Just This Once (Men Of Porth Luck #1)

1. Mal

I only smoke after sex. After the thrill of a one-night stand. Roaming hands, bruised lips, legs tangled in the dark.

No past.

No future.

No names.

Just a connection burning like a fireball until it’s nothing but the embers of a shared cigarette.

Love that shit.

But this…

This is better.

The wind hits me first, screaming up the open ramp of the aircraft, swamping my senses with jet fuel and altitude, toxic purity at its finest. Then the craving comes, barbed and electric, for the fall, for the freedom, my mind somehow blocking out the fight of our lives we’re jumping into.

It’s fucked-up—I know it is. But up here, nothing can reach me, even as the dusty desert air rises, the sky below flashing with chaos and death.

Everything blurs. Regrets. Bad choices. Words unsaid, rifts unfixed.

The only presence I’m truly aware of beyond the renegade thud of my pulse is that of my men.

My friends .

“Green light in five.”

The warning crackles in my ears. I tear my gaze from the swirling clouds and find the stare of my best friend.

My boss.

Sergeant Vincent.

Vinnie .

By my side every moment like this since we passed selection together five years ago. Calm as a mill pond, he grins, checking his altimeter, then mine, before moving past me to dad the rest of our team.

Moth.

Jon.

Raven.

Orion.

They don’t need his supervision any more than I do.

They’re not afraid. We’ve jumped into the night a hundred times.

More. But these moments before the drop, the endless black below us shattered only by the regular flash of artillery and gunfire, he needs this, and we love him enough to let him have it.

Vinnie comes back to me. Checks me again. Grasps my shoulders as my body jolts around. I’ve never been good at the still parts of our job.

Not like Jack.

I roll my eyes. At myself. At Vinnie.

He shifts his grip to my chin, forcing me to look at him. “Stay close.”

The rare command is drowned out by aircraft noise, but I see the words form on lips I used to dream about before I got over my attraction to the hulking beast of a man he’s become. My favourite clown. The best friend I’ve ever had, mainly because he’s one of few souls on this earth who tolerate me.

I acknowledge him with a nod. And that’s it. Time to go .

First man in, I jump.

Freefall.

Untouched silence, save the wind ripping past. Bliss , as I ignore gravity pulling at my chest, wicked tension a warning in my ears—in my fucking soul—that the wild rush I’ve been craving for weeks now won’t last more than a few ecstatic seconds.

My chute deploys.

No . I don’t want this. But I can’t fight the inevitable. I soar upwards, and…it’s over. I drift in the dark, through the clouds that won’t last the night, sacred seconds of peace before the ground looms up to meet me, and my feet make contact with the earth.

Silent landings, we’re good at them.

We hit the dirt scattered around the ruins of the bombed-out town, but pull together before the sandy air hits my lungs. Weapons up, we fan out, and I try not to choke on the dust filling my mouth. I fucking hate the desert.

But I hate this eerie quiet more. Ominous, it bears down on us, the welcome party we’ve planned for still hiding in the shadows.

The radio crackles in my ear. “Roll out. South east. Stay tight.”

Vinnie .

His voice settles me, and we move like ghosts through the shattered buildings, chasing down the target we’ve been after for months, our mission tattooed on our collective brain.

Jump. Locate. Neutralise. Ex-fil before any fucker knows we’re here. No drama. No escape and evasion theatrics.

Get shit done and go home. Or at least back to a base with running water and food that doesn’t taste like bland death.

Rubble hits my boots. I weave around it, light on my feet, energy buzzing in my veins.

Keep ‘er lit.

“Stay frosty,” Vinnie murmurs, like he’s in my fucking head. “We’re getting close.”

I suppress a snort. Stay frosty . He’s learned that shite from the US Marines we robbed blind before we did a moonlight flit to the forward operating base, and he won’t stop fucking saying it.

Because it makes the rest of us laugh, even now as we creep through this fucking town, shadows on shadows, and find nothing.

Our target?

Not here.

Fuck.

An hour later, we rally in a ditch.

Vinnie pulls us in while Jon and Orion take watch. “Time for plan B.”

The village eight clicks out.

I nod, already psyching myself up for the dusty tab north. Raven and Moth stuff chocolate in their mouths, but I don’t need it. This shit comes easily to me. It’s everything else I have trouble with.

“Hey.” Vinnie zeroes in on me, turning me away from the others. “You good?”

I dead-eye him, showing him the soldier I am—the soldier he knows me to fucking be. “Why are you asking me that?”

Vinnie narrows his eyes, assessing me, funnelling that gaze deeper than anyone else usually bothers. “You seem off.”

“Like all your batshit girlfriends?”

“Watch it. I’ve got a wife now, remember?” Amusement threatens the severity he’s lancing me with. “And you’ve never stuck around long enough for anyone to be crazy about your daft self.”

“So?”

“So, maybe it’s time you tried something new.”

Here we go . We’ve had this conversation a thousand times. Why he wants to have it again right now is beyond me. “I try lots of new things and I like it that way. Leave me alone.”

“Do you, though? Like it, I mean? Are you happy, mate?”

“Aye, I’m happy. Can we shove out now?”

“Fucking right,” Moth mutters.

Vinnie ignores him and lowers his voice to barely a rumble. “I’m serious. We have short lives in showbiz, and you’re blowing through yours like it’s nothing. What are you going to do when you wake up one day with nothing but your dick in your hand?”

“Go put it somewhere else.”

“Not funny.”

“I’m not laughing. I’m just not like you. I don’t need a wife and an anti-social cocker-poo to be content. I’m not built for that life.”

“You’ve never tried .”

“I don’t want to.”

“You should call your brother more often.”

I blink, caught off guard by the pivot, aware of Moth and Raven melting as far from us as they can in the cramped space, adept at tuning out of personal conversations in bizarre fucking places. “I call Jack.”

Vinnie looks beyond me to scan our horizon, a flicker of respite before he’s on me again. “You should call him more . He loves you.”

“You’re not giving me new information here.”

“I know, I’m just trying to stop you dying alone.”

“Nice.” I lean away.

Vinnie forces me back. “Promise me you’ll think about it.”

“Why?”

“ Mal .”

I sigh. “Aye, dead on. But shut the fuck up about it, okay?”

Vinnie nods. My belligerence fades, and it’s my turn to assess the view, shutting him out—shutting it all out. I don’t want to think about Jack right now. Or the possibility that every notch on my bedpost takes me further from what I need:

Someone to smoke more than one cigarette with, and to forgive my stupid self every time my inborn Gallagher bluntness gets the better of me.

Someone to give a fuck if I don’t come home, wherever that is.

And I get my wish. The mood shifts, we need to move, and Vinnie’s out of time to pick apart my life choices.

We roll out of the ditch and start the tab north to the second location.

It’s a quiet run, too quiet. Unease seeps into me with every stride, and I know the others feel it as the village looms on the horizon and we draw close enough to catch the shadows of patrolling men, the glint of their rifles in the moonlight.

The building on our radar is deep in the settlement.

We mapped the route and two alternatives before we got airborne.

Sticking to the plan, we split up.

I take Moth and Orion, Vinnie takes the others.

More creeping. More shadows.

But it’s different now. I feel unseen eyes all over us and stress has my heart in a vice. My pulse thumps an anxious tattoo, battering my eardrums. Familiar these days— don’t think about it .

I try.

But it’s annoying, and has me longing for an ambush.

Anything to pull me out of this dizzying apprehension, and that’s the thing about the twilight moments before a fight to the death.

There’s no fear in the stillness, but my heart skips a beat all the same, and not in the way Vinnie talks about when he goes home to his wife waiting on him, more glowing and beautiful than ever.

This shit…it’s sharp and grating, and I’ll take a hail of mortar fire over it any day of the week.

We reach the building and I press tight against a wall, waiting on confirmation Vinnie and the others have circled round the back.

Thud, thud, thud.

A discordant rhythm that won’t quit. Until it does, and that skipped beat is somehow louder.

I tighten my grip on my weapon, grounding myself in the blood-warmed metal. The radio crackles a split second before Vinnie comes on line.

“In position. Be ready?—”

Gunfire cuts him off.

Contact.

The night explodes with the rattle of AKs, muzzle flashes lighting up narrow streets, and the seismic shift is instant.

Bullets shower the space around me, blasting through concrete, shards of debris ricocheting, every bit as fierce and deadly.

I use the carnage as cover and spin away, dropping low, returning fire in controlled bursts as I holler at the others to push forward, taking the fight to the enemy until we know which way is up.

Vinnie echoes my instruction, but I seek no comfort in his voice this time.

I don’t need it. This—it’s what I’m good at, and my stampeding pulse fades to nothing.

I forget about it. I forget everything except the ritual of putting one boot in front of the other and squeezing the trigger as the world explodes around me.

I drop hostiles like they’re nothing. Like they don’t have families or futures.

Detached in a way that’ll haunt me later if I don’t find something—or someone—to distract me.

But a faceless hook-up is the last thing on my mind right now.

I point and shoot, and we break the wall of resistance.

C8s outweigh the AKs and I see light in the form of Vinnie and Jon ahead of us.

They’re running.

So am I.

No sign of Raven, but I’m not worried. He’s slower, but efficient as fuck. If he’s alive, he’s doing God’s work cleaning up after the rest of us.

Can’t help him if he’s dead.

We sweep the building, checking faces against the one we committed to memory before we got here. Moth finds him. Objective achieved, but our mission remains incomplete until we get the fuck out of here.

I’ve got no air in my lungs and there’s no one left to shoot.

Not inside, anyway.

I swing around.

Vinnie’s right there, his face smeared with dirt and grime, sweat dripping down his temples despite the bitter cold of this place. His eyes meet mine, and alarm flares, concern for me that I don’t immediately understand.

Then it hits—the dizziness I carried into this firefight. The breath-stealing pain as my pulse spikes out of control, my breathing caught, too fast, too shallow, the cramped stone room tilting a wild angle I can’t make sense of.

“Hey.” He catches me before I fall. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

I don’t know. I try to push through it, even as my weapon slips from my weak hands, my vision blurred, nausea rearing hard and fast.

Am I hit?

Vinnie’s train of thought matches mine. He searches my body for injury, his attention fixed on me as if we’re the only souls left on earth. He lowers me to the ground. My knees hit the dust as his hands come back clean.

I’m not hit.

But something’s wrong . Did I bash my head? Break my fucking neck somehow?

I have no clue and it scares me more than the prospect of dying.

My gloved hand finds Vinnie’s arm. My shaking fucking hand. “I?—”

But a roar from Moth drowns me out, a warning shout that reaches Vinnie too late.

He wrenches his gaze from mine in the same moment a single shot blasts from a hidden hatch in the floor behind him. Claret blooms across his chest and he lurches forward, toppling us both to the floor.

I scramble to escape his weight, panic obliterating whatever fuckery sent me to my knees.

No.

No .

This can’t be happening. More fire explodes around us, more bodies fall, too rapid and violent for me to keep track of as I find the space to grip Vinnie’s shoulders and shove his weight hard enough to put some space between us.

His vest is obliterated, blood pouring from a gnarly wound too close to his heart for me to contemplate. I rip off my gloves and press a hand to it, fumbling for the medi-kit in my belt.

Morphine.

Bandages.

It’s not enough.

Blood saturates my fingers and Vinnie coughs, life draining from his face, his eyes absent and staring. Vacant, like he’s already gone.

I grip his vest and shake him. “Stay with me.”

Vinnie blinks.

And then he’s gone and the burn in my chest has nothing to do with the fucked-up beat still lashing my heart. The fight’s still raging, but all I hear is silence—a yawning, endless cavern of it where Vinnie once stood.

He’s dead.

I press my forehead to his, consciousness fading fast enough that I hope I’m dying too, but the universe has other plans.

The ground beneath me trembles. Dead air punches a hole in my brain with a muffled roar and the shockwave of a vicious explosion tears through the building. The walls groan, or maybe it’s me. Or Vinnie and he’s not really gone.

None of it matters as sudden, blistering heat blasts our tiny fragment of space in the world, lifting me—lifting us —and hurling us farther into hell.

Fire blooms.

I think.

But it’s brief, before darkness rallies to meet it and takes me down whole.