Hallowed Ground (Flight & Glory #4)

by Rebecca Yarros

  “Just me?” Morgan asked Carter so quietly that if she wasn’t on the other side of me, I wouldn’t have heard her.

  That escalated quickly.

  “Just you,” he said with a curt nod, but his knuckles whitened where he gripped his bottle.

  Jagger shot me the that’s-none-of-my-business look and passed a beer to Grayson while Ember sent a glass of wine to Morgan.

  “Shall we toast?” Jagger asked, a grin damn-near consuming his face as he looked at Paisley.

  “Wait, Paisley needs a glass,” Ember said, pouring into the second glass.

  “Oh, no, I have water.” Paisley shook her head with a smile.

  “Well, I guess one of us should be sober.” Ember laughed, keeping the glass for herself. I pulled her onto my lap, gently squeezing the sweet curves of her hips.

  “Behave,” she whispered into my ear, but ran her tongue along the edge.

  My fingers flexed, teasing under the edges of the black skirt that had slid higher on her thighs as she sat. I couldn’t help it—her skin was a magnet for my hands. “You like it better when I don’t,” I answered.

  She locked those blue eyes on mine, and for that second, I wanted everyone to go the fuck away so I could get my remarkable girlfriend out of her clothes. Not a girlfriend for long. Not if I found the perfect moment for that little velvet box hidden upstairs.

  Mrs. Walker. December-fucking-Walker. Sounded perfect to me.

  “Earth to Josh and Ember,” Jagger called, waving his hand like he’d been at it a while.

  “Yeah, yeah, a toast,” Ember said, wiggling against my now-hard lap. I locked her down with my hands, and she threw me a smug grin, well aware of what she’d done.

  Jagger raised his beer. “To friends. Hell, that doesn’t even cut it. You guys, all of you…I wouldn’t be here”—he looked over to Paisley—“or even the man I am, without you. So more than friends…to family.”

  We glanced around the fire at the family we’d made, and I felt it—one of those moments you can’t forget, the kind that stay with you when it’s long past, so you try to memorize everything. It was a deep peace, a contentment laced with the silent knowledge that we wouldn’t be together again for far too long.

  “To family,” we all said in scattered rhythm, and I kissed the underside of Ember’s jaw.

  “Old and new,” Jagger said, the firelight reflecting on something on his— No fucking way. How had I missed that? How long?

  “Holy shit, Jagger, are you…” I couldn’t even say it, my throat tightening like a damn woman.

  Jagger held out that hand to Paisley, who took it with a smile that could have rivaled the sun for its brightness. “You want to?” she drawled softly as he tucked her under his arm.

  “So we went up to West Point last weekend to see the parents—” Jagger started.

  “—and got married!” Paisley finished.

  Silence reigned for a heartbeat before we all started to call out our congratulations.

  “That’s amazing!” Ember squealed.

  Paisley’s face fell a little. “I’m sorry you guys weren’t there, but it was just Anna and my parents. We figured with the guys deploying, it just seemed like the right time…” Her hands smoothed along her waist, and I felt Ember suck in her breath.

  “It doesn’t matter. We’re just so happy for you!” Morgan said through a huge smile.

  “Good.” Jagger laughed, pulling Paisley in for a kiss. “Because there’s more.”

  Ember’s eyes widened and flicked from me, to the wineglass, and back to Paisley. “No way. She’s pregnant,” she whispered in my ear.

  “We’re having a baby!” Jagger said, happier than I’d ever seen him.

  Holy. Shit. A baby. A tiny Bateman.

  The girls all screamed at a shrill pitch, abandoning their seats to envelop Paisley in a huge hug and an unintelligible feminine barrage of questions and coos started.

  Jagger made his way around the gaggle of ecstatic girls and took the seat Morgan had vacated. I leaned over and pulled him in, hugging him with a slap on the back. “Congratulations, man.”

  “Thanks. Some week, right?” He shook his head, his eyes wide with the kind of disbelief he’d had when we’d told him Carter had given up his Apache for him. “I don’t know how I got this lucky.”

  “You deserve every piece of this, brother.” I meant every word and made sure he knew it. No one was more deserving of happiness than Jagger. Well, maybe Grayson. I raised my beer. “To family.”

  “To family.” One by one Grayson and Will joined, celebrating.

  I swallowed the beer and the tiny stab of envy I couldn’t quite keep at bay. Fuck, I wanted that—December with a ring on her left hand and my last name. I wanted to watch her lithe body change with our baby, and hold that tiny, perfect combination of us both. I was done being her boyfriend. I wanted to be her forever.

  “How is her heart?” Will asked. As awkward as it could have been, Jagger and Will had made their peace in the last year, turning a bitter rivalry into a close friendship for the sake of Paisley.

  “The timing isn’t ideal,” Jagger admitted, locking his eyes on his wife. Holy shit, his wife. “But she’s strong, and her heart isn’t giving her any trouble. They’ll monitor her more frequently, but the doc isn’t too worried.”

  Will visibly relaxed. “Congratulations, man. Any fool can see how happy you make each other.”

  “Thanks. I’m sorry it was so fast, but we were there, and I wasn’t exactly going to leave her a pregnant fiancée for this deployment. God knows I was just looking for the excuse to marry her. Now she’s as protected as I can make her. Make them, I guess.” He sighed, nearly splitting his face with a smile. “A baby!”

  “God, I hope it’s a girl,” Grayson said. “I’d love to watch you lose your mind in about nineteen years.”

  Jagger’s eyes widened to a nearly impossible size, and we all burst into laughter. “Don’t worry,” I said, punching his shoulder. “I’m sure she’ll find a guy just like you.”

  “Fuck my life,” Jagger muttered, chugging his beer.

  We only laughed harder.

  Hours later, the temperature dipped, and everyone started to move inside. I waited until we were the last ones, and then pulled Ember into my arms next to the dying fire.

  “How wonderful for Jagger and Paisley,” she said, yawning.

  “I’m happy for them,” I answered. Jagger was right. The marriage protected Paisley in a way that Ember was still vulnerable. She had no legal access to me while I was gone, and she’d aged out of her dependent ID card. She couldn’t even get on base without going through the hassle of getting a pass.

  She wiggled deeper into my lap, distracting me as she curled so her head lay on my shoulder. I pulled the blanket over us and then kissed the top of her head. “I love you,” I said into her hair.

  She sat up with a smile and turned, hooking her knee over my lap, straddling me. “Then it’s a good thing that I love you, too.” She kissed me, opening instantly to leave no doubt in my mind where her thoughts were headed. Her skirt rode up her thighs until there were only my jeans and her panties between us.

  Hell. Yes.

  One of my hands burrowed through her mass of fire-lit auburn curls to the nape of her neck as the other drifted down her spine until I held her perfect ass. Then I claimed her mouth, sinking into her with deep, swirling strokes of my tongue.

  She moaned and slid her fingers under my beanie and into my hair. That one sound was all it took and I was hard, ready to take her in our backyard. I might not have cared if our neighbors could see, but Ember would have, so I tucked the ends of the blanket behind my back, shielding her from anyone who might be looking out their windows at two a.m.

  “Josh,” she whispered against my lips as my hand skimmed the soft skin of her inner thigh. Her hips rolled over mine, and a wave of lust slammed through me, quickening my pulse. “Touch me.”

  My fingers dipped under her lace pantie
s, and my dick started throbbing at how wet she was. “Fuck,” I muttered, sliding my fingers over her swollen clit. “You want me.”

  “Always,” she gasped, resting her forehead against mine as I rubbed her just where she liked it. Her breath came in short spurts, and I teased her entrance, wishing I could slip into her right here. Hell, a simple zip and I’d— No, we do not fuck our future wife where people might see her. Besides, that sound, yes, that one, where her breath caught and stuttered? That was for my ears only. I needed to get her inside so I could get inside her.

  Her nails raked lightly down my chest, and she raised my shirt to trace the lines of my abs, pausing in the places that had my breath catching this time. But when she reached for my zipper, I stopped her. “Not here,” I whispered against her lips.

  “No one can see,” she urged, rocking her hips against my hand so that my fingers slipped into her with a shallow thrust. “God, Josh. Mmmm. I’ve been thinking about this all night.”

  I pressed lightly on her clit with my thumb, unable to keep still while she was moving on my hand like a fucking sex goddess. “All night?” I asked, stroking her inner walls with another measured thrust.

  “Mmmm,” she moaned, biting my lip softly. “Every night, really.”

  I circled her with the same movement of my fingers, feeding off every single gasp, the slightest movement of her hips. “Always?”

  “There’s never a minute that I don’t want you inside me, crave your hands on my body, Josh. That’s never going to change.” Her hand worked its way under my jeans, the angle making it awkward for her to get ahold of me, thank God. The minute this woman touched me, I had all the self-control of a damn high schooler.

  Hell, even back then I’d known she was too good for me, but I was going to spend my life proving I was exactly what she needed now. And the timing…well, it sucked, but this could protect her if something happened to me. “Want to gamble on that always?”

  Her eyes flew open, locking onto mine, and her hips froze. “What?”

  Fuck, the box was still upstairs, and she deserved better than this, but I couldn’t keep it in any longer, and the alcohol wasn’t helping. “We could make it forever. You and me.”

  Eyes wide, she leaned back, her hand slipping out of my pants. “What are you saying?”

  Shit, just spit it out. “I’m leaving in ten days. I want you to be taken care of, to have the security of my last name, to know you have access to everything while I’m gone.”

  “Josh?” Her eyes narrowed and not in a good way.

  You are fucking this all up—get to the point!

  “We could get married!” It flew out of my mouth. Gone was the pretty speech I’d been practicing for the last month, waiting for the perfect, not-too-over-the-top moment. I’d somehow developed verbal stomach flu. “You know, elope, like Jagger and Paisley. Just you and me. Forever.”

  “Because you’re deploying in ten days.”

  “The timing is shit, I know that. God, I wish it was different and we had all the time in the world. But this would protect you, give you access to my benefits.”

  “Unbelievable.” She pushed off my lap and tugged her skirt down her thighs. “Un-fucking-believable!”

  Mayday. Mayday, you’re going down, buddy. I leaned forward, reaching for her, but she sidestepped. “December…” I shook my head, wishing I’d had about three fewer beers. “I thought you’d be happy.” This was not how I pictured this moment going.

  “This…this is a proposal?” If it were anger I saw in her eyes, I could have held my shit together. I could have fired back. But the hurt? Fuck, I was defenseless.

  My mouth opened and shut a few times. I couldn’t figure out what the hell to say that wasn’t going to dig me a deeper hole than the one I was already in. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  “Because I didn’t hear a question, Josh. I heard a business proposal.” A single tear slipped down her cheek, crushing my heart in a way her words never could have.

  “December…” I stood, but she backed farther away.

  “No. My answer is no.”

  Fuck, I was wrong. One word decimated me.

  Chapter Five

  Ember

  I swatted the tear away angrily. How did this even qualify as a proposal? I’d fantasized about this exact moment since I was a freshman in high school drawing doodles with his name.

  This was more like a nightmare.

  “You don’t want to marry me?” he whispered.

  “What? All I have ever wanted is to marry you, to be your always, to wake up knowing that I’m yours and you’re mine.” How could he even think that?

  He tucked his thumbs in his pockets and rolled his shoulders. “That’s what I thought this was about. You and me, forever.”

  “Really? Because you just proposed like I’m some tag-chaser you picked up in a random bar, and you’re offering me free health care so you can make more money on a deployment, and we’d better hurry up and sign those papers before you ship out.”

  His head snapped back like I’d slapped him. “I guess I didn’t think you wanted some over-the-top proposal. Isn’t that what you always alluded to? I have the ring upstairs, I can get it—”

  “I don’t want a fucking ring!” My voice broke. “I just want your heart.”

  “God, baby. You have it. I love you more than my own life.” His eyes squeezed shut. “I probably should have led with that.”

  “The whole love thing might have helped,” I bit out. “Or even something as trite as ‘will you marry me?’ may have sufficed.”

  “Then let me start over,” he begged, meeting my eyes. “There is nothing more important to me than you, December.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Not now. Not ten days before you deploy, and not because you’re deploying.”

  “I just want to—”

  “Protect me?” I finished for him when he couldn’t.

  “Yeah.”

  “Josh, if something happens to you, a wedding ring isn’t going to save my sanity or salvage my heart. The army has dictated everything about my life since I was born. Where I lived, when I moved, when I lost my friends…when I lost my father. I’ll be damned if I give it a say in when I become your wife. Only we get that say.” I pulled the blanket around my shoulders, trying to ward off the chill I knew had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the loss of Josh’s warmth.

  “I don’t want to wait another year. I want you to be my wife, and I thought…” He laced his fingers and rested them on the top of his head. “I don’t care how I marry you, December. In a huge, crowded church, on a deserted beach, in the fucking janitor closet of city hall. I don’t care as long as it makes you my wife, and I guess I thought you felt the same way.”

  “How I feel? I want you to want to marry me. I want you to marry me because I’m the only possible future for you, because I’m the one you can’t live without, and not because you think you have to. Not because Jagger and Paisley did it.”

  “Look how happy they are!”

  “Happy? For fuck’s sake! Did you even ask when their baby is due?”

  He blinked. “No.”

  “October ninth.”

  He paused midshrug, finally clicking with what I was trying to tell him. “Yeah. You guys will most likely still be gone. She will go through this entire pregnancy, and probably the birth, on her own. Jagger is about to miss out on almost all of their first year of marriage and watching over Paisley’s pregnancy. Do you think that makes him happy? Is that what you want? For our first year of marriage to happen over Skype calls, wondering if we’ll ever make it to a first anniversary? Because that’s why you’re doing this, right? To protect me if you don’t come back?”

  The muscles in his jaw flexed. “That’s not fair.”

  “No. None of this is.” We stood in silence, staring at each other across this giant sinkhole in our relationship.

  “I think you’re a pompous asshole who wouldn’t know love if it wa
s delivered naked to you on a fucking platter!” Morgan’s voice carried from the field behind us.

  Guess we’re not the only ones awake and arguing.

  “One, I’m well aware of what love is, and two, what the hell do you expect from me, Morgan? I’m leaving!” Will shouted as Morgan arrived at the nearly dead fire.

  “Oh look, a functioning military couple,” Morgan said, waving to Josh and me.

  “Don’t bet on it,” I answered.

  Josh tilted his head and shot me a look that said he didn’t appreciate the comment.

  Too fucking bad. He’d just treated one of the most important moments of our life like it was another item to be checked off his pre-deployment checklist.

  “Weigh in for me,” Morgan drawled, crossing her arms as Will caught up to her.

  “Morgan,” he warned.

  “Oh, come on, Will. My feelings for you are the worst-kept secret since Paisley’s for Jagger. I think we can all be honest here.”

  Josh edged away. “Not sure this is our place.”

  “Oh, no you don’t, Walker.” Morgan stared him down. “Tell me, if you had feelings for someone, wouldn’t you want to be with them? Even if they only had a couple months before they deployed?”

  “Actually—” Josh started.

  “Damn it, Morgan! I’ll be gone nine months. You want to start a relationship like that?” Apparently Will’s drawl was a bit more pronounced when he got mad.

  Fascinating.

  “It’s not like this is World War Two, Will! We can Skype, and write letters, and talk on the phone. Do you think I won’t wait for you? Is that it?” Morgan fired back.

  Holy shit. Josh couldn’t have thought that…or could he?

  “Is that the real reason?” I asked Josh, not caring that we’d just turned this into a melee. “Are you scared I won’t wait for you? That I don’t love you enough, so a ring will keep me around?”

  Josh rubbed his hands over his face. “We are not doing this right now.”

  “Wouldn’t you want whatever time you could get?” Morgan yelled at Will.