Chapter 29 Doc
DOC
Mine.
It was the only thing I thought to myself as I scooped her into my arms. Feeling her against me made every single day I just spent away from her worth it. She was safe, we had eyes on the enemy, and all we had to do was sit back and wait for the information to roll in.
I couldn’t get those eyes out of my head, though.
I tore through the threshold of the bedroom. I kicked the door closed, only to toss her to the bed. Her squeal of delight was music to my ears, and a small flick of my fingers locked the door so that no one could get to us.
“God, how I missed you,” I said as I turned and reached for my belt buckle.
She licked her lips as her gaze raked up and down my body. “I’m really glad you’re safe, Doc.”
I slid the belt out of its loops with one hand. “I missed you, too, my Liz.”
She sat there, perched on her knees on the mattress, her hair spilling all around like a beautiful halo of darkness. I reached out and turned off the light, allowing only the first morning rays of the sun pouring through the window to illuminate her body.
I toed off my shoes. “You are a vision, my Liz.”
She reached her hands out for me. “Come here, Doc. There’s something clearly on your mind.”
I grinned as I walked toward her, ripping off my shirt. “There are a lot of things on my mind.”
I wanted to hold her. I wanted to kiss her.
I wanted to squeeze her and hug her and cuddle her and sleep with her at my side so that I knew, every second of every day, that she was all right.
I wanted to press every part of me against every part of her.
I wanted to make her scream until my name was the only thing etched in her throat.
It could have been her. Any one of those sets of eyes could have been my Liz—
“Doc,” she said as her thumbs smoothed over my stubble.
I focused back on her, only to find a look I’d never seen before on her face.
“What?” I asked.
I wasn’t sure what I whispered.
“Doc,” she whispered as sympathy furrowed her brow. Her thumb swiped again and I felt something wet against my skin. “What happened out there? What did you guys do?”
I leaned my lips down and captured hers, but I tasted salt. I reared back, checking to see if she was crying. But she wasn’t.
Was I crying?
“Daniel,” she urged softly as she cupped my cheek. “You’ve got me all sorts of worried. What did you guys get into out there?”
“Can—Can I just—”
I eased her back down to the bed, her hair splaying across the pillow. I wanted to run my fingers through it. I wanted to tuck her head beneath my chin and cradle her against me forever. But first, I needed to hear it.
Her heart beating.
My ears had to hear it.
“Oh,” I sighed with relief as I laid my ear against her chest, finding that steady rhythm.
I closed my eyes as she carded her fingers through my hair. “Talk to me. Please.”
I swallowed hard and nuzzled softly against the feel of her beating heart. “Plan went off without a hitch.”
“I’m sure it did, since you guys all came back unharmed. But I know something happened out there. What happened?”
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to tell her. My Liz was strong, though.
At the end of the day, she was military.
She had training in this kind of thing. Death and destruction weren’t new to her, and a woman didn’t have to be in the military to experience that.
The more I lived, the more I realized that the plight of a woman was constantly fending off the one side of the species that wanted to both procreate with them and kill them.
Wait a second, she was military.
That reminded me.
“I have something for you,” I said as I sat up.
She quickly pushed herself upright. “What is it?”
I swung my legs over the bed and jammed my hand into my pocket.
“Doc?” she asked.
“Gimme just… one… sec… there it is,” I said as I pulled out a folded up piece of paper. “Here. Ranger gave me this to give you to.”
She furrowed her brow. “Marla’s Ranger?”
I chuckled. “Do you know any other Ranger?”
“Ha. Ha. Ha,” she said as she unraveled the piece of paper. But then, she gasped, and her gaze whipped back up to mine. “Oh my God.”
I reached out and laid my hand on her knee. “I’m a man of my word, Elizabeth.”
Her eyes darted back to the piece of paper before coming back up to my face. “You guys reached out to my superior officer.”
I nodded. “Didn’t take Ranger very long to track down who it was. Cap and King handled the initial conversation from there.”
Her eyes dropped back to the piece of paper as they darted over the words. “Wait a second. They’re…?”
“Wanting to help, yes.”
Those eyes came back to my face. “They’ve offered their help.”
“To us, yes.”
“This,” her eyes were back to the paper, “this says I won’t be in trouble.”
“Mhm.”
She held up the paper at me, like I couldn’t see it. “You guys… really talked to them?”
I squeezed her knee softly. “Of course, we did. I wasn’t just going to let you worry about something like that and me not do anything about it. We just had to time it right, that’s all. Your safety is paramount, above all else.”
Her brow furrowed like she couldn’t process what I said. Her gaze moved from the email to me, to the email, and back to me again.
“Are there any others?” she asked.
I chuckled as I pulled her legs into my lap.
“There were plenty of emails exchanged, yes. But I figured this was the one that would settle your mind. So I had Ranger print it off for you. Your superior officer knows what’s going on now, my Liz.
You’ll be welcomed back just like you were on any other mission whenever you’re physically capable of being back. ”
“And in the meantime,” she said as she looked back down at the piece of paper, “if we need anything, I guess you and my superior officer are buddies now. Or something like that.”
I grinned. “Or something like that.”
I had to look away from him then. Not because I was angry or embarrassed, but because the feeling that rushed through me was too big and I didn’t know what to do with it.
The whole time I was in that hot tub spiraling, and in that shower falling apart, and in every quiet moment where the fear of losing my career crept back in, I told myself that I was handling it alone.
That there was nothing to be done. That I’d have to face it when the time came and just hope for the best. I pressed my lips together and stared at the folded piece of paper in my hands.
He just went and did it. Quietly, without making a show of it, without even telling me it was in the works.
He just handled it because I needed it handled.
I cleared my throat. “Thank you, Doc.” “No thanks needed, My Liz.” I nodded a few times, more to myself than to him, and blinked at the ceiling until I was sure I wasn’t going to cry on him again.
I’d already used up my quota for the week on that front.
She stared at the piece of paper for a little while longer before folding it back up.
When she finally looked back at me, something in my chest pulled taut.
There was a brightness in her eyes that I hadn’t seen since before everything went sideways, and it made me want to give her every good thing I could think of, one right after another, just to keep seeing it.
But I watched her notice my face. She always did that.
Catalogued. Filed things away. Her eyes moved over me the way mine moved over her whenever I was checking her bruises, and she went a little still.
“Doc,” she said softly. “What happened out there? What did you guys get into?”
“What?” she asked, her head snapping back to face me.
I sighed heavily, the boulders finally rolling off my shoulders. “The ring knows we’re onto them. It’s what we found tonight while we did what we were doing. They’re getting rid of their merchandise, Elizabeth. To cover their tracks.”
Her jaw hit the floor before she reached out for me. I accepted her arms graciously, collapsing into her as my ear found her heart beating once more.
I was so thankful that she was alive.
“You know that’s not your fault, right?” she asked as she stroked her fingers through my hair.
The words just sort of… fell out of my mouth. “We came across a room where there was at least ten different women. All dead. Dead long enough for their eyes to be clouded over. It wasn’t recent. I couldn’t—there wasn’t any—none of them had pulses, or were warm, or—”
I felt her arms tighten around me, and the dam opened.
“The instant I saw that first set of eyes, I couldn’t help but think about you.
How that could’ve been you. How, had we not gotten that ransom video that showed us you were even a victim in the first place, how we probably never would have rolled up on you until it was much too late.
With every pulse I checked, I wondered if yours would still be beating when we got back.
With every pair of clouded eyes that I turned over and saw, I wondered if that’s what your eyes would’ve looked like if—”
“Aaaall riiiiight,” she dragged out softly, her hands migrating all around my body.
Oh yeah. I was crying. “I couldn’t stop thinking about how they were just killed for nothing. To cover some fucking tracks.”
“My God, I’m so fucking sor—whoo!”
I went from being held by her to holding her. I sat up, scooped her up, wrangled her into my lap, and held onto her for dear life. I buried my face into her hair, inhaling her scent, committing everything to memory so that I could draw on it for the rest of my life.
For the rest of our lives.
“Be mine, my Liz,” I mumbled into her hair.
She giggled as she tucked against me. “I thought I already was yours.”
“Be mine officially then.”
“Mmmm,” she said playfully before she kissed the crook of my neck, “I suppose I can do that.”
“You suppose?”
“Yeah,” she said with a giggle.
I slowly laid her down, pinning her beneath me. “Oh, you only suppose?”
Her giggles reignited as she wiggled around a bit. “Well, maybe a little more than suppose.”
I leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. “A little more than ‘suppose’, huh? How much more?”
She slinked her arms around my neck. “How much do you want?”
“All of it.”
She blinked.
I leaned forward until our noses were touching, my arms holding me up over her effortlessly.
“You have my word, Elizabeth, that nothing will happen to you like what happened to those girls. No one is touching you. No one is putting a bullet between your eyes. Nothing is ever going to happen to you again because you’re always going to be safe with me. Do you hear me?”
She nodded softly. “I hear you.”
I lowered myself down onto her, my hands on either side of her head. “There’s just one catch.”
“Just one?”
I nodded. “Only one.”
“What is it?”
I captured her lips in a kiss, but I didn’t once break eye contact. “You don’t leave me.”
“I don’t leave.”
“Yep. You don’t leave. That’s the deal. You’re safe with me so long as you don’t leave.”
Her voice was a reverent whisper. “You really want me to be yours?”
I captured her lips again, only that time, I allowed my eyes to close while I relished the taste of her bubblegum lips.
“I want all of you to be mine,” I whispered back.
“GOD DAMN IT, brUTUS!” Cap bellowed.
“All right!” Anna exclaimed over the yelling.
“I’ve had just about a-fuckin’-nuff of you ridin’ Brutus’s ass like some kinda pony fucking toy you can’t seem to fucking share.
I get it! You’re not happy! Join the fucking club and take a goddamn ticket!
But don’t come in here after days of being away and start yelling up a storm like you own the goddamn place.
This isn’t even your fucking safehouse! So what if he fucking—”
I crashed my lips to hers. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t care about the fight. I didn’t care why Cap was mad. I didn’t care about what Brutus had done this time. All I cared about was the woman beneath me, pliant, and ready, and spread out for me.
“I care for you greatly, My Liz,” I muttered as her legs spread for me. “One of these days I want to love you the way you deserve.”
She moaned softly as I sank in between them. “Is it bad to say that I think I already love you anyway?”
I chuckled as I leaned down and kissed her neck. I relished the shiver that ran through her body. “No, it’s not. It feels uncouth to say it so soon now. But just know, My Elizabeth,” I said as I kissed along her collarbone, “that I’d be only a part of myself without you.”
“I’m sure you managed just fine with—oooh, Doc.”
I mouthed over her clothed breast. “What was that, beautiful?”
“Fuck,” she hissed.
“That’s more like it,” I murmured as I slid my hand up beneath her shirt.
My fingertips, finally tickling the soft skin I missed all the days we were gone.
Knock, knock, knock.
I groaned at the intrusion as my forehead fell to Liz’s chest.
She giggled. “Who is it?”
“Cap,” he said through the door.
“What’s up?” I asked, my voice half-muffled by the tits in my face.
“We can’t stay long,” he said through the door, “we’ll have to head out in about half an hour.”
It wasn’t enough time. “Can’t we just take one night and—?”
“I know it’s hard,” he said through the door as I heard him retreating, “but we still have a duty to keep them safe. And right now, safe means staying away.”
I hated that he was right.
“I know something we could do for thirty minutes,” My Liz said.
I turned my attention back to her and found a wicked grin on her face.
“Oh, really now?” I asked as I stalked up her body.
She pushed herself upright a bit, giggling, even as her cheeks flushed with anticipation. “Yeah, really.”
“Well, do you wanna know what I think?” I asked as I crawled up her body and leaned in to nip at her neck.
“Oh,” she moaned breathlessly. “Wh—what do you think, Doc?”
“I think,” I said as I reached down and smoothed my hand back beneath her shirt, “that you haven’t met the monster yet.”
She spread her legs and wiggled around. “Is that what you call him? Your ‘monster’?”
She’s adorable. “No.”
She paused. “No?”
I grabbed her leggings and yanked them down to her ankles.
She gasped as a few stitches popped, and when the fabric pooled around her ankles, I slipped my head in between her legs.
Her feet dangled beside my head, the fabric holding her to be around the back of my neck, as I scooted toward her on my knees, lifting her lower body into the air.
Her pussy displayed itself like an unfurled feast right in front of my very eyes.
“Daniel,” she moaned softly as she reached for purchase against the bedsheets.
“The monster is what I have inside of me,” I said as I licked my lips, salivating. My God, her pussy smelled so fucking good. “And he’s about to take what’s his.”
I’d never eaten such a satisfying meal in all my life.