Chapter 8 #2
He let that sit for half a beat, then continued, “The firefight on the ridge. We pulled a casing out of one of their snowmobiles. And the round that hit Rome—Blackout pulled that from his vest.”
Every head in the room turned.
“You never said you took one to the chest,” Archer said to Rome.
He shrugged. “No blood, it didn’t happen.”
No one laughed.
Cannon’s voice dropped a notch. “Ballistics ran a prelim.”
Archer didn’t like the look on his face. “And?”
“Same batch,” Cannon said. “Same supply.”
The words landed heavy.
Archer’s pulse kicked once, hard. “So whoever hit Echo didn’t just take them out,” he said slowly. “They stripped the base. And they’ve been using that cache ever since.”
No one argued.
“Unless someone made sure there was nothing to see,” Younger said.
Silence stretched across the room.
Archer’s gaze flicked to Cannon. “Cipher.”
He didn’t say it like a guess.
He said it like the answer. Cipher targeted Echo—was behind their deaths. He could have sent someone to get to the stores first.
Cannon held his stare for a beat. “We need more. O, dig into the lot numbers. Start there.”
O picked up the bullet and turned it beneath the light. “On it.”
Cannon looked over the team. “Move out.”
They didn’t need a second order, not with the smell of food pulling them straight to the kitchen.
Archer reached it first, stopping dead as he set eyes on Jolie, standing at the stove in oversized sweats and a loose thermal shirt that swallowed her whole. The outfit was more modest than anything she’d worn yet and somehow infinitely more dangerous to his self-control.
The cuffs of her shirt were rolled to her wrists and the waist of her sweats hung low on her hips. Her hair was pulled back in a careless knot that exposed the graceful line of her neck he’d worshipped just hours before.
He wanted to spend all night worshipping that delicate curve again.
At the sound of them, she turned and a smile broke over her face.
Her gaze found his and softened in a way that hit him harder than gunfire ever could.
It made him freeze in the doorway.
It made him wonder how the hell he was supposed to let her go.
* * * * *
Jolie had fed plenty of hungry men in her life.
Brothers who brought friends home without warning. Neighbor kids who conveniently appeared around dinnertime.
But she had never fed a team of armed men fresh off a mission.
And judging by the way they descended on the chili and cornbread, the appetite of men worked the same no matter their age or zip code.
From beneath her lashes, she stole a look at Archer. He was halfway through his first bowl before she’d even sat down.
He reached for another square of cornbread. “Whatever I said about the food around this place, I take it back.”
“You’ve been here five minutes, Monk. What do you know about this place?”
Jolie’s ears perked up at the nickname she never heard them use before. She also didn’t know how long he’d been here.
“I know this is the first decent meal I’ve had here.”
Rome yanked the pan away before Archer could snag a piece. The pair had a glare-off that ended with Rome shoving the pan toward him again with a snort. “You’re not wrong.”
The look Archer gave him sent a dark thread of heat skittering through Jolie’s body. Even in a playful moment he looked dangerous as hell.
As if he felt her attention on him, he threw her a glance and snatched up the square.
The pan made the rounds and in a minute, it was empty. Jolie got up to grab the second pan.
Archer met her stare. “Terrific meal, Jolie. Thank you.”
Pleased she could be of some use, she set the second pan in the center of the table and planted her hands on her hips.
“It’s good enough but it isn’t a balanced meal. I wanted to make a salad, but you guys must have something against fresh vegetables. Herbs too. And there isn’t a piece of fruit in the whole place. Is there some underground military rule against fresh food?”
That sent laughter rippling around the table.
Rome cut a serious look at her. “We’re protein-forward.”
“You’re going to get rickets.”
Townie pointed his spoon at her. “We’ve got canned peaches. I moved them to the back when I was rummaging for a snack.”
She sank to her seat. “Why am I not surprised?”
More laughter rang out, and even Cannon appeared to be faintly amused, but the smirk vanished quick when his phone buzzed. He walked out of the room to manage some important matter.
The tension they’d brought back with them was loosened by the food and ordinary comfort of sitting around a table.
One thing she knew was that after a bad day, food fortified people to keep going in ways that simple encouragement couldn’t.
In her house, a pan of old-fashioned mac and cheese could solve the world’s problems.
The guys went back for seconds, and pretty soon the serving spoon scraped the bottom of the pot. Only a few crumbs of cornbread remained in the second pan, and as she watched, Townie leaned over and pressed a blunt fingertip into them, gathering them on the end and bringing the crumbs to his mouth.
They all looked at her.
She felt Archer’s gaze burning into the side of her face and didn’t dare glance his way.
“What’s next on the menu?” Rome asked.
She widened her eyes. “Am I expected to whip up another pot of chili?”
Rome snorted. “We wouldn’t mind, but no. I smell cake.”
She sat back in her seat. “Cake? I didn’t make any cake.”
Just like kids, several of them groaned.
“But I did bake brownies.”
“Hell yeah!”
Someone thumped the table and she couldn’t stop a laugh from bubbling out as she got up to fetch the brownies and a small stack of paper plates. Before she could take a step, Archer was on his feet.
“I got it.” His blue eyes blazed into hers for a fluttering heartbeat.
She watched him with appreciation as he sliced the pan into large squares and served Jolie the first one, a show of respect for making them the meal.
“Thank you,” she murmured as he served her a fudgy brownie.
His hard lips softened at one corner but she picked up the stiff line of his broad shoulders.
She watched him as she ate her brownie, breaking it into little bits the same way she was taking apart Archer’s appearance.
How many hours did they have left together?
The instant she popped the final bite in her mouth, his chair scraped back and he crooked two fingers at her.
If he’d been any other man, she would have balked at the command. But her pulse skipped stupidly as she stood and followed him from the kitchen.
The conversation dwindled as the team watched them go, and resumed when they were halfway down the short corridor.
Archer grasped her by the wrist and pulled her into one of many unlit spaces carved into the walls. She gasped out as he pressed her against the wall and his warm, steely body crowded in.
“Where are we?”
He cut off her question with his kiss. Hot. Urgent.
Her insides leaped at the liquid heat of his tongue against hers. Before she could moan, he pulled back.
She blinked up at him in the shadows, fighting to find her brain cells. “Supply closet?” It smelled dusty and a bit like cleaner.
“Yes.” He ran his hands over her sides. “Whose shirt is this?” The low roughness in his tone sent heat to every corner of her body.
“I have no clue. I found it in the box.”
He started to lower his lips to hers and stopped, his body going rigid. She cocked her head and heard what he heard first—footsteps heading toward them.
Archer stepped back just as Cannon stopped in the doorway, the too-white overhead light casting stark shadows across the hard planes of his face.
“As of this minute, we’re still a go to get you out tonight,” he said without preamble or questions about what they were doing in a supply closet.
“If all goes to plan, we’ll drop you at your motel in three hours. ”
Her relief should have been immediate. Instead, her stomach performed a strange little dip. Three hours. So little time left.
“Thank you.”
Cannon shot Archer an unreadable look and vanished as quickly as he’d arrived. The silence he left behind felt like a boulder between her and Archer.
He didn’t look at her right away. When he finally lifted his stare to hers, he asked a question she never expected.
“How old are your siblings?”
She tripped over the question but was pleased by his interest. “Jake is twenty-five. Tanner’s twenty-two, and Lara is eighteen. She just graduated last spring.”
He gave her a stiff nod. “Tell me more.”
A lump formed in her throat, his request touching her someplace tender. A place nobody ever bothered to find out existed.
He wanted to know her—now.
Before she left.
When he could just claim her body and spend their last minutes in the throes of pleasure, he chose to know her.
She leaned back against a shelf. “Jake is three years younger than me. Tanner is six years younger. Lara’s ten years younger. But she was the bossiest one by age six.”
He stepped closer but didn’t touch her yet. “Your parents died when she was little.”
She nodded once, her throat clicking with her forceful swallow. “So things got…messy. I had to grow up fast.”
“You raised them alone.”
Again, it wasn’t a question.
“We raised each other,” she said softly. “But yeah. Mostly me.”
His gaze held hers with a steady expectation that made her reach for him. She found his fingers in the darkness and clung to them.
“Jake worked as soon as he could. Now he’s in construction. Tanner spent one rebellious year trying to become a menace to society, but he lacked the follow-through. Now he’s in IT. I wasn’t sure how he’d turn out, but he’s a good boy—um, man,” she corrected herself.
That earned a ghost of a smile from Archer.
“And Lara is in college.”
“You say that with so much pride.”
The lump in her throat doubled, and tears stung her eyes. “I’m incredibly proud. That’s what I wanted for her—for all of them. Choices. More choices than I had.”
“What about you, Jolie?” He edged closer, fingers warm and rough on hers. “What do you want?”
She shook her head, her laugh humorless. “I honestly have no idea.”
“Understandable. You spent the last decade keeping them alive and out of trouble in a big city.”
Suddenly, it all hit her at once—bills, plumbing, homework, grief, taxes. A broken furnace in January. Lara’s broken heart to deal with in June.
She hadn’t planned for the day no one needed saving.
“I’m trying to figure out what’s next,” she said carefully because speaking too loud would release the emotion she held back.
“You already did a hell of a thing, Jolie.”
“What?”
“You kept them alive long enough to ask yourself that question.”
Her throat tightened. She’d never thought about it that way, and she looked down because looking at him felt too vulnerable.
His strong fingers brushed her chin and lifted her face back up. “You did good.”
The words were simple.
And nearly undid her.
Before she could speak, his mouth was on hers. There was no slow build—he kissed her like time had narrowed to seconds and he meant to use every single one.
He slid one hand into her hair and pulled her flush against him with the other. Gripping his shirt, she issued a helpless sound and kissed him back even though every passing heartbeat was more dangerous than the streets of Chicago—at least to her.
Her body arched into his, chasing more, and he kissed her without mercy—taking, soothing, demanding all at once.
When he finally broke away, her lungs forgot to do their job. He rested his forehead against hers, chest heaving under her hands.
“Why did you ask me those questions?” Her whisper was loud in the small space.
“I wanted something to remember you by.”
Her heart squeezed so hard that it hurt. “God, Archer. What are we doing? What—”
Alarms screamed, the sound splintering the moment.
She jerked at the noise, and he steadied her against him for a brief second.
“I don’t think you’re leaving tonight, baby.”
Boots thundered down the corridor, the base surging with new urgency.
Archer started to turn away from her, and she held him tight.
“How long will you be gone?”
His gaze pinned her. “I can’t make promises. We have orders, we go.”
“So what do I do?”
“Stay here until someone comes to get you.” Then he dragged her in for one brutal, crushing kiss that stole any air she’d managed to regain. “I’ll come back,” he told her.
Then he was gone, leaving Jolie alone in the storage alcove, her pulse racing, body on fire with want…and alarms blaring through the tunnels.
At least she was sending the team off to battle with full stomachs.