Chapter 10 #2
A crease appeared between her brows. “What do you mean?”
“You shared something you’ve been carrying alone. That’s not easy.” He brushed his knuckle beneath her chin, lifting her face to his. “Let me carry it with you now.”
The relief on her face was almost too much. He held her tighter and considered sharing his own secrets. The hard ones—Melina, and everything that had driven him out from behind a desk and back into battle gear.
It wasn’t the time. Right now, the moment was hers.
He nudged her slightly. “C’mon. Let’s find something to eat.”
She gave him a slight nod. By the time they wandered into the kitchen, she was composed again.
Everyone was gathered in the dining room having a late-night snack of leftover cold chicken and pasta salad. No one commented on the fact that he and Ellory entered together, or that they sat close enough to touch.
The secret between them drew them closer. But he had to tell Con.
He caught his commanding officer’s eye and started to twitch his head to request a word in private, when suddenly Kennedy stood up with Dante at her side.
Dante’s grin had them all going silent. Kennedy practically fizzed with excitement. The couple turned their heads and looked at each other.
“On three?” Kennedy asked.
Dante nodded.
“One, two…”
They all held their breath.
“We’re having a baby!”
The room detonated.
Cheers crashed against the walls. Chairs scraped. Con shot to his feet, lifting his glass high, while Chase pounded his fork against his in a sharp metallic rhythm that only fueled the chaos.
Alyssa bolted around the table and launched herself at Kennedy, laughing and crying at the same time, already talking about their babies growing up like cousins.
Glasses clinked. Someone whooped. Dante looked stunned for half a second before pride took over his whole face.
Hugs made their way around the table in waves. When Ash reached Dante, he didn’t bother with words. He gripped his brother’s hand hard and hauled him in, their shoulders knocking together in a solid, grounding thud.
“Hell of a shot, man,” Ash muttered.
Dante huffed a laugh against his shoulder. “We got lots of practice.”
Ash shook his head, laughing too.
There was so much to celebrate tonight. New life. New beginnings. Proof that after everything they’d survived, something good could take root.
Ash meant it when he said he was happy for them. Down to his bones.
But even as the noise swelled and Kennedy wiped tears from her cheeks, the pressure in his chest didn’t ease. The secret he carried sat heavy and immovable, painful against his ribs.
Soon, he’d have to say it out loud.
And when he did, this room—this family—wouldn’t sound like this anymore.
Still…they had an obligation to other brothers. In this case, Ellory. They might be able to help find her brother.
Ash had learned the hard way what happened when intel was ignored. One missed detail could cost a life. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Not tonight.
Tonight was for celebration.
But soon the reckoning would come.
* * * * *
The room had gone loud and warm and entirely too beautiful for Ellory to keep her composure intact.
She pressed her back against the wall and watched it all unfold—Dante still wearing that stunned, proud expression like he couldn’t quite believe his own life. Kennedy wiped her cheeks and laughed at herself for crying.
Alyssa was already talking about nursery colors and due dates while tears streamed freely down her face. The men took turns being silly by making enough noise for three people.
The celebration wasn’t at all what Ellory expected when she stepped onto this base.
She’d expected rigid military rules and men who barked out clipped sentences. She’d expected walls. Big ones.
Instead she got this.
They weren’t a big Greek family with long tables and aunts who pinched cheeks and uncles who argued over football. They weren’t Italian, with sauces simmering on the range on Sundays and everyone talking over each other until you couldn’t separate one voice from the next.
They were a collection of people who found each other by way of danger and loss and sheer survival—a melting pot of backgrounds and histories—and somehow, they’d built something more solid than most blood families ever managed. Something richer.
Her throat ached.
She had brothers, but they were spread out across the world now, each focused on their own lives. And she had thirteen months of silence that slowly hollowed her out from the inside. She hadn’t realized how empty it made her feel until she stepped into a room that was so completely full.
The tear came before she could stop it—just one, slipping traitorously down her face. She swiped at it quickly. The other women’s eyes were bright and wet, and Alyssa wasn’t even pretending to hold it together, so it seemed like safe cover. No one would notice if she blubbered a little.
She felt his stare before she looked over.
Angelo was watching her from across the room.
After everything she’d told him in the tech lab…things she hadn’t said out loud and kept locked up in a secure file as well as the tightest corner of her chest…she’d expected Angelo to walk straight into Con’s office before she finished her last sentence.
He was a SEAL. He was loyal to his chain of command, and he had obligations to his team. She’d known it when the words started pouring out of her mouth and she couldn’t make herself stop.
Which meant Con would know soon enough. And once he did, there was a good chance he’d decide she was too close to the situation to stay on the operation.
But he hadn’t moved.
Let me carry it with you now.
She was still turning that sentence over in her chest like a fragile bird she wasn’t sure how to hold.
He’d taken care of her first. Before the obligations, before the chain of command, before all the reasons he should have walked straight to his commanding officer and laid everything on the table… he’d made sure she was okay.
He’d held her. Given her something to hold on to when the storm threatened to shake down all her walls.
The party around her shifted to a new gear when Sinner suggested midnight swimming pool volleyball and the room erupted all over again.
When Opal appeared at Ellory’s elbow and grabbed her by the wrist, she let out a surprised laugh. Before she knew what was happening, Opal began hauling her toward the hallway.
“I have a swimsuit you can borrow.”
Two minutes later, Ellory stood in Opal’s bathroom holding a bikini that was—she turned it over in her hands—not a lot of fabric.
After a beat of trepidation, she put it on.
It was a perfectly nice bikini. It fit. Technically.
But there was something about knowing Angelo was down the hall, his hands too much of a recent memory on her skin, that made her insides knot.
For a moment, she stared in the mirror and drowned in the memory of his mouth moving over her lips, the column of her throat, the curve of her breast, working slowly down her body until she’d stopped being a coherent person entirely.
She dragged in a fortifying breath and walked out.
The pool area was loud and lit up, everyone in various stages of getting into the water. Some doing cannonballs, other performing dives like Olympians. Some were arguing over teams.
“Okay.” Angelo’s voice cut across the noise. “Who gave her that bikini?”
It wasn’t a question. It was an accusation and a caress all at the same time.
He was already moving toward her, peeling the T-shirt off his own back in one smooth, masculine motion, and before she fully processed it, he was pulling it down over her head and tugging the hem to the vicinity of her thighs.
“Angelo!”
He hovered close enough that she felt the rumble of his words as he spoke. “There’s no way you’re playing volleyball in that thing.” He ran one finger in a deliberate arc along the curve of fabric covering her backside.
Her breath hitched, and for a heartbeat, she was trapped under his gaze, frozen with want.
“Ash is team Sinner!” Sinner called.
He shocked her to the core then—with his grin.
Not a twitch of his lips that was almost a smile. Not a small smile. A full-blown sinful grin.
In quick steps, he crossed to the pool and leapt in. His splash sent a wave over everyone in the pool and hit her too. She’d barely blinked away the drops in her eyes before he surged out of the water like a marine animal.
He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and dragged her in with him.
He caught her in his arms and took her under the surface with him. She came up for air, laughing and sputtering.
Angelo’s arms flexed around her once, and he gave her a look that promised more play of the steamy variety later. When he bobbed away from her to get into volleyball formation, she admired the carved muscles of his back.
The game wound up, and around them sounded shouts and splashes and shameless cheating. Ellory floated to the back line where she knew from terrible gym classes that the balls rarely landed.
Elin drifted to the back with her. Her eyes gleamed with amusement. “Is this where all the unathletic dorks hide?”
“You know it.”
“Then this is where I belong.”
They shared a laugh. The longer Ellory watched the game, the more she realized the team was ruthless in everything they did. Con spiked the ball right at Angelo over the net stretched across the pool, and Angelo leaped up, arm extended to slam it back over.
A little thrill ran through her at the sight of his athleticism. And to think she once thought he probably had body odor.
“Ash doesn’t usually participate. He’s a great player,” Elin said.
Ellory blinked at her.
“We never see him smile much either. But…I’m pretty sure I know why he’s smiling so often now.” She gave Ellory a pointed look.
Her heart fluttered, too quick. She wanted to be the reason that smile appeared more often.
After two games, Con called it, saying it was late and they should all get some shut-eye.
When they all climbed out of the pool, Ellory was still looking around for a towel when one settled over her shoulders. She didn’t need to turn to know Angelo had placed it there.
His dark eyes glinted with wicked amusement. “You didn’t play very much.”
She gathered the towel between her breasts, heat spreading through her despite the cool air. “I guess that means I don’t get a participation award.”
She closed the distance between them, his body heat spilling over her skin like a quiet promise.
Tipping her head back, she dived deep into his eyes. “I say you do.”