by Angel Payne
Lani folded her arms. “Amen.”
She’d no sooner gotten out the quip than the man sucked away all her composure once more, pivoting to face her again, crossing his arms too. His bigger, harder, beautifully tapered arms. “That doesn’t let you off the hook, Miss Kail.”
She felt her jaw open and then shut. Then again. Who was this man? The one she’d gotten to know over the last four days had intensity sewn into his DNA by the angels, but it had always been accessorized by charm and sensuality. This person who loomed over her now was the unadorned Kellan Rush, stripped to a steely core, unflappable. This was a glimpse—maybe a little more—at the soldier with the call sign Slash. Just Slash. The guy who got the job done with one stab…or one bullet.
Who was making her pussy throb for him like it never had before.
“I—” she stammered. “I—”
“Haven’t given your brother a chance to explain?” He nodded. “Yeah, that sounds like a damn good answer.”
Hell. And…wow.
“Okay,” she finally spat. “Yes, sir.”
She felt better then, at least enough to dare a glance at him. She was glad she did. Though he was still all hard-jawed GI Joe, his eyes remained full of silky gray affection. His stance was still badass commander, but he gave her a nod of complete respect.
She was stunned to feel her lips returning that smile. Damn his luscious hide.
Her brother’s snigger was a spike ball in the middle of the moment. “Yes, sir?” Leo cracked. “Oh-em-gee. Sistah-girl lies down and whimpers for Slash-gasm. Mark this day on the calendar.”
Kellan backhanded Leo’s shoulder. “You really want to push your game at this point, kid?”
“No, sir.”
“Then muffle it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And now spill it.”
Leo shuffled and slumped against the wall. “Not much to spill.”
One look at her brother told Lani it was the truth. She also discerned why. There was a specific kind of defeat etched into his face—at least the side that hadn’t been turned into a touchscreen of bruises. “It was Parker Smythe, wasn’t it?”
Leo attempted another grimace. “He’s such a tampon. Just because I finally kicked his ass in a match, he fabricated some loser excuse about how I purposely spilled water on his gym bag, and escalated shit from there. I tried to laugh it off, but he gave me lip about how the bag cost a grand and how I intended to ruin it, and—” He shook his head and twisted his lips. “If he spent a thousand dollars on the thing, why was it on the floor and not in his fucking locker?”
Lani slapped his shoulder. “Language.”
“Whatever,” Leo rebutted.
Kellan snorted. “Maybe it was like his man purse or something.”
“And his lip gloss was stored inside.”
“You couldn’t help it if he got bitchy about the whole thing.”
“Right?”
Lani rekindled her battle stance at the soldier. “Okay, what the hell?”
Kellan returned her scrutiny with equal conviction. “He didn’t start the scuffle, okay?”
“Scuffle?” she snapped. “That’s what you’re calling it?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Compared to the conflicts I’ve seen in my time, Starshine—yeah, that’s what I’m calling it. And from where I stand, Leo’s shown some behavior you can be proud of. You Kails are a proud bunch. He served the family name well by refusing to let a dickwad roll him over and paid the price with his face.”
“No shit,” Leo muttered.
“Language!”
Kellan shot her a look of forced patience. After a long moment, his eyes flicked over to Leo. “You want some ice for that wreckage, man?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“And a beer?”
“Hell yeah!”
“No!” Lani went at Kellan’s shoulder with her fist this time. It felt like punching a brick wall. “You are really not helping!”
Leo’s laugh warmed the top of her head. “Don’t believe her, Slash-gasm. You’re helping a lot.” There was a meaningful pause as her brother locked gazes with her soldier. “For the record, I’m glad you’re here…you and T-Bomb.”
As Kellan flashed a warm smile at Leo, a surge of emotions slammed Lani—and built up in the heat behind her eyes. She stared hard at Leo, forcing herself to see him as Kellan did: not as the kid he once was but the man he was growing to be. It wasn’t the first time today that she’d arrived at this awareness, either. Tait’s words of this afternoon had started opening the cracks on those thoughts.
How had these two men brought so many changes in just a few days?
And how the hell was she going to wave goodbye to them in a week…making sure that list didn’t include her?
She couldn’t think about that right now. She refused to think about it.
Instead, embracing the perfect joy of now, she wrapped her arms around Kellan’s waist and squeezed hard. “For the record,” she whispered, “I’m glad too.”
Chapter Eleven
For the first time in over a year, Tait voluntarily rose with the sun. He added to that stunner by jamming his feet into running shoes and setting off down the road with loud guitars in his ears—and mental clarity as his goal.
He planned for a very long run.
The events of yesterday, and all the sensations they’d brought, collided on top of each other with every step he took. The cartwheels in his gut when he first saw Lani in the house. The rockets in his soul when he’d kissed her. The lurch in his cock when he’d been out for a night walk and came across Kell and her instead. Then the surreal dream of watching Kell fuck her…and knowing she was aware of his own presence through every second of it. That maybe she was wetter because of it. That her pussy squeezed Kellan harder…
The memory of it forced him to seek a cold shower when he’d gotten back to the house, but even the freezing jets hadn’t helped. He’d played the scene over again in his mind, including every gasp she’d made and scream she’d released, and pumped himself to completion once more. Finally exhausted enough to sleep, he’d fallen into bed still clad in his shower towel and didn’t wake up until the sunrise filtered through the blinds.
It was the first time, in nearly two hundred nights, that a vision of Luna hadn’t pulled him to consciousness in a pool of his tears and sweat.
The realization made him run faster. His lungs started to burn, and his legs declared him a Class-A motherfucker. Wasn’t any worse than what he’d been calling himself since swigging his vitamins on an empty stomach and welcoming the wave of please-induce-me-to-vomit-now that followed. And oh yeah, there was that other temptation, too—the one that pulled him toward the bar, taunting that a drunken coma was the best place for a guy like him. A guy who’d easily scooted aside memories of the love of his life after simply watching his buddy screw someone else. Who had to watch happiness from the bushes, unable to figure it out for himself anymore.
He pounded harder into the run, switching to his screaming punk rock track. His body flooded with sweat. He sucked in the ocean wind, enduring the light-headedness of his anaerobic zone.
When he got back to Franzen’s place in a heaving mess, the guilt only ripped harder at him. After tearing the earbuds out, he beat feet for the shower once more. This time, he cranked the water to a scalding temperature. With one hand, he braced the tiles. With the other, he palmed his balls.
In his mind, he summoned Luna.
Hi, beautiful…
She was giving him sass in that Los Angeles bar again, in those painted-on red jeans hugging every inch of her supple hips. Then he was bending her over the chopping block in the bar’s back room, commanding her to take the pants off, telling her how he was going to hurt her, fuck her, pleasure her.
He groaned and gripped the base of his cock.
She was standing with him in the condo they’d turned into a safe house during the mission, all of LA sprawled beneath them, ki
ssing him and begging him to take her. Then she was beneath him, sucking his penis harder with every twist he gave her nipples, rubbing herself to a climax as he thrust deeper into her mouth.
He started stroking himself. Brutally. Precome surged and disappeared, washed away by the hot streams beating on him.
In his mind, Luna came hard. Screamed from her hot explosion, over and over again…
Suddenly, the cries took on a huskier edge. A deep urgency, swirling with a night breeze that smelled like paradise. There were words, too…pleadings in a musical island accent. Kellan. Oh, gods, please!
He gritted his teeth and beat the wall, fighting the invasion of it. Of her. Satin hair fanned on the ground. Arms spread out, making her look like a bronze forest goddess.
“No. No.”
Round, perfect breasts. Pink, moist clit. Legs spread, ready to be taken.
Stop. Stop!
He pumped harder. Faster. Fire roared up his shaft. Come built in his balls.
Surrendered nudity. Open and willing.
He needs to see me fuck you, Starshine. To bury myself to the balls in you. Like this…
He fell to his knees as his ass clenched, his sac drew tight, and the orgasm blasted through his body. He forced his eyes open even as the shock waves kept up, blinking against the water to watch the thick milk from his body swirl down the drain.
Wasted seed. Useless sewer sludge. Like so many other attempts to make his life count for something. To prove Dad wrong.
Damn it! Can’t you kids keep this place clean for one day?
Damn it! Can’t you kids stay quiet for just one hour?
Damn it! Can’t you kids do anything right?
It’s no fucking wonder your mother left.
Though he’d just poured himself out—literally—in the last fifteen minutes, a frantic energy whorled in his gut, up his throat, through his head. He wasn’t freaked by the assault. He knew this shit well. It was his old friend self-hatred, come for a visit in his soul for the day.
He pushed his forehead against the knob to turn the water off, closing his eyes for another moment. The fury swelled up once more, burning and disgusting, finally exploding from him in a long, terrible roar. In the thick silence after it, there was a distinct click. He’d shaken the shower door open. As the glass panel slid out with a slow creak, he let out a bitter laugh then a grateful snort. Without the distraction, he would’ve likely sent a fist into the wall. Retiling Franz’s shower would’ve been an interesting way of staying busy for the next week.
He stumbled out of the stall and into the bedroom, managing to find a clean pair of shorts and a T-shirt that didn’t smell like half-baked ass. Then he walked out to the living room.
Where his gaze zeroed in on the bar.
Where a full bottle of Grey Goose beckoned, a beacon of flawless liquid therapy.
“Yessss.”
He pretended he didn’t see the clock on the microwave, revealing it had just turned ten a.m., as he U-turned into the kitchen to grab a glass. If he was going to be a roasted lush for the day, he’d do it with some manners this time, in the privacy of the lanai. Not doing the soused-hobo-on-the-beach thing. Correction: Lani’s beach. Not cool to share the dirty laundry with the neighbors, man—even if you did share orgasms with them last night. He had boundaries, after all. He just had to remember where he put them.
In the meantime, he’d get tanked the civilized way, with a glass in his hand and a cushion under his ass. Then he’d pass out more normally, too: silent, angry, and alone. Like father, like son, right?
A rumble chewed its way up his throat. “No,” he spat. He wasn’t like Dad, at least not in the most critical way. He hadn’t totally fucked up the self-worth of a couple of kids before drinking his life into the toilet.
After securing a glass, he swiped up the vodka, headed out to the lanai, and found a comfortable chair that allowed him to prop his feet on the rail. After the short rain shower that had blown through last night, the sun rose on another postcard-perfect day in paradise. Before opening the vodka, he paused to enjoy the tropical panorama. No better time than now, since he wasn’t going to be conscious by the time sunset fell.
Yeah…about that…
A funny thing happened on the way to the great Grey Goose wasteland.
It started after he poured his first drink. He was three gulps in on the hooch, still grappling for a mental off-ramp from Memory Lane with Dad, when a different vision replaced the bastard in his imagination.
His stare drifted over to the lanai railing. Where once more, Lani appeared.
She was fuzzy at the edges but just as breathtaking. Just like yesterday, she sat with legs straddling the rail, turquoise-polished toes peeking from beneath her sundress. The breeze sifted through the dark ribbons of her hair, and the sun glinted off the silver swirls in her eyes.
Suddenly, his mental skirmish in the shower felt like a lame training exercise.
“Leave me alone,” he growled.
She just lifted a serene smile and swung her feet in leisure. Don’t think so.
“Damn it.” With shaking hands, he dumped more vodka into the glass. Chugged the whole thing. Familiar lethargy sank into his blood. He let his head fall back. The buzz couldn’t come fast enough. And after that, the blessed numbness…
After soaking for several minutes in the vodka bath, he pried open his eyes again. The horizon swam a little. It was nowhere near how blasted he wanted to be but a good start. He’d finally be alone. Once he got to this point, his mind was too busy racing for the Shitfaced Speedway finish line to bother with memories.
He jerked in his chair as Lani’s laugh tinkled on the air again.
He glared to his right. There she was, still smiling at him. Still tilting her head with that inquisitiveness that was too damn cute for her own good. And certainly not for his.
“Fuck. Me.”
The hallucination folded her arms and narrowed her eyes. Are you serious?
“Yes,” he snarled. “Go the hell away.”
So everything you spouted at me yesterday is just bullshit? All that crap about giving up the dome on my pain, believing I can have life’s whole meal, taking off the masks even though it’s scary… All that’s okay for me but not you? I’m supposed to try a change, but you aren’t?
Guess that makes you a hypocrite and a lush.
He grimaced and bared his teeth as the lanai converted to a torture room. Somewhere in his soul, he’d tap into the right combination of rage and pain and profanity to hurl back at her. Why was it such a problem to find it all when it crawled right under the surface of his skin every fucking day? He tore through the muck of his senses, but the booze had dropped a fog on everything, making it impossible to see or touch anything.
A roar tore from his gut and ravaged his throat.
He seized the bottle and flung it into the dunes.
A second later, he pitched the glass in its wake.
The silence, perforated only by the shoosh of the waves and the music of the lanai wind chimes, was worse than her spiritual laughter. “Feel better?” he finally sneered at her. “Because I sure as hell don’t.”
He knew the drill on this scene now. With the booze gone, he’d have to face the pain. Walk himself through the same shitty, stinking emotional labyrinth he’d progressed a thousand times with the shrinks back at base. Couldn’t someone just pull up his file and read it this time? Mother left the family when subject was ten years old. Raised primarily by father, who died of alcohol poisoning when subject was seventeen. Subject has unresolved issues of guilt, accountability, and—
“Generally being fucked up.”
Hey. That was pretty funny. He snickered while rolling his head back again. The sun washed across his face, imparting a little physical warmth while the ice floes of his psyche kept ramming each other. He let his eyes drift shut. Fate decided to smile, sending the sandman to tempt his mind back into the rescue of sleep. As his mind crossed from consciousness to s
lumber, he felt himself smile as distant voices echoed in his head.
Why do you let him hurt you, Mama? I don’t understand.
I don’t expect you to, Tait. Sometimes…loving people just hurts.
Do you love him, Mama?
Yeah, Tait. I love him a lot.
Well, I don’t care what you say. It shouldn’t have to hurt. He’s not ever gonna do that to you again. I’m gonna protect you.
Ohhh…my big T man. You’ll always be my hero.
I love you, Mama.
And I love you too, Tait. No matter what happens, remember that…
“Hey, Rumple-shit-skin. What the hell else do I need to do here?”
The crack, which he vaguely attributed to Kell, was punctuated by an icy stab in his thigh. Then his neck. “Mmmfff? Whaaa?”
“Whoa,” his friend sneered. “It lives.”
Two more ice pelts, this time direct hits on his crotch. He jerked upright to observe his friend sitting about six feet away, a bowl of ice cubes on the small table next to him. Revision: only half the bowl was full. The rest of the cubes were strewn on the deck around Tait.
He lowered his feet, which knocked the pair of cubes down from his zipper. “Having fun, asshole?”
Kellan smirked. “It was either this or dump Tabasco down your maw. You were sawing logs hard enough to give me real easy access.”
“Guess you want me to thank you for choosing the frost attack, instead?”
After a moment of contemplation, his friend cocked a brow. Gone was the hot-and-horny lover boy Kell had morphed into last night in the forest. Sergeant Rush was back in all his carefully reined glory. “Someone’s in a rough mood.”
“Yeah, well…” He shrugged, hoping the strange telepathy of their friendship, which had spasmed back to life a little during their time with Lani last night, would activate and convey his words as the apology he intended.
“You look like crap too.”
“Thanks, honey. But is my butt fat in this dress?”
There was a significant pause. “You been hitting the sauce?”