Chapter 7
Chapter seven
Crowe
I hadn’t actually planned on staying in bed with Noah all night.
I figured I would stay until he’d fallen asleep and then move to the couch.
But that hadn’t happened. He’d rolled over on his side and curled up and went right to sleep like he didn’t have a care in the world.
If my presence was what gave him that feeling of security, I couldn’t bring myself to take it away, so I stayed.
Which led to my current predicament. I was laying on my side of the bed, flat on my back, with a very warm and soft Noah wrapped around me like an octopus.
I wasn’t sure when it happened, which was odd for me, seeing how I was a light sleeper.
He was on my right side with his head on my chest, one of his legs was twined with mine, and his arm was wrapped around my chest.
I knew I should move, but I wasn’t sure how to manage it. When he woke up and realized he sprawled all over me, he would be so embarrassed, but I didn’t see any way out of the bed without waking him.
“Noah,” I said softly, but he didn’t move. “Noah,” I repeated a little louder the second time.
“Hmm,” he murmured. He shifted slightly and then froze. He lifted his head slowly and looked up at me. “Jackson?” He blinked up at me, obviously not fully awake and a little bit confused.
Fuck he was so gorgeous like that. I’d spent two days with him in this cabin, and I’d been good. So good. But a man can only take so much laying here with his body pressed against mine while he looked up at me with those big hazel eyes, and it pushed me over the edge.
I wrapped my right arm around him and held him close. I ran my hand up and down his back. “Morning.”
“Morning,” he said, his eyes not leaving mine.
I lifted my head up and looked into his eyes. “You should move away if you don’t want me to kiss you.”
He bit his lower lip and then said, “Okay.”
I waited a second to see if he would move. He didn’t.
I wrapped my fingers in his hair and took what I wanted. It wasn’t a hard kiss. It wasn’t rushed. It was slow. Exploratory. Like I was giving him the chance to pull away.
Noah made this small, almost startled sound against my mouth, and then his hand slid up my chest and fisted into my t-shirt like he needed something solid to hold on to.
I shifted onto my side, rolling him gently onto his back without breaking contact. The movement pressed our bodies together, and his breath hitched. His lips parted under mine, and I tasted sleep and warmth and something that felt dangerously close to surrender.
I pulled back just enough to look at him, our foreheads touching, both of us breathing harder than we had any right to be from just a kiss.
“Noah?” I said his name like a question, needed to make sure he was with me.
He looked up at me, not confused, not embarrassed, and he leaned up and kissed me again. I was lost in the kiss, but not so lost that I didn’t hear the low buzzing sound coming from outside. I lifted my head and froze in place, listening.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Shh, listen.”
“What is that?”
“It’s a drone.” I rolled off Noah and over to my side of the bed, reaching for my phone. I dialed Kat, and she picked up right away.
“What’s up, Crowe?”
“Did you send a drone to my cabin?”
“No, I didn’t. You have a drone?”
“I have a drone. Got to go, Kat. I’ll call you in a bit.”
Noah was sitting up, looking at me with concern on his face.
“It could be nothing,” I said, trying to reassure him, not that either of us believed me. “But we’re going to treat it like it’s something. I need you to do me a favor, okay?”
He nodded. “Whatever you need.”
“Good. What I need is to know you’re safe while I check this out. I know you have certain triggers, and this won’t be easy for you, but I need you to hide, okay?”
He gave a panicked glance towards the closet and nervously licked his lips.
“Not there. Come with me.”
I went over to the rug that was on the floor between the living room and the kitchen and pulled it back, opening up the hatch that led down into the cellar.
“You want me to go down there?” he asked.
“I know, baby, but this is the safest place in the cabin. No one even knows it exists. It won’t be for long, I promise, and I won’t lock the door so you aren’t trapped down there. You’re hiding down there. It’s different.”
I could tell he wanted to argue and insist that he stay up top, and I understood why, but I needed him to be safe. We didn’t have much time. Whoever was flying that drone over the cabin wasn’t far away.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay, I can do this.”
I didn’t respond because I didn’t think I was the one he was talking to. I just watched as he slowly forced himself to go down those steps into the cellar. I followed him down and watched as he took in his surroundings.
It had all the normal stuff a tornado cellar had—food, water, a cot, blankets, and flashlights—but it also had a full array of weapons, and tactical gear.
“Wow. You’re prepared, aren’t you?”
“Always.”
Noah watched in silence as I geared up. I shrugged into my shoulder holster, slid my sidearm into place, checked the mag out of habit, then chambered a round. I tucked my backup at the small of my back and pulled my jacket on over both.
I turned back to Noah and cupped his jaw. “You’ll be safe down here. Okay. You hear me?”
He swallowed, but he nodded.
I went up the stairs and closed the hatch behind me, putting the rug back in place, just as my phone alerted me to the presence going past the gate.
I went out the back door and slipped around the cabin until I reached the front corner and peeked around it. The same sedan from yesterday was creeping up the drive. Before they got close enough to see me, I moved quietly and quickly towards the trees where I would have plenty of cover.
The car stopped in front of the house, and two men got out. One scanned the tree line. The other headed straight toward the cabin like he belonged here. I needed to stop him before he went inside the cabin where Noah was hiding.
“Little early for visitors,” I called out evenly.
Both of them snapped toward the sound of my voice. The one nearest the sedan went for his waistband. I drew and fired once. The shot cracked through the trees, and he spun and went down hard in the gravel. The second man dove behind the sedan and fired back.
Wood splintered behind me as I moved further from the cabin with one thought in mind. Keeping this guy as far away from Noah as possible.
He leaned out, trying to spot me. I fired again, hoping to force him back into cover and buy myself some time. It worked, and as soon as he couldn’t see me, I ran through the wooded area, circling around his car.
He expected me to go for cover in the cabin so that was where his focus was, but I wasn’t near the cabin at all. I came around the back of the sedan just as he stepped out again, looking for me. I closed the distance fast.
He fired as I grabbed his wrist, jerking the muzzle wide.
The bullet tore uselessly into the trees.
I drove my elbow into his jaw and slammed his back against the car.
His gun hit the gravel, and he swung at me all wild and panicked.
Fear does that to you. Makes you sloppy, but I kept it tight.
My knee to his ribs, then I spun him around and caught the back of his neck and slammed his face into the hood of the sedan hard enough to dent the metal.
He sagged but didn’t drop, so I wrapped my forearm across his throat from behind and cinched tight, pressing against his carotid, restricting his blood flow.
He thrashed for a few seconds, then his movements stopped. I lowered him to the ground and used zip ties to secure his arms and legs so he wouldn’t go anywhere when he came to.
I walked back toward the first shooter. He was leaning against the car using his left hand to apply pressure to the gunshot wound. I kicked the gun out of reach and shook my head. “Bad morning for you, but you’ll live,” I said quietly.
I stepped back but didn’t lower my guard. I kept scanning the treeline just to be safe as I pulled my phone out and dialed.
“Wolfe,” I said when he answered. “I’ve got two. One shot, one unconscious. Same sedan from the other day.”
“Noah?”
“Noah is safe.”
“Okay, Hawk and Gator are headed your way. They loaded up as soon as you called about the drone. They’re a good three hours out, though.”
“No worries. I’ve got things under control here. We’ll see them when they get here.”
“Sounds good.”
I looked at the guy who was leaning against the car and sighed. “I guess it’s a good thing I never got around to chopping that wood since an empty woodshed is a good spot for you to hang out and think about all the ways you went wrong.”
I grabbed him up, dragged him around the side of the house, and tossed him in the woodshed. “The more you move, the more you’ll bleed. So if you want to live, I strongly suggest you keep still.”
I closed the door behind me and went back over to retrieve the other guy.
He was still out cold, so I had to use a fireman’s carry to get his heavy ass to the shed.
Something I didn’t enjoy. Number one had scooted himself up so he was leaning against a woodpile, and I dropped number two at his feet.
“Is he alive?” Number one asked.
“Do you care?” I asked.
He shrugged his one good shoulder.
“That’s what I figured.” I shut the shed door and clicked the lock in place. My grandfather had built that woodshed. It was sturdy as a rock with a concrete floor and no windows, so I wasn’t worried about them getting out. They were there to stay.
I hurried inside and pulled back the rug. I opened the hatch and called down to Noah. “Noah, I’m coming down.”
“Jackson, is that you?”
I hurried down the stairs to find Noah sitting in the corner, his knees drawn up tight, using them to hold up a shotgun that was pointed right at me. I’m not sure I’d ever been so proud of anyone in my life. He might be scared, but he was a fighter.