Guts & Glory: Brick (In the Shadows Security Book 6)

by Jeanne St. James

  “Well, it certainly isn’t Gertrude ‘Muffin’ Ramsey.”

  “I guess it’s not important until it’s Londyn Briggs.” Both of their eyes widened. “Oh fuck.”

  “Oh no. I may have to keep my maiden name.”

  “Or hyphenate.”

  “Or just keep my maiden name.”

  Which he still wasn’t sure what it was. Whether it was the same as Rissa’s. “Londyn Briggs is kinda catchy.”

  “No.”

  “It’s growing on me.”

  “No.”

  “So, now can I get that skirt off you?”

  “No. We’re not done yet.”

  “Fuck,” he muttered. “Really, I just told you something I never told any other woman in my life.”

  “Again, that’s my trophy. But we need to figure out where we go from here.”

  “Where do you want to go?” His only regret was that it should’ve been him that went to her. Not the other way around.

  Though after his confession at the warehouse earlier, he had planned on it. Just not tonight since she had her date.

  Wait.

  Oh fuck, the date was him.

  Mercy set him the fuck up. Bastard.

  “Well, I think you still have something important to tell me. I get that you don’t want to talk about it but I need to hear it.”

  The half-chub he’d been sporting due to her outfit, and how tightly it hugged her curves, completely deflated. “Londyn...”

  “No secrets, Brick. None. Because if you plan on keeping them, tell me now and I’ll walk right back out that door. I lived with and loved a man who kept secrets. I won’t do it again.”

  “You have to swear to me you won’t hate me afterward.”

  “I could never hate you.”

  He cocked a brow at her. “Do you hate Kevin?”

  Her mouth twisted. “I strongly dislike him.”

  He tipped her face up to him. “Londyn, swear it.”

  Her mouth parted and she breathed, “You’re scaring me.”

  “Swear.”

  “Okay.”

  “No,” he shook his head, “I need you to say it and mean it.”

  “I swear I won’t hate you.”

  For fuck’s sake, he wished he could believe that. He loved the woman standing in the middle of his messy living room. And she loved him.

  He knew he needed to tell her. It was only right.

  And the last thing he wanted was for the woman to walk out his front door. Not because he was keeping secrets but because of that secret. “Sit down.”

  “Oh shit. This day started with me being ordered to sit down. Now this day is going to end the same way.”

  “What?”

  Londyn waved her hand in an unspoken “never mind,” and moved away from him toward the couch. She stared at it for a second, then twisted her head to look at him over her shoulder. “Is your bed cleaner than this couch?”

  “Yes.” He hoped the fuck it was. He thought back to what it looked like this morning when he rolled out of it. “At least, I think so.”

  “That’s promising.”

  He snagged her hand and dragged her back toward the entryway to where the steps were. She stumbled in her heels. “Hey! Let me slip my heels off first before I break my neck.”

  “Fuck that. Those aren’t coming off until I take them off.” He turned, flexed his knees and put his shoulder to her middle, hauling her up over his shoulder with a grunt.

  She squealed. “You’re going to kill yourself!” She screamed as he headed toward the bottom step, “I’m too heavy for you to carry me.”

  “Never,” he bit out as he hoofed it carefully up the stairs. He grunted with each step until he reached the top. The master suite took up the whole second floor, so there wasn’t a door or hallway. As soon as you hit the top step you were in his bedroom. It was great for a single guy or a couple, but privacy was lacking if someone had kids and was trying to make more kids.

  Or practice making kids.

  He let her slide down his body but didn’t release her. Instead, he circled his arms around her and held her closer. “I love you, baby, but I’ll need some sexual therapy after what I tell you.”

  She buried her face in his chest. “I think I can help with that. But, again, while I know it’s bad, you’re scaring me.”

  He needed to just get it over with. He brushed the hair away from her face. “Can you sit in that skirt?”

  “I’ll manage so you can concentrate.”

  “That fucking sweater and those heels are distracting me. It would be better if you take them all off.”

  She pulled her face away. “Nice try.”

  He sighed and tugged her over to the recliner in the corner instead of the bed. Without letting go of her hand, he tossed the pair of cargo pants that had been thrown over it onto the floor. “Sit here, then.”

  She settled in the chair, her eyes holding worry as he sank to his knees at her feet.

  And he told her his story. His nightmare.

  The ghost that haunted him which might never go away. And, in truth, shouldn’t. Because no one should forget the innocent life who had been forced into becoming a tool of war.

  No one should forget the little boy who woke up one morning, ate breakfast with his family, played with toys. Not knowing his father, uncle, brother, whoever the man was that day—the man he should be looking up to—valued him as a weapon more than loved him as family.

  He told her about how that very moment changed his view on “Guns, God and Country.” About how afterward he would embrace the first. His one true steady and the only thing solid he could hold onto. He lost faith in the second. And the love for his country? Dented and tarnished from that day forward.

  When he was done, he tipped his face back up to her and met her blue eyes, which once again held a sheen of tears. But this time not one had escaped. Her bottom lip was crushed between her teeth, probably to keep her from crying out while he spilled his guts, while he told her his secret.

  Because she couldn’t live with secrets between them.

  She sniffled once and wiped at her eyes, doing her best to keep her shit together. Most likely so he’d keep his shit together, too.

  Her strength became his.

  Once he was finished, he waited, his hands squeezing hers in her lap. Hoping she wouldn’t hate him the same way he sometimes hated himself.

  Hated what he’d been forced to do.

  But one thing he hadn’t told her was, what made him put away his MK-11 the day he thought he needed to end it all—to kill the burning hatred, to rid him of that ghost forever—was by remembering when all the spouses, children and family of the troops he saved thanked him.

  The cards, the letters, the phone calls. All of it.

  Simple words expressing how they knew how tough it had been to do what he did. How they knew it would affect him.

  But even so, despite all of that, he had nothing left to give.

  He wanted out of the Navy.

  That day, he was done.

  He packed his rifle away and he also tried to tuck away that memory as best as he could.

  Some days were better than others.

  Some nights his thoughts were clear.

  And then there were the nights he lived it all over again.

  But Londyn was right. She needed to know. Because for her to sleep safely by his side every night, she needed to be prepared.

  And he wanted her there.

  He only hoped after hearing his story, she still wanted that, too.

  He continued to remain silent because he didn’t want to influence her decision. That whatever her decision was, she made it honestly and it came from her heart.

  “Many men wouldn’t have survived something like that. Especially if they had children of their own.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t survive it. It crushed me. It crushed my career. Everything I worked hard for, everything I bled for, ended that day. That moment. That sec
ond. I walked away, Londyn, a defeated, broken man.”

  “You had no other choice, Brick.”

  “We all have a choice.”

  “And your choice was to sacrifice one to save many.”

  A shiver swept through him and caused the little hairs on the back of his neck to stand. She had repeated a saying he told himself over and over again to live with what he had to do, with what he had done.

  But he hadn’t mentioned it once during his story. “Where did you hear that?”

  “In Florida. You’d mumble it in your sleep sometimes when you had your nightmares.”

  He wondered what else he had said, what else she had heard. How much she already knew, but still insisted on hearing it directly from him. “I do everything I can to wake up every fucking day and not let that moment, that single fucking sliver of time crush me. Because if I let it, it will. And I don’t want to be a miserable fuck.”

  “How many lives have you saved?”

  “That day?”

  “In your lifetime.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You saved mine. In the end, you saved Barb’s, too. How many lives would’ve been lost that day in Pakistan if you hadn’t done what you did?”

  “At least thirty.”

  “Including the boy?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “His destiny was to die that day. His unfortunate fate was already determined when that man strapped those explosives on him.”

  “Doesn’t make it easier.”

  She brushed fingers through his hair. “Anybody would have a hard time living with it. If they didn’t, then they’d be the one truly broken. They would be the one who’d lost all humanity. That’s not you. That can never be you. I never would’ve fallen in love with a man like that and you’d never be able to love me back. Sacrifice one to save many. That one was you, Brick.” She stood and held out her hand to him. “Thank you for telling me. If you never want to talk about it again, I’m okay with that. If you do, I’ll listen.” She pulled him toward the bed. “But now, I’m done talking. How about you? I think it’s time for a little sexual healing.”

  “I can get on board with that.” She turned and gave him her back. He stared at her, confused. “What?”

  “I not only need you to unzip my skirt but I need you to peel me out of it.”

  He snorted. “I can do that.”

  She pointed to the zipper at the small of her back. “Don’t tell me, just do it.”

  He stepped up to her, one hand going to the tiny tab at the waist of her smoking hot skirt, the other arm snaking around her, his fingers wrapping around the front of her throat.

  He drew her head back until it rested on his collarbone. Then he pressed his mouth against her ear. “You’re keeping those fucking heels on.”

  “That’s why I wore them.”

  “Good girl,” he whispered and felt her shiver at his words.

  His fingers flexed on her delicate throat as he worked her zipper down slowly, only to discover she hadn’t worn any panties.

  “Fuck,” he groaned into her loose hair which caught on his beard and tickled his nose. But he didn’t give a fuck.

  “That’s the plan,” she murmured. “Should I inspect the sheets first?”

  He worked her skirt down until it fell around her heels. “No need, muffin. You’re going to be on your hands and knees first.”

  “Maybe you’re going to be on your hands and knees first for all those times you made me call you Daddy.”

  He kept one hand on her throat as the other dipped into the V of her sweater and directly into her bra to find her rock-hard nipple. “You said we’re not keeping secrets from each other. And I saw how excited you’d get when you’d say it.” She gasped when he twisted it roughly between his fingers.

  “I’m good at faking it,” she said on a pant.

  “Now, I know that’s a lie.”

  “Do you?” She gasped as he tightened the fingers on her throat and ran his tongue round the outer shell of her ear.

  “Do I need to prove it?”

  “If you must.”

  He grinned into her hair. “That’s one sacrifice I won’t mind making.”

  Nothing he did that night was a sacrifice.

  It was the most solid night of sleep he’d had since Ft. Myers. He didn’t fool himself by thinking it wouldn’t be like that every night.

  But he’d take what he could get.

  And, in turn, he’d give Londyn everything she ever wanted.

  Especially the undeniable, unbreakable love that was as strong and as deep as her parents’.

  And that wasn’t a sacrifice, either.

  Epilogue

  6 months later

  “Fuck,” Brick muttered as his phone “grunted” on the nightstand. He had recorded the tone directly from the source and assigned it to the boss man.

  He was pulling on his boots to head to the warehouse for their monthly poker game, so at least the Shadows were getting ready to head in that direction if something was going down.

  He finished lacing up his left boot, snagged his phone and glanced at the mass text Diesel had sent out.

  Church. Now.

  Church? Was there a problem at the clubhouse the Shadows had to handle?

  Every 1. Women, kids 2.

  That sounded like a lockdown. Which could mean a threat to the MC.

  Fuck. Things had been peaceful for a while now since the Dirty Angels’ rival, the Shadow Warriors, was no more.

  All thanks to him and the rest of his team.

  “We gotta go!” he shouted over his shoulder as he stood, gathering his wallet and Glock and everything else he need to strap on in preparation of something big going down.

  Londyn peeked her head out of the open bathroom, her hair still partially up in curlers. “You don’t need to yell, I’m right here.”

  “Get ready to go. Double-time.”

  “Double-time means I have twenty minutes instead of forty. You do know that, right?”

  Brick shot her a frown. “Londyn. Just throw on some jeans and boots, or flip flops, whatever and let’s go.”

  “Go where? I have a baby shower to go to and I don’t need you to drive me.”

  These women needed to stop getting pregnant. They were going broke with buying shower gifts, then baby gifts once the kid came screaming into the world. How much shit did they need? The women should all just be sharing the same shit and passing it around.

  Recycling, right?

  “You did. Now you don’t. D wants us all at the clubhouse right away.”

  “Why?”

  “If I knew, I’d tell you. He’s not good with providing details. He says show up? We show up.”

  “Well, that’s crazy. How is anybody supposed to plan?”

  “You plan after the fact.” He turned to see her pulling out the rest of the curlers. Way too slowly. He snapped his fingers at her. “Less chatter, more movement.”

  Her mouth twisted. “Damn, I thought I left bossy Seamus in Florida.”

  “If you did, your ass cheeks wouldn’t be red and hot right now, would they?”

  She smiled in a way that made his dick twitch. “I like Seamus sometimes.”

  So did he. But now was not the time.

  “Londyn,” he growled his warning.

  She lifted hands full of curlers up in the air. “Fine. It’s June. I’ll throw on shorts and sandals.”

  “Whatever,” he muttered under his breath. “Just hurry.”

  “Fine.”

  “You know the rule.”

  “Fine!” came from inside the bathroom.

  Brick grinned. The “rule” was every time Londyn gave him a sassy-mouthed “fine,” he added one strike to her growing “spank bank.” This spank bank wasn’t a typical one. It was one they both got to enjoy.

  Especially since she used “fine” a lot.

  “I’ll be waiting in the Tank,” he called out.

  “Can’t we take my Benz?”

&nb
sp; It only took less than a month for Brick to buy her a badass Mercedes AMG GT Coupe and drop that mom-mobile back off in Mercy’s driveway. The fuck if he was driving around in a minivan when they couldn’t take his TUV or Indian Scout.

  “No.”

  “Fine.”

  Brick shook his head as he jogged down the steps, out of the Cape Cod and climbed into his TUV.

  Ten minutes later, he was still waiting.

  He sighed as he kept his gaze glued to the front door and tapped his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. Once they moved into the compound, both the warehouse and DAMC’s church would be a shorter drive.

  He loved this house, but Hawk wouldn’t sell it to him since renting it put steady cash in the man’s pocket. So, Brick bought the last lot in the cul-de-sac. The one that had been set aside for him and also the one Londyn insisted on. The one directly to the left of Mercy and Rissa’s house. Despite the fact Mercy kept suggesting other “better” lots elsewhere in the neighborhood.

  Like on the other side of the walled neighborhood, next to Nash’s still empty house.

  In the end, Londyn got what she wanted.

  Like always.

  The grin that thought brought quickly disappeared after waiting another five minutes.

  He grabbed his phone to text her and realized something. Something he neglected to do.

  He swiped right and found what he was looking for. The multitude of “hookup” apps he had on his phone. Tinder. Happn. Fling. And more. So many more.

  One by one he deleted them all and when he was through, he blew out a breath, glanced up and still didn’t see Londyn.

  He pulled up his text app, typing out: Hurry.

  He quickly followed with: And don’t u fuckn answer w/ fine.

  Fine!

  And then there she was, backing that caboose of hers out the front door, pulling the door shut behind her and locking it. Then she strode toward the vehicle wearing not only a tight pair of shorts and a V-neck shirt that showed off way too much of his tits, but also a hell of a sassy smile.

  The parking lot was overfull. Bikes, cars, trucks and SUVs parked in every space and even in the grass surrounding the pavement. And due to Londyn’s lack of respecting the order “double-time,” Brick wouldn’t be surprised if they were the last ones to arrive.