by Dawn Ryder
“What I won’t do…” he continued as he caught the waistband of her jeans to hold her in place so that his next step brought them into contact.
Oh … yeah …
“Is walk out of your life without making very sure that I tell you I want to stay.”
She was melting, her reasoning standing no greater chance against him than ice against spring. “But … it’s not love and I love you and you’re just feeling sorry for me.”
She was rambling, but every word was pure truth. Just as it had always been when it came to him, her composure was worthless.
“Wrong. I’m feeling sorry for myself.” He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, his eyes filling with an abundance of emotion that fed the glow warming her heart. “Because I am going to be the most pitiful creature on the face of the planet if you leave me.”
“You don’t know how to play that role.”
He snorted. “You bring out a lot of firsts in me, Gin. There’s no doubt in my mind that I am going to be reduced to begging if you don’t accept the fact that I am completely dependent on you.” He pressed his fingertip back against her lips when she started to argue again. “That’s love, honey. The type that isn’t ever going to go away because it’s bone deep. So, even though we’re doing this a little backwards…”
He withdrew a step and hit his knee, keeping a grip on her hand as he held her gaze. “Will you … remain my wife?”
“It would serve you right if I said yes.”
Saxon was off his knee and wrapped her into an embrace that was almost too tight, except that it wasn’t because she needed to feel him against her, like her very life depended on it.
“How sweet.”
Ginger smothered her amusement against Saxon’s tie as Vitus’s voice came from behind them. Saxon lifted her chin and studied her face for a moment. “See? You’re already getting used to my brother and that is a mark of a keeper.”
Vitus made a sound behind them that made it pretty clear he was flipping his brother off.
“Tell him to go back to bed.” She turned and aimed a smile at Vitus. “He won’t listen to me.”
“If that’s the case, I haven’t got a chance in hell. Besides, he’s been lying on his tail long enough.”
Right on cue, Saxon walked out of the door and grasped her hand on the way. He seemed to know where he was heading, Vitus falling into step with them as Saxon found an exit door and the motion sensors opened them wide for them.
Ginger snorted, earning a grin from Vitus. “Don’t worry, I’m actually just trying to get him in my truck before he realizes I’m taking him home where our Mom can nurse him back to health.”
Saxon stopped and turned to face his brother. “Payback is a dish best served with double gravy.”
* * *
Saxon took his foot off the doorstep of Vitus’s truck as he caught his section leader moving across the entryway of the hospital and sent a look toward his brother before he went to see Kagan. His section leader stopped beside a mobile scan unit that was bid enough to hide his face behind.
“I realize I’m not your favorite person right now,” Kagan stated the obvious. “Maybe you could factor in that if I hadn’t listened to you and assigned her to a protection team, you wouldn’t be so happy right now.”
Saxon conceded the point with a soft grunt. Kagan nodded.
“Had to let it play out, Hale. Carl Davis is poised to win this thing. I didn’t like it any better than you.”
“But we all do what we have to in order to survive?” Saxon asked.
“We do,” Kagan said. “As Commander in Chief, he could end the Shadow opps teams.”
There was a long moment of silence.
“So what now?” Saxon asked.
“Now?” Kagan offered him a rare smile. “Looks like you’re going to play house, so expect assignments to be more mundane in support instead of the field.”
“Agreed.” There was a time that word would have stuck in his throat, today, it was the easiest agreement he’d ever given.
Kagan flashed him a grin and shook his head.
“Have some kids, they’ll keep the in-laws from driving you insane,” Kagan advised with a smirk. “I’m resettling her parents next to yours.”
Saxon choked.
“No need to thank me,” Kagan insisted as he pulled a folded map out of his pocket. “Wedding present for you.”
Saxon took it and looked at the circled location. It was only a few miles from his parents’ home.
“The old missile silo?” he asked.
“Your new office. Oversee the renovations to start with. Let me know when you have it up and running. The new world is smaller, so we need to have some rabbit holes to watch for our prey. I’m sending your brother along with you. We’ll have to discuss team members at some point. Captain Magnus is going back to Afghanistan.”
“Right,” Saxon agreed, but there was a tingle on his nape because he had the feeling Kagan hadn’t placed the cherry on top of the sundae just yet. Kagan didn’t disappoint him.
“And brush off your dress uniform. The president will be awarding you a Medal of Honor for preventing the assassination attempt by the Raven on Carl Davis.”
“Like fuck,” Saxon hissed.
Kagan offered him a crusty laugh. “You’re more like your brother than you admit.”
Kagan started walking, melting away into the corridors of the hospital. Saxon knew that the video cameras wouldn’t have a trace of him, the map in his pocket the only tangible evidence of his visit.
“Getting that medal will suck.” Vitus advised him.
Saxon turned and cussed as the wound on his shoulder sent searing pain through him. Vitus was leaning against the wall, grinning at him.
“It will be a media circus.” His brother was leaning against the wall, unashamed of listening in.
“Works for me.” Saxon replied.
Surprise flickered in Vitus’s eyes. Saxon sent his brother a grin. “I’ll take it because it means Ginger is alive. Nothing else much matters beyond that.”
Vitus nodded, but his expression remained serious. “With the notable exception of Tyler Martin being alive.”
Saxon offered Vitus the map. “We have some renovations to oversee before we’ll be in position to go after him but we know where to look.”
Vitus shared a smile with him, one Saxon felt warming his insides. Ginger was everything he needed, which meant there was no way he was going to leave Tyler Martin out there.
* * *
“Miranda Delacroix to see you, sir.”
Dunn Bateson was surprised, but he rose and let it show on his face as Miranda came into his office. She flashed him her media-covered smile that came with sparkling eyes. He waited until she’d sat down before resuming his position in his office chair.
“Thank you for seeing me without an appointment,” she began.
“Family doesn’t need an appointment.”
Miranda’s façade melted, leaving behind a genuine smile, one she reserved only for her children.
“You know, I never wanted to give you up,” she sighed. “I was so young, you deserved more from a mother.”
“I’ve never sought an apology because I’m rather glad you didn’t let your family clean me up like spilt milk.”
Miranda’s face took on a hard, determined expression few people had witnessed. “My father may not have approved of my relationship with your father. But there was one thing he understood, and that was that you were your father’s blood and any man worth anything will fight for his blood. The only condition was that I agree to never admit to giving birth to you. Agreeing was the only way I could ensure you lived. My father would have done something unspeakable if I hadn’t promised.”
“Old memories now.” Dunn shut her down gently but firmly. “Let’s live in the moment.”
Miranda lifted her eyebrow, looking more like him than Dunn had ever realized she might. He chuckled softly as he realized she’d
smoke-screened him, too.
She offered him a flutter of her eyelashes before she got down to business. “I’ve spent too many of my years waiting for my turn to be myself. But mothers do those sorts of things.”
Dunn nodded. “And now that you’re an empty nester?”
“I am running for Congress.”
Dunn sat for a moment, considering the media support Miranda would have from years of playing the good wife. He threw his head back and laughed.
“A candidate for our children,” she elaborated. “A clean planet is my priority.”
Dunn came around the desk and hugged her. She laughed against him, reveling in the ability to touch her son.
When he set her back, there was a wicked gleam in his eyes, the same one that his father had that stole her heart so many years before.
“Count on my full support, Madam Delacroix.”
“Exactly why I am here.”
* * *
“Fuck!” Carl Davis barely made it into his office before he exploded. “That damned bitch!”
Tyler Martin watched his boss pacing. Carl pointed at him. “She’s going to win, know that? Between the Delacroix family ties and her popularity among the voters, it’s a done deal.”
“You’re going to win, too,” Tyler Martin remarked. “Unless you take your eye off the ball and screw up your image.”
Carl stopped and drew in a deep breath, rocking back on his heels. “Right. The big picture.”
“Miranda has a couple of skeletons, like the rest of us,” Tyler continued. “She killed Jeb Ryland. Makes me wonder what else she’s got stashed behind that mother of the year cloak she wears.”
“Good,” Carl exclaimed. “Dig up something, in case she gets in my way.”
“In the meantime, make a good show of being friends with her. She’ll bring in some votes.”
Carl nodded. “What about that contract killer?”
“Sullivan?” Tyler answered. “I sent him on a trip that he won’t return from.”
Carl nodded. “In that case, looks like the only thing to do is show up and watch Saxon Hale get a medal for saving my life.”
* * *
Eight months later …
* * *
“To think … both my boys have the Congressional Medal of Honor.”
Saxon’s mother was cooing. Ginger watched with morbid fascination as all five and a half feet of Athene Hale managed to ride roughshod over her full-grown sons. Behind her, their father was watching the moment with an expression that told Ginger he was fighting the urge to laugh hysterically.
“Can I get out of this monkey suit, Mom?” Saxon asked at last.
Athene fluttered her eyelashes, betraying the fact that she was messing with her kids. “All right, I guess I’ve had my fun.” She put aside the cell phone with which she’d been taking pictures and turned to wink at Ginger. “At least until that baby is born.”
Behind his mother, Saxon sent Ginger a smug smile. The second they made it to their suite, her husband turned her around so that he was hugging her from behind. She heard him snort against her hair as he nuzzled against it and framed her rounding belly with his hands.
“Still not sorry that you decided not to wait?”
“Nope.” She tried to wiggle out of his embrace, but he stroked the mound of their growing child, and she quieted, as she always did, marveling at the way he stroked her belly. His big hands so gentle, it made her eyes sting with tears. Somehow, she’d never truly understood the word “cherish” until now.
“Me neither,” Saxon whispered in a tone that was touched with awe and had been ever since he’d realized she’d conceived.
The baby moved, making her smile as she felt like the motion was a direct link with life. It was something she desperately needed, to help her believe that somehow, fate had delivered a happy ending.
It was deeper than love. It was intimacy on a level she’d never felt before, the way he held her, making her believe she was treasured beyond measure.
“I admit, I love knowing that you’re mine.”
“I am,” she whispered, taking his hand and moving it to where their child was kicking. “We are.”
And for the first time in her life she realized it was time to apply the cheesiest words ever penned in a love story to her own life.
“And they lived happily, ever after…”
“I’m working on it,” he whispered. “It’s going to be my life’s work.”
Read on for an excerpt from Dawn Ryder’s next Unbroken Heroes series
Take to the Limit
Coming soon from St. Martin’s Paperbacks
“Jesus.…” A bag of trash hit the concrete but Jaelyn surprised him by controlling the rest of her emotions. Her eyes flashed wide but returned to normal faster than he’d have given her credit for. He’d never pegged her as having much nerve. But she stared back at him, steady as could be.
Impressive …
“I’m sorry Magnus, I didn’t see you.”
Her voice trailed off as she heard a soft laugh and recognized it as her sister’s. Magnus watched her face, wanting to know if she knew what her sister was about. Jaelyn turned toward the sound and frowned.
“Your sister is busy,” he informed her dryly.
“But you’re her boyfriend … oh never mind,” she bent to pick up the trash bag but only made it half way there before straightening. “Look … I’m really—”
“Sorry? Don’t be,” he shrugged “Better this way.”
“I can’t see how.”
His temper was sizzling and another soft laugh drifting on the night breeze, turning up the heat. “It’s simple enough. I’m shipping out at daybreak and it looks like I’m doing it a single man. No strings attached.”
“But you won’t have anyone to kiss you good-bye,” she whispered.
He chuckled but it wasn’t a friendly sound. “Are you volunteering?”
Jaelyn looked shocked but not as outraged as he expected. He wanted a fight and was being an ass, but a flare of hunger entered her eyes, deflating his initial surge of temper. Leaving him poised on the edge of something volatile, something he felt like he’d known had been simmering inside him but had been ignoring. For all the right reasons of course but tonight, there was a boundary missing between them. That knowledge set something loose inside him.
“Your sister seems to have vacated the post of being my girlfriend, so kissing me good-bye is now an open opportunity for you. Sounds good to me.”
He pushed away from the wall and wrapped his arms around her. He was being presumptuous at the least, a huge prick at the worst, but the flicker of heat in her eyes drew him to her. Maybe it was plain old desperation to cling to the living before he shipped out to a place where life was cheap and easily smashed.
Like hell it was that simple …
Whatever had broken free inside him was growing, stretching, as it gained freedom. It was hungry and needy, as well as uncontrollable.
Magnus trapped her arms at her sides, sliding one hand up her spine to capture her nape before claiming his kiss. He needed to hold her, needed her to feel his strength. A soft gasp got muffled between their lips as he pressed a deep kiss against her mouth. He forgot what his intentions where when the taste of her swept through his brain, knocking his better judgment out cold.
The only thing left was the feel of the woman in his arms. The way her lips moved beneath his, the way her body curved to fit against his, it was mind numbing and exhilarating at the same time. She was warm and soft and he teased her lips with a sweep of his tongue because he needed to know what she tasted like. The thin, summer dress she wore was nothing but a frail barrier between her hard nipples and himself. He slid his hand around and cupped one breast, feeling its weight and brushing his thumb over the puckered tip. The soft sound she made snapped him back into focus.
What the fuck was he doing?
He opened his arms, fighting that thing inside him with every ounce of self-discipli
ne he had. All he wanted was to press her against the side of the house and keep pressing until he was deep inside her.
God … he craved her.…
Jaelyn staggered back a pace, her respiration agitated, her eyes wide.
That was why she tasted so good. She was everything pure, everything his hands were too dirty to touch.
“I had no right to do that.” But he wanted to do a whole hell of a lot more.
His jeans felt too tight, his cock swollen and demanding. Her taste clung to his lips and he forced himself to walk away before he lost his grip on his discipline.
Before he took what he wanted …
“Hold it right there Bram Magnus.”
Surprise made him stop. The husky sound of her voice something he’d never heard before. Or expected to.
But he liked it. Liked it a hell of a lot.
He turned to face her and felt his arousal spike when he found her standing only a pace from him. There wasn’t a hint of outrage on her face, only a glimmer of something in her eyes which promised him hell.
He liked the look of that too.
“I believe the idea was for me to kiss you good-bye.” She closed the gap between them, captivating him with the way her hips swayed. She stepped up to him and settled her hands on his chest. “Which isn’t what just happened.”
She stroked him. Moving her hands up and over his collarbones to his neck. It was slow, so damn slow he wasn’t sure he could remain still but it was worth the effort. Her touch sent shivers down his spine, the kind he hadn’t felt since he’d been a raw youth in the troughs of his first love.
When her hand reached his head she rose onto her toes to complete the kiss but he was still too tall. She gently pulled on his neck and he had no problem complying with her demand.
Shit, he could take orders from her all night so long as she was touching him.
This time their kiss was sweeter but not because it was slower. It was in the way she explored his mouth, teasing him with soft pressure while tracing his lower lip with the tip of her tongue before thrusting shyly inside. That was his undoing. He wrapped his arms around her and captured her neck so he could turn her head to suit his desire. The kiss became hard and blistering hot. Control vanished as he fit her against him, pushing her back into the shadows and against the warm stucco of the house. He ravished her mouth with his lips and tongue. She moaned, the little sound pushing him further over the edge as she arched up against him, pressing against his cock and trembling when she felt the hard proof of his desire.