Chapter Eighty-Nine
Blade
I was going to kill the Army motherfucker. “What the fuck did you do to her?”
She quickly swiped at her face and pulled away from the prick, but he didn’t take his hands off her. “It’s okay, Blade.”
The fuck it was. “Stand the hell down, soldier.”
The fucking pussy held his hands up. “I didn’t do anything to Lynnie. I was just comforting her.”
Georgia, Georgia Lynn, Juniper, Juni—this woman had a host of names, and she’d looked pissed as hell when the lawyer had called her Georgia. I still wasn’t sure which name she’d land on, but I’d bet my land it wasn’t gonna be fucking Lynnie.
“Comforting her after she told you to stop?” I’d fucking heard that prick as I approached. He’d also apologized. I wanted to know what the hell for. Not that I wasn’t going to end him if he didn’t step the fuck away from her in two goddamn seconds. “Not repeating myself again. Stand. Down.”
“Oh my God. Blade .” She covered her face with her hands.
This woman never fucking hid. Not like that. She got in your face, all five feet of her, and she lit into you.
Glaring at the motherfucker, I crossed the porch in two strides and took up a defensive position in front of her.
Looking like he was going to shit himself, the prick stepped back. “I didn’t do anything to her. She was already getting sick when I came over. I was just—”
“You’re sick?” I glanced back, but she was still hiding her face.
“Go away,” she mumbled. “Both of you.”
“Not happening.” I looked back at the fucker. “Leave.”
He had the balls to address her. “Lynnie? Is that what you want?”
“ Oh my God ,” she rasped.
I drew.
The fucker held up his hands. “I’m going, but if Lynnie—”
I aimed.
Tripping over himself, the lanky fuck took off like the pussy he was.
I waited til he entered the house next door, then I holstered my Sig and turned on her. “How sick?”
“Go away, Blade.” She dropped her hands, and her eyes were swollen from crying. I wanted to go shoot that Army prick. “And for the record, you can’t point a gun at everyone you hate.”
It’d served me well so far. “You need medical?”
“Are you just going to ignore what I said?”
Yes. “You weren’t sick this morning.”
Her face turned red, and she crossed her arms. “You followed me.”
Fucking inhaling, managing to not put my hands on her, I pivoted to chase her side of the damn conversation. “I followed the lawyer. He dropped you off here. This isn’t a soft landing.”
“And you know what soft means?”
Yeah, her sweet ass when I pounded into her from behind. “It’s not safe here.” The neighborhood was shit, and Rawley was probably close by.
She threw her arms up. “Who’s going to come after me now? A SEAL with a gun and a crappy attitude?” She rolled right through to an answer without my input. “Spoiler, you’re already here!”
I’d take the yelling if it meant she wasn’t that sick. It was also a fucking improvement on that bullshit thank-you she’d left me with. “You’re not staying here. Let’s go.”
“I’m not leaving. It’s my house.”
“Not the issue.”
“Then what is?” She dialed down her volume but not her attitude. “Because last I heard, you were telling a certain Superman attorney that there’d been a sweep team. I’m no warrior SEAL or mercenary, but even I’ve seen enough movies to know what that means. So tell me, what exactly is the issue with me being at my house that has no evidence of, of….” She waved her hand toward the lower end of the split-level house. “Of that .”
I switched gears. “Have you been inside?”
“ Obviously .” She laid on the sarcasm but kept her voice lowered. “I was here with you last night.”
“Today,” I amended because I could guarantee shit looked way worse in daylight inside that fucking shithole.
“Why the hell do you think I was hurling over the side of the porch?”
Because it fucking reeked inside, and no sweep team was going to stick around long enough to clean up that kind of shit. But that wasn’t what caught my attention. “You were vomiting?”
“Yeah.”
My fucking head went there even though the math didn’t add up any way you spun it. “Since when?”
“Since I walked into a piss-and-rotten-food-stinking dumpster fire of a house that I—stupidly, I might add—signed paperwork for that will transfer the deed to my legal name. Complete with probably years of back taxes. Lucky me.”
“The lawyer will handle the taxes. I’ll make a call to get the place cleaned up.” Or taken down to the fucking studs if I had to. “Until then, you’re not staying here. Let’s go.” Fishing out my cell, I hit the porch steps.
She didn’t follow.
I glanced back.
Arms crossed, looking mad as hell, she gave me a glare that made me want to fuck her right there.
“Problem?”
“I don’t need a fixer.”
Recognizing wounded pride and years of shit no one could take away for her, I exhaled slowly. “Not what I was aiming for, woman.” I was. But only on this issue.
“What’s my name?” she abruptly asked.
Fuck. I knew where this was going. “What do you want it to be?”
“You called me Georgia last night.”
I owned it. “Also called you Lioness.” She was a fucking survivor, and the woman was feral when I made her come. The descriptive fit—when I put a fucking possessive adjective in front of it.
“Does a lioness need a fixer?”
Christ. “Not having a fucking conversation about animal kingdoms, woman. But if you want to get technical, then a lioness needs a goddamn mate. Get your ass down here.”
She sidelined me again with another subject change. “I’m selling the house.”
“Good.” Great.
“The attorney’s picking me up at eleven.”
Not fucking great. “I’ll tell him you got a ride.”
She dropped the bomb I’d anticipated. “I’m flying back to Miami with him. Victor will have my Jeep waiting.”
“I’ll fly you to Miami.” After I got her back on my land for a few days.
“Your plane’s in Montana.”
Exactly. “You done dancing around this bullshit? Not saying the shit you need to say?”
“ Me? ” she asked incredulously. “You’re the one who said you wanted to talk to me, then you didn’t say anything at the hotel.”
“Neither did you.”
She fucking yelled. “Yes, I did!”
“ Thank you ? Did that feel fucking good when you dumped that bullshit on me, woman?”
“It wasn’t bullshit!”
“Yeah, it fucking was.” And I was done letting it slide. “So was walking the fuck out on me.”
She flinched.
Already on the goddamn battlefield, I was past dirt-driving this mission. “I told you I didn’t sleep with women, but I bedded down with you, Georgia. I told you two years ago meant something. It also fucking meant something last night. I took, but I gave. You had me, but, woman, I had you. Every fucking second, I had you .”
Tears fell down her face.
I kept firing. “You felt that fucking pull. You had my word. That’s why you let me inside your body. You knew I’d give you what you need. Rough, hard, I delivered. You also got raw and soft. I may have pushed your limits, but I held your trauma. I made you come. And I didn’t fucking debase or hurt you to do it. You willingly submitted. You didn’t safe word. You came undone, then laid down and gave me sleep. That’s fucking trust. So don’t stand there and feed me bullshit about a thank-you being the last goddamn thing you needed to say to me.”
She choked back a sob.
I bit out the demand. “Tell me why you left.”
Her eyes closed, more tears fell, and her face twisted. Then she looked at me and verbally kicked me in the chest. “You said you had a life. I heard those words as rejection.”
“Woman.” Fuck . “That’s not what I’d been aiming at.”
She kept annihilating me. “You told me to go live my life. You said I was free. But all I felt was burdensome, dismissed, and rejected.”
Goddamn, I’d fucked up. “You were never a burden. And make no mistake, I was not rejecting you. I was giving you a choice. That’s what I meant by freedom. You fucking deserve that.”
She didn’t hear a damn word I said. “I don’t know how to live my life. All I’ve known is loss. Then I was losing you too. I wasn’t strong enough to survive that, so I tried to leave before you woke up and left me.”
Jesus fucking Christ . “I wasn’t going anywhere, woman. Not without you. Not after last night.” I tipped my chin toward the house. “I told you we’d tackle this shit together. I made myself clear.” But that didn’t mean she’d fucking heard me.
“You were clear, but you’re a warrior, Blade. That will always come first. I can’t compete with that.”
What the fuck? “I’m not active duty, woman.”
She stared at me for two beats, then she inhaled determination, and I knew. Whatever the fuck she was gonna say next, it was gonna piss me the fuck off.
Her pitch, rasp, and tone all went south of soft. “When I was sad, damaged, and vulnerable, when I was broken and the world started raining bullets, who stopped everything he was doing to save me? Who jumped the curb, threw open a door, and saved me?”
I didn’t fucking answer.
“When I was homeless, hungry, and lost. When I was even more broken and running for my life. Who stopped everything he was doing to find me and save me? Who put himself between me and raining bullets a second time?”
“Woman,” I warned.
“A Valhalla warrior did.” She looked at me like I was her fucking religion. “You did that, Blade.” Her eyes welled. “That’s who you are. That’s who you’ll always be. I never want you to change. You deserve a lioness. But I’m not one. I don’t know how to be strong enough to watch you walk into the fire every day.”
The devil I’d been skirting for two goddamn years came out. “I’ll retire.”
She smiled through tears. “I would never ask that of you, even if I didn’t think it was the one thing you don’t know how to do.”
“Don’t underestimate me, woman.”
The smile disappeared, and she whispered, “I’m not strong enough for you.”