Chapter 13 #2
Suddenly, she couldn’t hold it back, and the burning tears spilled over before she could stop them.
Angelo opened his arms, and she surged to her feet to step into them without hesitation.
They weren’t just part of the same op. And he wasn’t only a distraction between the sheets. He was the person who carried everything for a minute. Her rock and her person.
In between the space meeting in that bank vault and now, he’d become important.
His arms wound around her, and she pressed her face against his chest, just breathing.
“This is why we play hard.” His rumble beneath her ear made her push closer. “So things aren’t so hard to bear.”
“Opal said the same.”
He pulled back just enough to look at her. “Tonight is movie night. Come with me.”
She blinked at the change of topic, so far from the one weighing on her mind. “Movie night?”
“Yeah. Don’t tell me you don’t remember the mansion has a theater.” His eyes gleamed with teasing that was more of what she needed than she ever could have guessed.
The notion of watching a movie with the big team family was so ordinary and so exactly right that her tears dried up and she almost laughed.
“Okay. But only if there’s popcorn.”
His teeth flashed with his grin. “There’s a lot more than popcorn.”
He kissed her then, a soft, unhurried brushing of his lips. He cradled the side of her face like she was precious spun glass, and she leaned into it and let it push her fears back an inch so she could breathe.
Just an inch. But it was enough to get her down the hall.
The movie room was already packed with big SEALs and their ladies when they slipped in.
It looked as if every blanket in the building had been dragged in here. Elin was tucked into the corner of a reclining loveseat with her little dog in her lap, one hand absently stroking its ears and Mason pressed close beside her.
Chase sat with Alyssa, his hand resting on the curve of her belly like it was the most natural place in the world for it to be.
Kennedy and Dante were bickering about something—voices low and eyes lit with teasing—and from what Ellory caught as she settled in, they were arguing about baby names.
Angelo settled on a vacant loveseat. She paused, wondering what the others would think of them together. Then she realized no one cared and slipped in bedside him. She pulled a blanket over her lap and tried to let her surroundings transport her.
Angelo handed her a bowl of popcorn. She nibbled a piece, but her mind was so far from here, she couldn’t register any flavors.
He touched her arm, drawing her attention to the small bowl of her favorite candy. She reached for a piece and stopped.
“Did you know that’s my favorite candy?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“How?” She couldn’t recall ever eating candy in front of him.
“There’s a bowl in the lab.”
“Not that variety.”
The movie started, and he didn’t look away from the screen.
“Angelo.”
“You told Elin you liked the peanut butter ones instead of the chocolate.” He said it like it was no big deal. Like he paid that kind of attention to everything.
But her heart turned over in her chest. She looked at him for a long moment, feeling her gaze soften as she took in the sharp line of his profile.
Someone behind them lobbed a piece of popcorn over the seats. It landed on his lap, and he picked it up and popped it into his mouth without missing a beat.
“Thanks, Mason.”
Mason huffed with quiet laughter.
Angelo wasn’t hiding behind walls anymore. He wasn’t avoiding the people around them…he was blending into the family.
This was what they were fighting for, wasn’t it? The things that mattered.
She ate one of the candies but couldn’t taste it. The image of Archer’s face interchanged with the ones on the screen.
Around her, the room erupted with laughter at a line Ellory missed. Sensing her distraction, Angelo turned his head and looked at her. He closed his hand around hers, drawing tiny circles over her wrist.
Leaning close, he placed his lips to her ear. “I can get your mind off it for a little while.”
A shiver ran through her. She raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
The corner of his mouth moved in that almost-smile. Then he stood and held out his hand.
She took it and let him lead her out.
His bedroom was dark when she stepped inside. Before she could turn toward him, his hands were on her, and the patient Angelo was gone.
He walked her back until her shoulders met the wall. Bracing his forearm above her head, he looked at her with a dark heat in his eyes that sent a spike of desire straight to her core.
Her breaths came fast and shallow as he moved his other hand to her hip. When he closed his fingers on her, applying the sort of pressure that made her arch into him, she gave up trying to control her body—for weeks now, it had been making decisions about the SEAL without consulting her.
She gasped as his mouth hit the corner of hers. She twisted into the kiss, all tongues and heat and pent-up need.
When he trailed the kiss down her jaw to her throat, she tipped her head back and fisted her hands in his shirt.
In maddening increments, he edged her top up her body, skimming his fingers with it. By the time he divested her of her shirt, she was panting and her mind was finally, finally quiet, leaving only the dark and her lover’s hands and mouth and the way he grated out her name when they were alone.
She turned her face into his neck. “I love you, Angelo.”
He went still for a heartbeat.
His hands tightened on her.
Then there was no more talking.