by Susan Stoker
“Vandine’s still in Germany. He’ll be flown to Dallas as soon as the doctors think he’s ready. The bullet nicked his femoral artery. Doctors were able to repair it, but they won’t want to move him until they’re sure it won’t tear.”
“He would’ve bled out in minutes if you hadn’t been there,” Brain said. It wasn’t a question.
Aspen merely nodded. She’d done what she’d been trained to do. She was grateful both men were alive, but she’d just been doing her job.
“And Sergeant Holman?”
“The doctors removed his hand in Germany. They couldn’t save it,” she told him.
“But he’s back in Texas, right?” Brain asked.
Aspen’s eyes narrowed. “If you already know how they’re doing, why’d you ask?” she asked, slightly irritated.
“Because I wanted to find out what you know,” Brain said with a smile, not turned off in the least by her snark. “And bring you up to speed if you didn’t know everything I did.”
She felt better about that.
“What’s your schedule tomorrow?” Brain asked her.
“I have PT in the morning. Then a meeting with the major.”
“What about?”
Aspen shrugged. “I’m assuming it’s about my returning to regular duty.”
Brain wasn’t so sure, especially after everything the Deltas had had to say about what happened that day when she’d been hurt in Afghanistan, but he let that go for now. “What about the afternoon?”
“I’m still on half days. Why?”
“I thought you might like to drive down to Austin to see Holman.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” Brain asked.
“Why would you want to go see him? Don’t think I don’t know you aren’t my team’s biggest fan,” Aspen said.
“I’m not. But you told me in an email that you were worried about him. And as his medic, I know you’re probably dying to see for yourself that he’s okay. I can put aside my differences if it means giving you what you want.”
Aspen looked down at him for so long, Brain began to worry he’d said something wrong.
“Thank you,” she said after a long moment. “I’d love to see how he’s doing. But don’t you have to work tomorrow?”
“Nope. We always get a few days off after a mission.”
Her eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Really. Why does that amuse you so much?”
“I was just thinking about how much Trigger and Lefty must love that…not to mention their girlfriends.”
Brain laughed. He finally stood and held out a hand to Aspen. “They do love it. It’s obnoxious, if you want to know the truth.”
“You wouldn’t think that if you were the one getting some,” Aspen told him with a laugh.
“True,” Brain said, gripping her hand and pulling her upright.
But he didn’t stop there. He yanked her right into his body, wrapping an arm around her waist until they were plastered together from hips to chest. He knew she could probably feel his erection against her, but she didn’t pull away. She simply wrapped her arms around his shoulders and smiled.
“I’d love to spend the next few days with you…after you get home from work, of course. I feel as if in some ways, I know you really well, but in others, I don’t know you at all. I’d like to remedy that.”
“I’d love to,” Aspen agreed.
“Good.” Brain moved his hands to her waist and couldn’t help but slip his thumbs under her shirt to caress the bare skin there.
“Things in Afghanistan went well?” she asked.
Brain opened his mouth to instantly say he couldn’t talk about his mission, but then realized that Aspen knew exactly where he’d been, and why. There would be times in the future when he couldn’t discuss his assignments with her, but he felt more relieved than he knew how to put into words that he could talk about Akhund.
“We got him,” he told her.
“Good,” she said firmly. “It didn’t take too long, if you’re already back home.”
“Took longer than any of us wanted, but because of Spence’s amateur actions, Akhund went to ground. It took a bit of sleuthing to figure out what rock he was hiding under.”
“By sleuthing, I’m assuming you mean using your super language powers to eavesdrop,” Aspen said with a smile.
Brain wanted nothing more than to lift her shirt over her head, throw her down on the couch and show her without words how much he loved her teasing, but instead, he sat on the couch and pulled her down with him. He settled into the corner of the surprisingly comfortable sofa, and she immediately curled up next to him. Brain put his arm around her shoulders and sighed in contentment when her own arm wrapped around his stomach, her knees resting on his thigh.
He’d never been a cuddler, but he decided right then and there he could definitely be one with her.
“Something like that,” he admitted. “Anyway, he’d barricaded himself in a house and had surrounded himself with as many women and children as he could find. Bastard knew we wouldn’t kill innocent civilians if we could help it.”
“What about the men who were shooting at us?” Aspen asked.
“They weren’t an issue,” Brain told her, not going into detail about how they’d hunted down those men and made sure they couldn’t hurt anyone else ever again.
“Right. How’d you get to Akhund?”
“With a loud speaker.”
Aspen raised an eyebrow in question.
Brain shrugged. “I used it to tell the people in the house, in Farsi, that if they surrendered, they wouldn’t be hurt. That they could take their children and go.”
“And just like that, they came out?” Aspen asked in disbelief.
“Not exactly. It took two days, but eventually, little by little, they came out. Akhund wasn’t happy. I heard him screaming at the people in the house, threatening them, but for some reason, he didn’t strike back at his people when the first woman left. That gave the others the courage to exit the house themselves. Then it was just a matter of going in and ordering Akhund to surrender.”
“He didn’t though, did he?”
Brain shook his head. “No.”
“What about Shahzada?”
“In the wind,” Brain said. He turned to look at her. “And what I’m about to say goes no further than this apartment.”
“Of course. I’m aware I don’t have the same level of security clearance as you do, but I know enough to keep my mouth shut,” Aspen told him seriously.
“Before Akhund died, he bragged that we’d never find Shahzada. That he was smarter than everyone. That the villagers were loyal to him, and any attempt at finding and killing him would fail.”
“Did he give you any clues as to where he is or who he is?”
“No,” Brain said in frustration. “We’re pretty sure he’s still in the area, but that’s all we know. There are reports that he’s got an extensive network of followers, and his MO is to take prisoners of war to gain information.”
Aspen sucked in a breath. “Shit, seriously? Are there any POWs right now that are still in captivity in the area?”
“It’s hard to tell. There have been people who’ve gone AWOL, but most have been accounted for,” Brain said.
“I’m glad I’m not there anymore,” Aspen muttered.
“You and me both,” Brain agreed.
Aspen took a deep breath. “Well, I’m relieved Akhund is no longer an issue. He terrorized the villagers.”
“He did. And hopefully our negotiations with them, and the fact we didn’t have to kill any innocents, went a long way toward helping the US/Afghani relations in that region.”
“I hope so,” Aspen said with a nod of her head.
They were both quiet for a moment. Then Aspen asked, “Are you sure you aren’t hungry? I can find something for us to eat if you want.”
“I’m sure.
But if you are, don’t let me stop you.”
“I’m good,” Aspen reassured him. “I just…I don’t want you to be bored.”
Brain looked down at her and smiled. “I don’t care what we do together, skat, just being with you is amazing.”
She frowned. “Skat? Please tell me that’s darling in some other language and you didn’t just call me excrement.”
Brain chuckled. “It’s Danish.”
“I think I prefer chérie or something,” she told him with a pout.
“Noted.”
Brain had never been much of a talker. He preferred to read a book or listen to music. But for the next few hours, he and Aspen talked nonstop. Sometimes they discussed serious topics like global warming, affects of war on children, or the coronavirus. But other times they talked about nothing important, like their preferences in fast food.
It was getting late, and Brain knew he should leave since Aspen had to get up for PT in the morning, but he couldn’t tear himself away. He liked hanging out with her. Liked that she seemed perfectly comfortable around him. It almost felt too good to be true.
And that thought abruptly brought another woman to mind.
He hated thinking about anyone other than Aspen when they were together. He tried to push away thoughts of that other bitch, but since his mind had chosen now to remember what she’d done, he couldn’t stop it.
His body must’ve tensed under hers, because Aspen lifted her head and asked, “What’re you thinking about so hard?” She’d lain down at one point in the evening, her head resting on his thigh. Brain was running his hand through her hair over and over, loving the sight of the strands covering his lap.
He sighed and didn’t even consider lying. To Aspen, he was an open book. He wanted her to know everything about him, even if that meant sharing some of his insecurities. “Remember when I told you I hadn’t been with a woman in two years?”
She lifted her head and furrowed her brow. “Of course I do.”
“You have to understand…I was always the youngest person by far in my classes growing up. In high school. In college. Women didn’t really see me as anyone other than someone they could get notes from, or who could do their homework. So when I joined the Army and was suddenly surrounded by men and women my own age, it was pretty overwhelming for me. I wasn’t treated like the ‘smart guy’ at first. In fact, most people didn’t even know about my degrees or anything about my intellectual abilities.”
“That’s good,” Aspen said softly.
“Yeah. I dated a bit, but it was awkward for me. I didn’t really know what to say or do, and I don’t even want to get into how long it took for me to get comfortable with my sexuality. Anyway, I met this woman, Deidre, a few years back. The team and I had gone to a bar to chill out after a particularly gnarly mission and saw some other guys from the post we knew. We were having a few beers when a group of women came in. They were also soldiers, and they made a beeline for us. We all started talking, and somehow it came up that I was good at languages. Everyone seemed duly impressed…but Deidre was especially interested.”
“Please tell me this isn’t going where I think it’s going,” Aspen said, sitting up and curling her arm around his chest once more.
Brain shrugged. “I got her number and before I knew it, we were talking every day and she was hanging out at my place. I enjoyed talking with her, and she admitted that she was trying to learn Farsi and was having a hard time. So I gladly helped her. She was very dedicated to studying, and I admired that. I liked her a lot. She was pretty, tall, had long blonde hair, and it was flattering that she’d picked me out of all the other guys who were at the bar that night.”
“I think I don’t like Deidre very much,” Aspen said heatedly.
Brain felt a little weird that he was enjoying the fact that Aspen was getting worked up on his behalf. He needed to finish this story and make his point. “Right, well she was never very affectionate, but I chalked that up to her strict religious upbringing, which she’d told me about. We kissed a little, and fooled around, but it wasn’t until after she’d taken her Farsi language test for the Army—and passed—that we slept together.
“We’d both gotten a little drunk, and one thing led to another. We ended up in bed, and I thought everything was great between us. But the next morning, she woke up…and she definitely wasn’t happy. I just thought it was because she was hungover, but she quickly enlightened me. Told me that she didn’t think things were going to work out between us, and she appreciated my help with Farsi, but now that she’d passed her test, she was breaking up with me.”
“What a bitch!” Aspen seethed.
“I can look back now and see the signs. They were all there. Not wanting to hang out in public. Never wanting to do anything with me but study. Being reluctant to do more than kiss. Hell, she had to get drunk in order to fuck me. The thing of it was…I’d truly thought we’d connected. But the bottom line was that she was using me for my smarts. It really was too good to be true, but I was the dummy who’d thought we were on our way to something serious.”
“And what? You think that’s what I’m doing too? Using you for some unknown reason? Is that why you’re thinking about her?”
“No, not really. But sometimes I can’t help but remember that sometimes when something seems too good to be true, there’s a reason.”
Aspen shocked the shit out of Brain when she threw a leg over his lap. She straddled him and took his face in her hands and met his gaze as she said, “I don’t care that you know French, or German, or Farsi, or any other language. I mean, it’s amazing and wonderful, and I admit to feeling a bit inadequate as a result, but that’s not why I’m going out with you. You want to know why?”
Brain stared at her. “Yes,” he said simply.
“Because when I’m with you, it’s as if we’re the only two people in the world. Being with you makes me happy. I feel a connection to you that I’ve never felt with anyone else in my life. If anything, I’m the one who should be worried about you deciding I’m not worth your time. This isn’t too good to be true. At least, I don’t think so.”
“Me either,” Brain said.
“Good. So put the bitch Deidre out of your mind. She’s not worth thinking about for one more second.” Then she scooted closer, and Brain felt his dick twitch. If they were naked, they’d be as intimate as two people could be. He could shift just a bit and he’d be inside her.
“Kiss me,” Aspen whispered.
She didn’t have to ask twice. Brain gripped the back of her neck and held her tight as he brought his lips to hers.
At first their kiss was sweet. They nipped and teased each other playfully. But Brain needed more. Always more.
They kissed for several long minutes. Until Brain knew he needed to go before he exploded in his pants. Aspen was rocking against him, caressing his cock with her unconscious movements. He wanted her. More than anything else, ever. More than his first Master’s degree. More than a spot on the Deltas.
But he didn’t want to rush things. Wanted her to know he respected her and, if he was being honest, he kind of liked the buildup of anticipation. He hadn’t felt this alive in a very long time. Tonight didn’t feel like the right time to make a move on her. She had to get up early, and he was tired as well.
He pulled back and watched with lust as she licked her lips, puffy and slick from his kisses.
“You’ll really take me to Austin tomorrow to see Holman?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
Brain nodded once. “I’ll pick you up around one-thirty. Text me if something changes and you don’t want to go anymore.”
“I’m not going to change my mind,” Aspen told him gently. “And wouldn’t it be easier if I came to your house?”
“No. Because then you’d have to drive back here when we get home, and I don’t know what time that’ll be. I’d prefer for you not to be driving around after dark,” Brain told her.
Aspen smiled. “I’ve been driving at night for a long time,” she told him. “And I’m practically a Ranger. I’ll be fine.”
“Humor me,” Brain told her, not changing his mind. He wasn’t usually paranoid, especially about driving around Killeen at night, but everything was different now. He couldn’t stand the thought of Aspen getting hurt. Not when he could prevent it.
“Okay. Fine.”
Brain nodded, then he leaned forward, kissed her once more—because he couldn’t keep his mouth off her—and stood, with Aspen still in his arms.
She screeched, then laughed as she clung to him.
Smiling, he let go of her legs and wrapped his arms around her waist. They stood intertwined together in front of her couch. Since they were about the same height, he could look straight into her eyes. “I had a good time tonight.”
“Me too. I’m glad you got home safely,” she told him.
“Get off that leg,” he ordered.
“I can walk you to your car.”
“No. It’s late. If you walked me to my car, then I’d have to walk you back up here to your apartment.”
She grinned. “Fine. Are you ever going to see me as competent when it comes to safety?”
“It’s not about competence. It’s about me wanting to be the one keeping you safe. I know you’re on a Ranger team. I know you’re a combat medic. You’ve had a lot of the same training I have. But, as your boyfriend—and when we aren’t in the middle of a firefight in Afghanistan—I simply can’t see you as anything but a vulnerable woman. My woman.”
Brain internally winced. He’d mucked that up royally. He wouldn’t blame her if she dumped his ass right then and there.
But she simply smiled wider. “I’d be stupid to take offense to that,” she told him. “As long as you do realize that I’m not helpless. I’ll never be the kind of girlfriend who lets her man take over her life. I’ve been on my own for a long time, and I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”
“Noted. I’ll do my best to rein in my caveman tendencies,” Brain said, relieved she wasn’t pissed.