by Eden Butler
The man himself wasn’t the looming, massive superhero Mollie had made him out to be. But then, Vaughn knew something was off. Mojo looked like someone who’d moved through time and his body hadn’t quite kept up the pace. He was sickly thin, not quite as menacing as he imagined. When Mojo spoke to Vaughn, however, he saw the flicker of the scary SEAL that peeked out behind the old man. He wanted Vaughn to look after his daughter. He wanted her safe, same as Vaughn, but he knew by the piercing glare Mojo leveled at him just before he was escorted from the room that he did not want Vaughn touching her.
By the time they left the prison, dark had fallen and Mollie seemed still too upset to do more than stare blindly out the window trying to pretend she wasn’t crying. Vaughn couldn’t stomach her tears and he thought what would help her most was a hot shower and a long night’s sleep. They pulled into a hotel by six and by seven, Mollie disappeared into the steam of the shower.
This room didn’t have the separation their last hotel had. There were two double beds, Vaughn made sure of that, but only a small table separated them. He tried distracting himself while Mollie took a long shower. He unpacked his bag, set his sneakers near the door and his .45 under his pillow before he picked up some food from the dining room. Dinner is waiting for her when she leaves the bathroom with her hair pulled up in a thick towel, wearing short shorts that has Vaughn forcing his eyes onto the TV and a thin, Lynrd Skynrd t-shirt.
“I got you a burger.” He nods at the covered plate and tray resting on the foot of her bed, but frowns when she doesn’t even glance at it. Instead, she tugs her suitcase open and digs into the compartment on the top, finally pulling out a full bottle of Jack Daniels. “Um, you think that’s a good idea?”
She shrugs. “It’s tradition.”
“You’re gonna have to explain.”
Mollie flops onto the bed and pushes aside the food tray with her foot. “First drink I ever had was Jack.” The paper ring around the unsealed top tears and Mollie takes a swig. “I don’t have cups like your sister did.” She offers him the bottle and Vaughn hesitates before he tips the top to his lips for a quick sip. “Anyway, I was sixteen and Layla’s mom brought us to Jackson so I could see Daddy. They have cousins up here and so they dropped me off while they visited.” She scoots back against the headboard and takes the bottle from Vaughn’s hand. “I was so depressed by the time we left that Layla snuck into her mom’s purse, lifted two twenties from her wallet and paid a skinny bellhop to get us a bottle.” She takes another sip, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “We got so drunk I stopped thinking about my dad alone in that tiny cell or what waited for me when I got back to Cavanagh.” She looks off, staring at nothing. “Things got worse for me, with my mom, I mean.” Vaughn doesn’t like the sound of that; he doesn’t like that far-away stare in Mollie’s eyes, distant, cold. So he tilts his head and Mollie catches the curiosity in his expression. Another shrug, as though whatever happened to her at sixteen wasn’t a big deal. “Husband number three was a little handsy. I cracked his rib when he tried grabbing my tit.”
“Shit.” This time, when Mollie offers him the bottle, he drinks deeper. “Did you tell Mojo?”
“You’re kidding, right? The guy is still alive, that should tell you something.”
Vaughn moves next to her and rests the bottle between their thighs. Mollie lifts it, cradles it to her chest before she drinks. “So, a visit to Daddy means Jack and forgetting for a little while that he’s stuck there.” She sighs. “For now.”
“Did you get your answers?”
“I got more than that.” He watches her swallow, wondering how long it will take her to completely forget; how long she’ll drink before her emotions break free. “He’s sick. Cancer.”
Vaughn closes his eyes; an image of his mother sick and thin against the scratchy hospital bed running through his mind. “Damn. I’m sorry, Mollie.”
“Yeah. Me too.” She shakes her head, eyes again taking on the distracted stare. “When Evelyn died, Autumn complained about condolences.”
“How do you mean?” Vaughn tugs the bottle from Mollie’s fingers.
“She was too messed up to go to the funeral. Her Godmother, Ava, and Sayo had to plan it all. And so for weeks Autumn didn’t see anyone. She wasn’t there when people came by to bring food or flowers or all the other pointless shit people do when folks die.” Mollie pulls her knees against her chest and doesn’t look at Vaughn, doesn’t see how hard he stares at her, as though her little monologue is meant for her alone. “So for a while, she didn’t have to deal with it. But then she got out of the hospital, started going to physical therapy or to the store with Sayo and people who knew her mom would catch her. They’d start with the condolences. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss, Autumn’ and ‘Oh, honey, Evelyn was such a good woman, I’m so sorry for your loss.’ It was all the ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ shit that she hated.”
Vaughn remembers that well. It was especially hard when those well-wishers would linger, staying for hours after his mother’s funeral to make sure his father would be fine, when all the old man wanted was to be alone in his grief, to get shitty in the privacy of his bedroom. “People tend not to know what to say when someone dies.”
“Of course they do.” She glances at him, head still shaking as though Vaughn is simple. “Autumn said she just wanted one person to say ‘Oh shit, this sucks balls.’” Vaughn laughs, chokes on the liquor as he takes a sip. “Not, ‘Oh, they were this and that,’ because let’s be honest, it isn’t just good people who die. Assholes die every single day and even if they’d been assholes their whole damn life, people will tell his family ‘Oh, he was such a good man.’ No he wasn’t, dude was an asshole. Just say that. Autumn wanted honesty. She wanted one person to say ‘Holy shit how are you even still sane?’” Mollie’s voice has grown loud and Vaughn can’t tell if it’s from her anger at hearing her father is sick or the lack of decorum that liquor always injects. “Because that’s the thing about death. It cripples you. You feel numb and helpless. We don’t cry and carry own because it’s such a tragedy that this person you loved lost their life.” She slides down against the headboard, ignoring the bottle when Vaughn offers it to her. When she speaks again, her voice has leveled out, become just higher than a whisper. “We do it because we are selfish assholes that don’t want that person missing from our lives.”
“He’s not gone yet, Mollie.” Vaughn knows it’s a lie, he saw the man himself today and the sight was a small recollection of his parents—his mother’s long, excruciating battle and the shock and bewilderment at seeing his own father in a coffin. She was right. Vaughn hadn’t mourned his parents’ loss, not for them. He mourned their absence from his life, something he still did every day.
“No, not yet.” They stare at each other and Vaughn notices how Mollie deflects the welling tears by taking another sip from the bottle. “Fucking cancer.”
Feeling relaxed, a bit sated from the burn working down his throat, Vaughn joins Mollie in a lazy slouch against the headboard. “That’s what got my mom.” He looks at her frown, sees the pity on her face. “Breast cancer. She had it twelve years.”
“That sucks, Semper Fi.” She isn’t being flippant or trying to diminish his loss. Vaughn likes her honesty, likes how Mollie always says exactly what she’s thinking and, for the most part, the things she is thinking mirror whatever is in his own mind. He tries to tell her that, tries to tell her how much he agrees with her, but one glance at her face stuns him silence. Thick, leaking tears run alongside her nose and despite his promise to Viv, Vaughn can’t help reaching for her.
He slips his arm around her shoulder and Mollie stiffens. “You don’t have to…”
“Shut up and come here.”
“I know Viv said something to you.”
Vaughn exhales, frustrated by this entire situation and pulls more forcefully on Mollie’s shoulder. “Viv wouldn’t want me being a heartless bastard either. Besides, she’s not here. Put the bottle
down and come here.”
Mollie takes a long, lingering sip from the bottle before she deposits it on the table next to the bed and crawls onto his lap, letting him rub her back, letting herself nestle against his chest.
“It feels like I can’t breathe. He’s not even dead yet and I feel like I can’t breathe.” Vaughn smiles when he feels Mollie rub her face against his t-shirt. “He told me, he told me he was dying and all the way back from the prison, my heart is telling me ‘he’s gonna be fine. He’s strong,’ but my brain…” she shakes her head. “My fucking brain is too logical.”
“Listen to your heart, Mollie.” Vaughn likes the way her hair feels against his fingers when he moves his hand to her neck. “Your brain will force you into thoughts that will just give you ulcers.”
“You know about that, huh?” She sits up, watches his face.
“I do.” There are secrets he hasn’t told Mollie; the same secrets that haunt him, that cripple him on any given night. He wonders what she would think of him if she knew. He wonders if she would ever look at him the way she is now, as though he has answers, as though he has any idea how to muddle through the loss that has begun to fester in her heart. But he can’t bear it, couldn’t stomach how she would never want him again, if she knew the truth. He never wants to disappoint her. For some reason, this small woman has taken root in his heart, furrowing beneath all the darkness, all the regret to chip away the dimness of who he has become. But Vaughn knows that if she knew everything, that light would leave him. Still, she’s looking for someone to relate to; someone who will tell her that she will survive the loss that is coming. So, Vaughn blinks once, lets a quick breath move through his chest and then he smiles at Mollie. “You asked me about Caroline.” Except for the slow nod of her head, Mollie doesn’t move. “I was nineteen. On leave. Came home because my mom was getting worse. Caroline worked at a diner a block from the hospital and I kept going back there almost every day. One night I left the hospital and she was closing. She served me pie and let me cry about my dying mom. I married her six months later. Right after Mom’s funeral.”
Questions bubble behind Mollie’s eyes. He can see that she is curious, that there are things she wants to know, but she hesitates, manages only a low, “What happened?”
And here’s the sticky part, he thinks, not eager to see more of Mollie’s tears. Not sure that if they surface, he’d be able to keep his hands to himself. “I tell people we got divorced because I don’t like the look they give me when they find out Caroline died.” Mollie’s gasp is loud, moves her body and bounces them both on the mattress. “Yep, that’s the one.”
“Vaughn. Shit.”
“Yeah. Shit.”
“Was she sick too?”
“It wasn’t cancer. She was schizophrenic, suicidal. She couldn’t handle me being gone so much, but I was in Afghanistan and when there is a job to do, the Corps doesn’t care who is sick and dying at home. I tried. Viv tried, hell my dad even tried to take care of her, but she just… disappeared into herself, into whatever world it was that kept her away from me so often.” Mollie takes his hand, fingers linked with his and Vaughn likes how that strong grip seems to filter small fragments of her own strength into him. “I was a kid. I had no clue what to do. I just couldn’t save her.” He hated how his eyes burn now, how the image of Caroline, reaching for him, bloody and battered won’t ever leave. More than anything, he hates that tears make his vision a blurry mess and how Mollie clings to him, holding him so tight that he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to let her release him.
“I can’t save my dad, Vaughn.” Her voice is muffled against his chest.
“You’re not supposed to, sugar. He made choices. He’s living with those choices.”
“And your wife made choices too, right?” She pulls back, touching his face. “Sounds like she expected you to save her, when she couldn’t even save herself. You’re not a superhero, Vaughn. You’re just a man who tried his best. Sometimes, that’s enough. Sometimes, that enough is all we can do.”
No one had ever explained it to him that way. A year later, and Vaughn is still holding onto the guilt that threatens to eat him alive. But here is this twenty-two year-old woman who is loud and vulgar and beautiful and sweet and she briefly extinguishes much of his guilt with logic and reason. Finally, now, with Mollie touching his face, with those wide, whiskey eyes taking on a fierce, certain cast, Vaughn sees that she’s right. Knowing the truth doesn’t lessen the hurt, or his failings, but he finally understands that even if he’d been there, Caroline would have still put that gun to her heart.
Mollie’s fingers do not remain still. She lets her pinky smooth over his skin, works her fingers against his stubble and the sensation is too much. Right then, he wants to kiss her; those beautiful, plump lips that glisten against the low lamplight and the tempting way she smells fresh from her shower has Vaughn forgetting that he isn’t supposed to touch her. She is off limits. She is the client’s daughter. But damn, is she a temptation. Mollie’s eyes jump to his and he recognizes the look—the want, the need, and when she leans forward, he takes her hand from his face, but makes sure to give it a squeeze. “I should let you sleep. You have to be exhausted.”
She doesn’t whine, doesn’t seem at all surprised by his reaction and only frowns somewhat before she moves off his lap to twist the cap back on the bottle of Jack. “Thanks. For… well, for everything.”
“It’s my job.” He didn’t mean it, not the way it sounded, especially not when Mollie’s frown lowers, when her back becomes a straight line. Before she can leave him to hide her frustration in the bathroom, Vaughn walks behind her, fighting with himself about the wisdom of touching her again, before he rests his hands on her shoulder. “And I wanted to.”
“The mission, right?” She looks up at him, straining her neck over her shoulder. “Protect the kid.”
“No. Protect the woman.” He knows he should step back, put space between them. He knows he should not let her turn, let her move her hands on either side of his face. He definitely shouldn’t let her kiss the hollow of his throat, or work her mouth over his neck. And God help him, he shouldn’t love the way her warm tongue licks a hot path under his ear. She feels amazing, tight body arching up to him, nipples already hard as she inhales deep, fingernails scraping up the back of his scalp. His body responds, becomes hard, rigid and it takes all of his strength, every ounce of his training to grip her wrists, to pull them down until she no longer touches him. “Stop.” Vaughn’s eyes slam shut. “God… just please stop.”
“You want to touch me.” She twists one hand out of his grip and pulls down his face so that he will open his eyes, so that he is forced to look at her pretty face. “I can see that on your face.”
“I made a promise. Not until this is over.” He attempts to push her back, to brush away her hand, but it is a weak action, futile and half-hearted.
“A drug cartel is trying to keep my dad from testifying and he might not make it to court because he’s dying. This thing may not ever be over.”
“You don’t know that.” Vaughn steps back.
“Here’s what I know.” Back again is Mollie’s confident gait. She moves her bare feet on the carpet as though she is lithe, a feral lioness seeking a willing prey. Vaughn can only walk backward, hand held up as though that might stop her in the least. “I saw you that day on the Dash and knew you were mine.” Something twists in Vaughn’s gut, something primal and pleased and his head jerks up, gaze landing onto hers quick. He refuses to move as slinks around him. “I know when you touched me the other night, I felt like I was flying, like your hands were the only ones that should be touching me.” Her fingers trail over his body as she circles him, brushing up against his back, then to his chest as she stops in front of him. “I know that I dream about the way you felt in my hand and the way you touched me. I know that not one person on this earth is guaranteed the next hour, the next minute.” Her hands rest on his chest and Vaughn has surrendered his
fight. He’s thought of it too, dreamt about the silken texture of her skin, that musky, tempting scent of her body when she came around his fingers. “I know that I’d do just about anything to feel your tongue on my skin again, to have you over me.” When Mollie’s fingers rub against his stubble again, Vaughn tries not to flinch, both from the shock of her words and the liquid heat scorching his dick at her touch. “To have you inside me.”
“Mollie… fuck. I can’t do this.” Reaction like a whip, moving quicker than Vaughn’s stunned, aroused senses would have thought possible, Mollie stands on her toes, lips against his neck, breath hot, welcoming, teasing against the shell of his ear. “I… I can’t think when you touch me.” He demonstrates by stretching his neck back when her teeth nibble on his earlobe. Finally gaining some composure, Vaughn pushes her back, keeping his arm straight and firm against her shoulder.
“So stop thinking.” One swat at his hand and Vaughn’s arm is at his side, but Mollie allows him his distance, she hasn’t moved again and he believes it’s because she thinks she won’t need to. He doesn’t trust the smile on her face or the way she bites that inviting bottom lip. “I don’t need you thinking. Not right now. Not when my body needs you.” She glances at his waist, at the way his erection tents his jeans. “Not when I know how much your body needs mine, Semper Fi.”
Vaughn could let thought push back into his brain. He could recite the Oath of Enlistment, let the monotony of the mantra clear away the thick air of desire, arousal. He could remind himself that Mollie is Mojo’s daughter, that the man is dangerous if pissed off and that touching his daughter would absolutely piss him off. But thought, fear, they don’t diffuse the crippling ache Vaughn feels. They don’t extinguish the sweet smell of Mollie’s hair, how when she looks at him, precisely how she is now, that his attempts at control are pathetic. Right now, he only lets the image of her naked body, the heady mix of her scent, the low moans she makes when he touches her, work like a twister in his brain. She said she knew he was hers, that first day and now, with Mollie’s hands reaching out to him, with the buzz of his body and the need for hers fueling him, Vaughn knows she is right. He belongs to her, more than he’s ever belonged to anyone. She owns him and he decides to forget thought, forget promises he had no business making.