by Honor James
Piper watched as the life fled her mother’s eyes. She stood there, looking down at the woman, and should have felt some sort of sympathy, some sort of sorrow for the loss, but she couldn’t. All she could feel was complete and utter distaste and anger.
Looking up, she saw Aeron there leaning heavily against the door and didn’t hesitate. She rushed to his side, her hand moving to his cheek, and asked, “Are you okay? God, when she shot you I think I lost like ten years of my life.” She had known he had a vest on, but the shot terrified her. “Aeron, baby, talk to me?” she begged as she looked into his pain-filled eyes.
She looked at the man behind Aeron. “Have you called an ambulance for Aeron yet?” If not, the man better get to it, now, before she lost her shit all together.
“It should be here any moment now. We told them to come in silent, but Bradley’s downstairs and will have them pointed this way the moment they arrive. Let’s get him on the bed,” he said.
“Good plan,” Aeron said. Then he seemed to just crumple. Timmons, that was his name, caught him and hauled him across the room.
Easing him down on the bed, Timmons cursed. “Jesus, Cutter. You’re bleeding like crazy,” he muttered. Getting on the bed next to him, Timmons put his knee over the shoulder where Aeron had been shot and pressed down.
“Mother fucker!” Aeron jerked on the bed, trying to get away but unable to.
“Lay still, I need to staunch the blood flow or you’ll never survive until the medics get here. Piper, sit with him and take his mind off what I’m having to do.”
“You could have used your hands,” Aeron said. He was panting hard. He was also incredibly pale and sweating a lot.
“Wouldn’t have been as effective, and I might need my hands to shoot someone.”
“Fucker,” Aeron muttered. “You all right?” he whispered. His eyes were on her, so she knew the question was directed her way.
“I’m good.” She moved so that she was between Aeron’s line of sight and the man, Timmons, who was working on keeping him from bleeding out. “Don’t you dare move a single inch, Aeron, I mean it. If you die on me I will bloody damn well hunt your ass down in the afterlife and beat you. I mean it.” She pressed a shaky kiss to his lips. “Don’t leave me, Aeron, please.” She begged him this time.
“Not dying,” he said softly. “Kiss me again,” he whispered.
“Medics are here,” a voice called out. “Heading your way in two minutes.”
“Copy that, tell them to move their asses, Bradley,” Timmons called back.
Piper brushed her lips gently to his and pulled back. “That’s it, until you are no longer bleeding and no longer looking whiter than our sheets,” she stated firmly. “Just hang on. God, I didn’t realize she had hurt you as badly as she had. I’m so sorry.”
“He’ll live,” Timmons told her. “She likely got a vein, or something, but a little blood and bed rest, and he’ll be back to bossing you around. We’ve all had worse at some point in our lives, so don’t worry too much. Now, you may want to move so the medics can get to him. Grab your coat and your purse. I’ll have Bradley take you to the hospital while I call the general and update him. I’ll deal with the cops, too, at least as much as I possibly can, but they’ll definitely want to talk to you.”
“It doesn’t matter. They will have to wait until I know that Aeron is okay.” She took the jacket from him and then looked at the door. “Wait, Yoshi. Mother tranquilized him,” she said quietly. “God, I can’t believe that woman was her.” She was her mother. It was still stunning to Piper. “And Bradley, where is he? He isn’t going to try to drag his feet, right?” She wanted to ride with Aeron in the ambulance, dammit all to hell and back. “Why can’t I ride with Aeron?” she asked suddenly.
“Yoshi is fine, groggy, but fine. Markham was in with him when I came up here. He couldn’t make his shot so he came in to lend a hand at backup, but I knew Cutter would have it handled. Bradley’s downstairs. He’ll be waiting for you down there to take you wherever they take Cutter.” Timmons gave her a push as a man and a woman came into the room carrying supplies. The woman headed for her mother but quickly discovered there wasn’t any need to worry about her.
As soon as the male EMT had his hands in place, Timmons moved off the bed and out of their way, taking Piper with him to a spot near the door. “Stay with him if you can, and keep your head down. They’ll likely whisk him into the ER and then up to an operating room. So you won’t really have much of a chance to stay close. Bradley will stay with you the entire time and wait with you. I’ll update him as often as I can to anything that’s happening here. The rest of us will meet you at the hospital as soon as things are dealt with here.”
Piper sighed and nodded. “Okay.” She didn’t want to leave Aeron, at all. She looked his way and saw him watching her. “You stay alive for me, Aeron Cutter. I mean it, dammit,” she told him with a frown. “Because you still have to ask me to marry you and keep you forever, and I won’t be able to say yes if you leave me.” She was worried, hella worried.
His lips curled into a crooked grin. “Don’t you worry, sweetheart. I’m not going anywhere without you at my side,” he said.
The EMTs were moving him, amid much, and very colorful, swearing. Then they were pushing him out into the hall and toward the stairs. Bradley was standing there, all weapons long since gone, or at least out of sight. He grabbed one end of the rig and helped the medics get Aeron down the stairs.
“Go,” Timmons told her. “We’ll get there as soon as we can. Be with him, Piper.”
She was surprised. She had thought she had to go with one of the men to the hospital, but she didn’t have to be told twice. Moving to Aeron’s side, she walked quickly at their side and stopped outside of the ambulance while waiting on the doors to be opened. “I’m so sorry that this happened to you,” she told him as she rubbed his knuckles to her cheek. “I never would have dreamed she was the one behind all of this. God, I still can’t believe it,” she told him quietly.
“It’s okay,” he said. Squeezing her hand he let go as the EMT’s started to put him in the back of the ambulance.
Bradley was right there and gave her a nod. “They’ll let you ride in with him. I had to do some fancy talking, so stay out of the way, and just hold his hand. I’ll meet you at the hospital,” he told her. With a wink to her, he put a hand on Aeron’s leg for a moment, and then jogged off toward the vehicles in front of her house.
“If you’re riding along, miss, now’s the time,” the female EMT told her.
“Thank you,” she said with a nod and got up into the back of the ambulance with Aeron. She held his hand, rubbing his knuckles to her cheek over and over again as they rode toward the hospital.
Chapter Twelve
Two and a half months later…
It had been a long nearly three months. It had been so hard for Piper to see Aeron in the hospital bed when he was wheeled out of surgery. She had sat at his side for days until he made the general force her out of the room and home to get cleaned up, eat, and sleep. She had been so angry with him for that too. But that was then and this was now.
She was happy, over the moon happy, but she was also nervous and worried because Aeron hadn’t said one more whisper of a sound about them having more time together than just the then and there. He hadn’t moved his things in with her and still lived out of his duffel for the most part.
“Aeron?” she called as she walked down the stairs. “Where the heck are you?” She had even looked in on the room where Yoshi still stayed, him moving in with them for the time being as well, something she was fine with. Now if only she could get Aeron to move his things in as well.
He wouldn’t have left her, would he? she thought as she looked around the first floor as well, frowning when she didn’t find him there, either. “Where are you?” she asked quietly and reached for the phone. Maybe she should just try to call him? Maybe he and Yoshi were looking at another building, and he hadn’t wa
nted to wake her? No, that wasn’t it, because he always woke her. So where in the ever-loving name of hell was he?
Familiar arms slid around her waist, pulling her back against a hard and hot body. “You rang, sweetheart?” his deep voice asked against her ear. “Why the hell are you sounding all panicky, Piper? Is everything all right?”
She turned in his arms and looked up at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him close. “I thought you left me,” she admitted quietly. “God, I would die if you had left me.”
He was wearing a frown that turned confused as he looked down at her. “Sweetheart, why the hell would you think I’d ever leave you? Piper, I love you. I’m not going anywhere. I made you that promise, and I never break my promises. What’s really going on?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she admitted without hesitation. “I walked out, and you weren’t upstairs, you weren’t downstairs. I didn’t know what to think, and I will admit that I freaked out, a lot.” And he hadn’t moved in with her. Why hadn’t he moved in with her? It was during her inner monologue that she suddenly blurted out, “Why?” She blushed and bowed her head, saying, “Sorry.” Which was followed by, “No, wait. I’m not. Why haven’t you fully moved in with me? You haven’t gotten any more clothes, anything from your place. Why?”
Sighing he wrapped her tighter in his arms. “Babe, I am moved in. Everything that I had with me is here. I have always traveled light. It’s part of the military life, and I adjusted to it. Yes, I’ll have to pick up a few more things in time, but I have all I need at the moment. What I brought with me is everything. I don’t have a place to go to, to collect anything else. I didn’t live here, sweetheart. I never really had a home base. When I was stateside I stayed with a friend because of that. It’s also why I rarely came back stateside.”
“Really?” she asked with wide eyes. She threw herself into his arms again and hugged him tightly. “Your home is with me. It always has been,” she told him with a smile and rubbed her cheek to his chest. “We are all that we have ever needed with each other, right? We belong together, don’t we?”
“Of course we do,” he said. Rubbing her back gently, he pressed his lips to her forehead. “Now, before you distract me again, come with me.” Stepping out of her arms, he caught her hand in his and tugged. He led her through the main floor, up the stairs, and toward their bedroom. “Hopefully they had enough time,” he muttered.
“Who had enough time?” she asked with a frown and walked along with him. “Aeron, what’s going on?” She was feeling nervous again and hated it. She didn’t like this uncertainty at all. She enjoyed, instead, being able to have their lives all nice and laid before them as it had been.
“The guys, I gave them a task to complete,” he said. He pushed the bedroom door open enough to stick his head around it. Pulling back, he shot her a grin and wiggled his eyebrows. “They just earned an extra helping of dessert tonight. Close your eyes, please,” he said.
“Okay.” She readily closed her eyes. She would always trust him. She felt him pulling her into their bedroom and laughed when he tugged her closer again and gave her a brief hug before letting her go. When he told her to open her eyes, she was shocked. The room was dark except for candles that dotted the surfaces of the bedroom with their light, rose petals were dropped on the floor and the bed, and she just smiled. “What’s this all about?” she asked a little breathlessly.
“Setting the scene,” he told her. He moved to stand in front of her, facing her, and then went down on one knee. He was looking up at her now, a soft smile curling his lips as he stared at her. “Piper Davis, love of my life, I can’t imagine any future that doesn’t include you. You’ve given me your trust, your heart, and the pleasure of getting to know you for who you truly are.” He pulled something from his pocket, his eyes never leaving hers, and held his hand up between them. “Will you do me the greatest of honors and agree to be my wife, my love, my forever?”
Piper looked at him and the ring that was between them. She looked from the ring, to him, and back to him. “Aeron.” She whispered his name softly. “Yes, God yes,” she told him with a nod. “Forever. I want and I need forever.” She accepted the ring from him, held her hand out to him, and noticed that it was shaking as she waited for him to slide the platinum ring onto her finger.
Slipping the ring onto her finger, he stood, scooping her up into his arms as he did, and kissed her hard and fast. “No tears,” he said with a laugh. “This is a happy day, Piper. No tears, woman, not today of all days.”
“These are happy tears,” she said with a nod and hugged him. “I am so very happy Aeron. I’m going to soon be Mrs. Aeron Cutter. Do you know just how insanely happy that makes me?” She peppered kisses on his cheek and then lips. Pulling back, she looked up at him. “So, I said yes, does that mean that we get to try out the bed with the rose petals on it?”
“Absolutely,” he said with a nod. Next thing she knew she was on her back in the midst of the rose petals, his weight pressing her down into the bedding. “In fact, I insist on it.” Lowering his head, he pressed a kiss to her lips, his hands already moving to work her clothing off her body.
* * * *
Piper’s laughter and then giggles filled the room and the house. Looking up from the book in his hands, Yoshi looked to Bradley. “Sounds as if she said yes. I still don’t get why he thought she would say no. It’s not like he’s like us.” Aeron was a one-woman kind of man, and she was a one-man kind of woman, but the others of the team were a little different. They instead preferred to share a woman. Generally, they always paired off the same way, but more often than not the men preferred sharing a woman, and while she liked it for a time it was going to be pretty impossible for any of them to find a special kind of woman that would want two husbands, not one.
Another peal of laughter had them both looking toward the stairs. “Lucky bastard,” Bradley muttered. He was smiling, though. All the guys were happy for Cutter, and for Piper, too. They were the perfect pairing, much like Michael was with Gigi. Shaking his head when squeals of laughter could be heard, Bradley shared a look with him. “I vote we go out for dinner tonight. I have a feeling they won’t be showing up any time in the next few hours for food.”
“I agree,” Yoshi said and rose to his feet. “I also think that maybe we should stay at a hotel tonight, because we both know that more than likely they will go streaking around here naked, and that’s not a sight I want to endure tonight. One glance of Aeron’s pale white ass is more than enough for me.”
A thud settled it for both men. “Meet you back here in two,” Bradley said. Up and out of his chair, he bolted for the stairs. They would grab their go bags, jackets, and then leave the love birds to their night of celebration.
THE END
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in the mid-seventies Honor has always had a love for the written word. Whether she is reading a book from another author or writing a story of her own, she is always letting her mind expand and delve into possibilities. It all started off as scribbles for her, then a phase of poetry before she found her true calling in the erotic paranormal genre where her imagination is only limit.
Since beginning her journey as a published author in 2011 Honor says she has learned a great deal about herself and writing. She believes that it’s a neverending journey, the mind always wanting to learn and to grow. With that comes a better skill and smoothness to her writing she’s discovered and begun to enjoy more with each story she creates.
Thankfully, as she puts it, she has a job that gives her plenty of opportunity to write whatever comes to mind with very few interruptions. Her biggest supporters are, as always, her family. Her two children and her husband are continuously providing her with laughter and joy, making the time she takes to write a little bit easier. Without them and their support she knows she wouldn’t be half the author she is today.
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