by Rie Warren
Tilly pulled her lips in between her teeth but gave no other reaction as her father talked so blithely about the possibility of his death.
One strong woman.
I eased back in my seat, angling my body toward the table. “Well, the Houthis sure have a hell of a lot of firepower and manpower to keep this whole place locked down and the military forces at bay.” I grinned slightly. “All the forces except us, of course. Now we figure out what we’ve got to work with.
“Storm, you want to do the honors?” I pointed at the black-haired man who bared his teeth in a quick semblance of a smile. “Storm here’s our very own MacGyver, not to mention our very own transporter. We’ll have him check all our combined supplies. If anyone can make them stretch he can.”
“You got it.” Again Storm gave me the two-fingered salute before standing.
He amassed the ammo, assorted weapons, food, and first aid supplies after checking all the cupboards and fridge in the kitchen, and going through our four packs.
He snickered at something he found in Walker’s go-bag, and Walker shook his head with a mumbled threat.
Bane folded his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. “Think you could put a rush job on it, MacLoser? In case you failed to notice, got a bit of a serious situation going on outside.”
“Keep that shit up and you won’t get any rations tonight.” Storm glanced back from pooling our crap on the countertop.
“Wouldn’t be the first time. And wouldn’t be the worst time.”
Lawless peered at the two assholes like he wasn’t impressed with their bickering.
Neither was I.
“Don’t mind Dumb and Dumber,” I commented. “Like an old married couple. Love each other so much they can’t stand the sight of one another sometimes.”
“You know a lot about marriage, son?” Lawless’s chin jutted my way.
Next he’ll be calling me sonny boy.
“Only what I’ve seen from my parents.” I would not back down.
“Hmmph.”
“Do you carry a weapon, sir?” I asked.
“James.”
“Weapons, James. Do you have any?”
“A Glock.”
“Ammo?”
“I’ll get it.”
When he left the room, I turned to Tilly. “What about you, miss?”
“Tilly.”
I was sensing a running theme here.
“Miss Matilda—” I addressed her.
“It’s Tilly, damn you!”
“Fiery temper,” Storm commented.
“Yeah. Jade has that too.” Walker looked at Tilly appreciatively.
“Do. You. Have. A. Sidearm?” Bracing my hands on the table, I leaned toward the woman.
“I’m afraid I left my Marlin hunting rifle back home.” She blinked innocently.
Just the idea of her handling a bolt-action rifle got me hard.
What a woman indeed.
Lawless returned, handing his stash to Storm while I tried to settle my cock the fuck down.
Storm completed his survey to report, “Got enough artillery and ammo to make a pretty decent dent in the enemy. Compact RPG, machine gun, ten pistols, plenty of cartridges, knives up the wazoo—”
“Wazoo? Is that an official tally?” Bane asked.
“Fuck you. That’s official.” Storm continued, “Brass knuckles, C-4, and throwing stars.”
The ambassador whistled through his teeth. “Impressive.”
“Might not be impressive enough.” I frowned.
“Food should last the six of us five days with lean rationing. Won’t have to start cannibalizing each other for a week or so.”
“That’s good. I don’t eat bayou swamp rat.” Bane leaned back, balancing his chair on two legs.
“And I don’t eat city-street roadkill.”
Walker and I shared a not-fucking-again look.
“Y’all look like you could eat through that paltry pile of food in one sitting. Don’t think I’ve ever seen such big men in my life.” Tilly looked at each of us thoughtfully, finally resting the summer-green gaze on me.
An unnecessary thrill wound its way through my body with her regard.
The skin at the back of my neck grew hot, and I made sure I didn’t look at her, not for a single fucking second because Lawless stared me down with a completely different—I’m onto you, sonny boy—stare.
“’Course if Bane bites the bullet, more food for us.” Storm clapped his hands and rubbed them together cheerily.
“Love you too, bro.” Dropping his chair down to all four legs, Bane raised a stiff middle finger at Storm.
Taking it in stride, Storm continued, “And the rest is just Walker’s boudoir photos of Jade.”
“You are such a wanker,” Walker tossed out.
“Ha! Wanker? Guess you picked that up from your girl Jade.” Storm laughed until creases appeared beside his mouth.
Just one big happy family out on a pleasant vacation. In Yemen, trying to rescue the ambassador and his bangin’ daughter from a life-threatening situation.
Next time I wanted a staycation. Fuck this shit.
“Thanks, Storm.” I shut him and everyone else up with a hard glare. “What we got here is a classic scenario of who has more stamina, sir,” I addressed Lawless. “We’re gonna outlast ’em as long as we can before we make our move. Wait for them to get lazy, bored, tired. And I got a lot more stamina than most.” I sailed a wink in Tilly’s direction despite my best efforts.
“And on that note, I think we better figure out some sleeping quarters.” Walker stepped in before Daddy Lawless could correctly interpret my ill-timed flirtation. “Would you mind, James?”
Two hours later, we sat in the kitchen, eating our portions industriously doled out by Storm, who probably measured every precious fucking ounce.
We’d arrived by dark, and the others went to sleep by dark. Everyone billeted down, Tilly in one room with her father. Storm, Bane, and Walker in the other.
I’d cleaned up quick, eaten even more quickly, and taken the first watch. Twenty-four hours awake was nothing. Fuck, thirty-six hours, forty-eight, they all blended together sometimes.
It was the hunger that struck me. I’d never gotten hungry before the Marines. Hungry for action. Against my parents’ wishes, I’d become a jarhead right out of Parris Island, South Carolina. Joined up when I was twenty-two. Had to get away.
Not that there was anything wrong with my folks or their marriage despite what I’d said to Lawless. But growing up hadn’t exactly been homey-normal either. I’d been raised by two highly successful, high society, Upper East Side, New York City parents. Attended private school, had a nanny, and a trust fund I’d never touched. My mom, a fashion designer, my dad, an ad man. And me? I was supposed to be a model.
Jesus.
It had started in my teens when I’d grown into the clean-cut, arrogant all-American looks. A few ad campaigns, a few magazine spreads.
The guys already called me fucking pretty boy. Imagine if they knew about that sideline?
I hadn’t been back home since I’d started this gig with T-Zone.
It wasn’t that my parents were hard people, just that I’d become a hard man.
Even though I’d willingly signed up for T-Zone when they recruited me, a life like this was . . . lonely.
It was empty.
I thunked my head back against the wall I sat against, but I kept at the ready, gun barrel loosely aimed.
As empty as a Medal of Honor awarded for valor when the only thing that bravery meant was other people—good people, better people—died.
Awards meant nothing. Not validation. Not happiness. Not courageousness. As a Marine, I’d earned plenty of ribbons and medals to pin on my long-untouched dress uniform and light up my chest, but that didn’t mean I fell asleep peacefully.
I hardly slept at all. And it was never peaceful.
I flipped a sharp-edged shuriken through the fingers of my free han
d.
Afghanistan had been hell. Real hell. Demoralizing down to my soul hell.
Nothing like boot camp.
The terror never went away. Murder holes and ambushes in villages. Sweltering, sweaty days. Endlessly cold nights on recon. My fellow leathernecks dropping dead around me. And that one night. When the intel about Taliban movements in the area had been all wrong. Dirty tactics had us surrounded inside an abandoned quarter of Lashkar Gar.
The guy called Texas had been a new recruit. He wore his cowboy hat on top of his helmet whenever we weren’t in the combat zone. He threatened us with spurs up our asses whenever he was losing a poker hand during downtime. He talked big, but he kept us laughing. He put his money where his mouth was.
That fucking night Texas went down beside me.
A lot of marines went down.
“Your bedside manner sucks, Gunny.” Texas’s face was white as bleached sheets.
Sick white.
Wounded white.
“I’m not a medic,” I’d said. “Peterson. He’s—”
“Dead. Saw it. Tried to stop it. Guess that’s why this bullet’s lodged in my thigh and I’m bleeding out, Guns.”
Another round of incoming lit up the hovel.
It wasn’t just Texas.
Crockett’s hands palsied over his chest wound.
Danvers held a gauze pad to his head. But he wasn’t really conscious.
And Hill Billy—the newest booter from Boston who was big as a house—turned green before he passed out, holding his intestines in his bare hands. Texas had named him, after Bunker Hill.
The reek of fast-rotting flesh in high heat made me harden my stomach.
Texas could live.
He’d live.
“Got a plan?” he’d asked through lips stretched in a rictus of a grin.
“No.” I cleaned my hands with alki-wipes, and swabbed the bullet’s point of entry on his thigh after knifing his camo pants apart. “Get ready to embrace the suck, marine.”
No morphine. No IV. Strangled, suffocated yells. Texas nearly bit through the belt I stuffed between his gritted teeth.
Crockett died. I didn’t even have to look over to know he’d gone.
Danvers slumped down.
Dead.
Hill Billy’s death was a foregone conclusion as soon as the mortar ripped through his guts.
I hunkered over Texas whenever fresh gunfire razed through the building from the outside. And every time there was a lull in the ongoing attacks, I tried to patch him up.
I don’t even remember what I did to him.
I try not to remember.
The arterial wound. The gusher of blood pumping from his thigh. Using my knife to gouge through flesh and muscle. I knew enough to be dangerous.
Texas passed out.
The rest died.
I held his head in my lap, my machine gun in my hand, and killed every single haji who entered the room.
Daylight brought APCs and reinforcements.
Eight hours of shit. And piss and puke and blood and death and gunfire. And me. With a fucking first aid kit and a gun. Patching up. Taking heat. Saying last rites. Saving letters to loved ones. Closing dead eyes.
Texas and I were the only ones who walked out of that stinkhole.
Well, I walked. Dead on my feet. Carrying Texas. Because I would not let one more person die.
I got him on a stretcher. Watched him being loaded onto a truck.
I wiped a bloody hand across my face.
“You’re the one everyone’s talking about. Gunnery Sergeant Chase.” The officer had piercing eyes, a grim face, and he had a rep of being one of the hardest working sons-of bitches this side of Afghan-land.
“Captain Maverick, sir!” I saluted, all but swaying on my feet.
“Nice work.”
“They died, sir.” Swallowing through the dry dust in my throat, I clenched my jaw.
He placed a hand on my shoulder. “You didn’t kill them. Pretty sure you would’ve saved them all if you could’ve.”
Surprise. I didn’t sign up for another tour after that; that was for damn sure. But trying to assimilate into civvy life had made me twitchy. Just didn’t work. I no longer worked as a normally functioning human being.
I did my best. I got into computers after I didn’t re-up. Computers didn’t lie. People did.
I tightened up on emergency medical procedures. Because I frigging needed to be able to help save lives.
When I slept I relived all the bad things that had happened, and it wasn’t just war.
The things I’d survived made a man feel fifty-eighty instead of twenty-eight.
I didn’t think about Texas anymore. Tried not to. Because he’d died last year, and Captain Bo Maverick and his first sergeant Slade were the only men left alive that time.
And now I was numb. Except when I was on the job, or when I was fucking a woman . . . I was numb.
Bo Maverick had talked to Walker. And Walker had told the T-Z recruiters. And when they came with a job offer, I thought I could do some good in this world. Maybe I was better prepared this time.
The rescues for me far outweighed the slick, sleek, in-and-out assassinations.
For damn sure we’d get this one done right. No casualties. Because I could only keep joking around so long when people—worthy people—died on my watch.
Stretching to my feet, I left the kitchen. I used the dark like a blanket around me. A silent assuagement. My feet made no noise. I breathed in a steady rhythm, holding the H&K pistol aloft with Zero Dark Thirty my only companion.
Bathroom. Empty of all vital threats unless you counted the interminable drip-drip-drip of the sink.
Storm could fix that in the morning.
I checked the next room. Bane, Storm, and Walker roughed it on the floor instead of making use of the beds. The three of them slept like the dead, but I knew if I made so much as a noise they’d pop to their feet, firearms in hand, battle-ready. Their bedrolls were spread close together with Walker between the pair who couldn’t stand each other. A buffer of sorts. I peered closer and snorted quietly. It almost looked like Walker was snuggling up to Storm.
Edging out, I softened my footfalls even more. Air circulated through the safe rooms, but it was stifling and hot, not a pleasant seventy degrees of cool A/C. A drop of sweat trailed from my temple to my neck, and I brushed my face against my shoulder to wipe it off.
Peering inside the room Tilly shared with her dad, I scanned the interior. She lay closest to the door, a hand curled around a pillow. I peeked at her face, slumber-soft and probably warm to the touch. She looked childish almost. Trusting. The hair surrounding her face formed a wavy cloud, and she slept with one arm flung out.
Her lips looked plump and pink and probably tasted like pillows of heaven. Long eyelashes curled against her cheek.
She looked luscious. Ready for a tussle.
A hard jolt hit my groin and, guiltily, I stepped back.
I stalked back to the bunker room where I inspected the door to the tunnel. Storm had done a bang-up job. Every crack and edge soldered with seams of cooled metal.
I bent my head against the cold door, but it didn’t take my temperature down one single notch.
I kept my watch in that room, memorizing every detail of the bland surrounds instead of wondering if Tilly usually slept in a nightie or shorts and a tank top . . . or nude.
I listened to the tick tock of my watch as my throat grew thick and my cock grew hard and stupidly erect in my pants. The soles of my boots beat on the floor when I skidded down the wall and drew up my legs.
The one good thing about this trapped-under-a-microscope situation was the barricaded rooms were all interior. No windows, no outside doors. As the night waned toward dawn, the noise from outside—shrill shouts, rattling gunfire, smaller explosions—quieted, leaving me with more thoughts.
Thoughts of Tilly. Unwarranted. Unwanted.
I’d thought her hair was the color of pea
ches. But I was wrong.
Apricots. Ripe apricots.
I imagined her holding her rifle and taking a bead on her prey.
I saw her teaching a classroom full of college students—men who probably wanted to be teacher’s pet more than anything.
Her mouth wasn’t just utterly kissable, it was feisty as hell.
Groaning, I pulled out my notebook, now folded and pressed into a pocket. And a pen. What a laugh. I wasn’t a writer. I was a fighter.
Whatever. That shit with Walker cuddling with Storm was going into the book. Fais do-do, the Cajun called his beloved sack time when he didn’t use the term to refer to party time. I chuckled, wondering what the equivalent phrase was in the Lakota language.
But not one single damn word about Tilly would be included in the book. Nothing, absolutely nothing about her.
Sitting with my head bent over, I scratched across the page, concentrating on the present. Bane and Storm and Walker. Not Texas or the sand pit. Not a normal life I could no longer have. Definitely not Tilly Lawless.
A shadow fell over me, as dark as a cloud across the form of my body. Dropping the notebook, I swung my Heck & Koch up, acting on pure instinct. My finger started squeezing the trigger, and I almost let the bullet fly before I realized the person was a woman.
Tilly.
Chapter Eight
Primed and Ready
OH FUCK ME.
The midnight watch during a standoff was not the time to worry about my ins and outs, especially not when Tilly showed up, forthrightly staring at me.
I dropped the gun to my side. “Do not sneak up on me like that.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to catch you unaware.”
I kept my face averted and in shadow, because a different kind of hunger—greedier and wild—struck my gut and lit up lower at the very sight of her.
A sight I quickly scanned and catalogued: loose shorts low on her hips, a big T-shirt billowing out over her body but stopping just short of her waistband so a forbidden slice of flat skin appeared, and tits that had to be as unbound and unfettered as the wildly drifting hair around her shoulders.
Bare feet.
Pink toenails.
She paused in the doorway, crossing the sole of one foot over the top of the other, which threw her hip into a jut and accentuated a soft and toned female body I wanted to sink my teeth—and my cock—into. Immediately.