Chapter Nine
Ricky was not proud of the clipboard thing.
Okay. Maybe he was a little proud.
Especially now, one-week post-mission, when the legend had grown to include “death by office supplies,” “assassination via admin,” and Hogan’s personal favorite, “death by bureaucracy.”
The first time someone slapped a fresh clipboard onto his locker door with a handwritten “Caution: Weaponized,” he’d flipped them off.
The second time, he’d laughed.
The third time, Sophia had carefully colored in a label that she no doubt had help with and it said, “Uncle Ricky’s Battle Board.” He’d nearly cried and hung it in the suite’s tiny kitchenette like it was the damn Medal of Honor.
Yeah. He was coping fine.
The Ridge was buzzing again. Fully staffed.
Fully operational. A rotating roster of private and public contracts kept the training grounds full.
Former Delta guys were running live drills with civvy consultants in one sector, and a corporate team-building nightmare was screaming through a mud pit in another.
The kids—Sophia, Ryan, and baby Celia—had the run of the central courtyard, and every operator on-site had quickly learned that Sophia took her new family duties very seriously.
Ryan tripped on a gravel path that morning, and the man Sophia now called “Uncle Blake” had nearly caught a rock to the head for laughing.
“I’m just saying,” Ricky had told Ezra later, “if the kids ever go feral, I’m putting money on Sophia as alpha.”
Ezra had smirked, proud and helpless. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
He wasn’t wrong. Sophia had blossomed in the space of a week—learning to play, to laugh, to be.
It was Ryan who showed her how to climb trees and belly-slide down the little hill outside the mess.
Celia, barely walking, followed her like a baby duck.
And Sophia? She was still protective, still watchful.
But her crinkle-browed scowl had softened.
Sometimes.
The Ridge itself had leveled up, too. Trainers on salary.
Marsh’s tech getting contracts that made bank.
A brand-new AI-assisted drone calibration suite had just passed beta trials, and rumor was a major defense contractor had made Marsh an offer big enough to buy a private island.
He turned it down and added solar panels to the comms roof instead.
“They don’t get to buy my toys and make war with them,” Marsh had said. “They pay me, I make war.”
It made sense. In a terrifying sort of way.
There were also moments of humor that Ricky hadn’t been expecting. Like that morning.
He was mid-stretch in the gym, wiping sweat from his brow after a sparring session with Hogan, when the man stomped back in wearing an expression that screamed mildly homicidal confusion.
“Everything okay, sunshine?” Ricky asked, tossing him a towel.
Hogan caught it, wiped his face, and groaned. “I swear to God, if he sends me one more damn emoji...”
Ricky blinked. “Who?”
“Kai.”
Ezra, from the bench press, didn’t even look up. “He texted you again?”
“I never gave him my number!” Hogan snapped. “And yet ... here we are.”
Ricky tried not to laugh. “What’s he sending?”
“Well, yesterday it was explosion emojis and sunglasses. Today it’s an eggplant, a smirking face, and glass of water and a ... salad bowl?”
Ezra choked on his water.
Hogan narrowed his eyes. “What the hell does that even mean?”
Marsh chose that exact moment to stroll in with a protein bar and the worst timing known to man. “It means he wants you to eat clean, hydrate ... and destroy him in bed. Probably in that order.”
Hogan’s face turned bright red. “I—what?”
“Oh, yeah,” Ricky grinned. “That tracks.”
Ezra finally sat up, grinning. “Look, you should probably know—Kai’s technically DEA, but he also works freelance. His methods are ... not always legal.”
“Understatement,” Marsh muttered.
“Which is why,” Ezra continued, “when you asked him if helping us would get him fired and he said, ‘which job?’, you should’ve known.”
“I did think that was weird,” Hogan muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.
“He flirts like a sledgehammer,” Ricky offered. “You either duck or fall.”
Marsh, deadpan, “Or combust.”
Hogan growled and stormed off, muttering something about “damn emoji code” and “not having time for this chaos.”
“Save me a dance,” Ezra had called after him.
But even with everything going well—contracts, peace, Sophia laughing again—Ricky had one growing problem.
One bedroom. One child. One severely neglected sex life.
It wasn’t that he didn’t love having Sophia curled up between them with a picture book, or watching Ezra sing her to sleep with lullabies in the language Van once used for battlefield code.
It was just...
“Every time I get him naked,” Ricky muttered, “someone knocks on the damn door. Or she asks if I’m hurting him.”
Blake, sitting at the kitchen counter with a mug that said “Sleep is for the weak”, raised a brow. “You realize you two are basically parents now.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t realize parenthood meant celibacy.”
Blake snorted. “God, you sound like Bateman when Celia was teething.”
“I’m dying,” Ricky said, deadpan. “Literally dying of sexual repression.”
He rubbed a hand across his jaw, then sighed, more heartfelt this time.
Blake rolled his eyes and reached for his phone. “Fine. I’ll take her for a sleepover tonight.”
Ricky blinked. “Wait—seriously?”
“Yup.” Blake typed something, then glanced up. “I’ll make pizza, Ryan will show her YouTube videos of goats in pajamas, and Celia will try to eat a crayon. It’ll be chaos. She’ll love it.”
Ricky could’ve kissed him.
Ezra walked in at that moment, towel around his neck, hair damp from a post-run shower. “What’d I miss?”
“We have a babysitter,” Ricky said reverently. “Tonight.”
Ezra’s brows lifted. “You didn’t bribe him with anything major just so that we could have sex, did you?”
“No,” Blake muttered, deadpan. “But my rates are negotiable.”
Ricky grinned and grabbed Ezra by the waist. “Cancel everything. We are going to defile every surface in that suite tonight.”
“Not the kitchen counter,” Blake called behind them. “Some of us eat there.”
Ezra laughed as Ricky tugged him out of the room, already plotting the exact order in which they’d lose clothing. He stopped them as they were crossing his lounge toward the bedroom.
“We’ve talked about building, right? A house. On that little bluff overlooking the lake.” Ricky leaned forward and pulled Ezra’s shirt from his frame, practically drooling at the hot expanse of skin that came into view.
Ezra tilted his head, curious. “You want to break ground?” Ezra returned the gesture and removed his, and then started walking backward toward the bedroom again. But as they were removing each other’s clothes it was more like a stumble.
“I want us to have a home. Not just a room.”
Ezra smiled softly. “You trying to tell me you’re tired of Sophia kicking you in the nuts while she sleep-crawls?”
“I’m trying to tell you that I love you and haven’t seen you naked in ten days because our suite is now a zoo.” Ricky said as he reached for the man of his dreams.
Ezra’s smile lit the room. “Show me, love.”
One week after fire and fear, after fists and blood and rescue, this was what came next.
Home.
Laughter.
And tonight? Some very creative cardio.
****
The two of them fell into the bedroom, a trail of discarded clothing behind them, and Ricky looked at him, mouth curved in that cocky, desperate grin that made Ezra’s knees feel weak.
He loved that they could switch it up between them, that they could both give what they wanted to their lover, but other times take what they needed.
He had loved being the center of Ricky’s attention.
But tonight?
Tonight was Ezra’s.
He stepped forward, caught Ricky by the hips, and walked him slowly backward until the backs of his knees hit the bed.
“Sit,” Ezra said, voice low.
Ricky did, breathing hard, pupils blown wide. “You planning something, sweetheart?”
Ezra dropped to his knees. “Oh, yeah.”
Ricky's smirk faltered into something softer—something reverent—right as Ezra leaned in and took him into his mouth. No teasing. No warm-up. Just Ezra’s lips sliding down, his throat opening as he took Ricky deep, one hand wrapping around the base, the other braced on Ricky’s thigh.
“Jesus,” Ricky choked, fingers tangling in Ezra’s hair.
Ezra groaned around him, hollowed his cheeks, and pulled back with a slick pop before diving again. He angled one hand lower, slipping behind and pressing gently until Ricky gasped—head tipping back, muscles shaking as Ezra found that sweet, hidden spot inside him.
Ezra worked his lover, taking cues from his reaction, loving the uncontrollable way Ricky jerked, lifting his hips and pulling Ezra’s hair, one minute uttering curses, then apologies for tugging too hard, or rolling his hips too strong, and then next, begging Ezra to take him over the edge, before crying out that he didn’t want this to stop.
Unlike his Ricky, Ezra had had other lovers before, but nothing could have prepared him for how hot he got getting his lover off.
It had always been about the release for him.
He wasn’t an asshole and always made sure that his lover of that time left with a smile on their face, but he had never hovered at the brink of orgasm by sucking on the cock of his lover.
But with Ricky? He was close, every damn time.
Feeling his own balls tighten against his body, he reached down to tug his own cock to stave off the impeding release and worked Ricky harder with his mouth, and tapped his prostate a little harder, needing him to come before this night fizzled out a little.
Ricky came with a cry that punched the air from his lungs, hand clamping on Ezra’s shoulder like an anchor. Ezra didn’t stop until he’d wrung every shiver from him, until Ricky was sagging against the mattress, flushed and breathless.
Then Ezra stood, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and said, “My turn.”
Ricky reached for him, dazed. “You’re gonna kill me.”
“No, baby,” Ezra said, climbing into his lap. “I’m going to love you.”
They kissed, slow and hungry, and it turned Ezra on even more to know that Ricky could probably taste himself in Ezra’s kiss but was so into what they were doing he didn’t give a rat’s ass.
Ricky was breathless beneath him, cheeks flushed, pupils wide.
Ezra watched him for a moment, watched how his body curved toward touch, how his hands trembled as he reached for the lube on the nightstand.
But Ezra caught his wrist.
“No,” he said softly, voice rough with need.
Ricky blinked, confused. “Ez?”
Ezra leaned in, kissed him hard, then deeper, until Ricky melted under him, pliant and gasping. “Tonight, I take care of you.”
He kissed Ricky’s jaw, then his throat, and then nudged him to roll over. Ricky obeyed without question, and something about that trust—raw and simple—hit Ezra square in the chest.
He pressed a kiss to the back of Ricky’s neck. “So goddamn beautiful.”
He trailed his mouth down Ricky’s spine, pausing to bite gently at his shoulder. Then again, just above the swell of his ass—open-mouthed kisses and lazy scrapes of his teeth, leaving heat and faint marks in their wake.
His. Ezra didn’t just feel it—he needed Ricky to wear it. To carry proof of his hands and mouth like a brand of love and longing.
He slicked his fingers and worked them in slow, curling and stretching until Ricky rocked back against him with breathless moans.
“Ezra,” Ricky gasped. “Please—”
Ezra lined himself up and pushed in, slow and steady, the heat and tightness stealing his breath.
Ricky groaned into the pillow, muscles trembling.
Ezra braced over him, kissed his shoulder again, then his neck. “You feel—fuck—Ricky, you feel like home.”
He began to move, a slow, claiming rhythm that left both of them shaking. Each thrust was punctuated by a kiss, a whisper, a soft bite. Ezra could feel Ricky unraveling beneath him, every moan a declaration, every shift of his hips a plea for more.
Then Ezra sat back on his knees, dragged Ricky up with him until his back was flush to Ezra’s chest. One hand wrapped tight around Ricky’s cock, stroking in time with the roll of his hips.
“Come for me,” Ezra whispered against his ear. “Let me feel you.”
Ricky cried out, body bowing as he spilled over Ezra’s fist, shuddering with the force of it.
Ezra followed with a strangled groan, driving deep as his orgasm ripped through him. He held Ricky tight, buried to the hilt, both of them gasping each other’s names into the hush of their room.
It was love. Possession. Home.
And Ezra never wanted to let go. They collapsed in a tangle of limbs and breath and whispered curses.
Ezra didn’t move. Not for a long time.
Eventually, Ricky shifted enough to brush hair back from Ezra’s face. “You okay?”
Ezra nodded, kissed him. “Better than okay.”
They climbed into the bed properly and lay there in the afterglow, skin damp, limbs tangled, hearts still thudding.
Then Ricky murmured, “You were serious about the house, right?”
Ezra turned his head. “Yeah. You?”
“Yeah.”
Ezra smiled, letting his fingers trace lazy patterns on Ricky’s chest. “We’ll need two bedrooms. One for us. One for Sophia.”
Ricky grinned. “And an armory. Obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“A giant shower,” Ezra added. “Big enough for cardio.”
Ricky chuckled. “You building a house or a fantasy suite?”
Ezra yawned into his shoulder. “Both.”
****
The monitor glowed in the dark, illuminating the face of the man seated in the cheap motel room not far from Obsidian Ridge.
He didn’t blink as the screen scrolled through surveillance footage. Albania. The Ridge. That kiss on the Ridge porch.
Target confirmed.
He tapped a key. Images of the man from their compound, the one who had come to work for them, appeared, caught in grainy stills—punching out a trafficker with a clipboard, holding a child in his arms, smiling like a man who thought he was safe.
The man exhaled.
“You are not safe.”
His contact from the DEA had come through. The file was complete. Ricky Bowen. Pathfinder. Former Special Operations Forces. Now tied to something the organization had thought eradicated.
He clicked over to a new file. Three photos.
Sophia.
Ryan.
Celia.
They’d been lucky in Albania.
They wouldn’t be lucky again.
He picked up a burner phone and sent a message to the two embedded assets already stationed under the guise of corporate clients at The Ridge.
“Track Bowen. Prepare for retrieval. Then we will begin rebuild. Stateside.”
The reply came instantly.
“Confirmed.”
The man smiled.
Revenge was coming.