Chapter 27
Vaughn
When I get out of the shower, clothes are waiting for me on the bathroom vanity. They must belong to Abigail. Not my usual style, but they’re definitely comfortable and more than I expected to have here.
Eli is waiting for me on his bed. This is his room. He lives here with Abbi and...once upon a time, his brother Abel. Apparently, Abel was the older of the two by only three minutes, but he never let Eli forget who the big brother was. This place must be a constant reminder of what he’s lost.
He’s freshly showered, smelling of soap and fresh air.
“Little Devil.”
“Julio.”
His chuckle is breathy and short lived.
“Yeah. So, I guess you have questions.”
“Hmm...or you could just give the answers that you know you’ve been keeping from me.”
His eyes meet mine, searching.
“I’m not mad. It’s just...I don’t want to have to pry things from you that you don’t want to share with me. I want to be the person you come to for comfort, to work out your problems with. The person you trust with your secrets.”
Words tumble out of his mouth so quickly that he almost jumbles them.
“You are. Y-you have brought me the only peace I’ve known since I lost him.
When I’m with you, it feels like nothing bad can happen.
You smile, and it’s like a rainbow created just for me.
” He sighs deeply, running hands through his wet hair.
“Abel, my brother. We were on the same SEAL team together. We joined together and we advanced together. He was my twin...and my best friend. My big brother. I’m still figuring out who I am without him, and then you come along, and it doesn’t hurt quite so bad anymore.
It was wrong, but I didn’t want to bring that hurt into the peace you created for me. Eh...I don’t know.”
“It’s okay. Sure, I wish you could have shared it with me, but I understand why you didn’t.”
“I wanted to. It’s just… the grief, you know. It’s an ugly, greedy thing. It had already taken so much from me. I was afraid that if I exposed you to it, it might take you too.”
“It can’t. Nothing can take me from you.”
“That’s good because before you barreled into my life with Rohypnol and free whiskey, I was feeling pretty weak.”
Two strides position me between Eli’s legs, and I wrap my arms around his neck, cradling him once again.
“You aren’t weak. That much is obvious. I-”
He cuts me off quickly with another apology. “I’m so sorry, V. I never meant for you to have to be a part of any of that. Chase was always supposed to quietly disappear. I never thought he would come after you like he did.”
“Quietly disappear?”
Eli’s tattooed arms cinch tighter around my waist as he rests his cheek on my chest. “I told you, remember?”
He told me that Chase was going to quietly disappear?
It feels like I would remember that conversation.
There is something there, though. An unasked question.
Yeah. He asked how many there had been before him.
I told him just Paul Walker...damn it...
Chase, just Chase. He said...holy shit. He said he had hoped not to have to exterminate too many, and something about looking forward to Chase’s death.
Chase was always going to die, and Eli was going to be the one to kill him.
Because we’d slept together. Whoa. Now there’s a revelation.
Okay. Okay. How do I feel about this? How.
Do. I. Feel about this? Obviously, I can’t be okay with this, right? I mean-
Eli cuts off my inner monologue with his deep, smooth timbre. “I like it better when you’re saying what you’re thinking.”
Right. His favorite thing about me. “Okay. Well, I obviously can’t be okay with that. You’re basically saying that you had planned to murder anyone who I’d had sex with before you. Do you even realize how unhinged that is?”
“I only drink socially. Never done drugs in my life. LOVE my mama. No criminal history, and you’re the most important person in the world to me.
I love you more than I thought was possible.
You definitely want me on your side during the apocalypse.
Can’t forget the dimples. Really, my only flaw is this one little thing. ”
“Little thing?”
“Medium thing. Sometimes I’ll have to right the scales of justice.
Also, clearly there’s the issue with anyone who’s ever known you in the way that only I can ever know you, thing.
But it turned out to be a non-issue because Paul signed his own death certificate when he took you and the boys anyway, right? ”
“Either there’s something seriously wrong with me or...that made sense.”
His smile makes me want to crawl up in his lap and give him permission to kill anyone he wants, so long as he doesn’t take up my closet space to store the scalps.
Okay, so there is definitely something wrong with me but, there’s obviously something wrong with him, too, so.
.. What’s that thing they say about how two wrongs make a right?
“That’s because it does make sense. When you weigh it all out, I’m a catch.”
His smile falters before he begins to speak again.
“It’s not always just the bad guys, though. See these roses?” He holds up his forearms that are both covered in vines with small roses sprouting all over them. “I know you’ve noticed them before. Do you know what they represent?”
Looking into his soft blue gaze, I shake my head. He’s right. I have noticed them before, and I couldn’t help but think they held value to him. The intricate designs, each one so unique, and displayed there in such a visible area. They represent something he doesn’t want to forget.
“See this one here? See how it’s bloomed? That’s because the man whose life is represented in this rose was good. He had met his potential in life. He was my friend, and I killed him.”
He pauses to give me time to soak this in. He’s waiting for the shock. The disgust. He won’t find it.
“I took out an enemy convoy carrying guns and ammunition. Our intel wasn’t complete.
We didn’t know there were explosives onboard.
Tuck was too close to the blast. He was alive when I put him on the medevac, but he didn’t make it back to base.
I killed him, and this rose belongs to him. Then there’s this one.”
He points to the largest and most beautiful rose. I already know who it is before he begins speaking.
“My brother, Abel. He’s dead because I hesitated. If I had shot that boy before he pressed the button, Abel would still be here. They would all still be here.” He pauses for a moment, looking down at the vine of bloomed roses. His team.
“Each one of those men joined and agreed to the terms. Same as you. You all know that coming home is never guaranteed, and you do it anyway. I think it says more good about you that you hesitated than it would if you hadn’t.
Abel didn’t shoot him either. Instead, he used his body to protect yours.
Sounds like your mom raised protectors. Courageous men who put the lives of others before their own. Sounds pretty hot if you ask me.”
My seductive smile must signal to him that there’s no going back for me because he grabs my thighs and wraps them around his waist so that he’s still seated on the bed, and now I’m straddling him.
“So you’re in?”
“I’ll admit I’m not a fan of this halfway across the world stuff, but-”
“I’ll quit. I’ll quit right now.”
“Pretty sure it doesn’t work that way, right? Can you just quit? Without consequences?”
“Not necessarily, but-”
“No buts. You could go to jail. You’re not quitting for me.”
Eli’s face falls and his eyes seem to dim.
“Vaughn, please don’t-”
His voice cracks as his hands tighten around my hips. His fear is crushing, so I rush to stop this train of thought. “I said I’m not a fan. It’s also not a good enough reason to not be with you. Don’t you think the casual murder thing would repel me if anything was going to?”
Eli lets out a heavy breath, and his shoulders lose their previous tension.
His forehead falls to my chest before he speaks.
“You were going to leave me if I had a wife and a kid.” There’s a touch of humor in his tone, but there was nothing funny about meeting Abigail for the first time.
That stunner of a human with that adorable freaking kid.
No way I could compete with that. I wouldn’t even want to.
“That’s a hard line. I fancy myself a one and only kind of girl.”
His quiet laugh shakes my body.
“You’re the most incredible thing to ever happen to me.
Everything I do for the rest of my life, I want to do it with you.
I want to hear all your stories from these lips.
” He reaches up and swipes a thumb across my bottom lip.
“I don’t want to be a part of anything that isn’t centered around you.
You have made the suffering bearable. There have been plenty of women in my life who made the good days better.
It’s only you who can pull me out of the fire, even though doing so means you get burned with me.
There’ll be good days, and I want to have them with you.
There’ll be more bad days, too, and it’s only you I want to be miserable with. I just-”
“You love me.”
“See how you’re finishing my sentences? That’s definitely something to build on.” There’s a joking lilt to his voice and a smile in his eyes when he continues. “And you knew. You didn’t tell me.”
“Ha! Let me paint a little picture for you. We’re in the kitchen.
My legs are wrapped around your waist. You’ve got both hands on my ass, and you’ve just put your feelings into word format, having no idea that those words spell love.
THEN, I tell you ‘Eli, you’re in love with me’.
” My pause is meant to give him time to take in the scene I’ve laid out and realize that information would not have been well received in that moment, but he just looks at me.
..confused, as usual. “I don’t think you would have liked being told that you’re in love with a girl you’ve only known a couple of months. ”
The confusion dissipates from Eli’s beautifully masculine face as he brings one hand up, fisting it in my hair. He pulls my face down to his so that he can nip my bottom lip.
He speaks while brushing his lips lightly across mine. “Everything that comes from this incredible mouth is nourishment for my soul.”
Damn. Well, he just delivered the greatest compliment I’ve ever heard. Nourishment for his soul? Thank you, Jesus, that I’m not a puddle on the floor. I suppose it’s time for an admission of my own.
“I knew the night I met you that you could be important to me if I let you. What I felt when you touched me...that scared me. It doesn’t scare me anymore.
” Taking his face in my hands and making aggressive eye contact, I spill my secret.
“Elijah Washington, I, Vaughn Webb, am hopelessly and incurably in love with you.”
His smile could spark a forest fire, and those dimples could store the water needed to put it out. I’ve never seen him this happy. I did that.
“What if I told you there’s more?”
“More what?”
“More to the story of who I am. How I ended up in the Navy. What I really do for them.”
There’s more. Of course, there is. It just doesn’t matter. Nothing that happened before matters.
“If you want to tell me, I’m ready to listen. If not, that’s fine. Nothing you tell me will change anything between us.”
There’s a heavy, considering pause before he speaks. “How can you be sure?”
“How can you be?” He smiles when I toss his question back at him because he knows. He’s sure because he loves me. I’m sure for the same reason.
“I suppose this story is best told from my father’s prospective. It was a different experience for me. I heard him telling my mom about it later, after the cops had gone. He thought Abel and I had gone to bed, so he explained to her what he had seen.”
Eli’s dad passed away several years ago, but I saw a picture of him downstairs. As he tells me the story, I can see it. I can see his mom and dad sitting on their bed as his dad recounts the events of that night.