by Linzi Basset
“Extra hands will help. We’ll get on it right—”
The door crashed open, drawing everyone’s attention to the beautiful blonde who stormed inside. The slam of the door was the tempest inside Samantha made audible. It was typical of how she lived life. Passionate and full of vigor.
Today, however, she was visibly anxious. Her usual calm had been replaced by a nervous energy that seemed charged to explode at any moment. Every muscle in her body was pulled tight like she was ready to sprint a ten-mile run.
“Samantha?”
She looked around the room until her eyes caught Rhone’s who sat forward in alarm. He was used to her impulsiveness, and interrupting their meeting in itself wasn’t unusual, but the way she glanced around with her mouth pursed and her eyes fixed like she was looking at something a yard behind his head concerned him. He called her name again. She blinked once and focused on his face.
“I have to talk with you.”
“And this can’t wait until I get home tonight?” he drawled with an amused grin. She didn’t respond with a usual quirky comeback.
Her eyes glazed over. “If it did, I wouldn’t be here, would I?” she snapped. “Now, Rhone.” She pivoted on her heel and stormed to his office.
“Something’s up, mate. You better go see what has upset her. She’s acting weird,” Keon said as he munched on another cookie.
“Take over for me, please,” Rhone said and got up to follow Samantha.
Since they’d made up and recently moved back to live with him, things had been going very well. He’d made a concerted effort to be emotionally involved in their relationship. She didn’t give him a choice. She drew him closer with her sensual, humorous, and gentle nature, pulling him into the vortex of the love she offered. Every day, with each jibe, she slowly chipped away at his resistance, at the armor that had been protecting his heart. The temptation to let go and jump in after her, to take up the thrill of the challenge of finding out what love really was, became stronger every day.
She was an emotional hurricane all by herself and today, it seemed to be in full force. He found her pacing his office like a cat on a hot tin roof. He leaned back against the wall and watched her silently. Waiting.
“I don’t know how it happened.”
“How what happened?”
Samantha didn’t respond. In fact, Rhone didn’t believe she heard him. His lips quirked as he watched her hands perform an entire conversation of their own as she continued to trot back and forth.
“It’s not possible. I never miss one. How the fuck did this happen?”
“Samantha!” he finally bellowed, having reached the end of his patience. She spun to face him.
“What?”
His eyebrows rose to his hairline, giving him a sardonic expression.
“Oh, right,” she said and blinked owlishly. She came to a halt in front of him, pointing at her chest. “I'm …” A stiff finger poked at his pecs. “We’re … oh fuck … I can’t believe this,” she wailed and started pacing again.
“Do I need to tie you to a chair and whip it out of you?” Rhone drawled.
“No! You can’t.” Her head snapped back and forth vehemently. She made a sweeping motion with her hands. “No more whipping, flogging and … and … oohhh,” she moaned and squatted down to wrap her hands around her knees.
“Love, just spit it out. It can’t be that bad.”
She shook her head and rolled her eyes dramatically.
“Oh, believe me it’s bad! It’s really, really … really bad,” she said as she straightened. She dragged in a couple of deep breaths; her eyes closed like she was meditating.
Rhone felt the familiar twitch in his loins when her eyelids slowly lifted and their gazes clashed. As always, he felt like he was drowning in their depths. Today, myriad shades of blue swirled together to form a whirlpool of apprehension as she stared at him.
“Rhone … I … I’m pregnant. We’re going to have a baby,” she blurted out quickly and then held her breath.
Rhone felt like a ten-pound hammer had just pummeled him in the gut. His expression didn’t change. His body remained relaxed and unmoving. He didn’t blink. His mind was completely blank.
“Say something,” she whispered.
“I’m not going to marry you, Samantha.”
“You’re not going to … aaaahh!” Samantha screamed and threw her hands in the air while she spun in a circle. She stabbed her finger against his chest. “You’re such a fucking asshole, do you know that, Rhone Greer? I didn’t come here expecting a marriage proposal!” She rolled her eyes. “I mean, heaven forbid that the formidable Master Razor be saddled with something as benign as a WIFE! I just told you you’re going to be a father and that’s the only thing you have to say?”
Samantha cringed as she watched the emotional veil wrap over his expression, returning him to the same closed off, unreachable man she’d walked away from not so long ago.
“And there you go again.” Her sigh stretched out like slow trickle dripping from a spoon to fill the atmosphere. “You know what, I’m really getting tired of this. It’s like a rollercoaster that never ends with you. Your words and your actions are divergent, and no, Rhone, not like the book. I mean they pull in opposite directions.” Her hands slashed the air as she tried to verbalize her frustration with him. “It’s like your brain’s narrator and navigator have entirely different ideas about the world … about me and about us … our entire relationship. You talk the talk of the valiant protector and lover, of how you want to change, and yet when push comes to shove you always retreat.”
She cupped his cheek. Her eyes misted over but she didn’t care.
“You love me with your hands and your body but push me away with words that sometimes fall from your lips easier than leaves from trees. You have to ask yourself why, Rhone. Why can’t the two come together? Would it be so bad to just try and let me into your heart?”
“I didn’t ask to become a—”
Samantha’s back went as straight as an ironing board. Her eyes turned glacial.
“Don’t worry, Rhone, I get the message. It’s my body, it’s my baby and I’ll handle it.” She spun around and flung open the door. “On my fucking own!” she sneered over her shoulder before she flounced off.
Rhone returned to the boardroom without realizing he’d left his office. He shouldn’t have bothered. He didn’t hear a word of what was said.
“Out with it. You came back with the same expression on your face as you had when you found out Quade’s wife had put out a hit on her own sons. What happened?” asked Keon, who had stayed behind when the rest of the team left.
“Samantha’s pregnant.”
“Well, fuck me sideways!” Keon said excitedly. “Congratulations, mate! We’re gonna become fathers together. Imagine that. Three babies on the way. Mine, Max’s, and now yours. What are the odds of that?” Keon’s chest puffed out even more.
Rhone didn’t respond. He ran his hand over his eyes. Keon stared at him intently.
“You're not happy about it.”
“I’m not going to marry her, Keon.”
“What does that have to do with becoming a father?”
“Everything. She would expect a proposal and I can’t give it to her. You know how I feel about marriage. I don’t see the purpose of a piece of paper and a signature to prove I’m committed to her. Samantha understood that. A child … that changes everything. Now, she’d expect us to get married.”
Keon stared at him. “And yet you did just that with the D/s agreement. Signed a piece of paper to prove your commitment as her Dom.”
“That’s different and you know it.”
“Is it? Come on, Rhone. You’re not the same man you were when you came back from that undercover op. You’ve become human again—because of her. She’s the one who managed to unlock the Rhone we grew up with to come to the surface again. You can deny it all you want, but you love Samantha. You’re already committed to her and she t
o you.”
“Fuck, Keon, I haven’t even given any thought to whether I wanted to have children.”
“Really? You might not have admitted it to yourself, mate, but I’ve seen the craving in your eyes when you’re with Ruark’s boys and with Beckie when you visit us. Not to mention Ethan’s son, Jaxon. You’re made to be a father, my friend, and you will be a good one at that.”
Keon leaned forward. His expression was earnest. He knew Rhone wouldn’t take offense to anything he said. They’d been friends far too long.
“Don’t allow the fucked-up people you encountered as part of your undercover life to destroy the best thing that has ever happened to you.”
Rhone sat unmoving long after Keon had left, staring out the window with unseeing eyes. He knew Keon was right. Fuck, Samantha was right. He had believed that he was slowly overcoming the mental block in his mind to allow himself to feel. To love like he was being loved—whatever and however that emotion must feel like.
Then why did the one thing that should have made him the happiest man alive shut him down again? Why couldn’t he let go of the past? God knew it has hounded him enough over the years and for what? It wasn’t his guilt to carry, his debt to pay, or even his loss to mourn. So, why?
Had he become so hardened by what he’d seen and was forced to do that he didn’t know how to trust, fully trust, the feelings Samantha had unearthed inside him? Worse, that he would walk away from his own flesh and blood because he was…
Rhone startled. There it was. Finally. Realization dawned.
Fear.
Cold, brittle fear.
“Fuck! I can’t do this. Jesus Christ, I should never have left Los Angeles.” His voice echoed, raw and empty, through the room.
He blinked rapidly, his mind frozen on the one thought. His own flesh and blood. His heartbeat raced in his ears, beating so fast, it felt like a runaway train.
“Rhone … I … I’m pregnant. We’re going to have a baby.”
Samantha’s voice echoed in his mind. He could imagine watching her in the garden, doing what she loved the most, picking roses. He envisioned her wearing a white, flowing dress showing off her rounded tummy as she looked up and smiled at him. He closed his eyes.
If only it could be. If only he could be the man she wanted him to be, the kind of man she deserved.
His eyelids fluttered open, his gaze filled with a glow so bright it changed his features from grim to peaceful as acceptance washed over him. His lips quirked. Slow at first until finally, his face broke out into a broad smile.
“I’m going to be a father.”
Chapter Sixteen
“I’ve got Intel on the location of the stolen server.”
“That was fast,” Jack said into the phone as he leaned back in the chair. “Or is the Bratva Princess a chatterbox after sex?”
“Stop fishing. A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell,” Sean chuckled but kept his voice hushed.
“What do you need?”
“Verification but I’ll be a fool to go alone. As I mentioned before, Governor White wants this op to stay under the radar. No one else on my covert team can be involved. Are you free later? It’ll be a three-and-a-half-hour helicopter flight. We only have access to the premises at midnight. I have to warn you, Jack. If we get caught, we’ll be in big shit.”
“I’ve never run away from a little danger, Sean.”
“I didn’t think so. We should be back in DC by noon tomorrow.”
“We’re not going to recover the server?”
“No, it’s confirmation and track only.”
“What’s Alex up to, Sean? If we find the server, we should blow up the damn thing, not leave it as an open invitation to fuck up our country.”
“I agree, but I follow orders. As far as the Government is concerned, I’m active duty military, Jack. I don’t have the same luxury you do, working for yourself. I can be court-martialed if I step out of line.”
“Does Alex know you’re asking me to join you?”
“It was his suggestion. Apparently, you were involved in a data recovery op before. I think he said it was … er, the Xenoxus Stingray?”
Jack sat upright. All his senses were immediately on alert. Alex was the only one who knew about his involvement in that operation and more specifically, what it had involved. His eyes narrowed in thought. Alex was a clever man and he wouldn’t have mentioned it to Sean without reason. The Government was aiming to eliminate the organizers of the operation not just destroying the server, which Jack hoped wouldn’t blow up in their faces in the future.
“Yes, it was quite some time ago but at least I managed to get the job done,” he responded pensively. “What time and where do we meet?”
“It’ll be better if we leave after dark. I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty sharp at Lot Four of the RFK Stadium.”
“Roger that.” Jack ended the call. Within minutes he was in his truck, driving in the direction of Upperville, Virginia. He had always dabbled with property and when the opportunity arose soon after they had moved to Washington DC, to buy the Ayrshire Farm, he didn’t hesitate. He used to love the time he’d spend on his grandfather’s farm as a youth and it was a no-brainer.
It was uniquely situated in the historical region as a working farm, which Max had jokingly said was where the 21st Century was planted firmly with one foot in the 19th, the first time he’d visited. The farm was a certified organic one, specializing in rare and endangered breeds of livestock and heirloom fruits and vegetables. It was a working manor farm, historically a place of serenity. A place where he escaped to more often than not and where he intended to retire one day. A place where he would one day be able to forget about all the darkness in the world and live the last of his golden years close to nature. In the meantime, he had a very competent farm manager and staff.
It was also where he kept the locked container with certain ‘paraphernalia’ he might need during covert ops. Today, he was after an item that was specifically designed and used in the Xenoxus Stingray Op. An uneasy feeling rippled through his body. When you were part of an undercover team, trust was imperative. He didn’t like the fact that Sean was ignorant of the surreptitious instruction Alex had passed on through him.
“Fuck, Alex, I hope you know what you’re doing. I don’t want to have that young man’s death on my hands, especially since he’s Paige’s brother.”
“I swear, Gideon, if you don’t phone me back, I’m going to come over there and whack you over the head. Call me, dammit!”
Jordan’s dissonant voice floated with concerned undertones from where she stood in front of the stove to find its way to Jack. He found it difficult to tear his gaze from the sensual sway of her hips as she tapped her foot in tune with the rat-a-tat of her fingernails on the marble surface of the kitchen counter.
He leaned his shoulder against the wall and hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans as he watched her mash potatoes. The pleasant twitch of his cock was ill-timed in lieu of how the rest of his evening was going to be spent.
The scene of conjugal bliss was discordant with any future he’d had in his mind since he had walked away from Selina. As he watched Jordan prepare their dinner, he was struck raw with longing. It was so unexpected that it left his mind completely discombobulated. His heart punched a beat against his chest.
Another sign. The universe was telling him in more ways than one that it was time to unshackle the chains around his heart and open his mind to love. Jack didn’t flinch at the thought. He quietly accepted it.
“I swear, I’ll never understand the minds of men. If they’re not hiding their feelings behind impassivity … and lemme tell you, he, the devil Dom, that one, is the king of staring at me with nothing, not even a small little sign of his feelings … ugh! It’s so fucking frustrating.”
Jordan’s soliloquy brought a quirk to Jack’s lips, well aware that she was talking about him—not that he understood why he was under scrutiny when she was clearly annoyed
with her brother. The thumping of the steel potato masher clanked loudly against the side of the pot as she banged out her frustration.
“Heaven forbid that my own brother is just as much of an asshole for ignoring me suddenly.”
“Some cultures believe talking to oneself is a sign of senility.”
Jordan spun around, the potato masher held at the ready to protect herself.
“I wish you’d stop that!”
“Stop what?”
“Arriving so quietly that I don’t hear you. I’ll have you know, it’s not good for my health. I lose a couple of years off my lifespan every time you scare me like that.”
Jack pushed away from the wall. He picked a dollop of mashed potatoes from the tool in her hand.
“Hmm, herb and garlic mashed potatoes. Nice.” He leaned closer and whispered against her lips. “Only someone with a guilty conscience is as jumpy as you. Are you hiding anything else from me, love?”
Jordan breathed in his scent and treasured his closeness. Her ovaries erupted in a series of somersaults as he nibbled on her lips. She couldn’t get enough of him and longed for another all night sexual encounter.
“No,” she whispered. Her arms crawled around his neck as she pressed her softness against the hard wall of his chest. An involuntary moan escaped her lips.
Jack’s hands closed around her hips to guide her body in a rolling motion against his rising tumescence.
“Unfortunately, this will have to wait. I’ve got a job to do tonight.” He chuckled at the cold chill that immediately filled her eyes. “Sheath your claws, Jordan. This time there’s no woman involved.” He sniffed the air. “Let me guess. You made my favorite. Peppercorn braised steak?”
“Yes,” she said, somewhat appeased by his assurance as she took back a step. “I’ll dish up while you pour the wine.”
“You don’t have to cook every night, Jordan,” Jack said once they were seated at the breakfast nook. They both preferred the close intimacy and shared most of their meals there. “Rosa keeps the freezer well stocked with meals she prepares.”