Hold on Tight (10 page)

With that, he turned away from her and left the house, leaving the door partially open between then.

“It’s been quiet,” the marshal named Sam told Jamie now.

“Good. That’s good.”

“Get some sleep. I’m moving inside in about ten minutes. Ollie and I will be here all night,” he continued, mentioning the man who was currently settled in on the screened-in porch off the kitchen.

“That’s fine. I’ll be in the bedroom. And, um, that guy, he might stay out there tonight.”

“Yeah, he told me. Fucking snipers are always crazy,” Sam said, although a small smile played on his lips.

“Yeah, crazy,” she muttered as she went inside, closing and locking the door behind her. She was still so angry at Chris for making assumptions about her relationship with Mike.

You’re angry with him because he hit on the truth in about three seconds flat
.

Mike had been her first partner when she joined the Bureau. She’d been so excited to be in the field finally, after all the training and the studying and the intensity of everything, to move into a new kind of on-the-job pressure was something she’d been looking forward to.

Mike, not as much. He hadn’t been thrilled to be partnered up with a brand-new field agent, never mind a much younger one—and a woman, at that. And he’d let her know it from day one.

But he’d actually been a big softie, helping her along through procedures, letting her take the leads in some of the collars they first did together. They’d made a damned fine team—he’d often commented on how she was much more skilled than most new agents.

Of course, he didn’t know the kind of background, the on-the-job training she’d had.

Mike was fourteen years older than she’d been. Although he hadn’t looked or acted it. She supposed the combination of constant togetherness plus the close quarters they’d shared bonded them—at first because she’d needed a place to stay after her roommate had gotten them evicted from their apartment. She’d refused to go back to Kevin, and as soon as Mike found out she was planning on staying in a cheap motel by the thruway, he’d told her he had a spare room.

In so many ways, they’d never been anything more than roommates. She’d started out in the spare room and somehow, after the first few months, they’d gradually moved into a sexual relationship.

Mike hadn’t questioned her—didn’t ask about her past or what she wanted to do in the future. He let her live in the moment, which had most likely been their downfall.

By the end, they’d been back to living in their separate bedrooms. Jamie had been looking for apartments on her own and wondering how they could actually stay partners on the job once their personal relationship ended.

Of course, she hadn’t been given the chance to find out. And then she’d discovered that Mike had left her the house in his will. A punch in the gut, to be sure, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to sell the place yet.

Speaking of guts, hers rumbled, and she realized she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Not good.

Her hands wandered to her abdomen. She might be able to hide it for another four months maybe, if she was lucky. Most female agents went on desk duty for the majority of their pregnancy. Too much risk and liability for everyone involved.

Few women returned after maternity leave, even though they left saying they’d be back. She wondered which camp she’d fall into and then pulled her shirt back down over her belly and grabbed some crackers and fruit and brought them into her room.

She wondered where PJ was, if she’d come back … if they’d make up as if nothing happened, the way they always did. Still, the invisible wall would be there between them, holding back the things they could never—and would never—talk about with each other.

Jamie would call her tomorrow and make things right somehow.

For now, she stretched on the bed, smelled Chris on her pillow and sighed as she bit into a fresh peach.

At least your head feels better
.

Her cheeks went hot and she wondered if a cold bath was in her future.

He didn’t acknowledge her. Instead, he turned onto his back in the dark—his comforter was on the floor, along with the top sheet, and he’d lost track of the pillows too.

She hadn’t been there when he’d gotten home—he’d checked for her casually, even though he told himself that he was crazy to let a random woman sleep on his deck, to offer her the key to his house.

Yeah, crazy—he was more than halfway there.

She’d been in the house while he was gone—she’d used towels and she’d washed them and piled them neatly on top of the dryer.

When he’d first climbed into bed, he’d thought about her, sleeping on the deck below, heard the light rain drumming along the wood and the windows and reached down to fist his cock.

This had happened last night too. He needed the relief. Everything hurt, a soreness borne mainly from grief and helplessness, and no matter how long he ran or how much weight he lifted, no matter how far out he swam in the surf and let the current batter his body, he was still unable to sleep. The second his eyes closed and his mind drifted off toward elusive REM, he heard the screams, Mark’s screams—even though he’d been a million miles away from Africa when Mark was killed, he knew he’d never stop hearing them.

After the initial shock of the nightmare wore off last night, his thoughts had turned to PJ and he’d stroked himself to completion in the shower.

Tonight, he didn’t bother to get up, laid with one arm over his head and the other hand moving up and down his rock-hard erection.

Even without looking, he knew she was there in the dark, watching. It was hot and dirty and he wanted her to do more than watch, wished she’d push her way into the room and into his bed, the way she’d pushed herself unwittingly into his life, just when he’d needed someone the most.

He gritted his teeth as he continued to stroke his heavy cock, his body tensing with the impending orgasm—his hand-job would typically be quick but since she watched, he drew it out, enjoyed the ache in his balls.

With his eyes closed, he could picture PJ on him, riding him … and it took everything he had not to stop and head out onto the deck to take her there.

Her own mouth had dropped when he’d done that, spread his legs and played with himself for a few minutes before he began to masturbate in earnest.

His body was beautiful—she’d noted that last night, but now, seeing it splayed naked, his hip bones jutting out under his eight pack and hard pecs and large hand that moved along his hard cock … She realized she was actually holding her breath.

He’d thrown one arm over his head, his eyes appeared closed, as if he was lost in thought and pleasure as his hand worked his shaft—and she should not be here, watching this. Watching him.

It was foolish to think she could be the one to keep away his bad dreams, like some kind of living, breathing dream catcher. And still, even now as she watched him doing something intensely private, she knew that if she could keep away the bad dreams by her presence, she’d stay here all night.

God, he looked good. Despite the cool air, a thin trickle of sweat ran between her breasts. She could do this with him, slide her hand between her own legs, match his rhythm.

She’d forgotten how long it had been for her—before her time with GOST last year, she’d had an active, if not varied, sex life. She’d behaved more like a guy, not wanting to get tied to any one person. For the past year, she’d pushed her needs far underground, never giving them release.

Tonight, as she watched Saint pleasure himself, she wanted nothing more than to give herself permission to help him. Ever since she’d lain on him the other night, she’d felt the hard contours of his body against hers.

She swore she could hear his long, drawn-out moan through the glass doors as his back arched, and still she couldn’t tear herself away, watched him come all over his hand and abdomen and chest and felt the tight wetness between her own thighs.

After, he looked content, eyes closed, head tilted toward her.

Did he know she was there? Had he been thinking about her?

One thing was for sure, he wasn’t asleep yet. His hand reached for a discarded T-shirt, used it to wipe his chest down, and she took that opportunity to back away into the shadows.

With her hands fisted at her sides, she watched him throw the shirt to the ground and turn on his side to face her, his sex still heavy between his legs, his eyes open and staring toward her.

Or at her.

She swallowed hard, her throat tight and dry, the nervous feeling in her stomach like wild butterflies threatening to make her act on impulse, the way she’d always done. She could strip here, in front of him, bare herself on the deck and pad barefoot toward him. He would see her scars—the outward ones … but then, she was pretty sure he could already see through her to her internal wounds as well. And that made her stomach jump around even more as his gaze held hers.

There was no way he could see her clearly, yet somehow he had her locked in. She couldn’t move until he closed his eyes or turned back over. Or got up from the bed and walked toward her.

It would be incredibly easy for her to step inside, into his bedroom, his bed. His life.

She didn’t deserve that. Too many amends to make first. And so she remained standing on the deck until he finally closed his eyes.

He slept until the dawn and once the light came up behind the ocean, she went back down to the lower deck and made the call to Africa she’d been thinking about all night.

Dave answered on the first ring. “What do you need?”

She smiled into the phone. “I need you to track down a body for me.”

She’d met Dave Fredricks—a mercenary working in Africa—after GOST disbanded. GOST, short for Government Operatives Specialty Team, had been a secret, government-organized group of mercenaries who’d been culled against their will from places like Witness Security. Their lives were already threatened, and the masterminds behind GOST took advantage of that, went further threatening their families, a very effective way to keep them in line.

And she’d been a part of that. Yanked from CIA training after a stint in the Air Force, she’d been told that Jamie would be brought into GOST if PJ didn’t cooperate. And so, for eight torturous months, she had.

She’d been a shell when it was all over, hadn’t been ready, willing or able to go back to the States, and so she’d hooked up with Dave. He’d offered her jobs—mainly, she’d done security, had refused to take on anything that was too similar to what she’d had to do for GOST—and he’d given her a place to live, hadn’t judged her on anything she’d done. He’d simply listened. He’d also given her some semblance of safety, and she’d be forever grateful to him for that because, in doing so, she’d found herself ready to come back home and face her life again.

Now she gave him all the details she knew about Mark Kendall and his last known position. And when she hung up the phone, the first sense of peace she’d had in a long time settled over her.

Chris certainly didn’t need the FBI to see him guarding the agent investigating him, and besides, he was meeting Cam at 0600. His house was empty, so he showered quickly and headed to the diner near the JAG office to talk with Cam. Cam’s own meeting with Jamie and his lawyer was at 0900; Chris’s, a couple hours later.

Cam was waiting for him, coffee poured, newspaper spread out on the table, which he quickly folded up. The man looked as tired as Chris felt.

“How are things?” Cam asked. He sounded concerned, and yeah, Chris must’ve looked more like shit than he’d thought.

Cam was ten years older than Chris, had been Army from nineteen—went from Ranger to Delta and had seen a hell of a lot of action with both groups. And, as he’d told Chris on the phone, this mission had rocked the shit out of him.

Not an easy thing to do.

“Not bad.” Chris said in response to Cam’s question, and slid into the booth and ordered his own coffee.

“You’ve got to eat.”

Chris didn’t bother arguing, added a breakfast special to his order and waited until the waitress left before saying anything else. And then, “You ready for your meeting?”

Cam shrugged. “Not much to get ready. Agent Michaels has all my notes and she’s done everything but scan my brain for a memory chip. Besides, it’s not me they’re after. I don’t know what else I can bring to the table to help you out, bro, but I sure wish there was something.”

Here, in the relative quiet of the diner, the men could go over that last night, point by point. But the fact remained that, because of the circumstances, there hadn’t been a hell of a lot of talking going on the night Mark was killed—it was all reaction.

“There was a locked door inside the embassy—it had to be stocked with C4. The explosion was well planned.”

“We were compromised from the second we landed,” Cam agreed.

Chris ran his hands through his hair, pushing it off his face for the millionth time. It was much too long, as was Cam’s—the way he and his team were supposed to wear it so they wouldn’t get tagged as military. In many places in the world, the U.S. military was not a welcome sight.

He’d tie it back before he dressed in uniform for the meeting with Jamie and the lawyer.

“I’m sorry I can’t help more with anything,” Cam said.

“Tell the truth—that’s all the FBI is looking for.”

“If you believe that, I’ve got a fucking bridge to sell you,” Cam told him fiercely. “You watch your goddamned back, all right? Don’t trust the FBI farther than you can throw them.”

Chris nodded slowly, and Cam muttered, “Shit, sorry. Look, it’s just that I’m used to leading men, not losing them,” Cam noted grimly, pushed the coffee cup away from him.

The Joint Task Force had been born long before 9/11, but this had been the first time either man had been a part of one. Chris was pretty damned sure he didn’t ever want to be part of one again—Cam’s feeling appeared to be mutual. But Chris knew there was more to it than that—the look in Cam’s eyes was that of a trapped man, and it had nothing to do with their failed mission.

“I leave in the morning. Training for a new Op begins in forty-eight hours. My men are waiting for me. I finally got the okay to call in and speak to them last night. Fucking Delta has more rules than the Pentagon,” Cam muttered.

“I haven’t been to the range since this happened,” Chris admitted. “I can’t even see myself moving out again.”

Cam nodded slowly. His expression seemed to make it okay for Chris to continue, to tell Cam what he couldn’t say to his brothers or to Saint.

“When everything’s said and done, I don’t know …” Chris faltered. Felt completely disloyal, as the brothers had promised one another long ago that they would all remain in the military and retire together. The plans for what they would do afterward had always been sketchy—none of the men had ever liked looking very far into the future, and a life outside the SEALs wasn’t something any of them had been ready to consider.

Until now.

Cam was watching him carefully. For Chris, finishing the sentence would make it real.

“I don’t know if I want to stay in,” he said. Firmly. Because it was the truth.

Cam nodded. “So you’d finish up this tour and then …?”

And then. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if they’d accept my not re-upping now.”

“But if they did,” Cam said. “You’d get out.”

“I think so. But this could all be a reaction to Mark. A temporary one.” He buried his face in his hands. “Fuck, I don’t know,” he said, his voice muffled. “I don’t know what I want. I do a lot of good, I know that. But death is hitting too damned close these days. I used to think that people were brought into your life for different reasons—to teach you lessons, to help you through the hard times …”

“Sometimes people come into your life for good things,” Cam said, and yeah, that was a surprising revelation, something Chris hadn’t exactly thought about. “One thing I’m sure as shit about is that this life isn’t for the weak.” He finished his coffee, and grimaced as he looked at his watch. “Fuck, I’m going to be late.”

Cam stood—his sleeves were pushed up, and for the first time Chris noted the mark of a tattoo that had been lasered off on his left forearm.

“What about you? You ever want out?” Chris asked.

Cam paused, stared out the window for so long Chris thought there was someone out there waiting for him. But when Chris glanced outside himself, he saw nothing but an empty parking lot.

Finally, Cam turned back to Chris. “Do I want out? Every fucking day of my life,” he muttered, and then walked out without looking back.