncaring I was covered in sweat.

  Mark stayed put, watching me as I braced my elbows on my knees. Waiting for me to take in everything Oliver said. Waiting for me to make a choice. Would he stand beside me if I said I no longer wanted to be a part of the world we’d found ourselves entangled in? Could I ask that of him? Make him choose between me and everyone else he loved? And what sort of person would I be to put such a decision on him? No, I couldn’t be that person. I wouldn’t be that person. What we faced, we faced together. We’d made a pact. The vows we made held us tightly, not only to one another, but also to those we hold dear. To break one’s word was an act of cowardice I did not contain. I’d follow Mark into hell if it meant neither of us was alone.

  I sighed my frustration, anger, and a bit of sadness out before standing. “I guess we should get cleaned up if we’re going to make our flight.”

  Mark stopped me as I passed by him. His arms went around me as he pulled me close.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, chin resting on top of my head as I laid it on his shoulder.

  “No. But I’m not unsure either. What I do know is that they took a chance bringing us in and showing us their world. Can you honestly say you’d turn your back on it all now, knowing what you do?” I asked, already knowing his answer.

  He pulled back and pressed a quick kiss to my forehead. “I couldn’t turn my back on them, or you, but if it came down to keeping you safe, or doing what’s right for them, I’d run away with you and damn the consequences. You are my life now, Paige. Where you go. I go. If you don’t want to do this, we won’t.”

  “I know,” I whispered, closing my eyes against the overwhelming need to cry.

  “We don’t have to do this,” he said, stepping back enough to lift my chin.

  I opened my eyes to the truth. “Yes, we do. I don’t know what our part will be in it, but I know that we’re meant to be exactly where we are.”

  He nodded, giving me a weary smile. “If you ever change your mind…”

  “Believe me, I’ll let you know,” I answered.

  He chuckled. “I know you will. Now, let’s go get clean.”

  “You mean soapy?” I asked, wiggling my eyebrows at him.

  “And everyone thinks it’s the guys whose minds are always in the gutter,” he said, scooping me up in his arms as he jogged to our room.

  I WOULD HAVE GIVEN ANYTHING to have more time alone with Paige. Fiji had been… I’d never forget a single moment of it. Barbados lacked everything we’d had on our mini honeymoon. Privacy, for one. The wall shuddered against the headboard, and for once, it wasn’t because we couldn’t keep our hands off one another.

  The walls, paper thin as they were, did nothing to block any sound. And by the sound of it, our neighbors were newlyweds like ourselves or on some sort of ecstasy binge. They hadn’t stopped for more than a few short minutes since we’d arrived the night before.

  Paige, exhausted from the past few days, clapped a pillow over her head to shut out the over-exuberant chanting's of what I could only assume would be encouragement. It was hard to tell between the high-pitched screams and the growls. For all I knew they were watching Animal Planet at max volume. And maybe I could have convinced myself of it had the headboard not smacked hard enough against the wall that bits of the ceiling showered down like snow.

  I tried my hardest to ignore it. Who was I to interrupt them? They’d exhaust themselves out, and we’d all get a good night’s rest. Eventually.

  I slept in snatches, dreaming of things I’d never dreamt before. Dreams that collided with reality, but not my own.

  Bleary eyed, I shuffled my way to the bathroom and almost collided with Paige. We looked at one another in complete disbelief when the sounds coming from the other room died off.

  “I’m going to kill Oliver,” Paige said matter of fact.

  I stepped around her and into the bathroom. Looking over my shoulder, I said, “Wait until he gets us a different hotel first and I’ll gladly help you.”

  Her brows were drawn tight. Shoulders hunched up around her ears when a moan broke through the silence.

  “If they start up again, I swear…”

  The sink tap twisted off in my hand and all I could do was laugh. Delirium had set in.

  Paige blinked owl like at me, taking the useless piece of metal and firing it like a baseball pitch. It hit the wall with a boom. Our neighbors banged the wall.

  “Oh, no the hell they didn’t,” Paige said.

  I caught her up in my arms and swung her around—not a moment too soon. Her hand shot out, grazing the wall.

  When I set her down, she clenched her fists at her sides. “We are not staying here.”

  I picked up my cell phone and brought up Oliver’s name. He answered on the second ring, and before I could open my mouth to speak, Paige had the phone in her hand.

  “You have one hour to get us a new place to stay,” she said, tossing the phone back to me as she grabbed her suitcase and tossed it on the bed.

  We hadn’t unpacked anything but the clothes we slept in. Which was probably a good thing, I thought, stepping on a cockroach that shot out from under the bed.

  “What’s the problem?” Oliver asked.

  “The problem, Oliver, is that we haven’t slept,” I answered, eyes burning in protest to being open.

  Oliver made a noise equivalent to a hum and
said, “Says here on the travel site it has three and a half stars. You sure you’re at the right place?”

  “How could we be at the wrong one? I gave them my name, and they didn’t say anything about us not having a reservation,” I answered.

  Anger brimmed close to the surface when I was tired. I’d surpassed tired hours ago.

  “They give you a receipt?” Oliver asked.

  “Yes,” I answered, grabbing my wallet to get it.

  “Take a picture of it and send it to me. I think you might be in the wrong… er, hotel,” Oliver said with a hint of humor in his tone before he continued. “In the meantime, I’ll book something else for you, and then get a reputable car service to pick you up.”

  “The sooner, the better,” I said, disconnecting the call.

  “Of all the… what the hell is that?” Paige’s voice hit a squeaking pitch as she backed away from the bed.

  “Doesn’t matter what it is, because we’re not staying,” I said, grabbing my bag and taking out the first pair of shorts and shirt I saw. Changing as quickly as I could, I stuffed the dirty shorts inside my bag, grabbed Paige’s, and said, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Oliver’s comment about us being at the wrong hotel made sense after witnessing one man leaving the room, only to have another one step right in behind him.

  It seemed Paige came to the same conclusion as I had when she said, “We’re in a fucking whorehouse!”

  “Right on two counts. Keep walking,” I said, urging her to move down the hall at a fast clip.

  When we made it to the lobby, she rounded on me. “How the hell did we wind up here? Is this even the right hotel?”

  The man at the desk openly stared at us. When Paige noticed, she sneered at him.

  “And you, you sick fu—”

  I grabbed her arm and tugged her outside. “Oliver’s having a car sent. It should be here any moment.”

  OLIVER HAD COME THROUGH ON securing us a better place to stay. While the cottage lacked any sort of amenities, it made up for it in cleanliness.

  After catching a few hours of sleep and having an early dinner, Paige and I made our way out to the beach. The sand warmed the bottom of my feet as we walked hand and hand along the shoreline.