Depends On Who's Asking (SWAT Generation 2.0 Book 12)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  The thought that Brad had anything to do with my mother’s death and my father’s shooting had me freaking the fuck out.

  I mean, Brad had been there for us since the first day we’d stepped into the White House.

  That’d been ten years now.

  That was a long time to pretend that you liked someone when you really didn’t.

  Honestly, the whole damn thing didn’t make the least bit of sense at all.

  My father had to be confused.

  I was so lost in thought, as I’d been for the last couple of days, that I didn’t realize that I wasn’t alone until I heard her speak.

  I instantly froze at the entrance to the banquet hall, my attention lasering in on the woman that occupied all my thoughts lately.

  She was talking about her fish to Dax’s wife, Rowen. Rowen was holding their newborn son against her chest as Carolina talked away.

  I slowly pushed farther into the shadows, my ears on the conversation, and made myself comfortable against a large pillar that was close to them but didn’t make it look like I was joining in on their conversation.

  To torture myself, I turned my back to them and stared out over the rest of the party, keeping my eyes on the room but my ears on the two women behind me.

  “…they’re all dead.” Carolina sighed. “I spent months finding the perfect fish. I spent hundreds of dollars on them. I should’ve just gotten the cat like I wanted.”

  “They would’ve killed the cat just as easily as they killed the fish,” Rowen countered. “And weren’t those fish supposed to go to your office? You can’t have a cat at your office.”

  Carolina sighed, her voice sending shivers down the length of my spine.

  “I need to go look for a dog,” Carolina continued. “One that’ll keep me company and warm my feet up. My house is cold.”

  “Your house is a shit hole,” Rowen countered. “You should probably move. I can’t believe you won’t fix your heat. That seems really ludicrous to me. Especially since it’s been so cold lately.”

  Her heat was out?

  What?

  “I’m talking to someone about that right now,” Carolina admitted. “He said with it being so close to Christmas that a lot of the companies won’t be able to get out until after the holidays. In the meantime, I can see my breath in my kitchen.”

  “You could come stay with me,” Rowen offered. “Dax won’t mind.”

  Carolina made a disagreeing sound in the back of her throat.

  “I love you, Rowe, but I’m not moving into your house. You have a newborn and you’re newly married. Those are two situations I don’t really want to find my way into,” Carolina informed her. “Plus, my brothers have already offered me a place to stay. I just don’t really want to leave. That’s my house.”

  “That house was broken into,” Rowen countered. “And didn’t you say that there’s been some weirdo casing your house? At least, that’s what I heard you say to your mom just a minute ago.”

  I turned at that and settled my gaze on Carolina, only to find her staring directly at me.

  Our gazes collided and it was more than obvious that that last line had been directed toward me.

  I narrowed my eyes at her, causing her to lift hers in challenge.

  “Not a weirdo,” Carolina said to Rowen, who was unaware that I was there. “Just someone that likes to pretend that he doesn’t care when he does.”

  Ouch.

  That hurt.

  But I had to give my girl credit. She hadn’t fallen for my act. That was good, in a way, because if anything these last few days had shown me a few things that I hadn’t really wanted to see.

  Sort of like the fact that I’d been half in love with Carolina since I’d met her last Christmas. Each subsequent time that I’d seen her over the last year had only caused me to want her more. Then the isolation had started, and I’d come to realize that Carolina had meant much more to me than just a girl I wanted. She was a girl that I wanted to keep.

  As my eyes stayed locked with Carolina’s, Rowen continued to try to convince her to stay with her, but Carolina was having none of it.

  I’d been so focused on the girl in front of me that I hadn’t realized someone had finally spotted me in the shadows until I heard a feminine sound from beside me.

  “Saint.”

  I turned to see Malachi’s woman standing beside me.

  “Sierra,” I said, my voice resigned. “How are you?”

  She smiled sadly at me. “Is everything okay? I just saw that you got back today.”

  I shrugged. I’d been back for more than a day, but I hadn’t come straight home because I’d needed to check up on Carolina.

  “Where did you go?”

  I stiffened at Carolina’s voice coming from so close to me.

  I turned to stare at her.

  “A funeral,” I admitted, not seeing a reason to lie.

  I couldn’t lie to this girl again.

  I’d known that the lie I told—wanting and needing time away from her—had hurt her. And I didn’t want to hurt Carolina. In fact, I’d rather chop the beating heart from my chest than see a single frown on her face that was caused by me.

  Carolina stilled.

  “For who?” she asked softly, hesitantly. As if she was just waiting for me not to tell her.

  I almost didn’t.

  In fact, I was so fucking close to opening my mouth to lie that I could see the sadness in her eyes that I was going to.

  But at the last second, I cracked. “My mom.”

  That sadness that I’d seen only moments before that I was going to lie to her? That was nothing in comparison to the look on her face now.

  She was absolutely devastated.

  For me.

  “Oh, Saint,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  I shrugged as if that didn’t matter to me in the least.

  But her words made my heart feel just a small amount better.

  Carolina’s hand met my chest, and every single doubt, insecurity, and bad feeling fled in that moment.

  In that moment, I had her back.

  I couldn’t stop myself then.

  I reached forward and pulled her to me.

  She came willingly, her arms encircling my waist as she pressed her head to my chest.

  Sierra drifted off, leaving us in the relative quiet of the shadows, and I cracked.

  “She was murdered.”

  Carolina’s body stiffened as she slowly leaned her head back to stare at me.

  “That’s why you’re staying away, isn’t it?” she asked.

  I didn’t bother to tell her yes or no.

  That would be useless.

  Despite what I said or did, I had to stay away from her.

  It fucking sucked, but my dad was the President of the United States once. He had enemies. All kinds of them. And the bad thing was, the guy that wasn’t supposed to be the enemy? That guy had fucking shattered what little protection I’d felt and practically blown it all up in one quick explosion.

  She read something in my eyes, though. She knew that surely that was why I was staying away.

  I didn’t bother to hide it.

  She could know that I wanted her all day long. But she also could see that despite that, it wasn’t going to change my mind.

  At least, I’d thought that was what I was projecting.

  But she smiled a smile that I couldn’t quite decipher and took hold of my wrist.

  She guided me out of the shadows and toward the throng of people that were closest to us.

  Sierra was there with Malachi. Rowen with Dax. Ford with Ashe. And then Avery with Derek.

  Sierra saw us coming and widened the circle, allowing room for us to engage into the conversation.

  When I finally came to a stop right next to Ford, Carolina let go of my wrist but stayed close to me.

  “So, you were quarantined with Saint, right?” I heard Sierra ask.

  I gritted my teeth as I tried
to control the urge to flee.

  Saint Nicholson didn’t flee. Not from two tiny slips of girls who scared the Jesus out of him. Nope. Nuh-uh.

  “Uh, yeah,” Carolina said. “We were. For almost two weeks.”

  Twelve days. We were quarantined together for twelve days.

  And now I couldn’t sleep without her next to me.

  I’d gotten a total of about two hours each night as I tossed and turned. Tonight would likely be no different.

  “So, what happened there?” Malachi asked. “I’ve been meaning to ask but shit’s crazy right now. I didn’t really think you’d want to talk about it.”

  I didn’t. Not at all. But saying that, I wanted to keep what Carolina and I had to ourselves. I wanted to put it in this nice little protective bubble and keep it for just me.

  But Carolina obviously didn’t care to keep things secret.

  She let it all hang out, starting with the way the dumbass Martin had ‘exposed’ us and ending with how the person that’d had ‘Ebola’ in the first place hadn’t actually had it, but an autoimmune disease.

  “Wow,” Ashe said. “All that and you had to stay cooped up for two weeks? That sounds awful.”

  It would’ve been had I had to do it with anyone but Carolina.

  As it was, it only proved to me that she’d meant more to me than I was willing to admit before the incident.

  “It wasn’t,” Carolina admitted, mirroring my thoughts. “If it’d been with anyone else but Saint, I might’ve said it would be awful. But it was with him. And I’d been trying to get him to pay attention to me since last year when he’d been sliced up by that swan diving maniac who’d taken the arctic plunge.”

  “Marty, the dumbass,” Ford grumbled. “We ran eight more calls on him this year.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest, the scar from the slice that Marty had given me on my arm on display.

  Most days I didn’t even notice the scar. And when I did, I didn’t think of Marty. I thought of Carolina.

  “Didn’t he try to shoot your brother in the head not too long ago?” Malachi asked, looking at Carolina.

  My brows rose at that.

  I hadn’t heard that from anyone.

  “He did,” Carolina confirmed. “Actually, what he did was use a toy Airsoft gun. Though, they didn’t know that at the time. I think that was the final straw. Marty’s in prison for the foreseeable future.” She paused. “It just so happens that I knew the judge that presided over the case. And Marty will no longer be a problem.”

  There was silence and then, “Damn, it’s nice to have a judge on our side. Saint, when are you marrying her?”

  There was a long moment of silence before Carolina started to laugh.

  “We’re not together, silly,” Carolina said as she turned to survey me. “We never were.”

  With that, she walked away, leaving me there with what felt like my beating heart falling out of my chest.

  When I turned back around, it was to see varying degrees of sympathy on all the guys’ faces, and not a little bit of annoyance on the females.

  It was Sierra, though, who said, “Don’t just stand there. Go after her.”

  I, for once, listened to the advice of someone else and headed in the direction that I’d seen Carolina go.

  I found her in the hallway that led to the bathroom.

  She was standing there, leaning against the wall, as if she was waiting for me.

  I frowned when I saw her, coming to a stop in the mouth of the hallway.

  “We’re not going to do this,” she said. “You need to shit or get off the pot.”

  My brows rose as I moved closer to her.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You can’t have it both ways,” she pressed. “You can’t have me, but not have me at the same time. I know something’s going on. I know that you’re worried about something. That you’re pushing me away. Before it was something that you just didn’t want me to know. Something that you felt like would be a deal breaker. But now, you’re truly worried for my safety. Something’s going on, and I want to know what it is.”

  She was so fucking smart.

  “Carolina…”

  “I’ll wait,” she said. “I won’t do anything stupid. I won’t run out and find a boyfriend tomorrow. I’ll wait, and I’ll be patient. But I need you to promise that you’ll at least try.”

  I couldn’t give her that.

  Not with the shit that was swirling around me.

  “Carolina…” I began again, but she held her hand up to stop me.

  “Can I have a hug?” she whispered.

  Her words stopped me in my tracks.

  All the words I kept telling myself, along with my resolve to stay away from her vanished, and I found myself walking toward her with every intention of pulling her into my arms.

  The second she was there, I felt like I was home.

  “If you really wanted me to stay away, you wouldn’t keep showing up everywhere that I am,” she grumbled out.

  She was right.

  I couldn’t help myself, though.

  I had to know that she was all right.

  Brad was out there somewhere, just lying in wait, to fuck up my life.

  I wasn’t sure why, and nobody had been able to locate him to find out what his connection was in all of the turmoil.

  But I knew that he was there, waiting for me to fuck up.

  What I didn’t know was whether he was there waiting for Carolina to fuck up.

  Hence the reason I stayed stuck to her like glue.

  If I wasn’t working, I hung around her wherever she might be. Hell, even if I was working, I did the same.

  “I’m not showing up everywhere,” I disagreed. “Only some places. And it’s a total coincidence.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “You’re a liar from hell,” she countered, pressing her face into my chest. “You don’t sit outside someone’s house for hours on end because it’s a coincidence.”

  She had a point.

  “Would you like to tell me what’s going on?” she pushed.

  I pressed my lips tightly shut.

  I didn’t want her to know.

  Not yet, anyway.

  When it was unavoidable, then I would tell her. But not a second before that.

  The less she knew, the better.

  Hell, even better would be if I stopped talking to her altogether.

  But I couldn’t make myself pull away.

  She smelled so damn good.

  Like candied apples and pumpkin spice.

  And then her hands were pushing up underneath my Polo shirt.

  Her cold fingers pressed against my skin, and all of a sudden, I didn’t give one single shit anymore that we were in public. That I was trying to stay away from her. That she really should stay away from me.

  All I could do was… do.

  My mouth slammed down onto hers, and I groaned at the feel of her against my skin.

  I growled, pressing myself into her until her back met the smooth wall of the hallway.

  There we were, in the middle of a party, in a brightly lit hallway that anyone could venture down, and I had her pressed against the fucking wall.

  My hands went to her face as I pulled her in close, pressing every available inch of myself against her as I rolled my hips into her like a needy cat.

  She groaned and moved her hands up to cup the back of my head, one of her hands splaying in the back of my hair, her fingers sifting through my curls.

  “I love the feel of your hair,” she murmured. “I wish you had your glasses on.”

  I didn’t wear my glasses out in public often. Only when I had to, really.

  Most of the time, my eyes cooperated and allowed me to skip the whole nerd vibe thing that often accompanied wearing them. However, sometimes when my headaches became too much, and I didn’t sleep well, the glasses were pulled out as to not further irritate my head.

  And I’d found myself wea
ring my glasses almost the entire twelve days at the hotel while we were in quarantine because Carolina had found them sexy.

  I almost wished they were on right now.

  Almost.

  Because if they had been, I couldn’t press my mouth to hers and practically maul her with my exuberance.

  Her fingers tightened in my hair, her mouth slanting over mine, and she fully returned the kiss.

  “You fucking slay me,” I growled against those lips, my fingers pushing their own way up the back of her shirt to feel her bare skin.

  She pulled back and pressed her lips to my throat, gently sucking a small section of skin into her mouth. She gently stroked her tongue over the spot, but she and I both knew that in a few seconds, I’d have a red mark that would be there for at least a week.

  She waited for me to tell her to stop, but I wouldn’t.

  I liked the way she felt too much.

  That had to be why I allowed my hands to get away from me, and instead of just splaying on her skin like I’d intended, my hands went south to the skirt that she was wearing.

  Before I knew it, I was pulling it up and baring her bottom.

  My fingers moved to the scrap of fabric that ran south between her ass cheeks, and I slowly wrapped my fist around it and tightened my grip, pulling it tight so that the fabric slipped between her pussy lips. Pressed against her clit.

  Giving her pressure where she needed it most.

  She moaned, her mouth working harder on my neck, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that when I went back out to the party, I’d have a very blatant love bite to wear.

  I didn’t care.

  Nothing mattered at that point but her and me.

  The way she was making me feel.

  How great she felt pressed against me.

  How perfect she tasted.

  The way she smelled.

  “Fuck,” she whispered. “Why does that feel good?”

  She wiggled her hips, indicating that what I was doing to her between her legs was feeling good.

  I knew it did.

  I could feel her grinding with each tug of her thong.

  She pulled away, her hands pressing lightly on my chest to indicate that she wanted me to move backward.

  I did, knowing exactly what she was going for despite her having not reached for it yet.