Uncovered by Truth (14 page)

I stand in my spot, unmoving, staring her down like a lion stalking its prey. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable under my predatory stare. Without warning, I make my move. In two long strides, I’m on her. She doesn’t have time to react to my advance and gasps when I have her pinned against the kitchen cabinet.

“Do you know what it does to me when you challenge me? How hard it makes my dick and how much I want to be buried inside you?” She swallows hard and I have a small sense of pride that I’ve rendered her speechless. I bring my lips to her mouth and she opens in invitation, but I don’t give in. They whisper over hers, just barely touching, making her want more. I trail over to her cheek and continue down to her neck. “Is that what you want, Elizabeth? For me to take you right here and finish what we started that one day?” She moans in response and my lips feather down her neck. My hands go up her rib cage and skim over her breasts before going around to her back. Her head tilts back and her eyes close in anticipation. The affect we have on each other is undeniable.

And I take that moment to snatch the envelope out of her hand.

Pulling back, I flash her a cocky smile, but she’s not looking at me. Her head is still thrown back and it appears she has no clue I stole it from her or that I’ve backed off. A low chuckle rumbles in my chest at her complete oblivion. She peels her eyes open, her mouth dropping when I wave the envelope in her face.

“Close your mouth, sweetheart. That’s what you get for being a little tease.” I wink at her and walk back to the couch as I snicker to myself.

“That’s—that’s just playing dirty, Alex.” Glancing over my shoulder, she has her hands on her hips and looks to be on the verge of a tantrum. She’s so damn adorable.

“I never claimed to fight fair.” Opening it up, there’s a wad of cash inside. I’ll have to make sure Turner gets a Christmas card this year. He thought of everything.

“What’s in it?” she asks, leaning over the back of the couch.

“A little money to get us by until I get everything worked out.” I still have no idea how that’s going to happen. Whenever I talk to Turner, it doesn’t seem like there’s ever any progress. And now that I’m on the run, everything has changed.

She comes around the couch and sits down beside me. “What’s the plan?”

I sigh. “Right now, I don’t know.” That’s the truth, too. I don’t have a clue and that worries me. It’s rare I don’t have some kind of idea on what to do next. It’s a foreign feeling and I hate it.

We’re both silent for a few minutes. “Let’s play a game,” she says suddenly with excitement in her voice.

“A game where you get naked?” I wiggle my eyebrows up and down at her suggestively. She responds by smacking me in the arm and I rub it, pretending that it hurt.

“Is that all you think about?” She acts like she’s offended, but I know she loves it.

I shrug. “I’m a guy.”

She rolls her eyes. “Let’s play twenty questions. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know you like I should. I know how I feel about you, but I want to know all the small details too.”

“Are you sure you want to know more about me? There might be some deep, dark secrets hidden away. You might not like what you find out.” I’m only half teasing her when I say this. I am keeping a secret from her, and it’s pretty big. She knows the important parts about me, but she might not see it that way when she realizes I’ve been lying to her since the day we met. Hell, she doesn’t even know my real name.

She squints at me and sizes me up. “I’ll take my chances and go first,” she replies. I hope she doesn’t ask me anything I have to blatantly lie to her about. “Chocolate or Vanilla?”

“Vanilla. Least favorite activity?”

Her lips purse together and she taps them with her finger. “Paintball,” she says decisively with a nod of her head.

“You didn’t think that was fun?” I thought we had a great time.

“Uh, no. I don’t consider getting shot in the ass fun. I was bruised for a week.” I wince slightly remembering the purple bruise on her ass cheek. I still kind of feel bad about it. “If you weren’t doing private security, what would you be doing?”

“FBI.” That’s not a lie technically. “What about you?”

“I’d be a teacher. Who knows, maybe someday I’ll be able to teach and put my degree to use.” She gets a faraway look in her eyes and I know this is something she’s passionate about. Once the dust settles, one of my goals will be to push her to pursue it. “Have you ever been in love?” Her question catches me off guard. I’m not sure why. I knew we’d have this conversation eventually, I just wasn’t expecting it to be now.

“Before you, I thought I was in love once.” In the past whenever I’d think about this, I used to get upset and angry. Angry that I wasted so much of myself on someone who threw it all away. Now, I thank God it didn’t work out because it ultimately led me to Elizabeth.

“And?” she prompts.

“Nope, it’s my turn.” She scowls at me, causing me to laugh. “Where do you see yourself in twenty years?”

She leans her head back against the couch and takes in a deep breath. “If you had asked me that question five months ago, the answer would’ve been easy. Now? I have absolutely no idea. It’s terrifying, but also so liberating. I feel like for once I can make choices that make
me
happy.” Her attention comes back down to me and her left eyebrow arches. “What happened with you and that girl?”

“You really want to talk about this?” I groan.

“Yes, you’re not getting off the hook that easy. You know about my past with relationships. It’s only fair I know a little about yours.”

“Fine,” I sigh. “I met her in high school. She was a year younger than me. When 9/11 happened, I knew I wanted to join the Army. She wasn’t exactly thrilled, but I went and enlisted anyway. She found the enlistment papers in my jacket pocket one night. To say it didn’t go over well is an understatement.” I can still hear her yelling at me when she realized what she was holding. “She told me I was selfish and was super pissed that I went off and did this.”

“She said you were
selfish?
” Her eyes are wide in disbelief. I’m sure it was the same reaction I had when she said it to me too. Once the shock wore off though, I felt nothing but resentment toward her.

“Yep. I should’ve known then that it wasn’t going to work out, but I was either too dumb or too young to realize it. I went off to basic training and got stationed close to home once I graduated. Everything was fine until I got deployed. I’d been gone for about seven months and was coming up on my two-week leave. She kept telling me how excited she was and how she couldn’t wait to see me. She picked me up from the airport and was real quiet on the way home. I made a joke and said something like, ‘What? Did someone fill my shoes while I was gone?’ And she just started crying. Then I knew what was going on. Turns out she had been cheating on me for most of the deployment.”

Her hand goes to her mouth. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

“Eh, it happens. The bad thing was I was planning to propose to her while I was home.” I let out a humorless laugh. “Dodged a bullet on that one.” After that, I focused on nothing but my job. I never thought I’d trust a woman again after that kind of betrayal. Sure there were other women in my life, but only on a very casual level. I definitely never thought I’d fall for someone, especially while I was undercover.

“Wow, no kidding.” I half expect to see pity on her face, but I don’t. There’s nothing but understanding and compassion there. Maybe it’s because she knows what it’s like when things don’t go as you plan, but I’m thankful for it. The last thing I want is for her to feel sorry for me. I got enough of that when she dropped me off at home and I had to tell my family why she wasn’t with me. Then there were the stares and looks of sympathy from my guys when I went back overseas. I not only hated my ex for what she did to me, but also for the way her actions made everyone treat me. Every time one of my guys looked at me differently, or a family member told me how sorry they were, it would bring the hurt and betrayal back to the surface. Which would immediately be replaced by disgust and anger.

“My turn,” I announce after a minute of silence. “Missionary or doggy style?” Enough with this serious shit.

AT TWENTY YEARS
old, you never expect to see the things you do when in combat. But here I am, fresh out of basic and shipped overseas to help fight the war on terror. I knew what I was signing up for when I requested the infantry, and I don’t regret it. I take pride in serving my country, but it doesn’t make it any easier to sleep sometimes.

It’s another day, another patrol. Our deployment keeps getting extended. What started out as twelve months has now turned into eighteen.

Five hundred and forty-five days.

It’s to the point where I don’t even give a shit about anything anymore. I think a lot of us are getting that way. We’re getting more careless, more daring, and less cautious.

Sweat runs down the sides of my face as we get ready to arrest another scumbag. He’s been planting IEDs on the sides of the roads. We want to know who’s supplying them.

I’m at the front of the line ready to bust down this door. The five of us are lined up front to back, knowing exactly what we need to do to clear the room, find our target, and hopefully bring him in alive. On the count of three, the door gets busted down. I stride into the room first, keeping low with my weapon drawn and ready to fire. I’m about to take a right to clear this side of the room, when I see it. By the time my mind registers what’s happening, it’s too late.

A crushing pain hits me in the chest right before I see the flash from the muzzle. The force of the three rounds knocks me back a little, but I’m able to squeeze off a few shots before I collapse to the side. I make sure I’m not blocking the doorway so he doesn’t pick us all off one by one. Breathing instantly becomes difficult. Even with my vest on, it feels like I’ve been hit in the chest with a hammer by fucking Thor.

After a few bullets echo through the room, I hear “All clear!” I glance over long enough to see a couch lined up perpendicular to the door, the dead asshole lying motionless behind it. He was tipped off and waiting for us to bust in here.

With every ounce of energy within me, I try to sit up, but can’t. My Kevlar helmet feels like it weighs a hundred pounds and my head falls back unable to hold it up anymore. I fight to keep my eyes open, knowing that I need to stay awake. My guys are trying to talk to me, but they seem so far away as my eyes slowly drift shut.

Just another day in hell.

But then I hear it. The voice of an angel. “Alex, can you hear me?”

Alex? Who’s Alex? My mind is telling my eyes to open, to look at the one who’s here to save me, but they don’t listen.

“Wake up!”

My eyes open and I see Elizabeth sitting over me, eyebrows creased with worry. My heart is beating a mile a minute and my breathing is accelerated. Sweat runs down my temples just like in my dream—well, flashback. I take a few deep breaths and clear my mind of the images, of the feelings I had to relive.

“Are you okay?” she asks hesitantly. “You were groaning a lot and your face was twisted up like you were in pain. I’ve been trying to wake you for a couple minutes.”

My hand rubs down my face before I sit up in bed. Backing up against the headboard, I try to hide my embarrassment. No one has seen me like this. Well, those assholes did when they first took me, but no one I care about. The instant fear that I’m over there again, the sweating, the heavy breathing, the shaking, the relief I’m not there, then the guilt that some of my brothers never came home are all bottled up inside. I’ve always dealt with it on my own and hid my problems from everyone.

“Sorry about that.” I’m still edgy, feeling the effects from my nightmare.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I can’t even meet her eyes for fear of what I’ll see. “No,” is all I say.

“Are you sure?” she persists.

I look up at her. “I said I don’t want to talk about it,” I grit out at her. She’s momentarily taken back by my tone, but then I see the hurt written all over her face. Knowing how Cal treated and kept things from her has me wanting to kick my own ass. “I’m sorry. It’s just not something I talk about a lot, but I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“It’s okay,” she says quietly, but I know it’s not. She’s visibly upset and I’d do anything to keep from making her feel that way. Even if it means opening up to her and exposing my vulnerabilities.

“No, it’s not.” I take in a deep breath and blow it out slowly, preparing myself to discuss things that only my brothers on the battlefield know about. Holding my arm out to her, I say, “Come here and let me hold you.” Really, she’s holding me, making me whole when I thought I’d never have someone like her in my life. She comes over and snuggles up to my side without hesitation.

“No one knows that I have these dreams—these nightmares. I used to have them at least a few times a week after my very last deployment. It’s like everything I’d done and seen was finally catching up with my psyche or something. Over time, they happened less and less until they stopped for the most part. But lately, I’ve been having them more frequently again. I’m thinking it’s the stress of everything going on that’s bringing it to the surface.”