Chapter 15

Twelve days had passedsince we’d made it back to Kingscliff.

I’d found a space in a room set aside as a library, which was where I took any downtime—the parts of my day that I couldn’t spend with August. It had a view of the ocean and the path leading to the pebbled beach. People walked down there. Only people we knew—this place was locked down tighter than a maximum-security prison—but I’d found out a lot of things from just watching. Like Zach could spend two hours staring out at sea, or that his sidekick Kai always came to find him after a while, then they’d bicker, and it was typical for them to end up in a scuffle. Or that Ethan and Josh liked to meet out there and kiss.

A lot of kissing.

And hugs.

I sighed, watching now, as Ethan pressed Josh down on a bench and hugged him tight.

I needed a hot and dirty fuck, which is what I assumed happened when a laughing Ethan tugged Josh into the building.

Restless, I closed my book, a biography of some guy I didn’t know and didn’t care about enough to stop staring out of the window. I wanted someone like Ethan had with Josh, a man who knew what I did, accepted it, loved me in spite of it, and could give awesome blowjobs—not that I knew if Ethan or Josh gave awesome blowjobs, but…

“Fuck’s sake,” I muttered, angry I was even having to sit around like an idiot. I could help Shadow Team, work their comm or something, but no, my job was to heal, rest, and most important, to keep an eye on August.

I wasn’t sure what Ethan thought he was going to do given August’s pain and inability to walk far—even action heroes had limits—but still, according to my last talk with Ethan, that was now my job.

I headed to the kitchen, stole two cupcakes frosted brightly with red and green, and scurried out before anyone saw me, despite the fact there were cameras everywhere, so someone watching would know.

Whoever watched this?

Someone at Sanctuary, I assumed? Or maybe Shadow Team had taken over security here?

I took the stairs, then headed straight for August’s room, knocking, and going in before I could get my usual grumpy “What!” Pleased there was no sign of Doc, which meant it was just him and me. I took the cakes into the kitchen and started the coffee, then sauntered back in. He was out of bed now, sitting in a chair, looking more like he was going to survive this, grumpy ass, and all, but his expression was twisted today, and he was tense and frustrated.

“God, I need to be out there,” August snapped, his gaze fixed past me and on some distant point beyond the room’s walls. “Chasing down Amos, not stuck in this damn bed.”

I understood his restlessness, the desire to be doing something, anything other than lying in a hospital bed. God, that was me—I wanted to be doing something. So, what did I say to help? “I know you want to be out there; I get it,” I said, trying to offer some sort of comfort.

August turned his head to snarl at me—angry and frustrated. “Every day I’m here, Amos is out there, getting further away. I should be leading the charge, not lying here useless. Fuck your nice shit because it doesn’t fucking help.”

His words were sharp, but I knew they were born out of frustration and a sense of responsibility, not malice. “You’re not useless, August,” I countered. “What you did, the information you gathered on the trafficking, the drugs, and weapons, it’s invaluable. I’m sure Shadow Team is making progress because of you.”

He scoffed, turning his head away. “‘Progress’? They’re running in circles with nothing to show for it. They don’t know him like I do, and it doesn’t matter what I tell them, none of it leads to him. Fuck!” He grimaced and cursed again, and I didn’t know what to do.

So, I left.

But only to find something to distract us. I dragged in another chair, then decided we’d need a small table. He stared at me as I pulled things around and, with a bit of effort, brought in a table along with a board game this time, not cards—Sorry!.

“Army versus Navy,” I said as I set up the board.

August stared at the game grumpily. “I’m not a kid.”

“Tell me you didn’t just say that?” I demanded, a fist over my heart.

He stared at me, his lips thin, then rolled his eyes at my dramatics. “Guess it beats listening to your fucking monotone reading.” He was still grumpy, but I wasn’t stopping with my cheer-August-the-fuck-up offensive.

I offered him a choice of colors, two each, holding the pieces out to him, and after a moment of pretending not to care he took red and yellow, which left me blue and green.

“I haven’t played this since I was a kid,” I admitted, picking up a game piece. “My mom has this really old version, and we used to play it on a Sunday.”

“Shuffle the damn cards, Army.”

As we played, the atmosphere lightened a little—not too much, but enough that, despite everything, it felt good to just sit and play a simple board game. I even pulled out some of the healthy snacks I’d rooted from the fridge for me to munch. August was on a different kind of diet, which he described as mushy shit, and only grumbled a little when I reminded him he’d been shot in the gut. He did nibble on a cupcake but that was all.

When I was taking my turn, counting around the board, August took to staring out of the window, lost in thought, the card he’d picked up still in his hand. I’d spent a long time staring at him flat in bed, pale, ill, hurting, and feeling all protective, but now I got to check him out properly.

His appearance told a story of its own. He was compact, but every inch of him was defined by lean, efficient muscle, due to the rigorous training and demanding lifestyle of a Navy SEAL. His body was marked with scars, each one proof of a life spent in the service of his country, or at the hands of the cartel he’d infiltrated, I guess.

I noticed he didn’t have the normal SEAL tattoo, no trident, but there was a ring of thorns around his right arm, bold and stark against his skin. He was exactly the type of hardass I was attracted to, someone who wouldn’t hold back, who’d meet me head-on and challenge me.

I even found the grumpy parts interesting.

I was attracted to him, and it unsettled me. After all, he was someone I’d come to aid in a time of need, and jeez, my feelings were out of place, even freaking inappropriate given the circumstances.

Yesterday, I’d sat and watched him stare at the ocean, trying to rationalize the attraction to the intensity of combat and life-threatening shit, and nothing to do with seeing the raw and real parts of him. It had to be the bond formed through shared adversity, the kind of connection that often develops in high-stress environments, that was all.

So why did I want to hug him when I saw sides of August I bet most people hadn’t. I’d seen his resilience, his, vulnerability in the face of pain, his rarer-than-unicorn-shit smiles, and his terror of not getting the job done. I wanted to know more, but it was easy to feel drawn to someone when you saw them in such a raw, unguarded state.

That had to be it.

But, as the days passed, I knew the truth—there was a genuine attraction to August the person, not just August the SEAL, and I didn’t know what to do with the revelation, but whatever these feelings were, they could wait.

Still, I wanted to kiss and bite my way along his tattoos.

The fuck??!?? Where did that come from?

August’s hair was dark, not buzzed like in the photo with his fake husband and kid, more a tangle of messy locks and curls that seemed to have a life of their own, and that he’d grown as part of his Aubrey Mitchell persona. It gave him an unruly, but cute look, one at odds with the hard man I’d witnessed at the compound.

Undercover tangles for the win because I’d love to…

No. Not going there.

I was losing my shit and seeing attraction where there was none.

I really need to get laid.

Only… his eyes were the darkest shade of gray, deep and intense, like storm clouds fading to silver on the outside, and they held a world of thoughts and emotions. Those eyes had probably seen things most people couldn’t fathom and had witnessed the best and worst of humanity. They’d been hard as flint when he’d been in SEAL mode at the compound, but I’d also seen them soften on a couple of occasions.

And then, there were his dimples, an unexpected thing I’d found after he’d won his first game of Sorry.!. It was as if he had nowhere to put his glee in beating me, and it had forced a slow grin. This rare smile transformed his entire face, and yep, dimples popped, and I was feeling all attracted to him, and that was shit.

And off-limits.

And fuck, just because he’d been fake-married to a guy, didn’t mean he was interested in guys or searching for anything with someone else.

As he stared far into the distance, I felt as if I could see beyond the SEAL, beyond the scars and the stern exterior, to the man underneath.

“What are you staring at, freak?” he asked and snapped me out of my daydream.

“I was staring at you, staring,” I said.

He muttered something, and turned up a Sorry! card, knocking one of my pieces back to home. Fucker.

By the time we were nearing the end of our third game, it was clear that August was the undisputed champion. He moved his final piece into the safe zone with a triumphant grin.

“And that’s three for three,” he declared, leaning back in his chair with a satisfied expression. “What did you say in that panic room about Army beating Navy?”

“We beat them where it matters.”

August fake-gasped, and I saw something in his expression—somehow, he’d forgotten where he was and the weight of everything.

“You mean you don’t think this was serious?” he teased.

“You’re ruthless, you know that?” I said with a mock scowl, but I couldn’t help smiling. It was good to see him like this.

August raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sorry at all,” he joked, enjoying his victory.

I chuckled, shaking my head. “Yeah, I can tell. Remind me never to play board games with you for money. Best of seven?”

As we played game four, it became a backdrop to our conversation. “Is there any word on Amos?” he asked, all kinds of casual, as if he hadn’t been waiting to ask me all along. I took a moment to count, moving my piece along the board, sliding on one of his colors and taking out one of his pieces.

“Doesn’t Ethan brief you daily?”

“Yeah, but is he telling me everything?”

“You’re my team, and Ethan wouldn’t keep you out of the loop. You have access to the files, all of our data.” I gestured at the tablet by the side of the bed. “same as I do.”

He sighed, a mixture of frustration and regret, his gaze shifting from the board to the window. “I lost that fucker. All that work, and it ended in a gunfight.”

I made my next move on the board. “Yeah, about that.” I paused as he picked up his card.

He glanced at me. “About what?”

“You took out everyone who came at you. There was the potential to secure some of those guys, but you killed them all.”

“I knew more than all of them,” he said in a dead tone.

“But if we’d just?—”

“No!” August was quiet for a moment, then his expression grew somber, his voice barely audible. “If you’d seen what some of them had done…” His dark eyes brightened with emotion, but he shut it down as quickly as it had flared.

Fuck. I was done sitting here, mired in memories and what-ifs, and not having anything to do.

“You wanna get out of here for a bit?” I stood and retrieved the wheelchair from the corner.

August seemed surprised but nodded. I helped him, making sure he was comfortable before wheeling him out. He didn’t even bitch about having to use the chair.

“Water,” I said, recalling our conversation in the safe room. “Let’s get you to the ocean, Navy.”

The path to the small beach was quiet, and it was a typical April day in Maine, the snow that had blanketed the ground now a memory. Still, the chill in the air was enough to make me glad I was wrapped up, and I reached over and shoved August’s beanie lower, so it covered all of his ears and almost his eyes.

He didn’t scramble to avoid me or shove me away. He let me care for him.

Maybe, he’d even let me hug him, hold him close, and maybe even kiss him? Again, with this? Yep, I needed air. I was going mad.

As we reached the pebble-strewn beach, I parked us by a large rock that kept us out of the chilly wind. August was taking in the view, the expanse of the ocean stretching out before us.

“We don’t get many moments like this,” I said, staring over the water.

August nodded; his eyes fixed on the horizon. “Men like us. No, we don’t,” he agreed, then he glanced up at me.

“There was one morning, I was patrolling… overseas… and the sunrise was cool as fuck.”

“Nice description there,” August deadpanned.

“Well, it was big and empty and orange and pink. I’m a fighter, not a poet.”

I think I heard him chuckle. Or it could have been the murmur of the ocean.

“Where did you serve?” he asked after a while.

“Boiling hot deserts and ice-cold mountains. What about you?” I moved to sit on the rock next to him.

He considered me for a moment, then shrugged. “Classified.”

Asshole. “I dated a SEAL once.” His eyes widened. “Lasted exactly three fucks and a blowjob. All in one night. Impressive stamina.”

“We don’t do relationships.” He smirked, then his smile dropped. “Although, there were moments when I was with James, and I know it was all pretend, but yeah, moments when I imagined it could be real.” He flushed scarlet, probably embarrassed to have revealed so much.

I reached over to tug at the damn beanie again given he kept pushing it up. “What was James like?”

“Kickass, focused, worked at the DA’s office, knew what he wanted, and he wanted to root out the bad guys and be a good dad, all at the same time.” August shrugged.

I squeezed his arm, and he didn’t pull away, and for some stupid reason, I kept pushing.

Why did I do that?

“Annie is up in the house; I’m sure she’d love to hear about her dad?—”

“No. I said fucking no. Get me back to my room,” he demanded, shields in place, self-deprecating humor gone.

“Let’s just?—”

“Now, Army.” He struggled to get out of the chair, as if he was going to walk himself.

I heaved a sigh and encouraged him to sit down. “Sure thing, Navy.”

We were halfway back, silence all-consuming, and an apology on my lips, when we turned the final corner and walked straight into the worst thing of all.

Annie.