by Meghan March
Something else occurred to me, and I jerked back, pulling my hand from his. “Is your name even Dane Cross? Are we even really married?”
“Yes. Absolutely fucking yes to both.” He must sense the question I’m going to ask next, because he continues. “When I traveled back and forth to my missions, I used an alias. I was so fucking careful to make sure no one from that world could find a trail back to you. The only way someone could have connected the dots was from the inside.”
I nod, feeling somewhat reassured that at least not everything was a lie, but I have to know the rest of it. “Were you ever going to tell me the truth?”
Dane inhales and lets the air out. “I wanted to, but you were in no shape to hear it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I walked away from my team and working in the field a year ago because I left them hanging, and we lost one of our men and two clients.”
“When Benjie died,” I say, understanding dawning.
Chapter 42
Dane
None of this is easy to tell Kat, but the weight is lifting with every confession. The only thing I can hope is that my lies won’t cost me everything. I’ve just gotten her back, and the promise of what the future holds if we can weather this storm is more than I’ve ever hoped for.
So I tell her what happened while I was sitting in that airport. Watching Luis fall to his death with a six-year-old boy, and the mom diving after them.
“I wasn’t there when you needed me, and I wasn’t there for my team either. I failed everyone, all in the same fucking day. I’ve never felt so helpless as I did sitting in that airport. There was nothing I could do for anyone. When I came home, I vowed I’d make things right between us. I would tell you everything . . . but I couldn’t.”
Unshed tears gather in Kat’s eyes. “Because I was already in self-preservation mode.”
I nod. “You were barely holding it together. You needed those walls to make you feel safe, so I let you have them. Let you stay behind them until you found your strength. I fucked up. I should’ve been your strength, and I wasn’t.”
“And when I told you to leave and you did . . .” Her words come out slow and measured, as though she’s putting together the pieces.
“I went to Luis’s funeral, and then the next day, I stood on the hill and watched a man bury his wife and son from a hundred yards away because he swore to Rome he’d have anyone who worked for him arrested if they showed.”
Kat’s hand finds her way back into mine. “And you needed me, and I wasn’t there for you either.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t tell you. You didn’t know.”
“I’m your wife, and when you’re going through hell, I should be by your side. I vowed I would stand with you for better or for worse.”
“And I started this whole thing on a lie.”
“I never told you I could have ALS and be sentencing us to something horrific.” Her shoulders straighten and her lips press together. “We both kept secrets. Maybe I wasn’t hiding a different life, but I’m not innocent in this either.”
“This isn’t a contest to see who fucked up more, Kat.”
“No, it’s not. This is where we get it all out so we’re not dragging this baggage behind us for the next fifty years. I mean, if I have fifty years.” Then she blinks. “If you even want fifty more years.”
I turn and bury my hand into her hair. “I want every day I can get, whether it’s twenty thousand or twenty. I love you, Kat.”
“I love you too.”
I lower my lips to hers, but Kat presses a finger to my mouth. “But I need you to be honest with me. No more lies. Not even to protect me. We’re in this together.”
I press a kiss to her finger and pull it away from my lips. “No more lies. I almost lost you because of that, and I’ll never take that chance again.”
“You promise?”
“I swear on my life.”
My mouth takes hers, and on her lips I taste forgiveness and hope.
Chapter 43
Kat
Two weeks later
When we landed in Houston at a private airfield I didn’t know existed, a car was waiting to take us to a small but swanky clinic I also didn’t know about. On the ride there, I asked Dane how it was possible we could get back into the country without having passports.
His response? A lopsided grin. “When you know people like Rome, certain details don’t matter.”
I still haven’t decided how much I really want to know about Rome.
When I was concerned about going home if someone on the inside had betrayed Dane, my husband just smiled and told me that he didn’t trust anyone enough to give them our real home address, including the records at the office. The address they had was of an empty bank foreclosure he’d bought located thirty minutes away.
And when I asked about my car being registered to our home address and that being trackable, Dane just smiled. “It’s taken care of. No one can track you.”
The rest of it, Dane has told me. It came out in a deluge, and I sat back in awe. My husband is a certified badass. In the last two weeks, I’ve learned more about him than I did in two and a half years.
“So you’re telling me that the note from the hostess was the intel that you were waiting for that first night at dinner in Mexico?” I ask from the driver’s seat of my car.
Words like intel are now apparently part of my vocabulary.
“The whole reason I was there. We had information that one of the cartels was using an employee at the resort to pick out kidnapping targets with money, and it was my job to make him rethink his choices.”
“Do I want to know how you did that?” Dane will tell me as much as I want to know, but it didn’t take me long to realize I don’t need to know everything.
“I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re wondering. All the kid wanted was to make enough money to pay a coyote to get his mom and sister over the border into the US. So we arranged it for him, but instead of him having to stay behind, he went with. They’re all living in New Mexico—legally, I might add—and his sister is getting married next month.”
The story gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling I didn’t initially have when I learned he was a mercenary. Sure, they take money to do jobs, and some of the people they take money from aren’t people Dane would ever want me to know, but even Rome has his own moral code, regardless of how loophole-filled it might be.
“Were there other times I didn’t know?”
“Two others when we were dating. The Dominican and Martinique.”
Mind boggling. But I’m not holding it against him. At this point, I’m impressed that I never picked up on it.
“And our wedding?”
He shakes his head. “Rome gave me such hell over the whole relationship, which is why I kept you off the grid, I didn’t think they’d come even if I asked. And then there would have been the small matter of trying to explain to you who the hell they were. ‘Friends from the office’ didn’t quite cut it.”
“But they came anyway.”
Dane smiles. “They couldn’t let a brother take the plunge without being there.”
“I wish I’d known.” I pull up to a stop sign. “Which way?”
“Take a left.”
Excitement bubbles up inside me that I’m finally going to see his office. Dane is mostly healed and going stir crazy from being at home and taking it easy, per the doctor’s orders, and me forbidding him to do anything strenuous after sustaining two gunshot wounds.
When he said he needed to get something from the office, I begged for the chance to tag along. He’s been in this office for a year, and I’ve never seen it. He would have said no, except that Arianna has been tracked back to Israel, and according to Rome’s message this morning, Vargas is no longer a concern. Anya is still a ghost, but they’ve determined she’s not a viable threat.
Basically, we got the all-clear, and the cloud that’s been hanging over our life has l
ifted.
Also, miracle of miracles, I’ve learned to delegate. I didn’t tell my own team that I returned early, mostly because I looked like I’d gone up against a heavyweight champ and lost, and they’d thrived without my constant micromanagement. I hired great people, and left with autonomy, they kicked ass.
So I extended my vacation for as long as necessary for Dane to heal, only working from home occasionally when an issue required my attention.
“Which building?”
“The gray one with the white roof.”
I pull into the parking lot of a crappy little building near the port. “This is it?”
“Don’t judge a book by its cover. Come on.”
Dane climbs out of the car, and I follow him up to the door. The security measures aren’t obvious, but Dane explains all the sensors and biometrics to me as he opens the office and lets us inside. He does a quick sweep to make sure nothing has been disturbed, and finally lets me check it out.
I can see why he said don’t judge a book by its cover. While the reception area looks as run-down as the outside, once we’re inside the inner sanctum, it’s a hundred times nicer.
The shiny concrete floor is gray with stained black marbling throughout. Dane’s office is done in gray and black, with a giant desk and two computer monitors that lift out of it when he presses a hidden button. The paneling on the wall slides back to reveal a dozen flat TV screens that I assume can play different live feeds at once.
“So, what exactly do you do here?”
“I watch the feeds to try to spot any additional threats. I man a drone on occasion to get an aerial view and send it through to the feed in Central America. We take turns because I can’t cover everything 24/7. I also interface with the insurance companies who don’t want to pay out on their kidnap-and-ransom policies and would rather pay us to extract the targets before the ransom is due. That’s a good eighty percent of the business we do now. It wasn’t always like that, but we’ve gotten to the point where we can pick and choose jobs.”
“And those nights you work late?”
“I’m usually sitting here watching the feeds or wading through contract bullshit that Rome doesn’t want to deal with.”
I open my mouth and shut it again, not sure I want to ask the question, but Dane sees it on my face.
“What?”
“I know you feel responsible for them losing Luis and two of the clients, so why do you keep doing this? Watching from afar where there’s nothing you can do if something goes wrong?”
Dane lowers himself into the chair behind his desk, and I sit in one of the club chairs across from him.
“After that mission went south and I wasn’t there, I figured I had two options—walk away from you and make sure I was always there when they needed me, or walk away from the field so they never relied on me that way again.” His dark brown eyes drill into mine. “Leaving you was never a real choice, so I took myself out of the equation for operations.”
“But why not remove yourself completely?” Maybe I shouldn’t push, but it’s something I don’t understand.
Dane shrugs. “They’re my brothers. I’ve spent years watching their backs, and walking away completely would’ve been the easy way out. I guess . . . this was the only way I could try to keep them safe without being there.”
Everything he wasn’t saying came through loud and clear.
“You’re punishing yourself.”
Dane’s eyes widen when I say it.
“You are. This is your penance for not being there when they needed you. You’ve sentenced yourself to this purgatory where you punish yourself over and over.”
“I guess you could look at it like that.”
I stand and come around the desk. “Baby, none of those guys hold it against you. I saw them. One call, and they were there for you without a second thought or hesitation. They’ve forgiven you.” I lay my hand against the side of his face. “You need to forgive yourself. You are not responsible for what happened to that little boy and his mom. You don’t know what would have happened if you had been there.”
“I wouldn’t have made the same mistake. Luis was inexperienced—”
I press my finger to his lips. “You can’t know. None of us can. A sinkhole in the jungle is a freak occurrence. You have to let go of the guilt or it’s going to drag you down. I just got you back, and I don’t want to lose you again. If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for us.”
Chapter 44
Dane
Kat’s words hit me so hard, I can feel the impact.
What good am I doing anyone holding on to this? She’s right—Rome doesn’t blame me. He’s grateful to have me watching over their ops, not because he wants to punish me, but because it’s the only way I would stay part of the team.
Luis was young and inexperienced, but no one could have predicted that sinkhole or how things would go down.
I close my eyes for several long moments, and then I let it go, completely release the guilt and responsibility. I hadn’t left that day without Rome’s blessing. I’d followed every protocol, and Luis had jumped at his opportunity to prove himself. What happened after that was out of my hands.
I may never forget the feeling of helplessness I had sitting in that airport, but forcing myself to relive it every day isn’t helping anyone.
I cup both of Kat’s cheeks and pull her face to mine. “What did I do to deserve you?”
I don’t let her answer before I take her lips and bury myself in the kiss. I haven’t had her since we got home because she was adamant that she didn’t want to hurt me or worsen my injuries.
But I’m done waiting. I stand from the chair and lift her onto the desk.
She pulls her lips away. “Babe, your—”
“You should be worrying about how fast you can strip out of those leggings before I tear them off you.”
Kat’s blue eyes go wide before heat flames in them. “Right here?”
I nod slowly. “Right now.”
It doesn’t take more than that. I reach for the band of her leggings, and she lifts her butt up long enough for me to pull them down. After a swift tug for each of her boots, she kicks them off, and I’m left with my gorgeous wife, naked from the waist down.
“You’re a bad girl, getting naked on the boss’s desk, waiting for him to come back so you could tempt him into fucking you.”
Kat leans back on both elbows and spreads her legs. “I heard he was hungry, and I thought he might want some pussy to hold him over until lunch.”
She follows my lead so effortlessly, and all I can think is fuck yes.
Chapter 45
Kat
“Damn right, he wants this sweet pussy.” Dane’s voice comes out as a growl before he lowers his face between my thighs and devours.
I don’t know where the role play comes from, but I don’t care. I’m so turned on and dying for my husband, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do right now.
His lips close around my clit, sucking hard as he brings a finger up to plunge inside me. Dane knows exactly what it takes to get me off in record time. His finger sweeps up to stroke my G-spot, and in less than three minutes, I’m arching up, yelling out my orgasm.
When he lifts his head, he smiles. “I thought you were supposed to keep quiet so no one else knows what we’re doing in here.”
I bite my lip. “I couldn’t help it, sir. You just . . . you’re so good at that.”
“I think you need to be punished for being such a naughty girl. We could get caught. What would people think if they knew you were fucking the boss.”
“Punished?” My voice is a little weaker, but inside I’m vibrating with excitement.
Dane nods and slides my ass toward the edge of the desk. “Touch the floor, and then turn over. I want to see that sweet ass in the air.”
I do as he says, the whole time my brain is spinning. Is he going to . . .
Before I can form the question in my head, Dane’s hand lands on
my left butt cheek with a stinging smack. He rubs my burning cheek until the sting turns to pure heat and my inner muscles clench.
Another smack on the right, same follow-up. And then another and another until my entire ass is burning with the most erotic punishment I can imagine.
Dane’s hand sweeps between my legs. “Baby, you’re dripping for me. You like when I show you how a naughty girl gets punished, don’t you?”
I push back against his hand, wanting his fingers inside me, and Dane presses two in.
“Fuck my fingers. Show me how you want to take my cock.”
Bucking my hips, I fuck myself on his fingers until I near the edge. Dane can tell, and pulls free.
“You’re not coming again until I’m buried inside you.”
I start to lift up, but his hand at the small of my back holds me down.
“No. I’m going to fuck you just like this, bent over my desk. Your ass in the perfect position.”
When he says your ass, his fingers, wet with my juices, circle the hole we’ve never tried, making it slick.
I still, and Dane’s deep voice rumbles through me. “You’re gonna take one of my fingers in this tight ass while I fuck you. I promise you’re going to love it, and you’re gonna beg for it again.”
He removes his hand from my back, and I hear the hiss of his zipper going down before he presses the thick head of his cock against my entrance.
“Can you handle that, you naughty girl?”
At this point, I’d say anything for him to sink his cock inside me, and a whispered yes leaves my lips.
“Good.”
Without warning, Dane thrusts, and my back bows with the delicious invasion.
“So tight. So wet.”
He fucks into me, and with each stroke, I want to beg for more. Beg for him to touch me. Beg for him to send me over the edge.