Wounded Courage (Lucky Thirteen) (19 page)

“We would have had to be together for me to break up with you.”

He blinked. Twice. Then he pulled himself up to his full height. Briefly, I had the idea that maybe I had gone too far.

“You’re right. We would have. Luckily, it was just sex, right? That’s why we said that we love each other? Well, I’m not one to turn down a soft body. Worked out well for me. You want to do it again, just for shits and giggles?”

I couldn’t answer. Stunned into silence, all I could do was stand there and let him continue talking.

“So, maybe since we mean nothing to each other, you might like a turn at another? You gonna show Richter what you can do next? I know I didn’t give you much of a chance, but I’m sure he will. Or maybe Urban would like a little sample too. He’s always up for more sex. He didn’t get a whole lot in Aruguay. Girls there like to wait for marriage.”

“You need to walk away, Murphy,” I told him, my voice low and shaking with rage. “This isn’t—”

“Why would I walk away now?” Murphy leaned in toward me, too impossibly close for comfort. He shook his head, angry eyes spearing me in place. “No, here’s your deal, sweetheart. Any one of those guys would love to run their hands over that firm ass of yours. But you’re not doing this so you can fuck them. You’re doing this to get back at me.”

“Murphy, stop this.”

“Oh, no. We’re just getting started. I protected your little secret with the notebook. I respected that. And I respected you. I just didn’t realize that you didn’t respect me.” He stepped back. “Maybe this is hard for you to believe of me, but I’m not into casual sex. Not with you. It’s all or nothing.”

I didn’t trust myself to say anything else. I balled my fists. The sad part was… he was right. I was breaking it off because I didn’t want him to get hurt, but I wasn’t giving him a choice. And I couldn’t. I knew Murphy.  If I let him have the choice, he’d never leave my side, and Simon would kill him to control me, just as soon as he realized that Murphy was important to me.

“You know what?” he asked when I didn’t say anything. “I don’t think we should talk at all right now. We’re not going to get anything accomplished sitting here arguing. Go have fun with your new buddies. Maybe when you’re not drunk, we can actually converse like adults.” His nonchalant attitude infuriated me more than his words. But in that moment, I didn’t think I could even look at him without the tears coming. This was my doing. It was me pushing him away for his own good, but he didn’t like it.

He turned and left, his muscles flexing in the sharp contrast of the overhead lights.

And yet, there was something else. It wasn’t right, the way he was acting. It wasn’t Murphy. Not the Murphy I’d gotten used to, spent all this time with. Not the Murphy that told me he loved me. 

I let out a shuddering breath of relief that he’d left, ignored my aching heart, and went back into the lounge area. I flopped back on the couch and grabbed my beer and a shot glass. I held the glass out to Dylan. “Fill me up, sir.”

“I’m not a sir. I work for a living.” He grinned, and picked up the vodka bottle. He hesitated, hovering the bottle over my glass. “You sure? You look upset. Upset and alcohol don’t go well together.”

“Yup. I’m okay,” I told him. “Fill ‘er up.”

“What about Murphy? He coming in?”

“Fuck him. Give me another shot,” I demanded tersely.

Dylan scrutinized me for a moment, but poured the vodka anyway. I downed the shot and chased it with the beer. I just wanted to forget. I wanted a memory eraser in a bottle or a glass. I wasn’t picky. And Jesse and Dylan were going to help me with that.

~*~*~

Murphy

I slammed my fist into my bedroom door. The metal complained but held. I’d had to leave Addison. I couldn’t stand there and listen to her break up with me, especially when we hadn’t even made it official.

She didn’t understand. I couldn’t make her understand what a dangerous game she was playing. She could not go to Giroux on her own. Maybe he wouldn’t kill her, but she’d never make it to Simon Giroux without help. The drive-by shooting was proof of that. They were watching us, waiting for her to step out of the circle where she was safe.

I had to stay close to her, but at the same time, I knew better than to get close. She was my teammate’s sister. She was an asset acquired by our team—by the military—who had intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the Giroux Enterprises and she’d been unwilling to tell us everything upfront. Most assets were treated as hostiles when that happened.

And yet, she was still Addison, still that girl I’d tried so hard not to fall for all my life. The one I’d hidden from at graduation so she couldn’t hug me and tell me how much she cared for me. But I was already gone… I was doomed from the get go.

Knocking on my door interrupted my internal pity party. I opened the door, not encouraged to see Hardy on the other side of it. “Yeah?”

“Where’s Addison? She wasn’t in her room.”

I nearly rolled my eyes, but her brother didn’t need to know what I’d done to his sister just yet. “With Richter and Urban down the hall.” I didn’t mention the drinking, because Hardy would have flipped his shit.

“I just got out of a meeting with LT and Master Chief. About Addison.”

I didn’t like the way he said that. “And?”

“LT thinks its best if Addison remains here… until he can arrange transport to a more secure location.”

More secure location. The words echoed in my head. LT meant prison, but he didn’t say it that way, because he was an officer, and that was what officers did best. Spin the truth. Be diplomatic.

“Murph, they’re going to lock my sister away.” Hardy looked wrecked. I’d never seen him like this. Not for years. “Why the fuck did she have to be there? Why couldn’t she just stay in college and be normal?”

“Because it’s Addison.” I scoffed at my own words. “She doesn’t know how to be a normal college girl.”

“Yeah, well…” he trailed off. “Fuck, I don’t even have a come back for that.” He threw himself in the chair. “Mom and Dad are going to kill me if I can’t get her out of this. They’re always on me to watch after her. She gets into so much shit.”

“She’s not a kid, Chris,” I said slowly. My anger with her and with myself was slowly bleeding away, to the point where I was starting to feel guilty. “She’s the same age you are. We all make choices. Hers weren’t great, but they are hers.”

“I have to get her out.”

“And do what? Run from the United States military? Like some crazy A-Team shit?” Not that the show had ever been accurate, but it was getting the point across. Hardy’s face fell. “Look, Chris, we’ll figure it out. She won’t go to prison. Not if I can help it.”

And that meant I had some groveling to do in the near future. I’d been trying to stay distant from her, to separate us, but we were already intertwined. I had to stick like glue to her, keep her safe.

“I have to tell her.”

“No.” I barely heard myself say it. Chris frowned at me. “Let her have tonight. We’ll figure this out in the morning.” I didn’t want to say why I wanted to give her that time.

Hardy nodded. “Okay. That’s probably best. I’d hate to have to babysit her all night because we told her too soon and she decided to make a run for it.”

“Get some rest. It’s late. She’ll be fine until the morning.”

Hardy didn’t say anything right away. He nodded, but he didn’t move. There were fresh stress lines on his forehead.

“Seriously, Chris, dude. Go.”

He looked reluctant, but stood up and left shortly after that. LT’s desire to lock up Addison wasn’t unexpected. Master Chief had mentioned it before. The thing was… if we went against orders, it was likely our careers. But for Addison, it would be her freedom, and she didn’t deserve to be put into a prison, no matter how nice it was. These last few months had been hard on her and I was just now starting to understand how hard.

I picked up my phone and typed out a message to Urban.

Make sure Addison gets back to her bed safely.

I hit send. Then added:

And by herself.

The reply was almost instant.

Dude. Please.

In a weird way, that was reassuring, so I laid down on my bed and stared up at the ceiling with my phone on my chest. Sleep didn’t come easily, and it didn’t stay long.

Addison

“Let me carry you back to your room,” Dylan said, his words slurring. He held his arms out to me, but I batted them away.

I shook my head resolutely. “I can walk.”

“You’re limping.”

I was? Come to think of it, I could feel my pulse in my leg throbbing in time with my heart. It was a weird sensation. “I’m okay.”

“Yeah, I know,” he sighed. Then the next second, I was whirling through the air. I grunted as I landed over his shoulder. “Murphy will kill me if I let you fall and scrape your knee or something.”

“Fuck Murphy.”

“Oh, honey, I think that’s your job.”

I muttered something under my breath, but I forgot it as soon as it left my mouth. I’d spent the last few hours drinking myself into a stupor, trying to forget what I’d done to Murphy.

Dylan turned the light on in my room as we entered and tossed me on the bed. I blinked in the bright fluorescent lights as they burned agony into my eyes. I covered them with my hand and groaned. “Okay, so you go to bed, and we’ll see you in the morning.”

“What if I don’t
want
to be here in the morning?” I asked, curling up on my side.

“Then… I feel sorry for whoever they get to come after you.” Dylan smiled. He sat down on the side of the bed and brushed a hair out of my face. “Get some sleep. The morning’s really gonna suck for you.”

He stood up. I followed him as he headed for the door, and groaned as I saw who was waiting there as Dylan left. Murphy’s expression was colder than ice. He was dressed in basketball shorts and a T-shirt, and wore a hoodie over that. I sat up as he walked into the room. I leaned against the wooden headboard, feeling a little woozy from the alcohol I’d drank.

I couldn’t look away from that piercing stare, even though my head pounded. My body flushed with embarrassment. Or maybe that was the alcohol. Murphy walked closer to me, slowly, like a predator.

He left me feeling exposed and wanting to curl up under the covers. Was that what he wanted from me? To expose me raw? To strip away any dignity I had left? I stilled myself, and took a quiet breath.

Murphy walked around the bed to me, and leaned over me. His large, sculpted arms barricaded me in, without touching me. His breath caressed my face, warm and spicy. His face was so close. He was purposely getting in my space. “You make me crazy.”

“I can’t love you.”

“You rip me raw.”

“Murphy, this can’t work.”

“Says who?” The words were whispered low, a vulnerable honesty within them. “You did something to me. Woke up this part of me I never knew existed. I was trying to not be close to you. There are so many complications between us.”

At least that I could semi-understand. Most of the night was a hazy flow of beer and vodka at this point, so if he wanted to rehash the argument from before, he was going to have a hell of a time. I wasn’t even sure I could finish a sentence at this point.

“What if there are too many?” I could ask questions at least.

“You have to choose, Addison. Either you want me, or you don’t. You can’t flip-flop like this. I can’t take it.”

“I know.”  

“It did something to me, seeing you with the guys, being happy.”

“I don’t care about them,” I told him, meeting his eyes. I was feeling brave, which quickly melted in the face of the conflict I saw on his face. He was jealous. It was an emotion, one he’d never let himself feel, and here he had no clue how to deal with it. The big bad SEAL didn’t know how to be human anymore. “They aren’t you.”

“I know that,” he said, pointing to his head, “up here.” He closed his eyes and pointed to his chest. “But my heart doesn’t.”

My heart skipped a beat or two.

“I love you.” Such a simple answer, hiding a much more complex man behind it. “And it’s so not the right time.” I never tired of hearing him talk about loving me, but I understood his concerns.

“Why couldn’t we try?” I wanted to try. As much as I knew that eventually, I would have to leave to find Simon and put this Alex thing to rest, I wanted Murphy.

“I have to protect you, Addy,” he said, dropping his head against my neck again. “I can’t do that if I’m worrying about you.”

“I don’t understand.”

He lifted his head and captured my ear in his lips. I whimpered out a soft mewl of approval. He kissed the corner of my mouth, then the other side. “I have to be professional. I have to be a leader to these guys. And… here I am, falling in love with the one person who has all the information we’ve ever needed on Giroux Enterprises. I have to come up with a plan, a strategy on how to take these guys down… and… I can’t do that when all I can think about is how you’re feeling, or if you’re eating, or if you’re drinking too much.”

“You were worried about me?”

He let out a soft, frustrated sigh. “I was. I don’t like worrying. I’ve never had to worry about anyone before.” He met my eyes, the cold anger gone, replaced by warm affection. “I’ve never wanted to worry about anyone.”