Chapter Sixty-Seven
Isla
He didn’t wait until eight a.m.
A half hour before midnight, the bed shifted, and a hard body slid under the covers as muscular arms wrapped around me from behind.
His scent, crisp and clean and laced faintly with pool and maple syrup, surrounded me, and for a moment, I just breathed him in.
Then I turned in his arms to face him. “You took him to Chug’s.”
“A little intruse told me to.”
“How was the cast-iron pancake?”
“You tell me.” His mouth covered mine, and he kissed me. Sweet, intoxicating, he stroked deep, but he also took his time. Like he was telling me something.
My head floated and the day melted away, but my heart still felt it.
I pushed against his chest.
Easing back, kissing me once, twice, chaste, he finally laid his head down and looked at me in the light of the moon. “You’re running.”
I should’ve already left, but I’d foolishly wanted one more night in this bed with this view, so I’d set the alarm for six a.m. “You’re a father.” I never planned on being here when he came back.
“I am.”
“You need to concentrate on that.”
“Was I not attentive to you both today?”
He was perfect. But if I told him that, if I thought about it any more, I would shatter into dust, so I chose a different path. “You didn’t tell me.” That had hurt. But it was nothing compared to seeing Linc’s face when he’d said his mom had been great.
“I told you I needed time,” Will stated calmly.
“So you could what?”
“Ease Lincoln into it.”
Feeling like an ass for asking, I rolled back over. “He’s great. Why are you here?”
“You’re here.” He shoved his thigh between mine and pulled me in close until I felt the hard length of his stupidly large dick.
My traitorous core pulsed in anticipation even though I was sore from three nights of his marauder plundering. “Your son is at your house.”
“I know where he is.” His mouth trailed up the back of my neck before he softly kissed my temple.
I fought a shiver. “You should be there too.” At his ridiculously amazing oceanfront house that was every dream for a home I never knew I had.
I wondered how many people he’d had to kill to afford it.
And shit, now I was thinking about Linc and his safety because I knew this world.
Or tangentially, through Wolf. I felt obligated to ask, for Linc’s sake.
“Should I be concerned about how many people you’ve killed to afford the house your son is in?
Or what you actually do for a living? Because now that you have Linc living with you, shouldn’t—”
“My son is safe. Full stop. When you’re with me, so are you. As far as my occupational status, I own a private security firm. In addition to being a private military contractor, Paragon Operations offers intelligence support, security services, and full-force engagement when needed.”
Oh God. “Full-force engagement.” Why did this sound a thousand times worse than the Teams? Was this what my brother was doing?
“Yes. Do you know the term Tertia Optio?”
“I….” Oh, dear God. “Isn’t that a CIA term?”
“Tertia Optio is Latin for the Third Option. When diplomacy and military force fail. The third option is covert action.”
Given the way he was both answering and not answering my question, I suddenly realized this man was so much more than a warfighter.
Every dominant inch of him now made complete sense, and I simultaneously fell deeper for this complex hero while not at all being okay with what he did.
In fact, I wanted to beg him not to be the third option.
I wanted to plead my case for him to step away from all danger—for his son’s sake, for me.
But I had no right to ask that. Not when I was planning on leaving.
And how could I ask him to not be who he was?
Wasn’t that the very reason I had left the only home I’d known when I was sixteen years old?
As if sensing my spiraling thoughts and internal conflict—which, why wouldn’t he, with his all but admitted CIA background and training—his lips brushed my shoulder. “You don’t need to worry about Lincoln right now. He’s sacked out. I’ll be back before he wakes up.”
Damn it, even that stung. “All’s right in your world.”
“I don’t give a shit about my world.” His voice lowered to a fierceness I wasn’t expecting. “I care about Lincoln’s, and I care about yours. I’ll protect both with my life.”
Tears sprang, and I wanted to encase my heart in a concrete vault and sink it to the very bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.
Then I wanted to kneel at his feet and beg him to tell me what to do because my mind was fighting my flayed, exposed heart as both battled for a fifteen-year-old who deserved better than me.
“Do not say that. This isn’t about me. You protect your son. ”
“I’ve already said it. This absolutely involves you, and I’ll protect you both.” He threaded his fingers through mine. “Now you’re going to tell me why that scares you.”
Because he was perfect, and I wasn’t. Because he was everything with Linc that my father hadn’t been with me. Because I couldn’t be his son’s substitute mom.
“I’m not scared.” I was terrified.
“Every tense muscle in your body says otherwise. Which is why I want you to talk to me.” His strong arms pulled me in even closer.
“At a minimum, I’m going to acknowledge what you’re feeling.
Fair warning, though, I never aim for the least possible effort.
I know you’re overwhelmed. It’s an understandable and normal reaction.
But I want to hear your reservations, in your own words, intruse. I’m asking you to give me that trust.”
Damn this man all to hell. And how could I have been so wrong about him?
He wasn’t simply my brand of danger—a warfighter with a dominant language that spoke to my soul.
He was total annihilation, and now I was hanging on by a thread to my very valid reasons why all of this was bad.
Except every second more with him and his powers of persuasion were weakening my resolve.
Especially when he held me like this, roughly whispering his deep-voiced promises. Ones I’d never dared to dream of.
I tried to fight. I truly did. Pushing at the solid strength of his arms, I argued. “We don’t do this.”
He didn’t budge. “I’m glad you recognize there’s a we, but I’m not on board with the context. Do what, exactly?”
“Talk.” Be intimate with our hearts. “Have midnight confessions and discuss our feelings.”
“Now we do.”
“Why? Because you broke in, climbed into my bed, and said so?”
“Suite key. Didn’t break in. Our bed, and yes, this is happening because I say it’s happening.”
I laughed without humor. “It must be nice to be God’s favorite.”
“Trust me, Isla, I’m no one’s favorite.”
Said without self-pity or resignation, he stated the horrifically sad sentiment as if it were a simple fact, and this organ in my chest that I no longer knew how to protect, hurt. It hurt so much, I forgot why every reason he was here was bad as I turned again in his arms. “Will—”
“What happened to ‘Nix’?”
“A fifteen-year-old boy happened.” But now I wondered what had happened to fifteen-year-old Will, with his Vice Admiral father who’d controlled his career trajectory and ruthlessly kept Will from his son.
“You are absolutely Linc’s favorite living person, and before you barged into this bed, you were definitely in the running to be my favorite person. ”
“Who’s my competition?”
“My brother and a cool kid named Linc.”
He smiled just for me. Full lips closed, the right side of his mouth tipping up more than the left, it was stunning. And sexy as hell. “He is a cool kid.”
“Very cool.” I tried to play it off like my heart wasn’t cascading a million beats a second from a simple tip up of his lips—lips that’d been all over my body. “Much more so than his father,” I teased.
His smile dropped. Then, with a gentle caress but a heavy hand, he pushed my hair back from my face and cupped my cheek.
“Something changed between us today. More than you meeting Lincoln. In the pool. I saw it.” His chest rose with an inhale, and his voice deepened as it became alarmingly, intimately quiet. “What happened to you, Isla Sennan?”
I didn’t know the tears were falling until a six-foot-four SEAL pulled me into his arms and whispered in my ear. “Sh, I got you. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
The tears fell harder, and I cried for a fifteen-year-old boy who’d lost his mom, a SEAL who was robbed of his son’s childhood, and me—a girl who’d lost her own childhood.