Bane: Elite Operatives (Bad Boys of X-Ops Book 4) (17 page)

JADE

August 2016

The only reason the pain remained bearable was because I was birthing life, not delivering death.

For a change.

Walker had been on leave the last month of my pregnancy. He wanted to make sure I didn’t go joyriding in the latest Bentley Madge sent overseas, complete with the same dignitary whistling as he strolled away after delivering the keyless fob.

I wondered what she’d give the baby for a
welcome to the world
present.

A palace perhaps?

Walker. The man who’d lost everything—his first wife, his daughter—and in return given everything to me.

When we fought nowadays it was for fun. No more knives pulled, guns pointed, punches thrown.

He was sexy, earthy, rugged, funny—absolutely nothing like the man I’d hated when we used to go head to head in combat.

He felt so much he sometimes made me cry. Good cry. Because he never let anyone else see how much life meant to him.

Even though we often dealt in death.

I wasn’t crying now. I was biting my tongue. Trying desperately not to scream. If Walker’d been in the birthing room, I’d quite possibly have ripped his cock off his body for getting me in this undignified condition.

Arsehole was probably drinking whisky and smoking cigars downstairs in the great room of our Wyoming ranch with his father, White Buffalo AKA Brian, the Lakota chief of their South Dakota tribe.

Lucky for Walker he hadn’t argued when I’d said I didn’t want to know the gender of our gestating baby—
the bean
—in advance. He hadn’t put up a fight when I’d said I wanted to give birth in our bed at home, either.

I was English—half, anyway. Land of the homebirths and midwives and doulas.

My mum and Sheila, otherwise known as Red Thunder, were more than capable of bringing this child—so very wanted—into the world.

Me? I wasn’t so sure anymore.

I gritted my teeth, spouting curses that made my mum’s eyebrows raise and Sheila’s mouth lift in a grin.

I still wore the amulet bracelet—the emblem of her rite of passage—Sheila had given me a year and a half ago when I’d turned myself over to a Hezbollah despot.

The bracelet’s beads clattered together. The bed’s headboard groaned when I grasped it. I
bore down
like they told me to, my two mums, together, the most unlikely pair.

My belly heaved and something loosed and . . .

Tears streamed down my face when I heard the high-pitched squall.

“A boy!” Sheila held my baby aloft.

My son.

Our son.

My mum quickly cleaned me up while Shelia made sure Walker’s and my son was cosseted from the first breath he took.

With him laid on my chest, I bent my forehead to his little wrinkled one. “You have no idea how much you are loved, little bean.”

His naked pink skin shined, and he mewled constantly like a tiny kitten. His mouth rooted, and I set him to my breast.

With the tiniest of tugs, he latched on. Nature taking over.

I heard Walker pounding up the stairs, taking two at a time as usual.

He burst into the room, all in a lather, like one of the horses after a long hot ride.

Not the cool man I’d tried to kill on so many missions.

Not the sexy stud I’d fought and fucked so many times.

This was the husband. The father.

The protector.

The lover.

My heart still thumped hard every time I saw him. Every bloody time he caught me in a kiss, or pulled me to his lap, or stood beside me when we target practiced.

Mahogany skin. The long blue-black braid. Strong shoulders and broad chest and . . . the Thunderbird tattoo.

“
Mahasani
,” he whispered, his gaze lighting on the baby in my arms only after he made sure I was okay.

I held my hand out to him. “It’s a boy, Wakiza.”

His jaw tight, he nodded. I thought his knees might buckle, but he walked forward, intent only on us.

“A boy?”

“Our son. Howahkan.” Tears slipped from my eyes as our wee one suckled at my breast.

“Howahkan.
Sacred voice
.” His hand shaking, tears shining in his dark brown eyes—making them onyx-bright—he kissed our baby’s head. “Strong voice.” Walker’s laugh struggled from his chest. “Sounds about right from that almighty wail I heard.”

I nodded, nudging my lips against Walker’s and tasting the saltiness of our tears.

After everything we’d survived. To be given this precious life.

My mum and Sheila quietly left the room.

“A true warrior.” Walker’s voice unsteady, he cupped the downy back of Howahkan’s head in his large, dark palm.

“Not too soon though,” I said.

“No. Not too soon.” Walker kissed me, slipping his arm around my shoulders.

He took care of me after that. Watching with a look of awe as Howahkan nursed from my breast.

He took care
of us.
Burping our son when he opened his tiny mouth to emit a squall that seemed too loud a noise for such a small bundle.

Walker got out the changing pad, wipes, and diapers. I heard him give a smug chuckle when he changed Howahkan’s nappy.

“Please tell me you are not gloating about his little winky.” I grinned.

“His winky?” He laughed. “As long as you don’t start calling mine that.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

“And what’s it you call a pacifier again?”

“A binky.”

He sung a Lakota lullaby—the words rising and falling in his strong voice—while he dressed our baby boy in a soft cotton gown and a little cap decorated with toy horses.

“Want me to swaddle little Howie?” Walker asked, brimming with love and pride, kissing the tiny fingers. “Make a baby burrito?”

“Yes. Make a baby burrito.” I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help but fall even more in love with Walker as I watched him with our son.

When he was done with
baby burrito
duty, he slid back into the bed, handling Howahkan like he was the most fragile thing borne to this world.

Walker cupped his head and nuzzled the sweetest skin at his neck. “You think he knows who I am, Jade?”

“You’ve been chatting to him for nine months already.” I yawned, stroking my fingers across the bean’s sweet features while his mouth popped open and closed.

“He’s perfect.” Peering over, Walker gazed at me with such intensity my heart expanded.

I moved my fingers to Walker’s lips. “He is.”

“Winona was like this.”

I watched him struggle to swallow.

“I know.” The sudden rush of tears was so fast, so blinding, I lost my breath.

They came from both of us. For what he’d lost. For what we’d found together.

Walker and I held onto one another, our baby embraced securely between us.

“I’m sorry,” he said, wiping at his eyes. “I shouldn’t have—”

“
Oh
, Walker. Of course you should’ve. How could you ever forget Winona or Kimimela?”

He shrugged, trying to smile. “Didn’t want to ruin this for you.”

“You haven’t. Don’t you know I fell in love with you because of how deeply you feel.” Cupping his face, I kissed him—tenderly pressing my lips to his.

With a long hungry groan, his tongue sought mine, and he drew me closer.

His eyes darkened with desire, he dragged away with another groan. “Probably shouldn’t start kissing like that right now. How long do we have to wait?”

“There’s my man.” I rested my head against his shoulder.

“And, by the way, I thought you fell in love with me because I have the best coc—”

“Walker!” I slapped a hand over his mouth. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”

“How is the size of my cock funny?” he mumbled around my hand.

“It’s not, trust me. However, can we refrain from talking about it in front of Howie?”

“S’pose.” He winked. “Come here, beautiful Momma.” He slipped closer, his lips on mine, just a breath, just for tonight,
just to touch
.

To hold and honor and treasure.

Forever.

I was on leave. Maybe permanently because life had changed, in all the best ways. 

Killing wasn’t in my veins anymore.

Love was.

Because of Walker and our baby.

“Let’s have another dozen.” Walker caressed my back.

“As soon as they figure out how to make men gestate,” I murmured, sliding into a soft dozy sleep.

“You have any idea how much I love you,
mahasani
?”

TILLY

December 2016

“Oh my God!” I shrieked.

“
Shhh
.” Justice smirked from between my thighs where he was doing wicked things with his tongue.

I grabbed his head, his neck, his shoulders, arching halfway off the bed. The big bold tats—an inked memorial to his comrades-in-arms—on his broad, muscular back twisted and turned with every corded sinew as he slid his tongue up my wet slit again.

Should’ve grabbed a pillow to stuff over my face to silence myself.

Tonight Justice was insatiable.

He’d just returned from an op with the one-year-old Force-Reckon. I never knew all the details, but I tried not to worry. Being the wife of a silent operative took a hell of a lot of character, but Jus always said I’d been through my proving grounds in Sana’a.

He started suckling on my clit. The man was voracious.

Sexy.

Unstoppable.

Strong and fierce.

He pinned my hips to the bed, driving me to a third mind-altering orgasm. I looked down, barely able to keep my eyes open anymore—they were so heavy with desire. His aqua blues peeked up at me, just as lust-filled. His gorgeous face and incredible body had been the first reasons I was attracted to him.

But it was his loneliness—his self-enforced solitude—that closed the deal. A man who could save nations but didn’t think he was worth saving himself.

Not until me.

He licked his lips while my body shivered and shuddered. Slipping his fingers from inside me, he crawled over me, so big and hard he blotted everything else from my vision.

Reaching down, I ran the flat of my hand along his thick cock.

The shaft pulsed in my fist, and Justice grunted in a hoarse voice.

“Tilly girl. Fuck.” His torso strained and his neck corded. “Need to be inside you.”

“Again?” I flipped my eyes to his.

Using his fingers to spread me, he brought his mouth to mine. “Don’t flirt at me with those big green eyes. You’re gonna get good and fucked, wife.”

I was already gasping when he started to enter me. The wonderful stretching inside sending a hum through my whole body. My back bowed, my toes curled, and Justice grabbed hold of my hips, slowing his entrance until I was nearly shredded by the powerful heft and heat of him.

A sharp noise crackled in the room.

Justice halted, half inside me.

The sound came again, longer and louder.

With a bark of a laugh, Justice laid his forehead against mine before he looked over at the high tech baby monitor he’d installed.

“Baby girl has a set of lungs just like her mama.” He hissed, rolling out of me. “LBB is on point tonight.”

I lay, gasping for breath, on the verge, watching his fine backside as he stood to grab some sweats from the chair.

“We’ll pick this up later.”

“Hell yeah we will.” Jus ambled out with a fake grumble about
timing
and
baby spidey senses
and
need a nanny
.

Oh how Walker had gloated at the Christmas party last year when he’d announced he and Jade were having a baby.

Justice had contained himself.
Just
barely. I’d been pregnant, too, and gave birth a couple weeks before Jade had Howahkan, affectionately known as Howie. Or The Howler, Walker sometimes called the son he couldn’t stop bragging about.

“Something in the water,” Bane had groused on hearing our news.

“Doesn’t sound like a bad idea.” Storm seemed to be considering how fast he could get Blaize
knocked up
. His words, not mine.

Blaize had let that particular idea slide.

And Kiki? She’d looked at Bane and squeezed his hand.

“Hey, Green Eyes, we’re having a girl.” Justice had held me in the loop of his arms several months later,
gloating
. “What should we call her?”