Chapter One Hundred and Six
Blade
I walked into the house, and my woman was waiting.
Dressed.
“I saw.” Her hand waved toward the security panel. “It alerted, and I looked. I didn’t know if it was you, or if….” Worry twisted her face. “Are you okay?”
“No. You’re dressed.”
“I’m….” She sucked in a breath, then looked down at her feet that were now in pink boots. This woman had more fucking pink than a department store. “Okay, I’m just going to say it because it needs to be said even though I’m not dumb enough to think you’ll listen to anyone except yourself, but here goes.” She looked up. “You’re a SEAL. You do SEAL things. You can’t retire.”
“Did you just call my Lioness dumb?” I didn’t know who the fuck I was more pissed at in that moment, her or that fucking asshole who’d fed me a line about protecting Church.
Both her hands flapped this time. “Fine, I didn’t mean dumb, dumb . I just meant you know yourself better than anybody. And you’re a closed book. I get it now. You don’t do feelings, not out in the open. So, like, work if you want to work—or whatever you call shooting bad guys and saving good people. But don’t use me an excuse to not be who you are. We both know you made that promise about retiring before you knew your brother was alive and doing paramilitary… stuff.”
“You done?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know . Whatever.” Huffing out exasperation, her hands landed on her hips, but her mouth stopped moving.
I addressed what I needed to first. “The month bullshit? It’s done. I want all in. No expiration date. You?”
A tremor shook her short-as-hell frame, and her voice broke. “All in.”
“Good.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Ignoring the urge to put my hands on her, I gave her the reality of what she’d just agreed to. “I knock you up a few times, you give me kids, I keep working. Then one day, I don’t come home because I’m dead. You good with that?”
Horror hit her expression, and her eyes welled, but she held on to that attitude of hers. “Is this some kind of sick, twisted game of what-ifs to try to get me to take back what I said?”
“Not a game, woman. Reality. Answer the question.” Because I needed to fucking know.
“No. No way.” She violently shook her head. “I’m not doing that. What do you always say? Oh, that’s right. Handle your shit .” She spun and tried to take off.
I caught her around the waist and hauled her against my chest.
“You’re all sweaty!” She arched her back and kicked like a mare.
“I fucking love you, woman.”
My Lioness froze.
Then she burst into tears.
Sobbing, covering her face, she shook.
I didn’t comfort her. “I’m not playing games. I need an answer because you’re right. I don’t want to leave my brother hanging. Retire isn’t the same damn word it was a week ago. But I made you a promise, and I love you. Those are words I didn’t think I had a right to say before Church showed up. That was gonna be my confession to you that morning. How warriors have no room for soul. That it’s the sacrifice we make in order to do our jobs. But that was a line of bullshit my old man fed me and my brothers. I’m not him. I fucking love you. Have for a while. You want me home, say the word. You think you’ll be okay raising kids on your own, then we’ll have a conversation. But I’m not going there without you, woman. You hear what I’m saying?”
“ Oh my God ,” her raspy voice whispered. “Only you would make me sob when you told me you loved me.”
I almost smiled. “You saying you wouldn’t have lost your shit no matter when I said it?”
“Don’t make me choose violence.”
I half smiled. Briefly. “Answer the question.”
“You can’t ask me that. I freak out when you’re ten feet away from me.” She swiped at her face. “I’m like your barnacle.”
I’d noticed. The woman was like a dog. Where I went, she followed. I had zero complaints. “Then my promise stands.”
“No.” Shaking her head before I’d finished the sentence, she tried to pull away, but I held firm. “You have to make the decision independent of me.”
“Not happening.” Despite what she’d said, I did listen to her. And I was reading my Lioness loud and clear. No fucking assignments.
She turned in my arms to face me. “Don’t you see?”
“A smoking-hot brunette that puts up with my shit? Yeah, I fucking see you, woman.”
Her eyes softened, and her voice followed. “Thank you. I see you too.” She inhaled, and softness took a back seat. “That’s why I won’t be responsible for taking this decision away from you. I had that done to me my whole life. I’m not going to do that to you.”
“My old man was an asshole who never gave my mom a choice. I won’t do that to you.”
“Blade,” she rasped quietly with a smile before a fat tear fell down her face. “What do you want?”
I took aim and sent it. “To fuck you, knock you up, keep pulling the trigger, and watch you give Church shit at Sunday family dinners.”
“Sunday family dinners?”
“Yeah. My mom made us all sit down for dinner on Sundays. Big spread, no devices. Nonnegotiable. Eat and talk. Only pass was if you were deployed, which was most of the time for my old man. But she kept up the tradition until me and my brothers were all out of the house.”
More tears fell. “That sounds like it was a beautiful time.”
I didn’t want to downplay her ink, and I sure as fuck didn’t want to disrespect the woman who’d brought her into the world, but my Lioness needed an alt contingency plan. “Time isn’t magic, woman. I know you already said as much. But I’m giving you the flip side. Time is what you make of it.” I didn’t want to waste a second of it with her.
“Says the man who has Valhalla tattooed across his chest.”
“Exactly.”
Staring up at me, my Lioness didn’t say shit.
I warned her one last time. “I’m not making this decision without you.”
“Are you forgetting that I’m the one who showed up here and basically inserted myself into your life?”
“You think you’d be here if I didn’t want you?” I’d given her the words. She knew where I stood.
“I think I’m processing.” Color hit her cheeks. “And I think you didn’t come after me.”
Christ. “Woman, I came after you plenty. The bar, the coffee joint, after the hotel in Detroit. I know who the fuck I am. I made choices. I won’t apologize for them, but I also won’t listen to any bullshit about the validity of what’s right in front of us. I don’t give a fuck who showed where. We’re here now. I want it. You want it.”
She smiled. “Do I now?”
“You’re asking for it, woman.” Deep and hard.
Standing on tiptoe, barely reaching past my chest, she kissed my neck. Then she whispered, “Maybe I am.”
Fuck, this woman. Dropping my arms, I tipped my chin toward the bedroom. “Get naked and wait.”
“No.”
“Showering first. Unless you’re joining me, go wait.” Whipping my shirt over my head, I toed out of my trainers.
“I already washed my hair. I’m not showering… or waiting,” she added in a raspy-as-fuck dare.
Oh, she was gonna get it.
Leaning down to my Lioness, not fucking touching her, I gave her a single command. “Run.”