by S. M. Butler
“He’s a good man,” Abigail finally managed out.
His sister nodded. “Yes, he is. But he’s human, despite his best attempts not to be. He gets hurt. He is hurt.” She took a sip of her water and smiled. “I know who you are. I’d be stupid not to know.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Abigail Lewis. Senator Daniel Lewis’s daughter. Your face is sort of… unforgettable.”
Abigail’s heart thudded against her chest. “What do you want?”
“I want to protect my brother. He’s gone through a lot.”
“All he’s ever done is protect me,” Abigail replied.
“Don’t you travel with private security?” His sister asked.
Abigail drew a breath. “Sometimes. Not right now.” She could hear the uncertainty in her own voice, so she knew she wasn’t fooling Addison. Addison’s eyes didn’t storm like Chris’s. They smoldered and burned like a forest fire.
“Listen, I almost lost my brother once. I really don’t want to lose him again. Whatever you’re into, whatever you’re going through, leave him out of it.”
“I can’t…” Abigail sighed. “There’s a lot going on right now. Chris is helping me through it.”
“And when it ends? Will he be collateral damage?”
“You’re a lot more cynical than Chris said.”
“Funny, because I haven’t seen him in over a year. I can’t see that he’d know shit about me anymore.”
“I’m sure he was trying to protect you.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she replied. Addison sighed, shaking her head. “Chris has never turned anyone away that came to him for help. Not in the lifetime that I’ve known him.”
“But you want me away from him?” She asked, but she didn’t really phrase it as a question.
“I just don’t see this ending well for him,” she replied. “I don’t trust you with him.”
“He’s a big boy. He can make his own decisions.”
Addison shook her head. “Not where it concerns you. You were his first mission. Murphy says you never forget your first mission.”
Abigail took a breath. This was not how she wanted the conversation to go, but Addison was pretty set in her view. How would she feel if she found out that Abigail wasn’t just a senator’s daughter? That she was really the daughter of a monster that nearly killed her brother?
“It was Murphy’s first mission too, actually,” she continued. “He remembered you. I could see it in his eyes when we walked in. He didn’t say a word to me about it, because that’s how he is. That’s how he is. I’m not here to diminish what happened to you. But that kind of experience breaks a person. And you might be a nice enough girl, I don’t know. But my brother is broken enough. He doesn’t need someone to shatter him to pieces.” Her eyes teared up, and she took a shaky breath.
Abigail’s heart leaped into her throat, trying to break free of the confines of her body. Apparently protecting each other was a Hardy family trait. She’d never had siblings. She had no idea what that was like. Her whole world had been Daniel Lewis for so many years. Then South America happened, and she’d worked hard to accept that what had been done to her wasn’t her fault. She was most definitely as broken as Addison thought she was, but now, as she found out more about her origins and her birth family, she wondered if that would be what shattered her to pieces.
Chapter Eighteen
Chris stopped as he came into the kitchen, sensing the tension circling around the air. Addison looked close to tears, and Abigail just looked pissed. Murphy was close behind him and immediately went to his wife as soon as he saw her, enveloping her in his arms.
“Addy…” Chris was at a loss for words.
“Um, I’m going to go for a walk,” Abigail said and started for the door.
Chris’s hand shot out to grab her arm. “You shouldn’t be out there.”
She peeled his fingers off her with a pointed look. “It’s fine. It’s just a walk.”
God, how he wished he could go with her. “Wait in my room.” She glared at him, obviously not liking the request. “Please.” She nodded curtly and she slipped out, leaving him alone in a room with the two people he loved most in his life, who at the moment, hated him.
“She seems nice… for a politician’s daughter,” Addy said.
“You recognized her,” Chris said. He shouldn’t have been surprised. His sister was smart.
“Hard not to when her father is all over the campaign trail.” Addy pulled herself free of Murphy, who seemed put out by her stepping away from him. “What’s she got you into?”
“Nothing.”
“So what’s she doing here?”
“Jesus, let me talk, Addy,” he ground out. He glanced at Murphy who had moved to the stool beside his sister, his hand over hers in her lap in solidarity. Murphy wasn’t really a big talker. He was the epitome of the silent but deadly type.
“She came to town with a flat tire. I happened to be the one who stopped to help. It’s no big deal.”
Murphy frowned. “So, she randomly stopped in a small town that just happened to have a former SEAL she knew in it. Convenient.”
Chris shrugged. “I took her back to the garage I work in and one thing led to another and she spent the night.” Chris glared at the two of them. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Of course it’s a big deal,” Addy said. “You haven’t had a real relationship in years.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Chris said. “It was one night.”
“Whatever,” Murphy said. “How about the walking thing? No cane?”
Chris groaned. Murphy was going to make him talk it out right here. “I can’t, Murphy.” He glanced toward the door where Abigail had gone.
“Because you’re a spy.”
He glared at his best friend. “No.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, fine. Here it is. My job… it requires silence. I made the deal when I was in the hospital two years ago. A new procedure would give me full mobility. But it required walking away.”
“Walking away?” Addy asked.
“From my life. You. Mom and Dad. The team. Everything. But I got a new chance at life.” Chris groaned. “I know how it sounds. I ran. I couldn’t handle being half of what I was. But you had Murphy, and Mom and Dad had each other. It seemed like it would be easy to cut myself out.”
“Easy?” Addison’s temper flared. She stood up and stopped toe to toe with him, her head coming up to the middle of his chest. Though her height didn’t stop her imposing on his space. “You left. Vanished. Why? So you could walk without a cane?”
“My boss. He offered me the deal. His one stipulation was that I cut ties with the rest of the world. It was important that there was no connection, and I’m just now realizing why he did it that way.” He glanced at Murphy, silently appealing to his best friend, hoping he would understand. “It was a chance for me to keep on saving the world.”
Addison’s face turned from anger to disgust and he tried not to let his heart break. “You dropped all of us, your family, your friends… so you could play hero?” She shook her head. “I can’t believe you would do this.”
She turned on her heel and ran from the room.
Silence filled the void then. Chris watched Murphy’s expressionless face. He didn’t go after Addison, but he probably recognized like Chris did that Addy wouldn’t be receptive to anyone until she managed to calm down a little. He knew she deserved to have her anger. From her perspective, he was a monumental asshole.
Murphy stood up then, shoving his hands in his pocket. His icy blues speared Chris, holding him in place. “She’ll calm down.”
“I screwed up, Murphy. I know that. But I had to.”
“I know,” he replied. “She’s not from the world we live in, Chris. She doesn’t understand the secrets and the lies. She doesn’t know the sacrifices that people sometimes have to make for the good of the country or the world. All she knows is that her brothe
r disappeared without a goodbye, and still keeps lying to her.”
“It would have been easier for me to die,” Chris whispered. “I should have listened.”
“You think so?” Murphy snapped. “Then you still haven’t figured it out yet.”
Murphy left the kitchen, and Chris let out a frustrated groan. As far as family reunions went, this was probably the worst.
~*~*~
Abigail paced. She couldn’t stop herself. Her temper flared. He wouldn’t let her leave. Of course, she could have just walked out and he’d not be able to stop her, but her own fear kept her caged. What if Lewis’s men waited outside that door, just holding on for the second that she was alone?
She flopped on the bed. There had to be another way. Voices rose and fell in the next room. Chris explaining himself. She couldn’t imagine what that felt like, seeing his family for the first time in so long. She had no one anymore. No one that would care if she vanished.
She didn’t want to be here. The people he associated with, this team… there was something dark about them. Something she didn’t want to trust. He didn’t fit in with them. Or maybe he did, and she just saw him with a special halo because of what he had been to her.
She wasn’t sure how long it was before Chris lightly rapped on the door, sticking his head in like he was gauging how angry she was. She wasn’t really mad, but he needed to know one thing. She’d spent her entire life as a prisoner and didn’t know it. She wouldn’t let anyone control her like that anymore.
“We should probably talk,” he said.
“No reason to, Chris. I’m just the charity case from the side of the road.” She paused. “The one-nighter.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re so much more than that.”
“My father manipulated me all my life. He lied to me, and he did a horrible thing to hurt another man. I don’t care if that man is a monster or not. We are what the world makes us.” She’d spent years thinking about that statement. The world was a disgusting cesspool of greed and violence. What kind of people came from a world like that?
“Listen, I know there’s a lot going on in that head of yours.”
She shook her head. “No. I get it. You manipulated me in here to make sure you had your bargaining chip.”
“No. That’s not what happened.”
“This is my life, Chris. It took me a year to figure out how to escape my dad. I can’t go back. I can’t handle another year before I figure out how to escape again.”
“You’re not going back there,” he said, coming over to her. His hands slid along her arms. He pressed a kiss against her forehead. Her anger melted away with his promise. She met his eyes.
“Your family is here.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. There was something in that expression. Something sad. He’d missed his family. “I have to take care of them before we leave.”
She slid her arms up to his shoulders, resting them there as she met his eyes again. “Something’s wrong.”
“It doesn’t have to do with you,” he said. Finally, a small smile appeared on his face, forced and stiff. “Everything will be fine in a couple days.”
“I see.” She turned from him. He’d pushed her out. She hugged herself, trying to brave the cold between them.
“Murphy went to go check on Addison, so we’re alone for the moment.” His warmth enveloped her from behind, his hard chest pressed against her back. His lips found her neck, gently sliding across her skin. He whispered in her ear. “And we have some time to kill.”
Her head fell against his shoulder as he kissing along her neck, her shoulder, over the t-shirt she wore. His big hands slid around her front, one covering her belly, the other sinking lower, just over the shorts she wore. She gasped as his fingers brushed over her sensitive skin, even still covered by clothes.
The hand covering her belly slipped under the shirt she wore and slid up to cup one of her breasts. She groaned because she wasn’t wearing a bra, and his heat only ratcheted up her own desire. His hardness pressed against her ass.
“You have some kind of spell on me, and I love it,” he said. He flipped her around, pressing his mouth against hers like a man thirsty for water in a desert. He moaned against her lips as he pressed her against him, her breasts pillowing against his hard chest.
She broke the kiss and guilt slid onto his expression.
He swallowed as he spoke. “I’m sorry. I should have…”
“No. You make me feel things I’ve never felt before. Good things. I want to feel them all,” she whispered against his mouth. She felt the devilishness inside her as she continued. “I hope you have protection this time.”
He groaned and all but tackled her to bed. She giggled as he kissed her, then he pulled open the nightstand drawer and pulled out a box of condoms that he all but slammed on the surface of the nightstand. “I went out early this morning while you were sleeping.”
She giggled as he tore off his shirt, then slipped hers off.
His hands slid down the curves of her body, his eyes watching where they went with such revery she almost lost herself in his eyes.
“One thing… um… have you, I mean, since… “ he sighed heavily. “I mean, do you…”
Her smile fell as she realized what he was asking. She shook her head. “You’d be my first.”
“You’ve never… even before…” Before she was kidnapped and raped. He couldn’t voice it but she knew what he was asking. He wanted to make sure she was okay. God, it made her love him even more.
She shook her head. “Does that scare you, that I’ve never been with anyone like that?”
He shook his head back. “No. It just means I need to change my strategy a little.”
“What am I, a battle plan?” She laughed.
“Shh,” he said, placing a finger over her mouth. “Let me work my magic.” His lips replaced his finger as he lifted it away. There was a desperation in the way he kissed her that hadn’t been there before.
She clung to him, her fingers digging into his shoulders, her body molding to his. She kissed him back as if he were the elixir of life and she was on the brink of death.
The silence of the room faded away, the only things she could focus on were the soft rustle of the sheets beneath them, the way his pants rubbed against her leg, and the feel of his body against hers.
He didn’t even fumble as he shucked off his pants, his boxers, and slid away her shorts until they were pressed together skin to skin. When he broke the kiss, there was a wickedness in his gaze as he pressed a kiss against her sternum, then trailed his tongue down the middle of her body. She moaned, arching her back as his fingers probed her hot center.
She was already soaking his fingers down there when he dipped one finger into her then rubbed along her slit.
“Knowing that I’m going to be the first one who brings you this pleasure honors me and scares me at the same time,” he whispered. He dipped his head down and she felt his breath against her wet skin. “But I’ve never backed away from a challenge.”
His tongue swiped up, a long, delicious sensation. She tangled her fingers in his hair, her legs hooked around his neck. Then his mouth latched on to the taut bundle of nerves, his tongue flicking over it as he kissed and sucked at it. Another finger joined his first inside her, slightly curving with each thrust. Her hips bucked as if of their own accord as tension built and twisted inside her.
Her whole body burned with desire and need. She found she couldn’t separate where she began and he ended and she didn’t care. His teeth rubbed against her, combined with her tongue. Tension coiled around that little bud of electricity he laved such love on until pleasure ripped through her with the force of a freight train. Stars burned through her eyelids before her body melted into a puddle.
“Whoa,” she said.
He chuckled as he lifted himself over her and kissed her. She could taste herself mingling with him on his lips and it only made her want more. He gazed down at
her, his eyes storming with promise. “You still good?”
She nodded because she wasn’t sure she could say anything else.
~*~*~
All the blood pooled into Chris’s cock when she nodded. He’d been trying to go slowly with her. So far, their previous encounters had all been impromptu, but this… he needed it to be special, to be right for her.
Everything in his life was uncertain. He was worried about his sister, his best friend. He was worried that Nathan would sanitize everything he’d ever touched, including Abigail. But he didn’t want to worry at that moment. He wanted to give Abigail something she’d never had in her sheltered life because when it was time to complete the mission, he wasn’t sure he’d ever see her again.
Abigail Lewis was a walking contradiction. Sweet and sassy. Experienced and naive. Everything about her intrigued him. Her delicate hands slid along his cheeks into his hair, tangling into the strands. He kept it longer than he had in the SEALs, even let himself have a little scruff. It made him feel more normal than being just a military man. But for the first time, he wanted to cut it all and shave so she could be with the man he was five years ago.
“Abigail, I need you so much, I’m not sure I can stand it. I’m not sure I’m strong enough.”
She smiled a wicked grin, her hands solidifying their hold on him. “You’re plenty strong enough, but I don’t need you to stop.”
With her naked beneath him, all he could hear was the pounding of his blood in his ears, in time with his cock pulsing want and desire. “Seductress.”
“So?” She shrugged and pulled him down to her. He took her mouth hard, but she was ready for him, eager as her legs slid along his. She was seducing him without even trying, and he was putty in her hands.
His fingers scissored her nipples, tweaking it lightly, her whimpers of pleasure music in his ears. The sound went straight to his hard cock, pressing against her wet flesh. His skin felt fevered, so hot to the touch that her light touches as she slid her hands down his chest burned into him. The look in her eyes as they separated long enough for him to grab a condom, and tear it open made him feel like Superman.