Chapter 22

TWENTY-TWO

I came awake to Atlee’s mouth on my chest, her hand gliding down my ribs, a long leg pinning my thighs.

I could wake up to this every day and be living a dream I didn’t think was possible.

“Good morning.”

“It’s about to be,” she told me, her voice still husky with sleep.

Her tongue circled my nipple. Then her mouth moved lower, pressing gentle kisses over my abdomen as her leg shifted between mine. My muscles tensed as she continued her downward exploration.

My hand cupped her ass, halting her movement.

“Before you go any farther, lose the shirt and panties.”

She lifted her head and I watched her smile in the dim light that the closed curtains without the blackout shades drawn provided.

“This is just for you.”

Fuck, she was beautiful first thing in the morning.

“And I want you naked while you give it to me.”

Atlee sat up and pulled up her tank top. Her perfect breasts bounced as she tore the shirt over her head. Once she tossed it away she went to her back, shimmied out of her panties, then rolled back and started over. Kissing the left side of my chest. Stopping to toy with my nipple before she threw a leg over my waist and came up on her knees.

Fuck, she looked magnificent perched above me. All that long, dark hair loose around her shoulders, pretty pebbled nipples, full breasts, trim waist that nipped in before her hips flared, strong thighs—all of her perfection. Atlee leaned forward and kissed my temple before she started to scoot down. My hands went to her hips, my fingertips dug in, and her eyes tipped to mine.

“If you thought you were sucking me off this morning, sorry to inform you, your plans have changed.”

Those brown eyes stared down at me, desire-filled and hungry.

Fuck yeah, I could wake up next to her and get nothing but those eyes staring at me and know I had everything I could ever want.

I dragged one hand around and twisted my wrist. My thumb dipped between her legs, and I found her swollen pussy already wet.

“Wilson.”

Nothing more than a whispered breath.

“Just you thinking about my cock in your mouth get you this wet?”

“Yes.”

My thumb skimmed over her clit. Atlee’s hips jerked and I circled again.

“Guide me in, Atlee.”

She reached between us. With a tight fist, she stroked up my shaft and back down.

“You wanna play, baby?” I asked through clenched teeth.

Her movements were encumbered as she jerked me off at an awkward angle. Mine were not. I zeroed in and rolled her clit until she was grinding down, reaching for her climax.

“Honey.”

Her groaned endearment broke my concentration.

I needed to hear it again while I was inside of her.

“Playtime’s over, Atlee.” I pinched her clit and pulled my hand free.

A sexy grin tugged up her lips.

“Bossy,” she half-heartedly complained but complied.

In a single downward glide, she filled herself.

Her head tipped back and she moaned.

All of yesterday’s fear and anger fell away.

Atlee and her tight, wet pussy and great tits and sweet moans became the center of my universe.

Just her.

She braced her hands behind her on my legs and slid up before she dropped back down.

Fucking beautiful.

“Christ, Atlee,” I groaned through another slow pull up. “So fucking sexy taking my cock.”

My hands roamed her thighs, feeling the strength under my palms as she moved up and down, keeping her pace slow and easy. They moved up her sides, over the swell of her breasts, my thumbs strummed over her nipples. I listened to her breaths coming faster but I needed more. I needed her gasping, I needed to feel her tremble and shake.

“Harder,” I demanded and watched her eyes drift shut when I pinched and pulled her nipples. “Give me more.”

“Wilson.”

A breathy groan but not enough.

I twisted a nipple and watched her eyes flare open.

“You’re gonna ride me until your thighs shake. Then I’m gonna flip you and fuck you until you can’t breathe.” I rubbed my fingers over her abused nipple before my hands dropped her hips. “Ready, princess?”

Brown eyes locked onto my blue.

“Always, ready for you, honey.”

Christ.

Fuck.

Then she proved she was indeed always ready until I flipped her and finished when I got my name chanted in choked gasps.

* * *

Jack and Asherwere both staring at me with identical looks.

They were waiting for the explosion that had been simmering since Atlee and I came out of the bedroom. Over coffee she told me the details of last night.

My gaze went to Jack.

“Seems you left out a lot last night when I got home.”

The fucker shrugged.

“She was here safe, nothing you could do at three in the morning, and I figured you needed to sleep, not stay up and plot murder.”

I wasn’t going to murder Dale but I was going to lock his ass up.

“Rhode any closer to finding out who he is?”

“No, but Shep was able to get a clear shot of him from a security camera. He’s running facial rec now.”

Good. We’d have an answer soon.

“What about Louis? I didn’t see him at the party last night.”

“No sight of him,” Jack continued.

The asshole still had to be in Vegas unless he drove back to Chicago.

“As soon as Shep gets me the intel I need, I’ll turn it over to Joan and they can decide if they have enough to arrest him or if it needs to go to the IRS and FBI. Until then, Asher, I need you to find him.”

“On it,” he said between bites of pancakes.

“Any word from Cat?” I braced for Jack’s reaction.

An angry one-word answer was all I got, “No.”

“I can—”

“No,” I interrupted Atlee before she could finish her offer.

Her narrowed gaze lifted from her egg and sausage burrito.

“At some point today I’m going to have to check in with Martin,” she reminded me haughtily.

“Let’s not make that sooner than necessary.”

A phone rang. Atlee set her food on the table and stood.

“That’s me,” she said as she moved around the furniture to get her phone from the kitchen.

The all too familiar tightening in my chest started.

“It’s my gram,” she announced. “I’ll take it in the bedroom.”

“You look like you have heartburn,” Asher taunted.

“There’s a burn in his heart but it’s not from his oatmeal,” Jack countered.

“Have you told her yet?” Asher asked.

“Told her what?”

“That when this is over, you’re draggin’ her back to your penthouse lair and never letting her leave.”

Three days.

One less than yesterday.

Time was ticking by too fucking fast.

I fought the urge to rub the previously noted burning sensation in my chest.

“I’m not dragging anyone anywhere,” I declared as Atlee walked back into the room.

Her gaze came directly to me. Hurt flashed before she covered it, and she looked away.

Fuck.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah.”

No further explanation.

“What’s Mrs. S up to?” Jack asked.

“The normal. Nothing new. She just called to say hello but had to ring off because Mr. Wallace from next door came over to drop off some packages.”

Shit, she’d heard.

Jack glanced at me, shoved the last rasher of bacon in his mouth, and stood before he was done chewing.

“I’ve got shit to do before I walk Atlee to work. Asher, you coming?”

“Yeah.” He stood, taking his half-eaten breakfast to the kitchen.

“I need to leave in thirty minutes,” Atlee said, sounding upset. “If you wait I’ll go with you.”

“Nope, I’ll be back in time to get you,” Jack denied her panicked plea.

Jack being the smart man he was, hightailed it out of the suite, Asher on his heels.

As soon as the door shut behind them I commenced damage control.

“Atlee—”

“It’s okay,” she rushed out, not looking at me.

I sat back and took her in. She was ready for work, hair pulled up in a twist. Today she wore a dark blue skirt that skimmed the top of her knees, white collarless button-up blouse that cuffed at her forearms. She hadn’t put on her shoes yet but I knew she was going to wear nude-colored heels. I knew under her blouse and skirt she wore matching white panties and bra. I knew because I’d watched her get ready.

I knew she stopped in the middle of brushing her teeth to add more paste. I knew she glossed her hair with oil after it was dry. I knew she put her lip gloss on before she swiped mascara on her lashes and she used moisturizer on her face, not foundation.

Fuck.

I didn’t have three days.

I was in too deep—we were in too deep. She needed to know the truth.

“You didn’t hear what you thought you heard.”

“So, you are dragging someone somewhere?”

“No.”

“Then I heard what I heard and what I’m telling you is it’s okay. I get it.”

I had a good inclination what she thought she got and I also had a feeling I wasn’t going to like it.

“What do you get, princess?”

“That this isn’t permanent.”

I absorbed that arrow to my heart.

“Is that what you want? This to be over when I leave?”

So many emotions flickered over her face and I braced for the worst. Though I was no longer sure what would be worse—her saying yes, or telling me she wanted more.

To help her make her decision I told her the truth.

“I’ve been married.”

Atlee blinked and her hand shot out to catch the chair in front of her.

“For fifteen years,” I continued.

“I don’t understand why you sound like you’re admitting some sort of crime. Lots of people get divorced. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out.”

Or sometimes a husband is so self-absorbed he fails to see his wife’s in pain.

“She didn’t divorce me, Atlee, she hanged herself in our bedroom.”

I heard Atlee suck in a breath and watched the color drain from her face.

“Wilson—”

“That’s what I drove her to.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Silly, naïve woman.

“You should. I was more concerned with going out with my team playing Captain America than I was supporting my wife.”

“I don’t believe that either,” she whispered.

I need you to stay home this time.

How many times had Barb said that to me? How many times did she beg me to leave the Navy? How many times did I turn my back on her and leave? One too many.

“Then you need to open your fucking eyes and listen to everything I’ve been telling you!” I yelled.

Her shock barely registered as I stood.

“I told you I’d ruin you and I will. I’ve already done it once to a beautiful woman with a soft heart. All she did was love me and I fucking killed her.”

“Wilson—”

“Answer the question now, princess,” I seethed and Atlee jerked back. “You want this to be permanent? Do you really want to take your chances on a man who couldn’t give his wife what she needed to stay alive? Because that’s who I am.”

“Wilson.” She tried again.

That soft voice pleading for me to listen tore me wide open.

I’d heard that tone before.

“Open your goddamn eyes, Atlee. I’ll fail you, too.”

Suddenly she pushed away from the chair and her shoulders snapped back. Shock turned into vibrating anger.

Attitude and fury suffused her tone when she fumed, “I don’t know who the fuck you think you’re talking to, Wilson McCray. But obviously you’ve got me confused with someone who will stand here and allow you to speak to them like they’re stupid. I’m sorry about your wife. That’s tragic. There are not enough words to express how horrible.”

“Atlee—”

“Oh no, you had your turn. Now it’s mine. You don’t get to use your wife’s death as a weapon to push me away. What’d you think, you’d drop that bomb on me and I’d run away? Is that what you want? You thought it would be easier—”

“Easier,” I spat. “You think me admitting I was a shit husband would be easier than breaking up with you?”

Fucking Christ, my chest felt like it was going to explode.

“No, I think you needed to tell me about your wife but instead of talking to me about it you went for shock and awe. You backed me into a corner I can’t get out of without sounding like a heartless bitch. And the most fucked-up part is you did it by design. You wanted me here, struggling.”

Goddamn, she was right.

Please, Wilson, just tell me what you’re thinking.

Barb’s voice echoed in my mind.

Why hadn’t I told her I didn’t want to continue trying for a family? Why had I stupidly stayed quiet?

“You’re right,” I told her. “You’re fucking right. Which proves I’m the asshole I’m trying to tell you I am.”

Atlee’s brown eyes filled with tears and by the time they started to roll down her cheeks I felt like what was left of me was dying.

“You win,” she whispered.

The front door opened and she used that as her opportunity to escape, leaving me in ruins.

I’d been wrong.

I’d been so worried about what I would do to Atlee when I should’ve been concerned with what was going to happen to me after she left me.

Now I knew.

Total devastation.

“Wilson,” Asher called.

I looked up from the spot where Atlee had been standing and watched Asher flinch.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“That about sums it up,” I told him and went to my room.

What the fuck had I done?

I ignored the pounding on the bedroom door and stayed seated in the same chair in the corner I’d claimed an hour ago.

Just like I knew it would, the door swung open and Jack filled the frame.

“What the fuck?” he growled.

I was too far gone in my regret and guilt to answer. For once the guilt gnawing at my insides wasn’t over what I’d done to Barb. It was Atlee’s wounded eyes and tears that ate at me. Ugly words spoken in fear.

“She’s gutted,” Jack told me something I very well knew. “Totally undone.”

“Yep,” I muttered.

“Yep? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“What do you want me to say, Jack? That I’m a fucking asshole? That I’m too weak to admit I love her because I’m deathly afraid I’ll fuck up again and hurt her? That I’m better off alone and she’s better off getting rid of me now before that hurt digs deeper until she’s drowning in it and I can’t pull her out of it?”

“That’d be a good start,” he said and pushed away from the frame and came fully into the bedroom. “There’s no good way to say this—”

“Now’s not the time, brother,” I warned.

“Barbara’s pain was not caused because of something you did or didn’t do. The only thing you’re guilty of is wanting to give her what she wanted. You are not the first enlisted man to leave his wife in the middle of family issues and you won’t be the last. You’re smart, but you’re not all-knowing. And I say this with an abundance of empathy—there is a difference between the blows life hands us and depression. You cannot miss something you didn’t know you were supposed to be watching for.”

“I’ve heard that line before—”

“Yet, you’re so goddamn ego-driven you think you’re right and everyone else is wrong. I won’t insult you by telling you I understand what you went through because I can’t begin to imagine. But you know I damn well understand loss and the guilt that accompanies it when you wish you could’ve done something to stop it. Whatever you said to Atlee fucked her up. She loves you and you turned her feelings for you against her because you’ve been itching to drive a wedge. Well, you did a bang-up job, boss. You drove that knife deep.”

Jesus Christ.

What had I done?

Panic choked me as Jack left the room.

Leaving me gasping to catch my breath.