FOURTEEN #2
His smile softened. “Edna would be proud.”
Her laugh filled the kitchen, and he sat there across from her with flour still clinging to his hair and felt the ground under him tilt a few more degrees in a direction he had absolutely no idea how to walk back from.
* * * * *
Stina braced herself for dinner with the Sierra team. Last time, she made pork chops and it had been a free-for-all with elbows on the table and people stealing food off each other’s plates.
This time, they must have been ordered to behave because they all remained standing. She and Jolie exchanged a look and moved to their chairs.
Someone pulled out her chair.
She stood there for half a beat, unsure what to do with the unexpected courtesy.
She gave Rivers a small nod of thanks before slipping into the seat he offered, aware of Rome’s obvious irritation that Rivers pulled out the chair for her before he could get there. She dipped her head to hide her smile.
As the breadbasket circled the table, the arguments started almost at once.
Rivers leaned forward to look across Stina’s plate. “Don’t be a bread hog, Rome. Leave some for the rest of us.”
Rome shot Rivers a deliberate look and took a third slice. “There’s more in the kitchen. Get up and get it.”
“This is exactly what you did in Kandahar. Remember the last protein bar?”
Rome groaned. “For hell’s sake, are you still whining about the protein bar? You were asleep, Rivers.”
“I was resting my eyes.”
“For six hours?”
“At least I didn’t go left in Fallujah when everyone else went right.”
Rome passed Stina the basket with a soft look for her that turned to a hard one when he focused on Rivers again. “I told all of you that I had a feeling. My feelings have saved this team on multiple occasions.”
O paused midbite. “Didn’t your gut feeling get us pinned down for four hours in a drainage ditch?”
“Gentlemen.” Cannon didn’t raise his voice but the single polite word ended the argument.
Rome and Rivers picked up their forks and began to eat.
She looked up at Cannon and caught the glint of amusement in his eyes.
“Good bread, Stina.” He ripped off a bite and chewed.
“Thank you.” She couldn’t stop her smile after that as more teasing and insults volleyed around the table.
She’d grown up an only child. Her house had been quiet, and there weren’t a lot of surprises. Without knowing what she was missing, she secretly wanted this her whole life.
She’d gotten a version of it through Jolie, absorbing the chaos of Jolie’s siblings in a borrowed way where she could step into it for an evening and then go home to her own quiet—but lonely—apartment.
This was different. Sierra seemed bent on cheerfully dismantling each other’s dignity and then five minutes later passing the pasta to the same guy they’d just insulted.
And she loved it. Again, Jolie caught her eye and they shared a smile that said they both did.
After the meal was over and every plate was empty—even the last crumbs from the breadbasket had been picked up on the pad of Rivers’s thumbs and pressed into his mouth, Cannon declared the men were on kitchen cleanup.
When she tried to help, Rome took her by the hand and relocated her to a stool. She just shrugged at Jolie, who sat on a stool beside her.
Stina leaned to whisper to Jolie. “Do you think this is in the SEAL handbook?”
Jolie giggled. “I’m not sure, but this stool is pretty comfortable.”
That made Stina laugh, and they sat together, watching the guys clear the table in a minute flat with all hands on deck. When O handed Younger a kitchen sponge, he tossed it back at him.
“Oh hell no. I’m not washing dishes. I have rank over all of you. I’ll go set up the poker table.” With that, the towering SEAL swaggered from the kitchen, but the exchange left Stina hiding her grin behind her hand.
The longer she was here, the more she realized she’d missed out on a big family.
“Stina? Everything okay?” Rome asked.
She blinked up at him and drew a deep breath. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“You had a strange look on your face.”
She held his stare for a moment, wondering how much to open up to him—to everyone.
Rome had a dish towel slung over his shoulder in a sexy, manly way that made her want to start cooking all over again.
A couple of other guys who hadn’t drifted to the common room after completing their tasks angled toward her, waiting for her to speak.
“I was thinking about my mom and dad.” She looked down at her hands, and Jolie’s came to rest on top of them. Stina offered her a small smile before going on even as she felt a small twinge of guilt that Jolie had lost both of her parents.
“They’re all the family I’ve got. I don’t have siblings, but you all remind me of a big family that I never had growing up.” And it was only a matter of time before they were all removed from her life too.
Rome’s expression made her heart tumble a little more for the man who had started as her protector and ended up…well, more.
“With more testosterone, of course,” she added to lighten the mood and stabilize the unsteady rhythm of her heart.
A round of grins broke out across the room, and her throat tightened at the sight. Not once in her life had she ever guessed she’d end up in a ghost ops base under a closed ski resort at the worst time in her life, with people who felt like family.
She was glad for the distraction when Jolie hopped off her stool. “I’m going to the common room. Want to come with?”
Darting a look at Rome from beneath her lashes, Stina shook her head. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
After all the guys drifted out, leaving only her and Rome, she slipped to her feet and crossed the room to him.
He set the towel on the counter and reached to pull her against him. God, he was so strong and hard…and so much more.
She didn’t know how it happened. When her feelings shifted from annoyance with the man to wanting to stay right here, with her head resting over his thumping heart.
His rough fingertip brushed her chin, and she lifted her gaze to his. Their gazes locked for a heartbeat and both of them moved at once.
She pushed onto tiptoe as he swooped in. Their mouths collided in a soft, seeking kiss, a brush of lips and tongues and the rougher scrape of his beard stubble against her skin.
When they pulled away, she was shaking and Rome’s not-so-small problem was stiff against her stomach.
She ran her hand down his chiseled chest. “Jolie’s expecting us in the common room.”
He gave a short nod, his expression a little quizzical in a way that made her wonder if he was just as affected by their kiss as she was.
He took her hand and led her out of the kitchen, out of what was becoming her domain, and into his.
The guys already circled the poker table, and Jolie had the Monopoly board out.
Stina smiled at the sight—Jolie’s relationship with Monopoly was legendary among her siblings. Stina had heard all the stories about how her skills in economics from raising her family alone made her a force to be reckoned with.
Stina looked at the board and then to Jolie. Then she looked at the stack of pastel money already sorted by denomination.
“I love you,” Stina said, “but I am not playing Monopoly with you.”
Jolie laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ll have Archer’s butt to kick.”
Giving her a flat look, Archer plucked up the dog game piece and set it on the board.
Rome guided her to the poker table that was at the ready. She plopped into a seat.
“Uh-oh, Romey. Looks like we might have a real threat.” Rivers shuffled the cards into a fluid bridge that told her this wasn’t his first poker night. He leaned over the table and caught Stina’s eye. “Do you actually know how to play?”
“Deal the cards.”
“The queen has spoken!” Rivers and everyone else at the table laughed, including Rome.
She lost the first hand on purpose just to see how they played. Rivers was aggressive and overconfident, but he did win enough that she knew it was skill and not luck.
Cannon was unreadable, which put him on her watchlist. And Rome was patient and methodical.
She won the second hand, and a groan rippled around the table as the guys pushed her winnings toward her.
As the hours drifted by, she finally felt herself really relax.
She was safe here, and for the first time since the whole nightmare started, that felt like enough.
She picked up the hand and let herself bask in the warm weight of her lover’s stare for one moment before she schooled her face into a neutral expression and raised the bet.